Spy Game Quotes

You don't need a search warrant to go through someone's trash. Seriously. Once it hits the curb it is totally fair game-you an look it up.

The center snaps the ball to the quarterback!" "No he doesn't!" "He doesn't?" "NO! Secretly, he's the quarterback for the other team! He keeps the ball!" "A traitor!" "Calvin breaks for the goal." "Wheeee! He's at the 30... the 20... the 10! Nobody can catch him!" "Nobody wants to! Your running toward your own goal!" "Huh?!" "When I learned that you were a spy, I switched goals. This is your goal and mine's hidden!" "Hidden?!" "You'll never find it in a million years!" "I don't need to find it as a traitor to your team, crossing my goal counts as crossing your goal!" "Ah, so you might think so..." "In fact, I know so!" "But the place I hid my goal is right on top of your goal, so the points will go to me!" "But the fact is, I'm really a double agent! I'm on your team after all, which means you'll lose points if I cross your goal! Ha ha!" "But I'm a traitor too, so I'm really on your team! I want you to cross my goal! The points will go to your team, which is really my team!" "That would be true... if I were a football player!" "You mean...?" "I'm actually a badminton player disguised as a double-agent football player!!" "And I'm actually a volleyball-croquet-polo player!" "Sooner or later, all our games turn into CalvinBall." "No cheating!

Then why haven’t you noticed I’m not your only tail?” —Nash

To me it was real war and my life was at stake, and I believe that all those clandestine spy games we played as children helped when the Occupation came.

Don't give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don't give way on the ideology, they won't trust that. They want to deal with a man they've bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert.

You know something is wrong when the government declares opening someone else’s mail is a felony but your internet activity is fair game for data collecting.

Eddie Drood: Is this why we become agents? To play games, to chase after secrets that are rarely worth all the blood spilled on their behalf...To end up stabbed in the back, just when you thought you'd won, bleeding out in some nameless backstreet...With most people never even knowing who you were, or what you did, or why it mattered?

His one indulgence was attending the occasional Chelsea Blues game

You could only to your best, and hope for a strong tail wind to waft you faster to your destination. Until then, you played the game, kept your tongue civil, and spoke favorably of your enemies when either they or their spies might overhear.

Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave. It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair. I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical. Do you know the Symposium, Grey? The Symposium of Plato. [He] says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember? I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words. I wish I had never met you. And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.

Why do you do this?” she asked. “Do what?” “Follow me around. Look at me as if you find me fascinating. Touch me, and say nice things to me. And then, you pull away as if you did nothing at all.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve already agreed to tell you everything I know. There’s no need for these games.

You want me to be your spy in a game of restaurant espionage? Will I need a code name?" "It's nothing morally reprehensible or anything, " Wes hastened to assure her. "Just curiosity." "I think your code name should be Tiberius," she said decisively. "I'll be Uhura." "Tiberius? As in James Tiberius Kirk?" Wes blinked, then grinned. "Oh my God, this is your version of flirting. How do you say 'I fancy you' in Klingon?

I spy something green," Sally announced. "Trees," Crina hollered, while Mariana called out, "Grass," "Nope," Sally answered. "What's the point of this game again?" Crina asked. "Mindless entertainment," Jen announced. “It's what Americans are known for.

The first question should always be, “What kind of game do they think we’re playing?

What did Shakespeare say? When sorrows come, they come not as single spies – “ “— But in battalions.

When sorrows come, they come not as single spies – “ “— But in battalions.

We are merely a pawn in a chess game played by the nations of the world. Should we not be a bigger, more important piece in the game? Are we not all capable of playing the part of the king or queen?

Their lips met with a tender and powerful force. At that point, they melted into each other and Seth felt a flush of sensations over his entire being. Hands wandered naturally, and each caress became more exciting and pleasurable. Where the body ended and the soul began was a mystery in this ancient game of combinations.

This was too much. “Yes,” she shouted, “but I’m eleven.” “Oh.” He looked somewhat taken aback, standing there with the Monopoly board in his hand. Harriet began to feel sorry for him. “Well,” she said, “shall we play one game?” He looked relieved. He set up the board carefully on the coffee table. Then he went to the desk drawer and got out a notebook and a pen. Then he sat down across from her. Harriet stared at the notebook. “What’s that?” “A notebook.” “I KNOW that,” she shouted. “I just take a few notes now and then. You don’t mind, do you?” “Depends on what they are.” “What do you mean?” “Are they mean, nasty notes, or just ordinary notes?” “Why?” “Well, I just thought I’d warn you. Nasty ones are pretty hard to get by with these days.” “Oh, I see what you mean. Thank you for the advice. No, they’re quite ordinary notes.” “Nobody ever takes it away from you, I bet, do they?” “What do you mean?

