Strategic Retreat Quotes

There is no shame in strategic retreat if it lets you remain strong enough to go after the enemy later.

I am running away but I prefer to call it a strategic retreat.

...this protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat.

There were times, however, when a man had to make a strategic retreat to win the game.

The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more imperative that America not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in self-righteous cultural hedonism

If you’re a manager, remember that one third to one half of your workforce is probably introverted, whether they appear that way or not. Think twice about how you design your organization’s office space. Don’t expect introverts to get jazzed up about open office plans or, for that matter, lunchtime birthday parties or team-building retreats. Make the most of introverts’ strengths—these are the people who can help you think deeply, strategize, solve complex problems, and spot canaries in your coal mine. Also, remember the dangers of the New Groupthink. If it’s creativity you’re after, ask your employees to solve problems alone before sharing their ideas. If you want the wisdom of the crowd, gather it electronically, or in writing, and make sure people can’t see each other’s ideas until everyone’s had a chance to contribute. Face-to-face contact is important because it builds trust, but group dynamics contain unavoidable impediments to creative thinking. Arrange for people to interact one-on-one and in small, casual groups. Don’t mistake assertiveness or eloquence for good ideas. If you have a proactive work force (and I hope you do), remember that they may perform better under an introverted leader than under an extroverted or charismatic one.

Even with the questions and worries that flooded her, Lillian was overcome with sudden exhaustion. The waking nightmare had come to a precipitate end, and it seemed that for now there was nothing more she could do. She waited docilely, her cheek resting against the steady support of Marcus’s shoulder, only half hearing the conversation that ensued. “… have to find St. Vincent…” Marcus was saying. “No,” Simon Hunt said emphatically, “I’ll find St. Vincent. You take care of Miss Bowman.” “We need privacy.” “I believe there is a small room nearby— more of a vestibule, actually…” But Hunt’s voice trailed away, and Lillian became aware of a new, ferocious tension in Marcus’s body. With a lethal shift of his muscles, he turned to glance in the direction of the staircase. St. Vincent was descending, having entered the rented room from the other side of the inn and found it empty. Stopping midway down the stairs, St. Vincent took in the curious tableau before him… the clusters of bewildered onlookers, the affronted innkeeper… and the Earl of Westcliff, who stared at him with avid bloodlust. The entire inn fell silent during that chilling moment, so that Westcliff’s quiet snarl was clearly audible. “By God, I’m going to butcher you.” Dazedly Lillian murmured, “Marcus, wait—” She was shoved unceremoniously at Simon Hunt, who caught her reflexively as Marcus ran full-bore toward the stairs. Instead of skirting around the banister, Marcus vaulted the railings and landed on the steps like a cat. There was a blur of movement as St. Vincent attempted a strategic retreat, but Marcus flung himself upward, catching his legs and dragging him down. They grappled, cursed, and exchanged punishing blows, until St. Vincent aimed a kick at Marcus’s head. Rolling to avoid the blow of his heavy boot, Marcus was forced to release him temporarily. The viscount lurched up the stairs, and Marcus sprang after him. Soon they were both out of sight. A crowd of enthusiastic men followed, shouting advice, exchanging odds, and exclaiming in excitement over the spectacle of a pair of noblemen fighting like spurred roosters. White-faced, Lillian glanced at Simon Hunt, who wore a faint smile. “Aren’t you going to help him?” she demanded. “Oh no. Westcliff would never forgive me for interrupting. It’s his first tavern brawl.” Hunt’s gaze flickered over Lillian in friendly assessment. She swayed a little, and he placed a large hand on the center of her back and guided her to the nearby grouping of chairs. A cacophony of noise drifted from upstairs. There were heavy thudding sounds that caused the entire building to shake, followed by the noises of furniture breaking and glass shattering. “Now,” Hunt said, ignoring the tumult, “if I may have a look at that remaining handcuff, I may be able to do something about it.

We didn’t explode. It was more a quiet implosive retreat. Patiently gathering my forces and wits, Strategically placing every moment on my hidden board of fools.

We're not retreating." (Illyria) (Spike) "It's so much easier if you just tell yourself you're strategically heading in the opposite direction of those that wish to do your harm so that you may mock them at a later time.

If you’re a manager, remember that one third to one half of your workforce is probably introverted, whether they appear that way or not. Think twice about how you design your organization’s office space. Don’t expect introverts to get jazzed up about open office plans or, for that matter, lunchtime birthday parties or team-building retreats. Make the most of introverts’ strengths—these are the people who can help you think deeply, strategize, solve complex problems, and spot canaries in your coal mine.

A Warrior of the Light needs both patience and speed. The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip. To avoid this, the Warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes, or other people’s opinions. The caliph Moauiyat asked Omr Ben Al-Aas the secret of his great political skills: “I never get involved in something without having first worked out my retreat. Then again, I have never gone into a situation and immediately wanted to run straight out again.

