Sun Tzu Quotes

During his revolutionary battles in Kaingsi, Mao reduced his theory of guerrilla tactics to a poem:

Umezu was one of several members of the Japanese War Council, that did not want to surrender even after the second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki. He and the other hard liners were convinced that the Japanese could inflict such heavy casualties on an invading force of the mainland that the Allies would not insist on unconditional surrender and Japan could negotiate favorable terms. These hard liners had already lived through the firebombing of Tokyo which in casualties was as bad as the atom bomb attacks, and felt that they could maintain a defensive force even if all the major cities of Japan were destroyed. Fortunately for all parties, the Emperor overruled Umezu and the hardliners. Umezu and the other hard liners had personal reasons to want to negotiate terms. They had committed war crimes and did not want to be brought to account. He was tried after the surrender and sentenced to life in prison where he died of cancer after 4 years.

Russia is not the only nation who believed this. There were and are some politicians and military officers in almost every country who believe this. However, for the last few centuries, this has rarely been the view held by the majority of the politicians and military in most nations. And even fewer where the leadership accepted this posiitin. Russia, was one of those counties that did hold this few and kade it policy was in the 2nd decade of 2016,

Later, he felt that the offense had become almost invincible. See {626741}. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.

This is one of the best summaries of Lincoln’s early strategic thinking about the war. Unfortunately for him and the country, his generals were all trained in tactics rather than strategy. And the then modern world placed industry, logistics, and economics on a par with battlefield tactics. Until Generals Grant and Sherman were elevated to higher command, there were no military leaders who thought about the war in overall strategic terms. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman in a sense created the first strategic approach to modern warfare.

If there is a group from whom a constant supply of volunteer suicide bombers is drawn, and who honestly believe that death while fighting for Islam is desirable, then deterrence will not be an effective strategy. This is a very hard reality for us to face because the vast majority of our historical experience has been with people who were moved by deterrence techniques.

Ruling group of France during the French Revolution. The purchase and transportation of an army in the field was a very expensive element of war and was very difficult as well. The Directory urged its generals to live off the land and get their food from the enemy country they were invading. Rarely did they pay for it but typically just took it from the civilians. Napoleon who served under the directory took this principle one step further. He also stole the invaded country’s art—paintings and statues mostly. These he sent back to Paris where they were sold to rich people. This way he could pay the salaries of the troops and buy more weapons and ammunition. Napoleon could conquer so much territory because France did not have to pay for the military effort as other countries did. This is one of the major reasons for example that the Louvre Museum in Paris has so many great Italian and Spanish paintings.

The “adversary” was Pakistan, which was frequently sending military and terrorist attacks into Kashmire much if which has been disputed by Pakistan ever since the Partition of India in 1949. India had a very disciplined and well led military and like most sophisticated military powers did not immediately retaliate for military incursions despite the public pressure to do so. Instead they gave themselves time to plan and organize the logistics for a series of surgical strikes at the terrorist and/or military concentrations Pakistan had deployed close to the border which they launched several days later.