Dear God, why? Don’t do that. Why do you always have to let me see ALL the things you do? Why can't there be a little mystery with you, Evie? You pass gas, burp, eat too fast and lick your fingers. You take all the covers and then kick them off and I'm freezing. You are like, like a… like a… like a wife.

Soviet intelligence was playing a long game, laying down seed corn that could be harvested many years hence or left dormant forever. It was a simple, brilliant, durable strategy of the sort that only a state committed to permanent world revolution could have initiated. It would prove staggeringly successful.

I’m with you because you’re smart and beautiful, and you are not like anyone I know. No matter how hard things are, you throw yourself into them. During Midnight Games you walked into a cage with trained killers not knowing if your curses would work, because you knew other people were counting on you. That’s what you do. You step up.

With that thought, I did what any sensible young woman would do. I hid behind the banyan tree and spied on the basketball game.

The best way to win a zero-sum game is to be good at positive-sum games.

One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was.

Heaven knows I am no expert, but it seems to me the terrorism game is a bit like the art trade. It has its peaks and valleys, its good seasons and bad, but it never goes away. – Julian Isherwood

A mountain of recent data on open-plan offices from many different industries corroborates the results of the games. Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others.

Inside every Positive-Sum Game, some people have more power than others. Some people make more important decisions than others. Some people decide what the rest of the group will do. Inside every Positive-Sum Game, someone is the boss.

I gather from what you have not said that he is an unmitigated scoundrel." R. smiled with his pale blue eyes. "I don't know that I'd go quite so far as that. He hasn't had the value of a public-school education. His ideas of playing the game aren't quite the same as yours and mine. I don't know that I would leave a gold cigarette-case about when he was in the neighbourhood, but if he had lost money to you at poker and he had pinched your cigarette-case, he would immediately pawn it to pay you.

Nina wanted to scream. She'd been a spy for Zoya Nazyalensky on the Wandering Isle. She's spent a year on her own in Ketterdam doing jobs for Kaz Brekker. She'd infiltrated the Ice Court as a girl from the Menagerie. She might be new to this particular game, but she'd played for high stakes plenty of times.

Far from being repelled by the duplicity around him, Elliott felt ever more drawn to the game of skulduggery and double cross. The Venlo debacle had been “as disastrous as it was shameful,” but he also found it fascinating, an object lesson in how highly intelligent people could be duped if persuaded to believe what they most wanted to believe. He was learning quickly.

Khalid al-Hassan, the PLO’s virtual foreign minister at the time, later explained to the British journalist Alan Hart, “I was opposed to the playing of the terror card. But I have to tell you something else. Those of our Fatah colleagues who did turn to terror were not mindless criminals. They were fiercely dedicated nationalists who were doing their duty as they saw it. I have to say they were wrong, and did so at the time, but I have also to understand them. In their view, and in this they were right, the world was saying to us Palestinians, ‘We don’t give a damn about you, and we won’t care at least until you are a threat to our interests.’ In reply those in Fatah who turned to terror were saying, ‘Okay, world. We’ll play the game by your rules. We’ll make you care!’ 

I never looked forward more to anything in my life. Hours of wintertime had found me in the tree-house looking over at the school yard, spying on multitudes of children through a two-power telescope Jem had given me, learning their games, following Jem’s red jacket through wriggling circles of blind man’s buff, secretly sharing their misfortunes and minor victories. I longed to join them.

A groan is ripped out of me, even as I struggle to breathe, while the vicious gypsy who just kneed me in the balls and felled me like a tree is kneeling down and kissing me on the cheek. “Don’t come in without knocking. Stop being invisible so you can attempt to spy on me. And stop playing games with my head. I have enough shit to deal with,” she says softly, kissing my cheek again before standing and walking out.

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor’s preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum rolls the two flag-bearers hurled their flags high into the air and caught them, the crowd roaring in approval. The winner of the extremely dangerous horse race is presented with a palio, a standard bearing the effigy of the Virgin. In the last few years the jockeys have had to be professional by law, as when they were amateurs, corruption and bribery were rife. The teams wear a curious fancy dress encompassing styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. They are followed by gangs of young men, supporters, who create an atmosphere or intense rivalry and barely suppressed violence as they run through the narrow streets in the heat of the day. It was perfect. I took many more photographs. At the farmhouse that evening, after far too much Chianti, I and my friends played a bizarre game. In the dark, some of us moved lighted candles from one room to another, whilst others watched the effect of the light on faces and on the rooms from outside. It was like a strange living film of the paintings we had seen. Maybe Derek Jarman was spying on us.

