Quotes About Tactics

Machiavellian

We will let it simmer" was a saying John employed throughout his business career.

Rathbun's strategy followed Hubbard's dictate that the purpose of a lawsuit is "to harass and discourage rather than win.

Keeping your mouth shut is a devastating weapon. Your silence will make your opponent want to babble.

Try to look unimportant. They may be low on ammo.

This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.

Aim for the side of the skull, which is softer and displaces the brain more.

Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you can't beat them, you join them. You force yourself to think like they think.

Don't aim for the middle of the body, which is easier to defend; aim high for the head or low for the knees.

Street-fighting's first rule: there are no rules.

The smart money brings a gun to a knife fight. Reacher brought a hydrogen bomb.

The best defense against knives was distance. The best countermove was entanglement.

The tall one sets the strategy, and the fat one works the angles. In

Neagley pivoted around the jamb and ducked inside. Reacher followed. Long training. Smallest first, biggest last. That way both parties got an unobstructed view. And the bigger party didn't get accidentally shot in the back. There

if you can't attack at one end you have to defend at the other.

realpolitik

Something we used to say in the MPs. Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.

Where would the American feel dominant? This is a negotiation, we assume. He'd want a psychological advantage. He would want to be comfortable, and he would want the other guy to be uncomfortable.

Reacher kept quiet. He could see where this game was going. If he said yes, he'd be expected to hurt the guy badly. Which he had no objection to in principle, but he'd prefer to do it on his own terms. If he said no, Borken would call him a coward with no sense of natural justice and no self-respect. An obvious game, with no way to win. So he kept quiet, which was a tactic he'd used a thousand times before: when in doubt, just keep your mouth shut.

She crawled on. She wanted to get closer. She knew the numbers. A thirty-round magazine would be gone in two seconds. She wanted to make both of them count. She wanted to get lucky. If she hit one and he hit one, that was two less for later. Which was good.

from The Art of War by Sun-tzu: To fail to take the battle to the enemy when your back is to the wall is to perish.

Premature action alerts the opposition.

In such a society as ours the only possible chance for change, for mobility, for political, economic, and moral flow lies in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, in the use of fictions, of language.

Colonel Graff: We won! That's all that matters.Ender Wiggin: No. The way we win matters.