The 33 Strategies of War

by Robert Greene

Attention to the details of the present is by far the best way to crowd out the past and forget the last war.

When we were children, our minds never stopped. We were open to new experiences and absorbed as much of them as possible. We learned fast, because the world around us excited us. When we felt frustrated or upset, we would find some creative way to get what we wanted and then quickly forget the problem as something new crossed our path. All the greatest strategists—Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Musashi—were childlike in this respect. Sometimes, in fact, they even acted like children. The reason is simple: superior strategists see things as they are. They are highly sensitive to dangers and opportunities.

Whenever you find your thoughts revolving around a particular subject or idea—an obsession, a resentment—force them past it. Distract yourself with something else. Like a child, find something new to be absorbed by, something worthy of concentrated attention. Do not waste time on things you cannot change or influence. Just keep moving.

Developing antennae for the trends that have yet to crest takes work and study, as well as the flexibility to adapt to those trends. As you get older, it is best to periodically alter your style. In the golden age of Hollywood, most actresses had very short careers. But Joan Crawford fought the studio system and managed to have a remarkably long career by constantly changing her style, going from siren to noir heroine to cult queen.

Think of your mind as an army. Armies must adapt to the complexity and chaos of modern war by becoming more fluid and maneuverable. The ultimate extension of this evolution is guerrilla warfare, which exploits chaos by making disorder and unpredictability a strategy. The guerrilla army never stops to defend a particular place or town; it wins by always moving, staying one step ahead.

When Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, he thought the United States had yet to recover from “Vietnam syndrome”—the fear of casualties and loss that had been so traumatic during the Vietnam period—and that it would either avoid war altogether or would fight in the same way it had, trying to win the fight from the air instead of on the ground. He did not realize that the American military was ready for a new kind of war.

More life may trickle out of men through thought than through a gaping wound.

When the Admiralty put its faith in Sir Hyde, it made a classical military error: it entrusted the waging of a war to a man who was careful and methodical. Such men may seem calm, even strong, in times of peace, but their self-control often hides weakness: the reason they think things through so carefully is that they are terrified of making a mistake and of what that might mean for them and their career. This doesn’t come out until they are tested in battle: suddenly they cannot make a decision. They see problems everywhere and defeat in the smallest setback. They hang back not out of patience but out of fear. Often these moments of hesitation spell their doom.

In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined. Call up the aggressive energy you need to overcome caution and inertia. Any mistakes you make, you can rectify with more energetic action still. Save your carefulness for the hours of preparation, but once the fighting begins, empty your mind of doubts. Ignore those who quail at any setback and call for retreat. Find joy in attack mode. Momentum will carry you through.

War has a way of masking the stage with scenery crudely daubed with fearsome apparitions. Once this is cleared away, and the horizon becomes unobstructed, developments will confirm his earlier convictions—this

detached. Some thought it was part of his character—that there was something inherently cold-blooded about him. Others thought it a gimmick, a put-on. Few suspected the truth: before the filmmaking had even begun, Hitchcock would have prepared for it with such intense attention to detail that nothing could go wrong. He was completely in control; no temperamental actress, no panicky art director, no meddling producer could upset him or interfere with his plans. Feeling such absolute security in what he had set up, he could afford to lie back and fall asleep. Hitchcock’s process began with a storyline, whether from a novel or an idea of his own. As if he had a movie projector in his head, he would begin to visualize the film. Next, he would start meeting with a writer, who would soon realize that this job was unlike any other. Instead of taking some producer’s half-baked idea and turning it into a screenplay, the writer was simply there to put on paper the dream trapped in Hitchcock’s mind.

This completeness of vision foreclosed creative conflict. As Taylor soon realized, although he was writing the script, it would remain a Hitchcock creation.

The production went wrong in every conceivable way. Hitchcock hated chaos and disorder; unexpected events, panicky crew members, and any loss of control made him miserable. From that point on, he decided, he would treat filmmaking like a military operation. He would give his producers, actors, and crew no room to mess up what he wanted to create. He taught himself every aspect of film production: set design, lighting, the technicalities of cameras and lenses, editing, sound.

All great generals have this quality. And what gives you that mental distance is preparation, mastering the details beforehand. Let people think your Buddha-like detachment comes from some mysterious source. The less they understand you the better.

The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it—to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it. Historical figures who stand out for their presence of mind—Alexander the Great, Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill—acquired it through adversity, through trial and error. They were in positions of responsibility in which they had to develop this quality or sink. Although these men may have been blessed with an unusual amount of personal fortitude, they had to work hard to strengthen this into presence of mind.