Somehow it was not the fault of the born adventurers, of those who by their very nature dwelt outside society and outside all political bodies, that they found in imperialism a political game that was endless by definition; they were not supposed to know that in politics an endless game can end only in catastrophe and that political secrecy hardly ever ends in anything nobler than the vulgar duplicity of a spy. The joke on these players of the Great Game was that their employers knew what they wanted and used their passion for anonymity for ordinary spying. But this triumph of the profit-hungry investors was temporary, and they were duly cheated when a few decades later they met the player of the game of totalitarianism, a game played without ulterior motives like profit and therefore played with such murderous efficiency that it devoured even those who financed it.

The relationship between cricket (that most English of sports) and spying (at which the British have always excelled) is deep-rooted and unique. Something about the game attracts the sort of mind also drawn to the secret worlds of intelligence and counter-intelligence – a complex test of brain and brawn, a game of honour interwoven with trickery, played with ruthless good manners and dependent on minute gradations of physics and psychology, with tea breaks.

I shrug, suddenly remembering how Adam never called me this morning, even though he said he would. “I should probably go back to Adam’s apartment to have a look at his door.” “Want some company?” Wes asks. “I can bring along my spy tool. I’ve got a cool UV-light device that picks up all traces of bodily fluids.” “You’re kidding, right?” Kimmie asks. “You know you want to give it a try.” He winks. “I’ll even let you borrow my latex gloves.” “Say no more,” she jokes. “I’m in.

I’ve now interviewed a couple hundred researchers in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and China. I visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I met brain-injured veterans. I went to the San Francisco offices of Lumosity, the biggest online provider of these cognitive games aimed at improving intelligence. And I met twice with the guy who leads the funding in this area at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA. It’s a government intelligence agency, like DARPA for spies.

By sacrificing the public self, by shunning leaders, and especially by refusing to play the game of self-promotion, Anonymous ensures mystery; this in itself is a radical political act, given a social order based on ubiquitous monitoring and the celebration of runaway individualism and selfishness. Anonymous's iconography — masks and headless suits — visually displays the importance of opacity. The collective may not be the hive it often purports and is purported to be — and it may be marked by internal strife — but Anonymous still manages to leave us with a striking vision of solidarity — e pluribus unum.

I remember." I nod. Wanting to say: I remember everything-all of it-the question is: Do you? But instead, I stare down at my feet, smiling stupidly. Everything I do around him is stupid. Some Seeker I've turned out to be. Attempting to redeem myself,say something normal,not let on that I already know he's employed here-thanks to the raven who allowed me to spy on him earlier,I say, "So,I guess you hang out here a lot then?" He pushes a hand through his hair, as his eyes-the color of aquamarines-glide down the length of me.And damn if I can't feel their trajectory. It's like showering in a stream of warm, molten honey-dripping from the top of my forehead all the way down to my feet. "I guess you could say that," he says,voicelow and deep. "More than most, anyway." He waves a damp towel, tugs on the string of his apron, and I blush in reply. The sight of it reminding me of what I saw in the alleyway-watching him lean against the wall,his face so soft anddreamy I longed to touch him-kiss him-like I did in the dream. I study him closely,seeking traces of recognition, remembrance-some small token of evidence to assure me that, as odd as it seems,that kiss in the cave was as real as it felt-but coming up empty. "So,how long have you worked here?" I ask, returning to the topic at hand. My gaze drifting over the black V-necked T-shirt skimming the sinuous line of his body-telling myself it's all part of my reconnaissance,my need to gather as uch information as I can about him and his kin. But knowing that's not really it.The truth is,I like looking at him, being near him. "I guess you could say somewhere between too long and not long enough-depending on the state of my wallet." His laugh is good-natured and easy-the kid that starts at the belly and trips all the way up. "It's pretty much the only decent game in town." He shrugs. "One way or another,you end up working for the Richters,and believe me, this is one of the better gigs." I peer at him closely,remembering what Cade said when I was here via the raven. How he referred to him by another name. "You're not a Richter?" I ask,holding my breath in my cheeks.Despite what Paloma told me, I need to hear it from him,confirm that he doesn't identify with their clan. "I go by Whitefeather," he says,gaze steady and serious. "I was raised by my mom,didn't even know the Richters when I was a kid." Despite getting the answer I wanted, I frown in return. His being a Richter was a good reason to avoid him-without it,I'm out of excuses. "Is that okay?" He dips his head toward mine,his mouth tugging at the side. "You seem a little upset by the news." I shake my head,break free of my reverie, and say, "No-not at all. Believe me,it's more like a relief." I meet his gaze,seeing the way it narrows in question. "Guess I'm not a big fan of your brother," I add,watching as he throws his head back and laughs,the sight of that long,glorious column of neck forcing me to look away,it's too much to take. "If it makes you feel any better, most of the time I'd have to agree." He returns to me,the warmth of his gaze solely reponsible for the wave of comfort that flows through me.

