Strategos

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is in battle that a military organization justifies its existence. Money spent by the billions, men trained by the millions, are gambled on one irrevocable moment. Organization decides the terrible contest which means the triumph or the downfall of the nation! The harsh rays of glory beam above the field of carnage, destroying the vanquished without scorching the victor.
Such are the basic elements of strategy and tactics! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. The general tendency to surprise, treated of in the foregoing chapter, points to this conclusion, for there is a degree of stratagem, be it ever so small, which lies at the foundation of every attempt to surprise. ”

“ Grand strategy, by focusing primary attention on the group's objectives and resources in the conflict, determines the most appropriate technique of action (such as conventional military warfare or nonviolent struggle) to be employed in the conflict. In planning a grand strategy resistance leaders must evaluate and plan which pressures and influences are to be brought to bear upon the opponents. Further, grand strategy will include decisions on the appropriate conditions and timing under which initial and subsequent resistance campaigns will be launched. ”

“ All strategic planning, however, requires that the resistance planners have a profound understanding of the entire conflict situation, including attention to physical, historical, governmental, military, cultural, social, political, psychological, economic, and international factors. Strategies can only be developed in the context of the particular struggle and its background. ”

“ True strategy in any tight place, military or civil, is based on a knowledge of human nature, what the enemy will do. That entails the gift of imagination, and there was a touch of it in the disposition going on before my eyes. ”

“ 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 another name for arranging your forces like chessmen on a chess-board with the object of winning in the end. Great strategists are born, not made. Cæsar was a great strategist, so was Napoleon, and so was Lord Roberts. Just as a composer can write a piece of music without the help of a piano or any other instrument, so the born strategist can work out the plan of a battle, and even make a shrewd guess as to who is going to win, when sitting in his study with a good map before him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now that fewer operations in war are carried out openly and by mere force, than by stratagem and the skillful use of opportunity, any one that chooses may readily learn from the history of the past. And again that operations depending on the choice of opportunity oftener fail than succeed is easily proved from experience. Nor can there be any doubt that the greater part of such failures are due to the folly or carelessness of the leaders. It is time therefore to inquire into the rules of this art of strategy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That was my experience on more than one day of adventure when I went wandering with those two friends of mine, whom I have alluded to as the Strategist and the Philosopher. Not all the strategy of the one or the philosophy of the other could save us from unpleasant moments when we blundered close to the lines of an unexpected enemy. ”

“ The general does not pin himself down from the outset to one plan of tactics, but watches the field and moulds its issues to his will, according to the yielding or the resistance of the opposing forces, keeping all things solvent until the combinations of the strife have woven together into a soluble problem, upon which he can launch the final charge that shall bring him back with victory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under these circumstances, I now write in hopes that some course may suggest itself to you, even at this late stage of the canvass, through which the desired turn can be given to men's thoughts and votes. In political as in military strategy it is an elementary principle to concentrate attack on the weak point in the enemy's line. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Strategy in one respect resembles mesmerism—the object operated upon must remain perfectly quiet. Are we never to suppose that the Rebels have plans, and that their vigilance increases, and will increase, in proportion to the extremity of their case? Our theorists and routine men move armies as a student practises at chess, as if the whole field was under their control, and both armies at their disposal. With our immense resources, vigorous fighting and practical common sense would speedily suppress the Rebellion. ”

“ What it has all amounted to, as I say, is that we have never known otherwise an agent so beautifully organised, organised from within, for a mission, and that such an organisation at free play has made us really want never to lift a finger to break the charm. We catch at every turn of our present long-drawn crisis indeed that portentous name: it's displayed to us on a measureless scale that our Enemy is organised, organised possibly to the effect of binding us with a spell if anything could keep us passive. ”

“ Anybody facing more than one opponent will try to protect his back by a wall, which is also strategy—strategy being the veritable instinct of self-preservation which aims at an advantage in the disposition of forces. ”

“ 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? ”

“ They give the result of war or, in other cases, govern the global strategy or high strategy, since they are a military synthesis of the law of history, that is, eternal laws of the art of war that dominated the whole set. Accordingly, it is necessary to keep them in mind in times of peace and in times of war in this planet”. ”

“ This majestic principle often appears in history. There is a strategy in Providence. Nations, like individuals, have their crisis hours. Through events God makes all society plastic, and then raises up some great man to stamp his image and superscription upon the nation's hot and glowing heart. As scholars move back along the pathway of history, they discern in each great epoch these strategic conditions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Your most astute strategist is the general ready, at any stage of the campaign, to authorize a complete change of plan, if the circumstances call for it, and to make for the end in view along wholly altered lines. ”

“ No better definition of strategy can be given than that contained in a single sentence of a letter written by Napoleon to his brother Joseph: "There is a great difference between operations conducted on a well-considered system from an organised centre, and proceeding at haphazard without such centre, and risking the loss of one's communications." ”

“ Not that we wish to lessen the importance of tactics. But tactics are only a means of obtaining an end; and whereas the end presents itself before us firm and immovable, we can argue about tactics. Questions of tactics are practical questions and should be absolutely distinguished from questions of principle. ”

“ We can trace out upon this green cloth before me any number of strategic movements, which, supposing the enemy to be of one mind with ourselves, would annihilate him beyond a doubt. But as he is apt to do the very reverse of what we would prescribe, the man upon whom rests the responsibility of confronting him, must use his reason, and modify orders according to circumstances. ”