979 Strategy Quotes

Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

I ought to have seized the initiative in 1938 instead of allowing myself to be forced into war in 1939; for war was, in any case, unavoidable. However, you can hardly blame me if the British and the French accepted at Munich every demand I made of them! (14th February 1945)

The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France. (2nd April 1945)

War is possible only if you have a lot of enemies. If all the enemies get together and form one front - if you cut down the number of enemies - there would be no war.

It would have been easier to fight alone with inadequate forces than to have to accept...responsibility for our ally's lack of fighting qualities and dubious loyalty.

Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south.

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids.

How can we still speak of the salvation and reformation of Europe, when we have to ask Europe's destroyer for help?

We were terrified that Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the president.

We're all looking for a plan that will work. The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops -- it's a snowball in July. It's not going to work.

If you are going to have to play defense all the time, you cannot have the kind of ingenuity, assertiveness, independence, and intelligence which is what has made our country strong.

Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.

Having failed to conquer myself, my best hope now is to arrange an alliance with myself.

If I do enough different things in enough different ways, I may, eventually, do something right.

Sometimes the only way you can win is to stay out of the game.

The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more.

To be sure of winning, invent your own game, and never tell any other player the rules.

To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.

You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.

I have never opened with the QP - on principle.

Patzer sees a check, gives a check.

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.

Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.

When you back off, it's easier to do mistakes. For me it's better to ski fast.

When you fight, if it is a real fight, use every tool that you have, use your whole body. Use your fists, your legs, your fingers, your head if you have to, and hit them in every vulnerable spot, the balls, the eyes etc. to win.

If bin Laden is in fact publicly killed, then the US military will find itself standing around with its hands in its pockets, wondering what's supposed to come next.

Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.

People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side.

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

Fourthly the Wind book. This book is not concerned with my Ichi school but with other schools of strategy. By Wind I mean old traditions, present-day traditions, and family traditions of strategy. Thus I clearly explain the strategies of the world. This is tradition. It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others. To all Ways there are side-tracks. If you study a Way daily, and your spirit diverges, you may think you are obeying a good way, but objectively it is not the true Way. If you are following the true Way and diverge a little, this will later become a large divergence. You must realise this. Other strategies have come to be thought of as mere sword-fencing, and it is not unreasonable that this should be so. The benefit of my strategy, although it includes sword-fencing, lies in a separate principle. I have explained what is commonly meant by strategy in other schools in the Wind book.

...obviously the Serbs had contingency plans, as every sane person knew. The US has contingency plans to invade Canada. Israel has contingency plans to expel Palestinians, and few sane people doubt that they would carry them out if under attack. That's what military planners do for a living. [...] In that book I reviewed the kind of material selected from the OSCE report by the Irish TV announcer, but also reviewed the material that would have been selected by his exact counterpart in Belgrade, and the full conclusions.

...as a number the specialists have pointed out, Bush is Osama bin Laden's best ally... [9/11] was bitterly condemned by the jihadi movement around the world. The leading figures, the radical clerics and others, were denouncing it. Well, there was an opportunity to make some moves towards the Muslim world, and in fact even the radical Islamic extremist elements of the Muslim world, and undermine support for Al-Qaeda. What Bush did was the opposite: resorted to violence, particularly in Iraq, which simply mobilized support for Osama bin Laden. That's the way to deal with terrorism if you want to escalate it.

In September [2002] the government announced the national security strategy. That is not completely without precedent, but it is quite new as a formulation of state policy. What is stated is that we are tearing the entire system of the international law to shreds, the end of UN charter, and that we are going to carry out an aggressive war - which we will call 'preventive' - and at any time we choose, and that we will rule the world by force. In addition, we will assure that there is never any challenge to our domination because we are so overwhelmingly powerful in military force that we will simply crush any potential challenge. That caused shudders around the world, including the foreign policy elite at home which was appalled by this. It is not that things like that haven't been heard in the past. Of course they had, but it had never been formulated as an official national policy. I suspect you will have to go back to Hitler to find an analogy to that. Now, when you propose new norms in the international behavior and new policies you have to illustrate it, you have to get people to understand that you mean it. Also you have to have what a Harvard historian called an 'exemplary war', a war of example, which shows that we really mean what we say. And we have to choose the right target. The target has to have several properties. First it has to be completely defenseless. No one would attack anybody who might be able to defend themselves, that would be not prudent. Iraq meets that perfectly... And secondly, it has to be important. So there will be no point invading Burundi, for example. It has to be a country worthwhile controlling, owning, and Iraq has that property too.

