Quotes by Military Strategists

The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.
Sun Tzu
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
Sun Tzu
You are a big country now but you still tend to feel small and fragile. If the United States gets a cold you get pneumonia.
Herman Kahn
We live in fortunate times in which we have only the irritant of terrorism instead of world wars to worry about
Edward N. Luttwak
Every battle is won before it is fought.
Sun Tzu
He who advances without seeking fame,Who retreats without escaping blame,He whose one aim is to protect his people and serve his lord,The man is a jewel of the Realm
Sun Tzu
Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Sun Tzu
One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.
Sun Tzu
Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory is won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Sun Tzu
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
Sun Tzu
5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.Excerpt From: Sunzi. “The Art of War.” iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Sun Tzu
it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
Sun Tzu
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
Sun Tzu
In the absence of expert [senior military] advice, we have seen each successive administration fail in the business of strategy - yielding a United States twice as rich as the Soviet Union but much less strong. Only the manner of the failure has changed. In the 1960s, under Robert S. McNamara, we witnessed the wholesale substitution of civilian mathematical analysis for military expertise. The new breed of the "systems analysts" introduced new standards of intellectual discipline and greatly improved bookkeeping methods, but also a trained incapacity to understand the most important aspects of military power, which happens to be nonmeasurable. Because morale is nonmeasurable it was ignored, in large and small ways, with disastrous effects. We have seen how the pursuit of business-type efficiency in the placement of each soldier destroys the cohesion that makes fighting units effective; we may recall how the Pueblo was left virtually disarmed when it encountered the North Koreans (strong armament was judged as not "cost effective" for ships of that kind). Because tactics, the operational art of war, and strategy itself are not reducible to precise numbers, money was allocated to forces and single weapons according to "firepower" scores, computer simulations, and mathematical studies - all of which maximize efficiency - but often at the expense of combat effectiveness.An even greater defect of the McNamara approach to military decisions was its businesslike "linear" logic, which is right for commerce or engineering but almost always fails in the realm of strategy. Because its essence is the clash of antagonistic and outmaneuvering wills, strategy usually proceeds by paradox rather than conventional "linear" logic. That much is clear even from the most shopworn of Latin tags: si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war), whose business equivalent would be orders of "if you want sales, add to your purchasing staff," or some other, equally absurd advice. Where paradox rules, straightforward linear logic is self-defeating, sometimes quite literally. Let a general choose the best path for his advance, the shortest and best-roaded, and it then becomes the worst path of all paths, because the enemy will await him there in greatest strength...Linear logic is all very well in commerce and engineering, where there is lively opposition, to be sure, but no open-ended scope for maneuver; a competitor beaten in the marketplace will not bomb our factory instead, and the river duly bridged will not deliberately carve out a new course. But such reactions are merely normal in strategy. Military men are not trained in paradoxical thinking, but they do no have to be. Unlike the business-school expert, who searches for optimal solutions in the abstract and then presents them will all the authority of charts and computer printouts, even the most ordinary military mind can recall the existence of a maneuvering antagonists now and then, and will therefore seek robust solutions rather than "best" solutions - those, in other words, which are not optimal but can remain adequate even when the enemy reacts to outmaneuver the first approach.