If you’re a teacher, enjoy your gregarious and participatory students. But don’t forget to cultivate the shy, the gentle, the autonomous, the ones with single-minded enthusiasms for chemistry sets or parrot taxonomy or nineteenth-century art. They are the artists, engineers, and thinkers of tomorrow. If you’re a manager, remember that one third to one half of your workforce is probably introverted, whether they appear that way or not. Think twice about how you design your organization’s office space. Don’t expect introverts to get jazzed up about open office plans or, for that matter, lunchtime birthday parties or team-building retreats. Make the most of introverts’ strengths—these are the people who can help you think deeply, strategize, solve complex problems, and spot canaries in your coal mine.

America’s approach to Iran’s nuclear challenge over the past decade has reprised too much of what led up to our two recent ill-fated wars. Exaggerated descriptions of the threat, false assumptions, and overly narrow reasoning have been resounding through the foreign policy punditry’s echo chamber. It is taken for granted that Iran’s nuclear program is a national and global security concern—especially in light of that country’s fairly advanced missile-delivery system—and an existential threat to Israel, an unacceptable strategic game changer that will destabilize the Middle East by eventually placing nuclear material in the hands of terrorists or leading to a regional nuclear arms race and more broadly endangering world peace by fueling nuclear proliferation. In short, Iranian nukes are a red line that must not be crossed. America will “not countenance” Iran getting nuclear weapons, said President Obama as he insisted that an American policy of pressure and coercion would ensure that that would not be the case.4 Bending Iran’s will thus became a key test of U.S. power and effectiveness, in American minds as well as those of friends and foes alike. This approach came with a large downside risk, however, for it committed America to a path of increasing pressure, backed by military threats, to realize what was from the outset an improbable goal.

Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. They met for lunch at the Pentagon to develop an action plan. One cause of the problem was the president’s fervent belief that annual trade deficits of about $500 billion harmed the American economy. He was on a crusade to impose tariffs and quotas despite Cohn’s best efforts to educate him about the benefits of free trade. How could they convince and, in their frank view, educate the president? Cohn and Mattis realized they were nowhere close to persuading him. The Groundhog Day–like meetings on trade continued and the acrimony only grew. “Let’s get him over here to the Tank,” Mattis proposed. The Tank is the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might focus him. “Great idea,” Cohn said. “Let’s get him out of the White House.” No press; no TVs; no Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal secretary, who worked within shouting distance of the Oval Office. There wouldn’t even be any looking out the window, because there were no windows in the Tank. Getting Trump out of his natural environment could do the trick. The idea was straight from the corporate playbook—a retreat or off-site meeting. They would get Trump to the Tank with his key national security and economic team to discuss worldwide strategic relations. Mattis and Cohn agreed. Together they would fight Trump on this. Trade wars or disruptions in the global markets could savage and undermine the precarious stability in the world. The threat could spill over to the military and intelligence community. Mattis couldn’t understand why the U.S. would want to pick a fight with allies, whether it was NATO, or friends in the Middle East, or Japan—or particularly with South Korea.

Some of the key pillars of Nasser's project proved greatly lacking. The public sector evolved into a Soviet-style system of sterile thinking, a deathbed for talent, a site of mediocre resource allocation, inefficiency, suffocating bureaucracy, waste and decrepit management; in no way could it support lasting economic development in the country. Many of Nasser's detractors argue that land reform precipitated a dramatic retreat of Egyptian agribusiness: that the replacement of sophisticated, well-capitalized large landowners by low-skilled and poor peasants resulted in lower quality products, no concern for the long-term subsistence of the land, poor marketing of strategic Egyptian crops such as cotton and a continued erosion of links to

Though Lee is often cast by history as a brilliant general, Ms. Pryor, examining the strategic errors that led to his retreat at Antietam in 1862 and sweeping defeat at Gettysburg the next year, judged him “bright but not brilliant.

In 2006, after 8 years of losses, Wal-Mart beat a retreat from Germany, selling its stores to Metro, Germany’s leading retailer, losing $1 billion in the process.

You freeze momentarily, at which point the assailant begins running toward you. You don’t think; you run. This is the stress response; it’s automatic, thoughtless, and lifesaving. It’s only after your rapid retreat that it’s possible for you to strategize a more reasoned escape plan/route. But, in the interim, your amygdala has sounded — and continues to sound the biological alarm — conveying signals to numerous parts of the cortex commanding them to pay attention to all relevant aspects of the situation (whether the man is following you, at what speed, etc.). At this point all energy is directed toward survival. So, the hippocampus goes off-line, as there is no need for long-term potentiation of memory, if you’re not going to survive to benefit from it.

