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[Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, 1800–1891
“Well, then, my boy, develop your strategy So that prizes in games won’t elude your grasp. Strategy makes a better woodcutter than strength. Strategy keeps a pilot’s ship on course When crosswinds blow it over the wine-blue sea. And strategy wins races for charioteers. One type of driver trusts his horses and car And swerves mindlessly this way and that, All over the course, without reining his horses. But a man who knows how to win with lesser horses Keeps his eye on the post and cuts the turn close, And from the start keeps tension on the reins With a firm hand as he watches the leader.” THE
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The self is the friend of a man who masters himself through the self, but for a man without self-mastery, the self is like an enemy at war. THE BHAGAVAD GITA, INDIA, CIRCA A.D. FIRST CENTURY
Look at things as they are, not as your emotions color them. In strategy you must see your emotional responses to events as a kind of disease that must be remedied. Fear will make you overestimate the enemy and act too defensively. Anger and impatience will draw you into rash actions that will cut off your options. Overconfidence, particularly as a result of success, will make you go too far. Love and affection will blind you to the treacherous maneuvers of those apparently on your side. Even the subtlest gradations of these emotions can color the way you look at events. The only remedy is to
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Spiritualize your warfare. Every day you face battles—that is the reality for all creatures in their struggle to survive. But the greatest battle of all is with yourself—your weaknesses, your emotions, your lack of resolution in seeing things through to the end. You must declare unceasing war on yourself. As a warrior in life, you welcome combat and conflict as ways to prove yourself, to better your skills, to gain courage, confidence, and experience. Instead of repressing your doubts and fears, you must face them down, do battle with them. You want more
challenges, and you invite more war. You are forging the warrior’s spirit, and only constant practice will lead you there.
The 33 Strategies of War is a distillation of the timeless wisdom contained in the lessons and principles of warfare. The book is designed to arm you with practical knowledge that will give you endless options and advantages in deal...
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Each chapter is a strategy aimed at solving a particular problem that you will often encounter. Such problems include fighting with an unmotivated army behind you; wasting energy by battling on too many fronts; feeling overwhelmed by friction, the discrepancy between plans and reality; getting into situations you cannot get out of. You can read the chapters that apply to the particular problem of the moment. Better still, you can read all of the strategies, absorb them, allowing them to become part of your mental arsenal.
Against war it can be said: it makes the victor stupid, the defeated malicious. In favour of war: through producing these two effects it barbarizes and therefore makes more natural; it is the winter or hibernation time of culture, mankind emerges from it stronger for good and evil. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844–1900
Without war human beings stagnate in comfort and affluence and lose the capacity for great thoughts and feelings, they become cynical and subside into barbarism. FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, 1821–1881
it. In strategy all of life is a game that you are playing. This game is exciting but also requires deep and serious attention. The stakes are so high. What you know must translate into action, and action must translate into knowledge. In this way strategy becomes a lifelong challenge and the source of constant pleasure in surmounting difficulties and solving problems.
Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1803–1882
In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way against men. Life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we succeed, it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the weapon in our hand. —Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, 1851
Your mind is the starting point of all war and all strategy. A mind that is easily overwhelmed by emotion, that is rooted in the past instead of the present, that cannot see the world with clarity and urgency, will create strategies that will always miss the mark. To become a true strategist, you must take three steps. First, become aware of the weakness and illness
that can take hold of the mind, warping its strategic powers. Second, declare a kind of war on yourself to make yourself move forward. Third, wage ruthless and continual battle on the enemies within you by applying certain strategies.
But if someone could turn their minds from wondering what will happen to them, and make them wonder what they could do, they will be much more cheerful. You know, I am sure, that not numbers or strength brings victory in war; but whichever army goes into battle stronger in soul, their enemies generally cannot withstand them.” ANABASIS: THE MARCH UP COUNTRY, XENOPHON, 430?–355? B.C.
Political thought and political instinct prove themselves theoretically and practically in the ability to distinguish friend and enemy. The high points of politics are simultaneously the moments in which the enemy is, in concrete clarity, recognized as the enemy. CARL SCHMITT, 1888–1985