I think that the polls taken in Baghdad explain it very well, they seem to understand. The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world's energy, right in the heart of the world's energy producing regions. To create, if they can, a dependent client state. To have permanent military bases. And to gain what's called 'critical leverage' - I'm quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski - to gain critical leverage over rivals, the European and Asian economies. It's been understood since the Second World War, that if you have your hand on that spigot, the main source of the world's energy, you have what early planners called 'veto power' over others. Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to U.S.-based multinationals and back to the U.S. Treasury, not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq.

That's why bean never fully trusted his own guesses. He acted on them, but always kept himself open to the possibility that his interpretations might be wrong

He knew that bean's powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of deception. Some of bean's guesses weren't right - but was that because he didn't know the truth, or because he simply didn't want them to know how much he knew, or how much he guessed

Hiding from your enemy is the same as letting him win

In Vanya's family, silence had never meant surrender, only tactical retreat

I'd be afraid to be your enemy. But I'd be even more afraid to be your friend in battle. You are sure your enemy is stupid because he doesn't do things as you would do them. It will make you careless, and your enemy will surprise you, and your friend will die

You really are children. You have no idea how power works, or who has it, or what you can actually do with it

It cannot well be denied that Jackson ?possessed every single attribute which makes for success in ?war. Morally and physically he was absolutely fearless. ?He accepted responsibility with the same equanimity that he faced the bullets of the enemy. He permitted no obstacle ?to turn him aside from his appointed path, and in seizing ?an opportunity or in following up a victory he was the very ?incarnation of untiring energy. ... A supreme activity, both of brain and body, was a prominent characteristic of his military life. His idea of strategy was to secure the initiative, however inferior his force; to create opportunities and to utilise them; to waste no time, and to give the enemy no rest. ...That he felt to the full the fascination of war's tremendous game we can hardly doubt. Not only did he derive, as all true soldiers must, an intense intellectual pleasure from handling his troops in battle so as to outwit and defeat his adversary, but from the day he first smelt powder in Mexico until he led that astonishing charge through the dark depths of the Wilderness his spirits never rose higher than when danger and death were rife about him. With all his gentleness there was much of the old Berserker about Stonewall Jackson, not indeed the lust for blood, but the longing to do doughtily and die bravely, as best becomes a man. His nature was essentially aggressive. He was never more to be feared than when he was retreating, and where others thought only of strong defensive positions he looked persistently for the opportunity to attack.

But let's agree on strategy and pick out enemies right/Who stands accused of the abuse my own, kind do right

The world, the world is behind us. Once a motherf**ker get an understanding on the game and what the levels and the rules of the game is. Then the world ain't no trick no more. The world is a game to be played. So now we lookin at the world, from like, behind us. Niggaz know what we gotta do, just gotta put our mind to it and do it. It's all about the papers, money rule the world; Bitches make the world go round. Real niggaz do they wanna do, bitch niggaz do what they can't. Starin at the world through my rearview

Somebody once told me in business that when you're going to negotiate a business deal, you stake out your position and stand on it! Don't go in there and ask what they want. Say, 'Here's what I want!' You've got a Republican Party under Gingrich and Tom DeLay that says, 'Here's what I want.' Then you've got the Democrats over here saying, 'Yeah, ah, yeah, we could, some of what you say makes pretty good sense.' The result is the American people don't see the full spectrum. Before the 2002 election there were a lot of Democratic politicians apparently who said, 'I don't have the information. I can't battle with the president on the information. He's got the intelligence. What if there is a smoking gun in there? I can't fight the president in my congressional district.' What we've got to do is stake out our position. For instance on tax reform, stop saying you agree with simplification of the tax code. : We stand for progressive taxation. We're proud of it. If you make more, you should pay more, period!

Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.

Love your enemy, it'll scare the hell out of him.

We are the masters at the moment and shall be for some considerable time.

There is no point in hiding that before the war we mostly learned to attack, and did not pay enough attention to such an important manoeuvre as retreat. Now we have paid for this. It turned out that the commanders and the staff were not sufficiently prepared to prepare and execute the retreat manoeuvre. Now, in the second week of war, we had in fact to learn from the beginning the most difficult art - the art of the execution of retreat.

Go straight to the Third Ring, fouth pit over, we'll go ahead and get a big igniter for ya as soon as we free up one of the demons.

I'm a pilot, Phil, and you can take this to the bank: you can't fly the Concorde when the wing's on fire.

It all comes down to sess, and how you can use your sessuality.

If he takes a shot at me, I'll be on him like a monkey on a football.

We fought against an enemy six times as large as us.

It was the Hitler Offensive. It was brilliantly planned by Hitler but poorly executed by the generals. It was not Rundstedt who was at fault so much as Dietrich and his Sixth Army, which was not capable. Dietrich was no army commander and should never have been made one. This Sixth Army was an all-motorized panzer force.

She said,'What are you supposed to do?' I said, 'I'm supposed to stop Hitler's army landing.' She said, 'What! - you?' I said, 'No - there's Charlie Evans, Dick Roberts...I said, 'There's seven or eight of us, altogether.' I said, 'We're in a group.' I said, 'We're on guard in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet.' She said, 'What's the good of being in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet?' She said, 'I suppose that was your idea!' I said, 'Aye, and that Charlie Evans wants to claim it as his!'

Think slow, act fast.

A mere flea hop.

You hide, they seek.

Rule nothing out.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.

I thought using the Ayatollah's money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea.

I have always been fond of the West African proverb 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.'

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

I came up with Kwanzaa because black people in this country wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of bloods would be partying.

[The conference call] expanded because more members of Congress wanted to get in on it. They wanted to sound off on Hillary Clinton's inclination to stretch this out, to wait until she heard those emails from her supporters, to give herself space and time. She wanted to use leverage, and she thought she would have more leverage if she waited. In fact her leverage was dissipating day by day because these members of Congress ... were telling us that Senators were coming up [to Charlie Rangle, asking to join a conference call], I want to switch over but I can't without her releasing us. So there was a lot of frustration and embarassment and anger among her supporters on the Hill. ... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issuing that letter saying it had to be done by Friday. ... I'm persuaded that this was pressure from her supporters, that Barack Obama really did respect her desire for the time to unwind this. I think there was a lot of discomfort and displeasure with the way she addressed her supporters last night. They were not happy about [Clinton campaign chairman] Terry McAuliffe announcing ... , 'This is the next president of the United States.' That really rubbed them the wrong way. And Charlie Rangle said openly and on the record ... , 'I didn't like what I heard. It was not gracious. Once he hit the magic number, she should have conceded and endorsed, and it put us in a terrible spot.'

Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.

Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!

Now I can go back to being ruthless again.

So clever...he can do anything, get around anything.

I do not desire to give myself any fresh political label. Though the formation of the Union of Democratic Control it has been possible for me to work in close co-operation with several of your leaders and this joint effort on the part of the Labour members and radicals is having I think a very beneficial effect. I do not desire to alienate myself from any of my former political associates but rather to endeavour to urge them along the same path which I myself am treading.

Pile it high and deep.

Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.

The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.

He who slings mud generally loses ground.

We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship - the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.

That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!

Today we are plunged into a battle that is familiar to us. the enemies and the problems are the same. But the terrain is different. The world around us has changed and shifted so much we no longer recognize it.

Never run against a war hero.

President Eisenhower continues to amaze me. He appears to be an ungainly and graceless man, but when senator Robert Taft makes a move, no matter how ridiculous, Eisenhower copies it with the skill of French mime Marcel Marceau. I haven't achieved such levels of mimicry with my own party, but I'm working on it.

I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt!

Learn to think continentally.

One cannot think that blind bravery gives victory over the enemy.

The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine chap.

Win with ability, not with numbers.