The 33 Strategies of War

Goodreads - www.goodreads.com/book/show/35289.The_33_Strategies_of_War
finished 7/5/15

Andy Allard won my original: goo.gl/3uwKwq

Google Play Books: goo.gl/RwZ5Lk

Parts - 17 - 31: goo.gl/iUf7UC
Parts 32 - 33: goo.gl/SMU1jA

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Ideal aim is that of a strategic war.
The most common ways that people deal with conflict - trying to avoid it all costs, getting emotional and lashing out, turning sly and manipulative - are all counterproductive. Instead, think ahead of your long-term goals, decide which fights to avoid an which are inevitable, know how to control and channel your emotions. When forced to fights, do so with indirection and subtle maneuver, making your manipulations hard to trace.

Always maintain a peaceful exterior.

Be supremely rational and emotionally balanced, striving to win with minimum bloodshed and loss of resources. The moment you aim for results, you are in the realm of strategy.

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Six Fundamental ideals of a Strategic Warrior

1) Look at things as they are, not as your emotions color them. When you're angry, take no action. War demands utmost realism.

2) Judge people by their actions.

3) Depend on your own arms. In the middle of a crisis, your mind will find its way to the right solution.

4) Worship Athena, not Ares. Athena was the goddess of strategic warfare. Fight with utmost intelligence and subtlety. Blend philosophy and war, wisdom and battle.

5) Elevate yourself above the battlefield. Strategy vs tactics. Strategists are light on their feet and can see far and wide.

6) Spiritualize your warfare. The greatest battle is with yourself - weaknesses, emotions, lack of resolution. Face them down, do battle with them.

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#1 Declare War on Your Enemies

Your enemy is the polar star that guides you.

Don't be seduced by popularity. Let some of the public hate you; you cannot please everyone. Do not crowd into the center. Counter-cultural. Polarize people, drive some of them away. The center is the realm of compromise. Do not worry about antagonizing people. Do not be lured by the need to be liked; better to be respected, even feared.

Conflict is therapeutic. A tough opponent will bring out the best in you. Exaggerate the differences between you and the enemy. Victory is the goal, not fairness and balance.

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#2 Do Not Fight the Last War

What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetition of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must constantly wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment.

As we become older we become more rooted in the past.

Never take for granted that your past successes will continue into the future. Actually, they are your biggest obstacle. Every battle is different and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.

Rid yourself of myths and misconceptions. Victory has no magic formula. Let go of all fetishes and become your own strategist. Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles. Your only principle should be to have no principles. Be brutal with the past, with tradition, with the old ways of doing things.

When you are faced with a new situation it is often best to imagine that you know nothing and that you need to start learning all over again. Clearing your head of everything you thought you knew, even your most cherished ideas, will give you the mental space to be educated by your present experience - the best school of all.

Success makes us lazy and complacent.

Do not waste time on things you cannot change or influence. Just keep moving. Force past it. Distract yourself with something else.

By constantly adapting and changing your style, you will avoid the pitfalls of your previous wars. Attack problems from new angles.

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#3 Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind

There's a danger of responding emotionally, with fear, depression, or frustration. Keep your presence of mind. Resist the emotional pull of the moment, staying decisive, confident, and aggressive no matter what hits you. Learn to detach yourself from the chaos of the battlefield.

Increase your capacity of dealing with the unexpected.

Once the engagement begins, hesitation and carefulness need to end. Our greatest weakness is losing heart, doubting ourselves, becoming unnecessarily cautious. Being more careful is not what we need; that is just a screen for our fear of conflict and of making a mistake.

In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined.

Hitchcock was outwardly pleasant - he could afford to pretend to listen - but inside he was totally unmoved. Your relaxed manner will prove contagious to other people, making them easier to manage. Preparation is key; let people think that your Buddha-like detachment comes from some mysterious source. The less they understand you the better.

Expose yourself to conflict. Patton made a point of visiting the front lines, exposing himself needlessly to danger. It's better to confront your fears, let them come to the surface, than to ignore them or tamp them down.

Be self-reliant. To get things done, rely on yourself.

In the words of the ancients, you should make decisions within the space of seven breaths.

Never let yourself get angry or frustrated.

Crowd out feelings of panic by focusing on simple tasks. When circumstances scare us, our imagination tends to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties. You need to gain control of your imagination. Force the mind to concentrate on something relatively simple - a calming ritual a repetitive task that you are good at.

Unintimidate yourself. Instead of letting Stalin intimidate him, he forced himself to see the man as he was: fat, ugly, unimaginative. He faced up to Stalin talking to him normally and straightforwardly. If, without being aggressive or bazen, ou showed no fear, h would generally leave you alone.

Develop Fingerspitzengefuehl. Get your mind into the habit of making lightning-quick decisions, trusting your fingertip feel.

Good pilots do not waste time worrying about what they cannot control.

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#4 Create a Sense of Urgency and Desperation

The only way to change is through action and outside pressure.

A sense of urgency comes from a powerful connection to the present.