Sadie had reached a part in Metal Gear Solid where the player character was spying on a female non-player character exercising in her underwear. The NPC's name was Meryl Silverburgh, which also struck Sadie as ridiculous. "Come on," Sadie said. "Meryl fricking Silverburgh in her underwear." "Maybe Kojima's into Jewesses." Sadie wondered if most gamers would be turned on by this. She often had to put herself into a male point of view to even understand the game at all. As Dov was fond of saying to her, "You aren't just a gamer when you play anymore. You're a builder of worlds, and if you're a builder of worlds, your feelings are not as important as what your gamers are feeling. You must imagine them at all times. There is no artist more empathetic than the game designer." Sadie the gamer found this scene sexist and strange. At the same time, Sadie the world builder accepted that the game was made by one of the most creative minds in gaming.

One red feather for celebration. No one yet has seen it but me. When Miss Dickinson says, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” I always think of something round—a ball from one of the games I will never play—stuck all around like a clove-orange sachet with red feathers. I have pictured it many times—Hope!—wondering how I would catch such a thing one-handed, if it did come floating down to me from the sky. Now I find it has fallen already, and a piece of it is here beside our latrine, one red plume. In celebration I stooped down to pick it up. Down in the damp grass I saw the red shaft of another one, and I reached for it. Following the trail I found first the red and then the gray: clusters of long wing feathers still attached to gristle and skin, splayed like fingers. Downy pale breast feathers in tufted mounds. Methuselah. At last it is Independence Day for Methuselan and the Congo. O Lord of the feathers, deliver me this day. After a lifetime caged away from flight and truth, comes freedom. After long seasons of slow preparation for an innocent death, the world is theirs at last. From the carnivores that would tear me, breast from wishbone. Set upon by the civet cat, the spy, the eye, the hunger of a superior need, Methuselah is free of his captivity at last. This is what he leaves to the world: gray and scarlet feathers strewn over the damp grass. Only this and nothing more, the tell-tale heart, tale of the carnivore. None of what he was taught in the house of the master. Only feathers, without the ball of Hope inside. Feathers at last at last and no words at all.

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Any prize off this bottom row,” the guy tells us, walking away to a waiting customer. “You did it!” I jump down off the counter and wrap my arms around his neck. “You won me a prize!” “Thank fuck.” His arms wrap around me. “I was starting to worry for a moment there. Felt like I was losing my man card.” I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss his lips. “Never. And thank you.” I tip my head back to look into his face. His hands slide down my back to my ass, and he gives it a squeeze. “Go pick your prize, Boston.” Leaving Liam, I head back to the counter and lean over, looking at the bottom row of prizes. I see all kinds of crap here, including really cheap-looking stuffed animals and dolls. I definitely do not want a doll. They freak me out. Then, I spy this sad-looking odd toy. Reaching over, I grab it. Liam comes up behind me as I right myself. His chest is pressed to my back. “Is that a…fucking knitted jellyfish?” I turn my head to look up at him. He’s squinting at the toy I’ve picked up. I look back down at it in my hands, and I think he’s right. It is a knitted jellyfish toy. “I think so.” It’s white and pink and looks like a little princess jellyfish. And the more I look at it, the cuter it becomes…in a weird knitted jellyfish way. “She looks like a jellyfish princess,” I say. “It looks like a piece of shit.” “Hey! You’ll hurt her feelings.” I jab him in the arm. Then, I hug her. “I shall call her Squishy, and she shall be mine.” I laugh, meeting Liam’s blank expression. “Finding Nemo? No?” I say. Liam slowly shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Okay, makes sense. You were probably too old to watch it when it first came out—you know, when I was still in diapers and you were out serenading teenage girls with the Backstreet Boys—hey!” I squeal when he digs me in the ribs with his fingers. “We’ll watch Nemo later, and then you’ll get the reference.” I turn to the guy. “I’ll take Squishy,” I tell him, holding the stuffed animal up. “Okay, what’s next?” I hook my arm through Liam’s, holding Squishy to my chest. “Hook a Duck.” “Hook a what?” I give him a confused look. “Duck.” “And what’s Hook a Duck?” “You don’t know what Hook a Duck is?” Liam looks appalled. “No…but I feel like I should.” “You should.” “What’s so special about it?” “Well, nothing special per se, but it’s like a rite of passage. Every kid plays Hook a Duck when they come to the fair.” “Hate to break it to you, Hunter, but we’re not kids.” “Maybe not. But it’s your first time at a fair in England, and you have to play.” Liam grabs my hand and sets off, I assume, in search of this Hook a Duck game. We find one a few minutes later, and it’s closed. All shut up with the tarpaulin covering the booth. “It’s closed. Never mind,” I say to him. I start to walk away, but Liam tugs me back by the hand he’s holding. “Like a little thing like it being closed is going to stop us from playing.” He gives me a grin and drops my hand. I watch as he unhooks the tarpaulin at the bottom and lifts it just enough so that he can sneak in underneath it. “Hunter, what are you doing?” I hiss. He ducks his head back out. “Come on,” he whispers, holding the material up for me to go under. “I’m not going in there.” “Yes you are. Now hurry the fuck up, or you’ll get me arrested for breaking into a Hook a Duck tent,” he whispers. “Ugh,” I complain.