Edward N. Luttwak
Managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talent are all necessary, but they can be applied only to goals that have already been defined by military policies, broad and narrow. And those policies can be only as good as strategy, operational art of war, tactical thought, and plain military craft that have gone into their making.At present, the defects of structure submerge or distort strategy and operational art, they out rightly suppress tactical ingenuity, and they displace the traditional insights and rules of military craft in favor of bureaucratic preferences, administrative convenience, and abstract notions of efficiency derived from the world of business management. First there is the defective structure for making of military decisions under the futile supervision of the civilian Defense Department; then come the deeply flawed defense policies and military choices, replete with unnecessary costs and hidden risks; finally there come the undoubted managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talents, all applied to achieve those flawed policies and to implement those flawed choices. By this same sequence was the fatally incomplete Maginot Line built, as were all the Maginot Lines of history, each made no better by good government, technical talent, careful accounting, or sheer hard work.Hence the futility of all the managerial innovations tried in the Pentagon over the years. In the purchasing of weapons, for example, “total package” procurement, cost plus incentive contracting, “firm fixed price” purchasing have all been introduced with much fanfare, only to be abandoned, retried, and repudiated once again. And each time a new Secretary of Defense arrives, with him come the latest batch of managerial innovations, many of them aimed at reducing fraud, waste, and mismanagement-the classic trio endlessly denounced in Congress, even though they account for mere percentage points in the total budget, and have no relevance at all to the failures of combat. The persistence of the Administrator’s Delusion has long kept the Pentagon on a treadmill of futile procedural “reforms” that have no impact at all on the military substance of our defense.It is through strategy, operational art, tactical ingenuity, and military craft that the large savings can be made, and the nation’s military strength greatly increased, but achieving long-overdue structural innovations, from the central headquarters to the combat forces, from the overhead of bases and installations to the current purchase of new weapons. Then, and only then, will it be useful to pursue fraud, waste, and mismanagement, if only to save a few dollars more after the billions have already been saved. At present, by contrast, the Defense Department administers ineffectively, while the public, Congress, and the media apply their energies to such petty matters as overpriced spare parts for a given device in a given weapon of a given ship, overlooking at the same time the multibillion dollar question of money spent for the Navy as a whole instead of the Army – whose weakness diminishes our diplomatic weight in peacetime, and which could one day cause us to resort to nuclear weapons in the face of imminent debacle. If we had a central military authority and a Defense Department capable of strategy, we should cheerfully tolerate much fraud, waste, and mismanagement; but so long as there are competing military bureaucracies organically incapable of strategic combat, neither safety nor economy will be ensured, even if we could totally eliminate every last cent of fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
Edward N. Luttwak
If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.
Sun Tzu
He wins his battles by making no mistakes.Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
Sun Tzu
Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
Sun Tzu
If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.
Sun Tzu
There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.
Sun Tzu
The rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambuscade. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.
Sun Tzu
The art of war is the art of deception.
Sun Tzu
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Sun Tzu
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win
Sun Tzu
If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. Though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.
Sun Tzu
Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
Sun Tzu
There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.
Sun Tzu
One who has lived through the days of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the Japanese war lords feels something that a younger generation does not concerning the aberrations that are possible in this world.
Bernard Brodie
If quick, I survive.If not quick, I am lost.This is "death.
Sun Tzu
Know the enemy, know yourself and victory is never in doubt, not in a hundred battles.
Sun Tzu
A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return.
Sun Tzu
At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden,  until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.
Sun Tzu
Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground.
Sun Tzu
When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream.  It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.
Sun Tzu
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
Sun Tzu
Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.
Sun Tzu
If his forces are united, separate them.
Sun Tzu
who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits
Sun Tzu
do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat
Sun Tzu
Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory;  show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.
Sun Tzu
The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
Sun Tzu
These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.
Sun Tzu
So long as victory can be attained,  stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.
Sun Tzu
When your army has crossed the border, you should burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you have no hankering after home.
Sun Tzu
If there is disturbance in the camp, the general's authority is weak. 
Sun Tzu
the worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation
Sun Tzu
You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.
Sun Tzu
When the outlook is bright, bring it before their eyes; but tell them nothing when the situation is gloomy.
Sun Tzu
Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose.
Sun Tzu
if you fight with all your might,  there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner
Sun Tzu
You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.
Sun Tzu
We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.
Sun Tzu
Whether in an advantageous position or a disadvantageous one, the opposite state should be always present to your mind.
Sun Tzu
There are not more than five primary colors  (blue, yellow,  red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.
Sun Tzu
When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is INSUBORDINATION.
Sun Tzu
When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is COLLAPSE.
Sun Tzu
The principle on which to manage an army is to set up one standard of courage which all must reach.
Sun Tzu
We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country -- its mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps.
Sun Tzu
Danger has a bracing effect.
Sun Tzu
first lay plans which will ensure victory, and then lead your army to battle;  if you will not begin with stratagem but rely on brute strength alone, victory will no longer be assured
Sun Tzu