Churchill or Roosevelt was he qualified to direct vast military operations. Ignorant of the concept of defence in depth, he rejected strategic retreat.

A worried Abdulaziz asked H. St. John Philby, “Where will I get the manpower to govern Yemen?”41 Moreover, neither Britain nor Italy was enthusiastic about Saudi expansion into Yemen. Britain had interests in Aden and Italy in the Horn of Africa. Both nations had treaties of friendship with Yemen. The British government advised Abdulaziz that staying in Yemen could risk war with Italy and that London would not support him if it did.42 For the first and only time in his career, Abdulaziz ordered a strategic retreat, pulling out of Hodeidah and Sa’dah. Although he withdrew from large parts of what is today northern Yemen, the 1934 Treaty of Taif confirmed Saudi control of Najran and Jizan provinces. Across the border, many Yemenis continue to harbor irredentist claims on this Saudi territory, which they sometimes refer to as Historic Yemen.

I don’t like it. A retreat is still a retreat, no matter what you call it, even if you call it a ‘strategic redeployment of forces.’” The Marshall spat on the sawdust floor of the tavern.

In a complex situation, when confronted with new considerations, Koba prefers to bide his time, to keep his peace, or to retreat. In all those instances when it is necessary for him to choose between the idea and the political machine, he invariably inclines toward the machine. The program must first of all create its bureaucracy before Koba can have any respect for it. Lack of confidence in the masses, as well as in individuals, is the basis of his nature. His empiricism always compels him to choose the path of least resistance. That is why, as a rule, at all the great turning points of history this near-sighted revolutionist assumes an opportunist position, which brings him exceedingly close to the Mensheviks and on occasion places him in the right of them. At the same time he invariably is inclined to favor the most resolute actions in solving the problems he has mastered. Under all conditions well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points. Here an analogy begs to be drawn. The Russian terrorists were in essence petty bourgeois democrats, yet they were extremely resolute and audacious. Marxists were wont to refer to them as "liberals with a bomb." Stalin has always been what he remains to this day—a politician of the golden mean who does not hesitate to resort to the most extreme measures. Strategically he is an opportunist; tactically he is a "revolutionist." He is a kind of opportunist with a bomb.

We are clever; you are cunning. We support freedom fighters; you support terrorists. We set up holding centers; you set up concentration camps. We strategically withdraw; you retreat. We are religious; you are fanatic. We are determined; you are pig-headed. There are literally thousands of words that fall into good-when-I-do-it-bad-when-you-do doublets. Most people are not skilled in detecting doublespeak. Dirty

When I was a new minister, I knew next to nothing about church power structures and politics. As a journalist in war zones, I’d seen terrible conflict, but that in no way prepared me for the hot button issues in a church, such as who sponsors the book sale or who gets the seminar room on Tuesday nights. Loving tolerance, I discovered, only went so far. Luckily, I met Sparlo Plessant at a ministers’ retreat and he agreed to mentor me. He taught me to be more pragmatic and strategic, to take disagreements less personally. And how to spot problems before they took hold.

To mix business with pleasure, schedule your next staff retreat in an elementary school. Talking about strategic priorities takes on new meaning when you’re in a classroom whose bulletin boards admonish everyone to Play Fair, Don’t Hit, and Be Nice. And if this retro approach is really working for you, head to a children's museum for a day of discovery. You’ll benefit not only from tackling the hands-on museum exhibits, but also by soaking in the learning and laughter of the little people around you.

As Muire and the pretty gigolo sat down, the landlord appeared from his strategic retreat and came to them across the empty bar.

Buying more and more of the best land, sometimes owning multiple estates spread across several states, extended plantation families - fathers who provided sons and sons-in-law with a start - created slaveholding conglomerates that controlled hundreds and sometimes thousands of slaves. The grandees' vast wealth allowed them to introduce new hybrid cotton seeds and strains of cane, new technologies, and new forms of organization that elevated productivity and increased profitability. In some places, the higher levels of capitalization and technical mastery of the grandees reduced white yeomen to landlessness and forced smallholders to move on or else enter the wage-earning class as managers or overseers. As a result, the richest plantation areas became increasingly black, with ever-larger estates managed from afar as the planters retreated to some local country seat, one of the region's ports, or occasionally some northern metropolis. Claiming the benefits of their new standing, the grandees - characterized in various places as 'nabobs,' 'a feudal aristocracy,' or simply 'The Royal Family' - established their bona fides as a ruling class. They built great houses strategically located along broad rivers or high bluffs. They named their estates in the aristocratic manner - the Briars, Fairmont, Richmond - and made them markers on the landscape. Planters married among themselves, educated their sons in northern universities, and sent their wives and daughters on European tours, collecting the bric-a-brac of the continent to grace their mansions. Reaching out to their neighbors, they burnished their reputations for hospitality. The annual Christmas ball or the great July Fourth barbecue were private events with a public purpose. They confirmed the distance between the planters and their neighbors and allowed leadership to fall lightly and naturally on their shoulders, as governors, legislators, judges, and occasionally congressmen, senators, and presidents.

