Strategy

“ When we have got these great simple leading principles of strategy firmly into our heads, the next question is how to make use of our knowledge. For principles are no use unless we apply them. On consideration it appears that there are three ways in which we can all apply these principles with advantage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But among intelligent, firmly rooted beings like ourselves, matters are, of course, on a less crude and direct plane. What among lesser creatures is a question of tactics belongs, for us, to the realm of strategy." Pater's tone grew confiding. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To know where one is going and what one wishes—this is order; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements—again order; to have everything ready under one’s hand, to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and to have all one’s means of whatever kind under command—still order; to discipline one’s habits, one’s effort, one’s wishes; to organize one’s life, to distribute one’s time, to take the measure of one’s duties and make one’s rights respected; to employ one’s capital and resources, one’s talent and one’s chances profitably—all this belongs to and is included in the word order. ”

“ The power that impels him is dynamic. It grows out of an inertia charged with the vibration of living eternal forces—a training that fits him to propel himself into chaos and evolve order and profit—out of an education that shows him how—out of a system that changes to suit altered conditions—out of the same mighty impulses that have fashioned the conquerors of armies, or nations, leaders of men, the world’s financiers, the masters of commerce, the uplifters, governors and kings of men. ”

“ Skill and sagacity in managing the affairs of common life, or wisdom in council and command, is nothing else than an extensive and ready knowledge of the intricate movements of the great machine of the social system; and the high price which this skill and wisdom always bears among men, may be held to represent two abstractions; first, the perplexing Irregularities of the system to which human agency is to be conformed; and then, the real and substantial Uniformity of the movements of that system. ”

“ So that the three differentiated forms of control which grow up along with militant organization and action, while enforcing kindred restraints and incentives, also enforce one another; and their separate and joint disciplines have the common character that they involve the sacrifice of immediate special benefits to obtain more distant and general benefits. ”

“ Get your competency first, your balance-wheel, your independence, your established base of supplies; then plan your campaign. The world is big, infinitely big, to the human being who can command. It’s a little mud ball to the other who has to dance whenever some one else whistles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They simply instruct men as to the laws of this world in which we live that they may know what to expect if they take one course or another, or they instruct men so that they may understand the relations of phenomena of forces beyond our control so that we may foresee and guard ourselves against harm. It follows from all this that I demand and aim at just as close thinking in political economy as in any other science. ”

“ Leave them victors of the positions upon which they are "set," and endeavor to enlist their interest upon some new aspects, points, or principles—you have at least an even chance of winning on the new point, whereas you have none whatever on the old one. If, however, you can fit your case to some of their established prejudices, for or against, you have won your battle, for their quality of stability will then be employed in your favor instead of against it. ”

“ If you have no obvious superfluities, yet may not your economy, that is, your management of what you have, be more exact, methodical, and careful? So that even your own affairs will be more prosperous; and, from this good management, you may find much more to give to these great services than even now you are yourselves aware of. ”

“ It seems to me that we do a very like thing if, in studying the structural forces and organic actions of society, its organs of origination and command, its organs of execution, its superior and its subordinate authorities, its habitual modes of structural life, we abandon all attempts at differentiation, throw all analysis into hotch-potch, and reduce everything to terms of the general forces which mould and govern society as a whole. ”

“ Every work of internal improvement, which brings men closer together, enabling them to compare opinions with readiness and concentrate strength for their maintenance; every new interest that is built up; every heavy and permanent investment of capital or industry; every movement that develops and diffuses the public intelligence and energy, is a bulwark more or less formidable against reaction. ”

“ This policy of a bare uncompromising rigor, exerted to keep the people just where they are, in preference to adjustments formed on a calculation of a material change, and adapted to prepare them for it—how long could it be successful—not to ask what would be the value or the glory of that success? ”

“ By an excellent system of tactics, the mainspring of which was to make himself sought instead of to seek, and to speak his mind unreservedly upon all points on which he was consulted, taking care never to interfere in cases where his opinion was not asked, he obtained a complete ascendency over the young man, who, after a very short time, made him overseer, not merely of his stable, but of his house, his establishment, and his estates. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then when the very best plan has been formulated for the accomplishment of the desired results, and men of money have been found to support the movement until it can take care of itself, announce to the world in a dignified and effective manner the organization and aims of the society, the name of which shall be—, decided later.... ”

