The 33 Strategies of War Review - Robert Greene

"Our successes and our failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that we deal with in society." (pg. xvi)

You deal with conflict in your day to day interactions with the world. A difficult coworker, a crappy boss, a rocky marriage. Conflict is pervasive and inevitable.

Ultimately it is how you respond to conflict that determines whether you'll succeed or fail.

The biggest takeaway of The 33 Strategies of War is that you can improve your life by changing the way you interpret the world.

Sometimes called reframing, Greene calls it Strategy of War #2: The Guerrilla-War-of-the-Mind Strategy (aka Do Not Fight the "Last War").

The basic tenant of this law is: by changing the way you think about the world, you can change the formula by which you react to situations, and this will prevent you from making the same pattern of mistakes over and over again.

"Not the strongest, nor the smartest - those most responsive to change survive." --Charles Darwin

Discover more career and life strategies in this review of Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power"

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1 - Declare war on your enemies: The Polarity Strategy

Clarity is key to waging war. Your main obstacle is yourself-namely your own mind. How you interpret the world around you determines how you see yourself. Declaring war on who you do not want to be, grants you clarity and gives you a true sense of direction. Knowing exactly what you aren't, creates polarity, and also determines what you are.

Key Thought: "He that is not with me is against me." --Luke 11:23

Check out my Squidoo lens on Greene's 48 Laws of Power

2 - Do not fight the last war: The Guerrilla-War-of-the-Mind Strategy

The source of nearly all your current and future losses and failures is the persistent memory of past losses and failures. This strategy focuses on identifying and clearing your mind of all ineffective memories, formulas, and strategies. Like an athlete who must always clear the
slate and stay "in the moment" a great strategist must continually invent new ways to overcome his enemies and use his enemy's adherence to habits against them.

Key Thought: Thus one's victories in battle cannot be repeated--they take their form in response to inexhaustibly changing circumstances. --Sun-Tzu "The Art Of War"

3 - Amidst the turmoil of events, do not lose your presence of mind: The Counterbalance Strategy

The danger of tunnel-vision. Anyone who has experienced a high-stress situation has felt the overwhelming strain that has the power to cloud the mind and limit your options. This strategy is based entirely on your ability to overcome your emotions and detach yourself from the chaos of the situation you're in.

Knowing this law you can use the chaos to your advantage by attempting to create chaos in the minds of your opponents. Greene argues that as a leader you should train yourself to face your fears by regularly exposing yourself to high-stress and adverse situations that force you out of your comfort zone. You must gain control of your thoughts, imagination, and fears if you want to become a great leader.

Key Thought: "More life may trickle out of men through thought than through a gaping wound." --Thomas Hardy

4 - Create a sense of urgency and desperation: The Death-Ground Strategy

We kill ourselves by thinking of the future and not focusing on the present. You must put pressure upon yourself to perform NOW! Put your back against the wall if you want to perform your best. This is the only way to generate the feeling of urgency and desperation that are so important to high-performance.

Key Thought: "Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day." --Napoleon Bonaparte

5 - Avoid the snares of groupthink: The Command-and-Control Strategy

Probably my favorite chapter in the book. Robert Green goes into detail about leadership, chain-of-command, and building a team based on your needs, while also looking after the needs of your people (at least on the surface). Ultimately your success as a leader is determined by your ability to retain "unity of command". Success in war is dependent upon your ability to give orders and receive feedback quickly and accurately.

How you communicate with people, taking their abilities and faults into consideration, is the most important thing you do because your ability to distill and infuse your spirit into others and build a "team that shares your goals and values. . . who make up for your deficiencies, who have the skills you lack" will determine your success.

Key Thought: "The single greatest risk to your chain of command comes from the political animals in the group." (pg 65)

Read this review of Robert Greene's The 48 Laws Of Power

6 - Segment your forces: The Controlled-Chaos Strategy

Great leaders know how to infuse their teams with a unified spirit across their ranks. By breaking your organization into teams is key to building flexibility.

Key to doing this well is to find and hire people who share your goals and values, and can act independently without you to manage them. By doing so you create more opportunity to succeed because you put yourself in a position that has almost endless options, your ability to see and grasp these options is ultimately limited only by the power of your mind and the minds of the people around you. Most people look for formulas to follow mechanically, great leaders and teams know this and use it to their ultimate advantage. Use your uniqueness to your advantage.

Key Thought: "In a real sense, maximum disorder was our equilibrium." --T.E. Lawrence

7 - Transform your war into a crusade: Morale Strategies

In this chapter Greene goes into detail about what effective leaders do to motivate their people, and to keep morale high on their teams.