The story of Patton teaches us two things. First, it is better to confront your fears, let them come to the surface, than to ignore them or tamp them down. Fear is the most destructive emotion for presence of mind, but it thrives on the unknown, which lets our imaginations run wild. By deliberately putting yourself in situations where you have to face fear, you familiarize yourself with it and your anxiety grows less acute. The sensation of overcoming a deep-rooted fear in turn gives you confidence and presence of mind. The more conflicts and difficult situations you put yourself through, the more battle-tested your mind will be.

Being a leader of even the smallest group gives you something to live up to: people are watching you, judging you, depending on you. To lose your composure would make it hard for you to live with yourself.

Being self-reliant is critical. To make yourself less dependent on others and so-called experts, you need to expand your repertoire of skills. And you need to feel more confident in your own judgment. Understand: we tend to overestimate other people’s abilities—after all, they’re trying hard to make it look as if they knew what they were doing—and we tend to underestimate our own. You must compensate for this by trusting yourself more and others less.

We mean the ability to keep one’s head at times of exceptional stress and violent emotion…. But it might be closer to the truth to assume that the faculty known as self-control—the gift of keeping calm even under the greatest stress—is rooted in temperament. It is itself an emotion which serves to balance the passionate feelings in strong characters without destroying them, and it is this balance alone that assures the dominance of the intellect. The counter-weight we mean is simply the sense of human dignity, the noblest pride and deepest need of all: the urge to act rationally at all times.

subordinate. When working alongside fools, do not fight them. Instead think of them the way you think of children, or pets, not important enough to affect your mental balance. Detach yourself emotionally. And while you’re inwardly laughing at their foolishness, indulge them in one of their more harmless ideas.

A focused mind has no room for anxiety or for the effects of an overactive imagination. Once you have regained your mental balance, you can then face the problem at hand. At the first sign of any kind of fear, practice this technique until it becomes a habit.

The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you’re facing is a mere mortal, no different from you—which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help you to keep your mental balance.

First, he devoured information about the enemy—from details about its weaponry to the psychological traits of the opposing general. Second, he made himself an expert in tank technology, so that he could get the most out of his equipment. Third, he not only memorized maps of the North African desert but would fly over it, at great risk, to get a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield. Finally, he personalized his relationship with his men. He always had a sense of their morale and knew exactly what he could expect from them.

Rommel didn’t just study his men, his tanks, the terrain, and the enemy—he got inside their skin, understood the spirit that animated them, what made them tick. Having felt his way into these things, in battle he entered a state of mind in which he did not have to think consciously of the situation. The totality of what was going on was in his blood, at his fingertips.

Whether or not you have the mind of a Rommel, there are things you can do to help you respond faster and bring out that intuitive feel that all animals possess. Deep knowledge of the terrain will let you process information faster than your enemy, a tremendous advantage. Getting a feel for the spirit of men and material, thinking your way into them instead of looking at them from outside, will help to put you in a different frame of mind, less conscious and forced, more unconscious and intuitive. Get your mind into the habit of making lightning-quick decisions, tru...

You must find a way to put yourself in the thick of battle, then watch yourself in action. Look for your own weaknesses, and think about how to compensate for them.

People who have never lost their presence of mind are actually in danger: someday they will be taken by surprise, and the fall will be harsh.

theirs. Take what throws you off balance and impose it on them. Make them act before they are ready. Surprise them—nothing is more unsettling than the unexpected need to act. Find their weakness, what makes them emotional, and give them a double dose of it. The more emotional you can make them, the farther you will push them off course.

Just as Cortés’s men saw their ships as insurance, you may see this fallback as a blessing—but in fact it is a curse. It divides you. Because you think you have options, you never involve yourself deeply enough in one thing to do it thoroughly, and you never quite get what you want.

As a warrior in life, you must turn this dynamic around: make the thought of death something not to escape but to embrace. Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?

Most often it is imposed from outside: we fall behind in our work, we inadvertently take on more than we can handle, responsibility for something is thrust into our hands. Now everything changes; no more freedom. We have to do this, we have to fix that. The surprise is always how much more spirited and more alive this makes us feel; now everything we do seems necessary.

Without a way to retreat, Sun-tzu argued, an army fights with double or triple the spirit it would have on open terrain, because death is viscerally present. Sun-tzu advocated deliberately stationing soldiers on death ground to give them the desperate edge that makes men fight like the devil. That is what Cortés did in Mexico, and it is the only sure way to create a real fire in the belly.

If our situation is easy and relaxed, if people are friendly and warm, our natural tension unwinds. We may even grow bored and tired; our environment is failing to challenge us, although we may not realize it. But put yourself in a high-stakes situation—a psychological death ground—and the dynamic changes. Your body responds to danger with a surge of energy; your mind focuses.