The course of the Second World War directly reflected the man who started it. Hitler’s hostile personality and conviction that Germany needed additional “living space” made war inevitable, and at the start of the conflict, his tendency to go for broke and act in surprising and outrageous ways worked astonishingly well on the battlefield. Those same qualities, however, also proved his undoing because they led him to overstretch himself—there is no way to understand the key moments in the conflict, Operation Barbarossa and declaring war on the United States, except as consequences of Hitler’s personality. Meanwhile, his role as field commander gradually overwhelmed him so that he could no longer call upon useful traits such as strategic flexibility or ruthless realism. And once things began going wrong, they rapidly spiralled out of control, as Hitler’s alternately hot-headed and intransigent responses—constantly dismissing his military professionals, ruling out tactical retreats—only made the situation worse. By the conclusion of the war, the catastrophe he wreaked on Germany, with the support of the German people, was mirrored by the physical and psychological catastrophe he wreaked on himself. Germany ended up in ruins, just as its Führer ended his life as a complete wreck.

I have been selected to design and administer these unique initiatives because of my prior experience and effectiveness. Past success breeds repeat performances. … What is important are the personality and character traits needed to stand up to criticism and stress, and to labor effectively in a very emotional vineyard—empathy and sensitivity to the plight of those singled out for special consideration; confidence and firmness towards critics. I turn the other cheek when face-to-face with distraught victims or a businessman challenging my pay decisions. Life's unfairness is usually the real source of their anger. The nature of the compensation received is secondary. But a strategic retreat is not an option when critics attack. Self-confidence and firmness become virtues. You cannot allow yourself to be bullied when you are trying to administer a complex policy experiment. The public is usually supportive, appreciative of the difficulty of the task.

And still my research continued. Foreign diplomatic sources informed me that, in spite of his stated rejection of any containment of an Iranian bomb, Obama would settle for capping Iran’s ability to make a bomb within one year—the so-called threshold capacity. Other analysts claimed the president regarded Iran as an ascendant and logical power—unlike the feckless, disunited Arabs and those troublemaking Israelis—that could assist in resolving other regional conflicts. I first heard this theory at Georgetown back in 2008, in conversations with think tankers and former State Department officials. They also believed that Iran’s radical Islam was merely an expression of interests and fears that the United States could, with sufficient goodwill, meet and allay. Such ideas initially struck me as absurd. After all, even irrational regimes such as Nazi Germany could take rational steps to reach fanatical goals. But Obama, himself, now began describing Iran’s behavior as “strategic” and “not impulsive.” The ayatollahs, he told Jeffrey Goldberg, “have their worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits….[They] are not North Korea.” Suddenly, it seemed plausible that an America freed of its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and anxious to retreat from the region could view Iran as a dependable ally. The only hurdle remained that pesky nuclear program.

Clausewitz thus sums up the intertemporal tradeoff with a very effective argument for cultivating one’s resources now (upstream)—even if it entails a retreat—for strategic advantage later (downstream): “In this way it becomes evident how the employment of too many forces in combat may be disadvantageous; for whatever advantages the superiority may even give in the first moment, we may have to pay dearly for in the next.”62

Conditions can’t be any better. Clear skies, tide going out, and an offshore wind are gifts from God. A sailor can’t ask for any more.” The admiral drained his pewter mug and called to the landlord for more ale. “I wish you fair winds, my friend. And just ask God for luck. Don’t ask for anything else. It’s too confusing. See, if he grants you good luck, that covers everything else.” The Marshall looked down into his ale and swirled it around. “You know what this means.”  He drained the mug. The admiral nodded, but said nothing. “I don’t like it. A retreat is still a retreat, no matter what you call it, even if you call it a ‘strategic redeployment of forces.’” The Marshall spat on the sawdust floor of the tavern.

One problem for the student of color is the feeling that if she is silent about a piece of writing that is racially problematic or insensitive or simply racist , she will be condoning such writing. Moreover, the student may believe that to be silent is to be a coward. At the same time, if the student of color persists in her critiques she will be increasingly attacked and begin to feel isolated and powerless. The student may feel then that to persist with her critiques is an attempt to maintain or regain power. But Sun Tzu teaches that to retreat or lay low in times when one does not have power or sufficient number is not weakness; it is wisdom. Sun Tzu teaches that taking time to build allies and gather forces is not weakness, but wisdom. ... Or as I wrote to one such student, being an activist artist is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Artists need to plan and strategize and build their forces for the larger battles to come, to fight from strength not weakness.