Sometimes I am amazed how easy it is to play these games, if they did not have press freedom, we would have to invent it for them.

Every interaction is a kind of game. Some games have winners and losers. Some games have only winners. Some have only losers.

When you’re looking at the other side’s strategy, you watch Boss Games closely. You watch because if the boss of the other side changes, their strategy will change, too. An ally can become an enemy.

Outside the United States you are Commander-in-Chief. You have more power. On a bigger playing field. Which is why most Presidencies follow a pattern. At the beginning, the President focuses on domestic issues. Then the President conflicts with Congress. And the Supreme Court. And takes some losses. Domestically, the President is not as powerful as they want to be. Outside the United States, international institutions are less likely to stand in an American President’s way. Foreign countries may resist, but that’s a different kind of game. Played with tools not available domestically. Like the U.S. Armed Forces. And the CIA.

Most countries are in a Positive-Sum Game with the United States. Win-win for everyone.

How Bin Laden strengthened himself on 9/11: Bin Laden gained believers in a Caliphate (Strengthened the Caliphate). Bin laden firmed up his position as Caliph if a Caliphate came to be (Strengthened his position in the Caliphate’s Boss Game). Bin Laden attracted new recruits to Al-Qaeda (Strengthened Al-Qaeda). Bin Laden became the unassailable leader of Al-Qaeda (Strengthened his position in the alliance’s Boss Game). How Bin Laden weakened his enemies on 9/11: Bin Laden created distrust in the Pax Americana (Weakened the Pax Americana). Bin Laden lessened the perception of U.S. strength and leadership of the Pax Americana (Weakened the U.S. position in the Pax Americana’s Boss Game). Bin Laden sowed distrust in the alliance between Arab Rulers and the United States (Weakened the U.S.-Arab Alliance). Bin Laden caused allies to doubt U.S. leadership of the U.S.-Arab Alliance (Weakened the U.S. position in the alliance’s Boss Game).

Positive-sum games are different. They’re cooperative. They continue only as long as both sides are gaining, or expect to. Like any good marriage or alliance or business partnership, benefits to both sides is what keeps it together. When you add up the gains, the result is positive. A positive-sum game.

The first step to winning a zero-sum game is to know it’s coming. It’s why spies work in peacetime. To be a tripwire. To give an alert when peace is about to become war. It’s why the CIA was formed in the first place.

Whatever and whenever it is, every Endgame is a Positive-Sum Game.14 Which means every Endgame has three things: People A place Things to sustain it. Because it’s a Positive-Sum Game, an Endgame looks like this: The Endgame is what you imagine to be your end. It’s what you imagine when you look forward all the way to the end.

The best way to win a Zero-Sum Game is to play a Positive-Sum Game. The

The best way to win a Zero-Sum Game is to play a Positive-Sum Game. The best way to win a war is to have a strong alliance.

Most strategies follow the same pattern. A Positive-Sum Game to win a Zero-Sum Game to get into an Endgame. Which is another Positive-Sum Game.

It’s Luke and Han and Leia joining in an alliance. Their alliance fights against the Empire in a Zero-Sum Game. When they destroy the second Death Star, they win freedom for the people. They’re celebrated by their allies. They’ve reached their Endgame.

Positive-Sum, then Zero-Sum, then Positive-Sum again. Games arranged in the most efficient way to get the protagonist to their Endgame. When you see the pattern, you see it everywhere. You see it in wars. You see it in politics. You see it in business. You even see it in families. You see people working to get to their Endgame. You see them building alliances to win conflicts. You see the result of conflicts is one side wins people, places and/or things. You see people building strategies to reach their Endgame. And then they act. They act to create and win the games that get them to their Endgame.

But Bin Laden wanted something else. Something that touches on another dimension of strategy. It’s a dimension of strategy sometimes more important than Positive-Sum and Zero-Sum Games. A dimension that forced Bin Laden to take greater risks. A dimension that drove many of Bin Laden’s decisions. A dimension embedded in Bin Laden’s Endgame. Because Bin Laden didn’t want just any Caliphate. Bin Laden wanted a Caliphate where he was Caliph. Caliph means successor of Mohammed. Leader of the Caliphate. The Boss. Bin Laden wanted to be the boss. The leader. The Caliph.

Bin Laden wanted to win a game within the Caliphate. Bin Laden would need to win a game within his Endgame. Bin Laden would need to win a Boss Game.

