Quotes About Tactics

...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

Be where your enemy is not.

Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy. Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.

War is the trade of kings.

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.

Nothing is of greater importance in time of war than in knowing how to make the best use of a fair opportunity when it is offered.

The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.

There is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle; there is nothing comparable to the fixed, passive defense that characterizes orthodox war.

When the enemy is at ease, be able to weary him; when well fed, to starve him; when at rest, to make him move. Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.

The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.

Invincibility depends on one's self; the enemy's vulnerability on him.

Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy... use the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.

The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without having to fight them.

To conquer the enemy without resorting to war is the most desirable. The highest form of generalship is to conquer the enemy by strategy.

Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move.

If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.

Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.

It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

I know that this operation will be sort of helter-skelter. But the First Marine Division is going to win the war by landing at Inchon.

Bestow rewards without regard to rule, issue orders without regard to previous arrangements; and you will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to do with but a single man.

Rapidity is the essence of war.

The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow.