Strategist

“ Probably in many cases the business strategist, infected with this human infirmity, reaches an agreement with his rivals and his neighbors in the industrial system without exacting the last concession that a ruthless business strategy might entitle him to. ”

“ Strategy is generalship in its broadest conception. A strategist conceives and projects campaigns. He determines where armies and navies are to be sent. He is not concerned with the handling or manœuvers of armies and fleets. ”

“ To have a central position such as this and to be alone, having no rival, are conditions that at once fix the attention of the strategist. But to this striking combination is to be added the remarkable relations borne to the great commercial routes traversing this vast expanse. ”

“ In devising strategies, the democrats must clearly define their objectives and determine how to measure the effectiveness of efforts to achieve them. This definition and analysis permits the strategist to identify the precise requirements for securing each selected objective. This need for clarity and definition applies equally to tactical planning.
Tactics and methods of action are used to implement the strategy.
Tactics relate to the skillful use of one's forces to the best advantage in a limited situation. A tactic is a limited action, employed to achieve a restricted objective. ”

“ The strategist—and the tactician also, within his province—will always count the cost of a proposed operation, even where they are nearly certain of success. The occupation of a country, which would be of no great practical value to you when you got it, would be a poor return for the loss to which you would have been put in the process. ”

“ One can never make the mistake of too much simplification in the complicated detail of modern tactics where the difficulty is always to see the forest for the trees. Strategy has not changed since prehistoric days. It must always remain the same: feint and surprise. The first primitive man who looked at the breast of his opponent and struck suddenly at his face was a strategist ”

“ If he be at ease, tire him out ; if united make divisions in his camp. Attack weak points, and appear in unexpected places. Since these are the methods of the successful strategist, they cannot be learnt beforehand. ”

“ So great indeed is the value of abstract strategical study from this point of view, that it is necessary to guard ourselves against over-valuation. So far from claiming for their so-called science more than the possibilities we have indicated, the classical strategists insist again and again on the danger of seeking from it what it cannot give. They even repudiate the very name of "Science." They prefer the older term "Art." ”

“ Strategists planning the major campaigns will, like those who planned the grand strategy, require a thorough understanding of the nature and modes of operation of their chosen technique of struggle. Just as military officers must understand force structures, tactics, logistics, munitions, the effects of geography, and the like in order to plot military strategy, political defiance planners must understand the nature and strategic principles of nonviolent struggle. ”

“ But a numerical preponderance, either by land or sea, over all possible hostile combinations, is unattainable, and in default the only sound policy is to take timely and ample precautions against all enterprises which are even remotely possible. There is nothing more to be dreaded in war than the combined labours of a thoroughly well-trained general staff, except the intellect and audacity of a great strategist. The ordinary mind, even if it does Importance of strategy. not shrink from great danger, sees no way of surmounting great difficulties ”

“ Great strategists have their eclipses, and great follies are often made, like stout ropes, of a multitude of fibres. ”

“ Grand strategy also determines the allocation of general tasks to particular groups and the distribution of resources to them for use in the struggle.
Strategy is the conception of how best to achieve particular objectives in a conflict, operating within the scope of the chosen grand strategy. Strategy is concerned with whether, when, and how to fight, as well as how to achieve maximum effectiveness in struggling for certain ends. A strategy has been compared to the artist's concept, while a strategic plan is the architect's blueprint. ”

“ In his youth, Kahn had done military service in Germany; and the German youth studies and understands strategy in a far larger and broader way than even professional soldiers study it amongst us. Strategy acts in peace, as well as in war—strategy never ceases. For what is strategy? It is the leadership of a people so that its moral, its ideals, and its will shall make it [Pg xix] develop its destiny in such vigour that it shall be safe from the assault of any enemy will that may assail it. ”

“ If, then, the theoretical study of strategy be approached in this way—if, that is, it be regarded not as a substitute for judgment and experience, but as a means of fertilising both, it can do no man harm. Individual thought and common-sense will remain the masters and remain the guides to point the general direction when the mass of facts begins to grow bewildering. Theory will warn us the moment we begin to leave the beaten track, and enable us to decide with open eyes whether the divergence is necessary or justifiable. ”

“ Now commences the province of strategy, which is defined as 'the art of properly directing masses upon the theatre of war for the defence of our own or the invasion of the enemy's country.' Strategy is often confounded with tactics, but is entirely different—the latter being of an inferior, more contracted and prescribed character, while the former applies to large geographical surfaces, embraces all movements, and has no rules—depending entirely on the genius of the commander to avail himself of circumstances. ”

“ That this illustration, drawn from gunnery, is applicable in general terms to strategy seems clear, for the reason that in every strategical situation, no matter how simple or how complex, there is, and can be only one best thing to do; so that the statement of any strategic situation, if followed by a question as to what is the best thing to do, becomes a problem, to which the answer is—the best thing to do. ”

“ How seldom do we hear a knowledge of strategy referred to as an indispensable acquirement in those who aspire to high command? How often is it repeated, although in so doing the speakers betray their own shortcomings, that strategy is a mere matter of common-sense? Yet the plain truth is that strategy is not only the determining factor in civilised warfare, but that, in order to apply its principles, the soundest common-sense must be most carefully trained. Of all the sciences connected with war it is the most difficult. ”

“ The means and forms which Strategy uses are in fact so extremely simple, so well known by their constant repetition, that it only appears ridiculous to sound common sense when it hears critics so frequently speaking of them with high-flown emphasis. Turning a flank, which has been done a thousand times, is regarded here as a proof of the most brilliant genius, there as a proof of the most profound penetration, indeed even of the most comprehensive knowledge. Can there be in the book-world more absurd productions? ”

“ As every group began always. As every business man forms his business, every general his army. Select a staff of the most capable and tell them what is essential for them to know. Formulate the plan so that in the course marked out the chief idea cannot be missed, without frightening off any one of the great herd by peculiar, unusual or doubtful terms, theories or visions of the future. And then organize, practically, systematically, always aiming directly at the concrete reality without troubling yourself in the least about abstractions. ”

“ So entirely was he convinced that strategy was the whole art of war, that he was accustomed to speak of himself as the only general of his army, thus subordinating the mere command and movement of forces to the art of strategy. ”

“ Strategy regards the theatre of war, rather than the field of battle. It selects the important points in this theatre, and the lines of communication by which they may be reached; it forms the plan and arranges the general operations of a campaign; but it leaves it to the engineers to overcome material obstacles and to erect new ones; it leaves to logistics the means of supporting armies and of moving them on the chosen lines; and to tactics, the particular dispositions for battle, when the armies have reached the destined points. ”

“ Strategy soon competed with strength, and, when victor, intellect was picked with it. From among all the strategic devices of intellect property was selected as the fittest, and society became a necessity for its protection. ”

“ If we leave to tactics the actual delivery of the blow, the battle itself, and look upon Strategy as the art of using this means with skill, then besides the forces of the character, such as burning ambition which always presses like a spring, a strong will which hardly bends &c. &c., there seems no subjective quality so suited to guide and inspire strategic activity as stratagem. ”

“ In order to select a line of action for the next period, that is, to map out the strategic plans for action, we have to calculate the surroundings, the relation of forces, the power of resistance of our enemy, the degree of our organization, to calculate the assets of all the fighting forces, to study the social typography of the area. ”

“ And this application will be all the more complete the more everything is compressed into one act and one moment."46 This he calls "the law of the simultaneous employment of the forces in strategy."47 "In strategy we can never employ too many forces."48 "What can be looked upon in tactics as an excess of force must be regarded in strategy as a means of giving expansion to success." "No troops should be kept back as a strategic reserve," but every available man hurried up to the first battlefield, fresh levies being meanwhile formed in rear. ”

“ Tactics are not to be confounded with strategy. Strategy, speaking largely, is the planning of the thing which an army has to do; tactics is the manner in which an army does it. The strategy of a campaign may be carefully planned by the wise men of the War Department or by the commanding general. It may be infallible on paper; but if the tactics of the general officers in the field cannot follow the lines thus laid down, the strategy is a drag anchor on the success of the army. ”

“ The base of all strategy is the perfect knowledge of all the roads of the country in which you wage war.
To be well up in all the ways and tricks of boys is to be aware of all the moves of the enemy. ”

“ But the calculation of time and space, though it lies universally at the foundation of strategy, and is to a certain extent its daily bread, is still neither the most difficult nor the most decisive one." "Much more frequently the relative superiority, that is the skilful assemblage of superior forces at the145 decisive point, has its foundation in the right appreciation of those points, in the judicious distribution which by that means has been given to the forces from the very first, and in the resolution to sacrifice the unimportant to the advantage of the important. ”

“ The term strategic is also applied to all communications which lead by the most direct or advantageous route from one important point to another, as well as from the strategic front of the army to all of its objective points. It will be seen, then, that a theater of war is crossed by a multitude of such lines, but that at any given time those only which are concerned in the projected enterprise have any real importance. ”

“ With these advantages all wars, both ancient and modern, are full of instructive examples of the application of the simple principles of strategy under innumerable varying circumstances and situations; and this union of simple theory in ever-changing practical application is what constitutes the theoretic knowledge of the general as distinguished from the tactical and administrative duties of the subordinate. ”

“ Strategy evidently loses its advantages against such enemies; a general can only make conjectures; he marches to find the Arabs, and finds them not; then, again, when he least expects it, he suddenly encounters them. ”

“ Strategy is the employment of the battle to gain the end of the War; it must therefore give an aim to the whole military action, which must be in accordance with the object of the War; in other words, Strategy forms the plan of the War, and to this end it links together the series of acts which are to lead to the final decision, that, is to say, it makes the plans for the separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each. ”

“ The only one which can be given has just been alluded to, and is, that either the political objective points should be selected according to the principles of strategy, or their consideration should be postponed till after the decisive events of the campaign. ”

“ It should be remembered that this is a High Strategy or National Strategy work, which is formed by four particular strategies: Political, economical, psycho-social and armed force. Wherefore, it is a work of general interest. And to end, I quote from the Mathematical-Historical Principles deduced in my strategic synthesis:
“There should not be friction between these and classical principles. ”

“ Character of the modern battle ACCORDING to the notion we have formed of tactics and strategy, it follows, as a matter of course, that if the nature of the former is changed, that change must have an influence on the latter. If tactical facts in one case are entirely different from those in another, then the strategic, must be so also, if they are to continue consistent and reasonable. ”

“ By such exercises may be procured a rapid and certain strategic coup-d'oeil,—the most valuable characteristic of a good general, without which he can never put in practice the finest theories in the world. ”