When the people in your Endgame are threatened, your mindset shifts. You see conflict is unavoidable. A fight is coming. You get ready for war. You build a strategy. You reason backward. From the Zero-Sum Game back to the Positive-Sum Games that help you win. You reason backward from the conflict to the alliances that will help you win it.

A spy’s strategy starts with an Endgame. A spy’s strategy means reasoning backward. Reasoning backward through the interactions. It means playing the games that get you to the Endgame. In a way that protects the people, places and things in your Endgame. A spy’s strategy means you give up opportunities for shootouts. It means you hold your punches. It means you bypass bloodshed unless there’s no other option. And if there’s no other option, you made a mistake. It’s rare you start conflicts. It’s rare you fight. Unless there is a Zero-Sum Game between you and your Endgame.

Maybe, you want to be boss. If so, you’ll need to understand three things about strategy: You can’t have a strategy without an Endgame. If world domination is your Endgame, your Endgame will conflict with lots of other people’s Endgames. And being boss of that Endgame will conflict with lots of other people’s ambitions. Which means you’ll have to reason backward through a lot of Zero-Sum Games. To win those Zero-Sum Games, you’ll need to play Positive-Sum Games. You’ll need lots of mutually-beneficial alliances. Inside your Positive-Sum Games will be Boss Games. Especially inside your alliances. Somebody will make the most important decisions. You want that person to be you. So you can decide how to win the Zero-Sum Games. So you can be boss of your Endgame. Strategy is looking forward and reasoning backward. Backward through the Positive-Sum and Zero-Sum Games you’ll need to play. All the way back to today. Strategy is imagination and reason. But building a strategy isn’t the end. In getting things done, building a strategy is not even the midway point. It’s almost the beginning.

Success requires three things: Imagining an Endgame. Reasoning backward through the games you’ll play. Taking action. Most people are good at imagination. Or reasoning backward. Or action. Or maybe two of the three. But few are good at all three.

A “war on terror,” it was called. But terror isn’t an enemy. Terror isn’t even a strategy. Terror is a tactic. Terror is a tool of war. It’s a small part of a larger game.

Most strategies fail because they don’t follow what game theorists Dixit and Nalebuff call the First Rule of Strategy.:3 It’s a simple rule: Look forward and reason backward. Simple but difficult to do. Unless you know a shortcut.

With strategic questions, you game them out. You predict what the other side will do if you do X. If you do Y, you imagine how they’ll respond. You put it all together and choose the best path forward. You build a strategy. Which isn’t difficult, if there’s a predictable path for the other side.

The relationship between cricket (that most English of sports) and spying (at which the British have always excelled) is deep rooted and unique. Something about the game attracts the sort of mind also drawn to the secret worlds of intelligence and counterintelligence—a complex test of brain and brawn, a game of honor interwoven with trickery, played with ruthless good manners and dependent on minute gradations of physics and psychology, with tea breaks. Some of the most notable British spies have been cricketers or cricket enthusiasts. Hitler played cricket, but only once. In 1930 it was claimed that, having seen British POWs playing in southern Germany during the First World War, the Nazi party leader asked to be “initiated into the mysteries of our national game.” A match was played against Hitler’s team, after which he declared that the rules should be altered by the “withdrawal of the use of pads” and using a “bigger and harder ball.” Hitler could not understand the subtlety of a game like cricket; he thought only in terms of speed, spectacle, violence. Cricket was the ideal sport on which to model an organization bent on stumping the Führer.

When thinking about what someone else will do, it’s easy to ask the wrong question first. We might ask something like, “What’s the other side trying to achieve?” Or “What’s their endgame?” Good questions for later. Not first. The first question should always be, “What kind of game do they think we’re playing?

Fortunately, there’s a shortcut. All our interactions are only three kinds of games: A. Zero-sum B. Positive-sum C. Negative-sum Just three. Zero-sum games dominate the history books. They’re conflicts. They’re when one player can only gain what another player gives up.

Power politics are zero-sum games, no matter what politicians want us to believe.

It may not be enough to play a game well—you must also be sure you are playing the right game.” – Avinash Dixit

