Quotes About Strategy

I am convinced that there must be one man in command of the entire theater—air, ground, and ships," he said. "We can not manage by cooperation. Human frailties are such that there would be emphatic unwillingness to place portions of troops under another service. If we make a plan for unified command now, it will solve nine-tenths of our troubles.

He correctly predicted that the Americans would not play into Japanese hands by sending a fleet to rescue the Philippines in the first phase of the war, but would take as much time as needed to build up overwhelming naval and air power, and then return by way of a methodical island-hopping campaign.

War is the tao of deception. Therefore, when planning an attack, feign inactivity. When near, appear as if you are far away. When far away, create the illusion that you are near. If the enemy is efficient, prepare for him. If he is strong, evade him. If he is angry, agitate him. If he is arrogant, behave timidly so as to encourage his arrogance. If he is rested, cause him to exert himself. Advance when he does not expect you. Attack him when he is unprepared. —Sun-Tzu, The Art of War

Nimitz concerned himself with the general discipline of leadership.

Mahanian dogmas" that governed the thinking of naval strategists right up until the beginning of the Second World War—the cult of the big gun battleship, the iron rule of concentration, and the annihilation of the enemy fleet in a single decisive battle.

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War Plan Orange seemed to recap the dismal career of the Russian fleet under Admiral Rozhestvensky in 1905, and who could say with confidence that the result would not be the same?

Britain would work its influence gently, so as not to chafe the fragile American ego—Churchill informed his war cabinet that the Americans "were not above learning from us, provided that we did not set out to teach them.

I want you to be the Admiral Nagumo of my staff. I want your every thought, every instinct as you believe Admiral Nagumo might have them. You are to see the war, their operations, their aims, from the Japanese viewpoint

Shattered Sword

Mahan's dictum that good men and bad ships make a better navy than bad men and good ships was always near Nimitz's thoughts.

But he did not lack the ruthlessness required of all military commanders in wartime.

These young pilots acted as if they were playing football," Admiral Halsey later said. "They'd fight like the devil, then take a short time-out, and get back into the fight again.

They must have skill in handling the ships, skill in tactics, skill in strategy . . . the dogged ability to bear punishment, the power and desire to inflict it, the daring, the resolution, the willingness to take risks and incur responsibilities which have been possessed by the great captains of all ages, and without which no man can ever hope to stand in the front rank of fighting men.

Freewheeling intuition was respected, but so was the plodding line of attack they called "siege tactics.

Operation hotfoot

Rochefort would put up with any method or style so long as it got results.

Possessing foreknowledge of Japanese intentions, Nimitz had been dealt a very strong hand. It is also true that he played that hand skillfully, indeed flawlessly. In arranging his forces, Nimitz had concentrated on one overriding objective to the exclusion of all others: to ambush and destroy the Japanese carriers. Whereas Yamamoto's plan was vast and fatally complex, Nimitz's was straightforward, and aimed at the enemy's most vulnerable point.

Though he knew the Japanese would attack the Aleutians, he had refused to divert the bulk of his forces from the main event north of Midway. He had been content to concede the loss of the westernmost islands in the Aleutians archipelago, knowing they offered little value as military assets and could be recaptured in good time.

That attitude was consistent with the teachings of Miyamoto Musashi, the renowned samurai swordsman of the sixteenth century. "As far as attacks made on you are concerned," Musashi had advised, "let opponents go ahead and do anything useless, while stopping them from doing anything useful. This is essential to the art of war.

All that I can claim credit for, myself, is a very keen sense of the urgent need for surprise and a strong desire to hit the enemy carriers with our full strength as early as we could reach them.

Admiral King echoed those points, calling the naval campaign in the Java Sea "a magnificent display of very bad strategy," but the judgment is probably a little unfair. The Allied

I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat. He lay still. "I give up," he said and smiled. "Your move." Er. I was sitting atop the Beast Lord in my underwear, holding a knife to his throat. What the hell was my next move?

You know, she said, stirring her tea, the fastest way to get him off your back is to sleep with him. And tell him you love him. Preferably while in bed. I smirked and the tea almost came out of my nose. He'd run like he was on fire.