“ In an age which has learned {151} as its special lesson the advantages, in ordinary business affairs of life, of organisation, thoroughness, long views, reticence, and combined effort, guided by a strong central control, is it reaction, or is it progress, to aim at applying the same principles to the greatest, most complex, and infinitely most important of all businesses—that of government itself? ”

“ Then, when intelligence shall be universally diffused, and when all men shall have the power at least of acquiring the largest and the best and the ripest fruits of knowledge and of intelligence, we shall come into that epoch in which no longer the few will control the industries of the many, but in which industry will be the controlling power, and wealth will be its servant. ”

“ I think, therefore, that I have established the truth of the proposition, that men who aspire to exercise a directing and controlling influence in any pursuit or business, should be distinguished by a knowledge of principles and general laws. ”

“ Joined to the interest in making plans, and the constructive impulse, which are in themselves compelling forces, we have in the organization of a society in accordance with a preconceived outline, with fixed positions and ranks, the special stimulus of exercising a decisive influence over a future and ideally submissive circle of human beings. ”

“ All the checks which human ingenuity has been able to devise, or at least all which, with reference to our habits, our institutions, and our diversities of local interests, to give perfect operation to the machinery, to adjust its movements, to prevent its eccentricities, and to balance its forces: all these have been introduced, with singular skill, ingenuity and wisdom, into the arrangements. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These principles the Professor goes on contentedly to investigate, never appearing to contemplate for an instant the possibility of the first principle in the whole business—the maintenance, by force, of the possession of land obtained by force, being ever called in question by any human mind. ”

“ And it is, as far as I have been able to learn, the practice of all countries.' The same will, the same positive action, the same purpose, and, it may be added, the same predicament or position of the actors, must exist in each class of cases. There must be intent and act, prompted by, and tending to, a practicable, or at least a probable result, and not mere endurance or submission to uncontrollable necessity in either case. ”

“ System replaces chance in the greater part of human affairs, manufacturing, warfare, medicine, commerce itself, have become "scientific"; they advance steadily, ruthlessly, and carry man with them; whither he cannot guess. ”

“ To insure success, it needed a trial of the one-man power—one brain, planning night and day; one agency incessantly at work, stirring up directors, contractors, and engineers; and one will pushing it forward by main strength. ”

“ Now is the time to make the most of your strategic places in life. Almost before you know it, your power to determine many things will have merged into obligations that not one man in fifty is free to disregard. ”

“ It is essential that great operations—and the business of the future will be conducted on a great scale—be directed by great wisdom and power. The possessors of high qualities we now discover by the trying-out process. ”

“ To those who desire to turn to account all coming changes, and to stand always prepared for the good or evil events of the future, this intelligent comprehension of the status of all the forces that make or unmake values is absolutely indispensable. ”

“ These two Powers will seek at the favorable moment to accomplish certain aggressive purposes which they secretly or openly entertain, and they will succeed or fail. Each success or failure will probably be decisive in certain respects, and will remove one or more existing conflicts of interest or ambiguities of position. ”

“ A plan like the present, which proposes not only to trench upon domestic habits, but to give an entire new direction to a portion of the skill and capital of the country, must necessarily encounter the most strenuous opposition. ”

“ Roughly, we may say that people are divided into two orders: first, the organizers, the able, those who build, who create cohesion, symmetry, reason, economy; and, secondly, the destroyers, those who come wandering idly by, and unfasten, undo, relax, disintegrate all that has been effected by the force and vigilance of their betters. ”

“ These are simple instances, but the conduct of life is throughout an attempt to organise impulses so that success is obtained for the greater number or mass of them, for the most important and the weightiest set. And here we come face to face again with the problem of value. How shall we decide which among these are more important than: others, and how shall we distinguish different organisations as yielding more or less value one than another? ”

“ 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. ”