Most strategic interactions are one of two kinds of “games.” In the first type of game, both sides win. Both sides are better off at the end than at the beginning. Or, at least, both sides go into the game expecting to benefit at the end. The first type of game is a win-win game. To make it work, both sides usually give something to the other side. Or trade something. Or exchange something. Or pool their resources. So something bigger is built. So they can share in something greater. So both sides win. It’s a Positive-Sum Game.6 The second type of game is different. It’s when only one side can win. At the end, only one side is better off. Which means one side isn’t better off. The other side is worse off. The other side lost. The second type of game is a win-lose game. Totaling up the additions and subtractions at the end, you get zero. What is added to one side is taken from the other side. A plus for one is a minus for the other. It’s a Zero-Sum Game. Zero-Sum Games are competition or conflict over something. Maybe it’s land. Or money. Or influence. Or a customer relationship. If one side wins it, the other side loses it. There’s a third kind of game, but it’s rare. It’s rare because both sides lose. Both sides are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It’s a Negative-Sum Game. If it’s planned, a Negative-Sum Game is expected to be short. Like in a war of attrition. Because people can only stand to lose for so long. People want to return to Positive-Sum Games and Zero-Sum Games as quickly as they can. The first two types of games happen all the time. In business. In war. In politics. In espionage. Even in friendships. Zero-Sum Games and Positive-Sum Games are everywhere.7

A Zero-Sum Game looks like this: Whoever wins the Zero-Sum Game gets the people, places or things. Whoever loses the game loses the people, places or things.

Positive-Sum Games are different. Different because they can’t exist without people, places and things. Positive-Sum Games need what is fought over in Zero-Sum Games to exist.

Positive-Sum Games need three things: People, and A place, and Things Positive-Sum Games need all three.

A Positive-Sum Game looks like this:

To understand the person across the table, you need to understand the types of games they want to play.

And an alliance is a Positive-Sum Game.

Everyone plays the Positive-Sum Game of alliance to win the Zero-Sum Game of war.

To win a Zero-Sum Game, you need a strong Positive-Sum Game. You need an alliance.

Whatever the context, positive-sum games require exchange. They require voluntary action. Benefits to both sides. Negative-sum games are rare. They’re wars of attrition. Verdun. Or a labor strike. Both sides are losing. Each side hopes it’s losing less than the other. As soon as one side figures it’s losing too much, the negative-sum game is over. Negative-sum games are like heavy elements that live for a short time before decaying into something else.

Best of all, the games shortcut gets us closer to the Holy Grail of thinking: predicting what others will do next.

Why so interested, Luca? Don’t you have other, more important duties to which you should attend?” She downed half a glass of wine in one swallow. Her mind flooded with terrible thoughts. Did Luca somehow know about Falco? Had he been spying on her? “I consider it both my civic and domestic duty,” Luca said, smiling tightly. “I want to make sure that my wife-to-be isn’t troubled by any…undesirable company. The women of Venice are one of our most precious resources, after all. I want to be sure they are protected.” Anger flared inside Cass. She couldn’t believe she had softened to him earlier--that she had, for a second, even thought she could be happy with him. “The women of Venice are far more capable than most men realize,” she snapped. If the room got any colder, Cass would have to ask one of the servants to bring her a cloak. Agnese cleared her throat to speak, but to Cass’s amazement Luca cut her off. It was like he’d completely forgotten her aunt was at the table with them. His voice rose and his face reddened again, but this time not from embarrassment. “I am well aware that many women believe themselves to be stronger than they are. They might believe, for example, that it is a fully rational thing to go gallivanting around the city alone at night. They believe that they are playing a game--they have no idea how high the stakes really are.” Cass had never seen Luca show this much emotion, and it was both fascinating and frightening. A chill zipped up her spine. Was he threatening her? She forced herself to maintain eye contact. “You are not my husband yet,” she said softly, but with force. “And I do not have to listen to you.” Luca’s fork fell to the table with a clatter. “Then you are a sillier girl than I thought,” he burst out. “And I would urge you to be more careful. Where have you been spending your time, Cassandra?

Along came Aldo Leopold. He was a U.S. Forest Service ranger who initially supported Pinchot’s use-oriented management of forests. A seasoned hunter, he had long believed that good game management required killing predators that preyed on deer. Then one afternoon, hunting with a friend on a mountain in New Mexico, he spied a mother wolf and her cubs, took aim, and shot them. “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes,” Leopold wrote. “There was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean a hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the fierce green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” The wolf’s fierce green fire inspired Leopold to extend ethics beyond the boundaries of the human family to include the larger community of animals, plants, and even soil and water. He enshrined this natural code of conduct in his famous land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Carol inscribed Leopold’s land ethic in her journal when she was a teenager and has steadfastly followed it throughout her life. She believes that it changes our role from conqueror of the earth to plain member and citizen of it. Leopold led the effort to create the first federally protected wilderness area: a half million acres of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico was designated as wilderness in 1924. Leopold had laid the groundwork for a national wilderness system, interconnected oases of biodiversity permanently protected from human development.

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother—it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

spy with my little eye something made of gold: So follow the clues both night and day; leave no stone unturned, the game’s in play. “‘Leave no stone unturned?