You may see a fallback plan 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. Sometimes you need to run your ships aground, burn them, and leave yourself just one option. Get rid of your safety net.

Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate.

Try to get as much done as possible in the shortest time. The illusion of limitless time, and a consequent lack of seriousness about daily life. Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency? There is always the niggling thought that we could accomplish so much more. We waste so much time.

Chinese strategist Sun-tzu came to believe that listening to speeches, no matter how rousing, was too passive an experience to have an enduring effect.

Stake everything on a single throw.

It is better to take on one daunting challenge, even one that others think foolish.

Act before you are ready. It is sometimes better to act before you think you are ready.

Make it "you against the world". A fighting spirit needs a little edge, some anger and hatred to fuel it.

Keep yourself restless and unsatisfied. Napoleon worked eighteen to twenty-hour days. He would go without sleep for several days. He never let himself rest, he was never satisfied. When we are tired it is often because we are bored.

Take a risk and your body and mind will respond with a rush of energy. Make risk a constant practice, never let yourself settle down.

Reversal - always try to lower your enemy's sense of urgency.


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#5 Avoid the Snares of Groupthink

If you are too authoritarian, they will resent you and rebel in silent ways. If you are too easy-going, they will revert to natural selfishness, and you will lose control. Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into Groupthink. Make yourself look like a paragon of fairness, but never relinquish unity of command.

Any army is like a horse, in that it reflects the temper and the spirit of it's rider. If there is uneasiness and an uncertainty, it transmits itself though the reigns, and the horse feels uneasy and uncertain. Vagueness at the top turns into confusion and lethargy at the bottom. Everything starts at the top.

Marshall got along with other officers yet was quietly forceful.

Marshall exuded authority but never yelled and never challenged men frontally.

Divided leadership is a recipe for disaster. Work behind the scenes; make the group feel involved in your decisions. Cultivate the image as a delegator, a fair and democratic leader.



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#6 Segment your Forces

Critical aspects of warfare are speed and adaptability.

Decentralizing is army is such a way as to enable its parts to operate independently for a limited period of time.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Allow for a margin of chaos and uncertainty.

Separate to live, unite to fight. Napoleon

Make fluidity your goal.

After each campaign or training exercise, the staff would rigorously examine itself and it's performance.

They were judged by the results of their actions, not on how those results were achieved.

Wise generals set nothing in stone.


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#7 Transform your War into a Crusade

Get them to think less about themselves and more about the group.

Lead from the front: let your soldiers see you i the trenches, making sacrifices for the cause (recruiting).

The way to get soldiers to work together and maintain moral is to make them feel part of a group that is fighting for a worthy cause.

Unite troops around a cause. Make them fight for an idea. Have some kind of enemy to hate.

Lead from the front. Your troops must see you leading from the front, sharing their dangers and sacrifices - taking the cause as seriously as they do. The higher the rank the greater the effect of the example.

Play on their emotions. An emotional appeal needs a setup: lower their defenses, and make them bond as group, by putting on a show, entertaining them, telling them a story. Have a sense of drama.

Mix harshness and kindness. Balance punishment and reward. Make your soldiers compete to please you.

Be ruthless with grumblers. As fast as you can, you must isolate them and get rid of them.

Personal example is the best way to set the proper tone and build morale.

Lombardi oozed confidence - no shoults, no demands.

Unlike other coaches, Lombardi explained what he was doing.

Napoleon rarely showed anger. He treated them well but never spoiled them. Rewards for always for merit. Hold yourself back, create a little space around yourself; you are warm yet with a touch of distance.

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#8 Pick Your Battles Carefully

Know your limits and pick your battles carefully. Sometimes it's better to wait, to undermine your enemies covertly rather then hitting them straight on.

The more you want the prize, the more you must compensate by examining what getting it will take. Save yourself unnecessary battles and live to fight another day.

Abundance makes us rich in dreams, but it makes us poor in reality.

Warriors focus on what they do have, the strengths that they do possess and that they must use creatively. Play for the long term.


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#9 Turn the Tables

By playing weak you can seduce your aggressive enemies to comes at you full throttle.

Aggression is deceptive: it inherently hides weakness. Aggressors cannot control their emotions.

By staying silent under attack he would goad them into going too far (nothing is more infuriating than engaging with someone and getting no response) and ending up shrill and irrational.

Patience. It allows us to sniff out opportunities to time a counterblow that will catch the enemy by surprise.

Stay calm while your opponent gets frustrated and irritable. Try to pretend that you are calm and quiet with no urgent need to end the battle.

Do not be intimidated by the "barbarian" types; they are in fact weak nd are easily swayed and deceived.

Your greatest danger is the impulse to overreact.

Your own weakness can become a strength if you play it right; with a little clever manipulation, you can always turn things around.


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#10 - Create a Threatening Presence

Create an impression that you are more powerful than you are. Build up a reputation that you're a little crazy. Uncertainty is sometimes better than overt threat: if you opponents are never sure what messing you will cost.

Build a reputation of someone tough. Someone worthy of respect and a little fear.

Become adept at deception, manipulation appearances and their perceptions of you.

Mix audacity with unpredictability and unorthodoxy and act boldly in moments of weakness or danger.

Send them a message through a third party or revealing it indirectly through action is much more effective. Keep the threat veiled; they will have to imagine the rest.

A strategist never pits strength against strength; instead he probes the enemy's weaknesses.


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#11 - Trade Space for Time

Retreat in the face of a strong enemy is a sign not of weakness but of strength. Buy yourself valuable time to recover, think and gain perspective. By refusing to fight, you infuriate them and feed their arrogance. Sometimes you can accomplish most by doing nothing.

Retreat must never be an end in itself; at some point you have to turn around and fight.


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#12 - Lose Battles But Win the War

The greatest dangers come from the unexpected. Think in terms of campaign, not individual battles.

The only thing that really matters: victory in the end, the achievement of greater goals, lasting power. Small victories had a greater strategic purpose.

In the grand strategy you look beyond the moment, beyond your immediate battles and concerns. You concentrate instead on what you want to achieve down the line. Controlling the temptation to react to events as they happen, you determine each of your actions according to your ultimate goals. You think in terms not of individual battles but of a campaign.

Aristotle learned the power of controlling his emotions, seeing things dispassionately, thinking ahead to the consequences of his actions.

Visualize yourself fulfilling this destiny in glorious details. Begin with a clear, detailed, purposeful goal in mind, one rooted in reality. Contemplate them day in and day out, and imagine how it will feel to reach them and what reaching them will look like. Clearly visualizing them this way will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clear long-term objectives give direction to all of your actions, large and small. Important decisions become easier to make.

Ignore the conventional wisdom about what you should or shouldn't not be doing.

Be patient enough to plot several steps ahead.

Nothing in life happens in isolation; everything is related to everything else and has a broader context.

Control your animal nature and think before you act.

Calm detachment. Keep your perspective in the heat of the battle.

The first step is to think beyond the immediate battle.

Think deeply in all directions before launching the campaign.

Force yourself to widen your view, to take in more of the world around you, to see things for what they are and for how they may play out in the future, not for how you wish them to be.

Keep sensitive antennae attuned to the politics of any situation. Politics is the art of promoting and protecting our own interests. Being political means understanding people - seeing through their eyes.

Rein in your emotions, and maintain a sense of realism.

They plan ahead as best as they can, see far and wide, but when it comes time to move ahead, they move.

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#13 Know Your Enemy

A friendly front will let you watch them closely and mine them for information. Beware of projecting your own emotions and mental habits onto them.

You must b shrewd about not believing easily things not in accord with reason.

Every individual is like an alien culture. You must get inside his or her way of thinking. Be submissive so that he will trust you and you will thereby learn about his true situation. Accept his ideas and respond to his affairs as if you were twins.

Metternich had a way of listening attentively, making apt comments, even complimenting Napoleon on his strategic insights.

Clear knowledge of those around you - the ability to read people like a book. Great students of human nature and superior readers of men. People emit signals that reveal their intentions and deepest desires. Drop your self-interest and see people for who they are, divorced from your desires, you will become more sensitive to their signals.

Let go of one's ego, to submerge oneself temporarily in the other person's mind. Do not ask too many questions, the trick is to get people to relax and open up without prodding.


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#14 - Blitzkrieg Strategy

Striking first, before your opponents have time to think or prepare, will make them emotional, unbalanced, and prone to error.

Ancient Chinese strategy of slow-slow, quick-quick.

Men are most terrified by the unknown and unpredictable.

Prepare yourself before any action.

The unanticipated blow that makes the biggest impact.

Lulling the other side with bland banter. Then, with the deadline for the end of the talks approaching, he would suddenly hit them with a list of demands.

An army that moves quickly has a higher morale. Velocity creates a sense of vitality.

Make such decisive action as dramatic as possible: a moment of quiet and suspense on the stage before you make your startling entrance.

You must be slow in deliberation and swift in execution. - Napoleon


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#15 - Control the Dynamic / Forcing Strategies

Recognize the struggle for control in all aspects of life, and never be taken in by those who claim they are not interested in control.

You must master the art of moving the other side life pieces on a chessboard, with purpose and direction.

Luring them onto terrain that is unfamiliar to them and suited to you, playing to your strengths.

Control can b aggressive or passive.

One who excels at warfare compels men and is not compelled by others.

You must have a touch of madness.

Shift the terrain. If it's about money, shift it to something moral.

The worst dynamic in war, and in life, is the stalemate.

Control yourself and your emotions.


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#16 - Hit Them Where It Hurts / The Center of Gravity Strategy

Hitting them there will inflict disproportionate pain. Find what the other side most cherishes and protects - that is where you must strike.

Look at the same problem from a different angle.

Power depends on balance and support; so look at what is holding your enemy up, and remember that what holds him up can also make him fall.