When danger is greatest.—It is rare to break one’s leg when in the course of life one is toiling upwards—it happens much more often when one starts to take things easy and to choose the easy paths.

It is sometimes better to act before you think you are ready—to force the issue and cross the Rubicon. Not only will you take your opponents by surprise, you will also have to make the most of your resources. You have committed yourself and cannot turn back. Under pressure your creativity will flourish. Do this often and you will develop your ability to think and act fast.

When we are tired, it is often because we are bored. When no real challenge faces us, a mental and physical lethargy sets in. “Sometimes death only comes from a lack of energy,” Napoleon once said, and lack of energy comes from a lack of challenges, comes when we have taken on less than we are capable of. Take a risk and your body and mind will respond with a rush of energy.

If the feeling of having nothing to lose can propel you forward, it can do the same for others. You must avoid any conflict with people in this position. Maybe they are living in terrible conditions or, for whatever reason, are suicidal; in any case they are desperate, and desperate people will risk everything in a fight. This gives them a huge advantage.

Conversely, attacking enemies when their morale is low gives you the advantage. Maybe they are fighting for a cause they know is unjust or for a leader they do not respect. Find a way to lower their spirits even further. Troops with low morale are discouraged by the slightest setback. A show of force will crush their fighting spirit. Always try to lower the other side’s sense of urgency. Make your enemies think they have all the time in the world; when you suddenly appear at their border, they are in a slumbering state, and you will easily overrun them. While you are sharpening your fighting spirit, always do what you can to blunt theirs.

Locating the key point—Tekke Tepe—from which the Allies could break the stalemate in Gallipoli, he crafted an excellent strategy to get there. He even tried to prepare for the kind of unexpected contingencies that can always happen in battle. But he ignored the one thing closest to him: the chain of command, and the circuit of communications by which orders, information, and decisions would circulate back and forth. He was dependent on that circuit to give him control of the situation and allow him to execute his strategy.

Unless you adapt your leadership style to the weaknesses of the people in your group, you will almost certainly end up with a break in the chain of command.

When Marshall became chief of staff, he knew that he would have to hold himself back. The temptation was to do combat with everyone in every problem area: the recalcitrance of the generals, the political feuds, the layers of waste. But Marshall was too smart to give in to that temptation. First, there were too many battles to fight, and they would exhaust him. He’d get frustrated, lose time, and probably give himself a heart attack. Second, by trying to micromanage the department, he would become embroiled in petty entanglements and lose sight of the larger picture. And finally he would come across as a bully. The only way to slay this many-headed monster, Marshall knew, was to step back. He had to rule indirectly through others, controlling with such a light touch that no one would realize how thoroughly he dominated.

It is harder than ever to exercise control through a chain of command. You cannot supervise everything yourself; you cannot keep your eye on everyone. Being seen as a dictator will do you harm, but if you submit to complexity and let go of the chain of command, chaos will consume you.

Hire deputies who share your vision but can think on their own, acting as you would in their place. Instead of wasting time negotiating with every difficult person, work on spreading a spirit of camaraderie and efficiency that becomes self-policing.

The tendency is to give more power to the group: wanting to seem democratic, leaders poll the whole staff for opinions, let the group make decisions, give subordinates input into the crafting of an overall strategy. Without realizing it, these leaders are letting the politics of the day seduce them into violating one of the most important rules of warfare and leadership: unity of command.

Where an individual can be bold and creative, a group is often afraid of risk. The need to find a compromise among all the different egos kills creativity. The group has a mind of its own, and that mind is cautious, slow to decide, unimaginative, and sometimes downright irrational.

If necessary, make minor, cosmetic strategy changes to assuage the insecure political animals in the group, but ultimately trust your own vision. Remember the dangers of group decision making. The first rule of effective leadership is never to relinquish your unity of command.

Be careful in assembling this team that you are not seduced by expertise and intelligence. Character, the ability to work under you and with the rest of the team, and the capacity to accept responsibility and think independently are equally key.

You may not have as much time to spare, but never choose a man merely by his glittering résumé. Look beyond his skills to his psychological makeup.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had his infamous “brain trust,” the advisers and cabinet members on whom he depended for their ideas and opinions, but he never let them in on the actual decision making, and he kept them from building up their own power base within the administration. He saw them simply as tools, extending his own abilities and saving him valuable time. He understood unity of command and was never seduced into violating it.

These people—an informal network of friends, allies, and spies—let you bypass the slow-moving chain. The master of this game was Napoleon, who created a kind of shadow brigade of younger officers in all areas of the military, men chosen for their loyalty, energy, and intelligence.