As with Lawrence, these other competitors in the field tended to be young, wholly untrained for the missions they were given, and largely unsupervised. And just as with their more famous British counterpart, to capitalize on their extraordinary freedom of action, these men drew upon a very particular set of personality traits—cleverness, bravery, a talent for treachery—to both forge their own destiny and alter the course of history. Among them was a fallen American aristocrat in his twenties who, as the only American field intelligence officer in the Middle East during World War I, would strongly influence his nation’s postwar policy in the region, even as he remained on the payroll of Standard Oil of New York. There was the young German scholar who, donning the camouflage of Arab robes, would seek to foment an Islamic jihad against the Western colonial powers, and who would carry his “war by revolution” ideas into the Nazi era. Along with them was a Jewish scientist who, under the cover of working for the Ottoman government, would establish an elaborate anti-Ottoman spy ring and play a crucial role in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. If little remembered today, these men shared something else with their British counterpart. Like Lawrence, they were not the senior generals who charted battlefield campaigns in the Middle East, nor the elder statesmen who drew lines on maps in the war’s aftermath. Instead, their roles were perhaps even more profound: it was they who created the conditions on the ground that brought those campaigns to fruition, who made those postwar policies and boundaries possible. History is always a collaborative effort, and in the case of World War I an effort that involved literally millions of players, but to a surprising degree, the subterranean and complex game these four men played, their hidden loyalties and personal duels, helped create the modern Middle East and, by inevitable extension, the world we live in today.

Molly!” exclaimed her father, dropping his end of the box and rushing over to her. “Are you hurt?” “N-No, I don’t think so,” she stammered, as she struggled to get up. Pa helped her to her feet. “How long have you been hiding up there, young lady?” he asked her sternly. “And how much did you hear?” Molly told him how she had crept out of the house after hearing Flora whinny, and what she had seen and heard. When she finished, Uncle William began to chuckle. “You’d make a good spy, Molly,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I can’t believe you were hiding in the hayloft all this time, and we never even suspected it! Until you fell into the haystack, that is.” “She has to learn that this isn’t a game, Will,” Molly’s father said sharply. He looked at his daughter with a serious expression. “We’re all in danger Molly. No one must ever know about our smuggling muskets, or that Richard Butler is an American spy. Do you understand that?” “Yes, Pa,” Molly said soberly. “I understand. I won’t let you down, I promise.” “Good,” Pa said briskly. “Now, I want you to go back to the house with Ethan. You can help him pack some food to take with him.” Molly nodded and started for the door. “I think you’d better use the window, like the rest of us,” Uncle William said, with a grin. “Unless you’d rather go out the way you came in--through the hayloft.” “I think I’ve had enough of that hayloft for one night,” Molly replied, smiling back at him.

kidding.” She pressed her body back into his. “Maybe you were, but that might be just what we need to do. We could recruit them. They don’t like Whitney any more than we do.” “Are you crazy? Even if they did decide to join us, how would we know if they were really committed to being part of us or playing the role to be a spy for Whitney?” “How did you know I was telling you the truth? Your people certainly interrogated me.” He ran his hands up the sides of her rib cage. She felt small and delicate, a woman’s softer body, so intriguing, so beautiful. He cupped her breasts and then touched his marks on the slight curves. She had a point. “Arguing with you is going to be a fucking waste of time, isn’t it?” She laughed, and the sound slid into his body, an arrow aimed right at his heart. “Yes. You may as well get used to it, honey.” 14 “You have to devein the shrimp. There is actually shrimp in the gumbo, Bella,” Nonny said. “We’re doing a shrimp gumbo so it’s necessary to use shrimp.” Pepper and

Fully defined, soft power is the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (who regularly met with former president Barack Obama) has great access around the world. He is one of the few with some authority to exchange messages at every level.

policy makers often see the media agenda as a proxy for the public agenda and media content as their best insight into public opinion.

Western news organizations are increasingly turning away from foreign affairs.

In fact, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, the Chinese government has already “built the world’s largest news organization,” with funding estimated at “19 times the annual budget of BBC.”32 In fact, the BBC warned in 2015 that it would soon be marginalized by non-Western GNNs unless its budget cuts are reversed. “China, Russia and Qatar are investing in their international channels in ways that we cannot match, but none has our values and our ability to investigate any story no matter how difficult,” the BBC wrote in its report.

Politics has become a contest of competitive credibility. The world of traditional power politics is typically about whose military or economy wins. Politics in an information age ‘may ultimately be about whose story wins.

Foreign sovereigns usually regard any agent or flag bearer,36 whether an industry or a news organization, as representing the interests of the nation in which it is incorporated or where it has its headquarters, regardless of whether a formal or financial relationship exists.

A wide variety of defense and intelligence organizations continue to engage directly with scholars,37 including the US Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative.

In the bottom of the desk drawer I found an old composition notebook from my Harriet the Spy days. It was colored in pink and green and yellow highlighter. I'd followed the boys around for days, taking notes in it until I drove Steven crazy and he told Mom on me.