The great leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte, Oliver Cromwell, Hannibal, Alexander The Great, even Lyndon Johnson and Vince Lombardi all new the best way to motivate their teams. . . it is through effective psychology. The difference between a great team and an losing team is attitude and morale. Your ability to capture the hearts and minds of your people will determine your success or failure as a leader.

Key Thought: The Way means inducing people to have the same aim as leadership, so that they will share death and share life, without fear of danger. --Sun-Tzu "The Art Of War"

8 - Pick your battles carefully: The Perfect-Economy Strategy

Ultimately, it is the leader who forces their opponent to fight on his/her terms who will be victorious. Some people see this as passive-aggressive, Greene just sees this strategy as smart.

You must make war inexpensive for yourself and expensive and taxing for your opponent. The best way to do this is through good defense. You can see it in the Greeks victory at Thermopylae, the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English Navy, even the three fights between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

Key Thought: The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it but in what one pays for it--what it costs us. --Friedrich Nietzsche

9 - Turn the tables: The Counterattack Strategy

Often the first person to move will be put at a disadvantage because they will expose their strategy and lose the surprise of the counterattack.

Most armies and individuals have been taught to go on the offensive first. But it is wise to use others' impatience against them.

Key Thought: A rapid, powerful transition to the attack - the glinting sword of vengeance - is the most brilliant moment of the defense. --Carl Von Clausewitz

10 - Create a threatening presence: Deterrence Strategies

The key to this strategy is to appear more powerful than you really are. The strategy of the playground bully.

Foster uncertainty in your enemies and they will not mess with you because you represent too much risk to them. Play on people's natural fears. Greene gives five key examples of how to do this: 1) Surprise with bold maneuver 2) Reverse the threat 3) Seem unpredictable and irrational 4) Play on people's natural paranoia 5) Establish a frightening reputation

Key Thought: When opponents are unwilling to fight with you, it is because they think it is contrary to their interests, or because you have mislead them into thinking so. --Sun-Tzu "The Art Of War"

11 - Trade space for time: The Nonengagement Strategy

Do not engage a strong enemy before you want to. Give yourself enough time because time is more important than any other resource you have.

By allowing your enemy to advance they run the risk of overextending themselves and their army. By refusing to fight, or engage your opponent you infuriate them causing rash moves and silly mistakes.

Key Thought: Space I can recover. Time, never. --Napoleon Bonaparte

12 - Lose battles but win the war: Grand Strategy

We've all heard of losing the battle, but winning the war. It's as old as warfare itself. You can lose battles along the way and still win in the end.

Ultimately it is your ability to deal with losses unemotionally, and still remain true to your course of action in the long-run that will determine your overall success. Taking an indirect route to achieving your goals might take longer than expected, but ultimately you achieve the results you're seeking. You do this by widening your perspective and seeing your reality clearly.

Key Thought: Forgetting our objectives - During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen and commenced as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity. --Friedrich Nietzsche

13 - Know your enemy: The intelligence strategy

Knowing the leader of your opposition is key to knowing his army. Picking up on unconscious signals they send about their intentions will help you understand what their actions will be. Knowing yourself and not projecting or allowing your own fears and desires to muddy your mind will allow for clearer thinking.

Take advantages of the weaknesses in your opponent's psyche to take advantage of his entire army. This entire chapter is devoted to leaders, like Napoleon, who prided themselves on knowing their enemy better than he knew himself. Clear, objective knowledge is golden if you expect to win.

Key Thought: He who knows the enemy and himself Will never in a hundred battles be at risk. --Sun Tzu

14 - Overwhelm resistance with speed and suddenness: The Blitzkrieg Strategy

Use speed to overwhelm and surprise your tentative opponent. Strike first before your enemy has time to prepare will often send them into a state of panic and confusion, then keep advancing with unrelenting force to gain momentum.

"Take advantage of what is beyond the reach of the enemy, to go by way of routes where he least expects you, and to attack where he has made no preparations." --Sun Tzu

Key Thought: The less a thing is foreseen, the more fright it does cause. This is nowhere seen better than in war, where every surprise strikes terror even to those who are much the stronger. --Xenophon

15 - Control the dynamic: Forcing Strategies

In every relationship with another person, they are trying to control the dynamic in order for you to fulfill their best interests. Your strategy should be to be more intelligent by understanding and designing the nature of the relationship. Going back to the 13th Law, understanding your opponent will be paramount here.

By understanding how they think, what they want, their fears and desires you can create and guide the relationship toward the terrain of your choice. Putting you in the driver's seat to define the nature of the relationship, mess with their mind, and control the battle.

Key Thought: In order to have rest oneself it is necessary to keep the enemy occupied. This throws them back on the defensive and once they are placed that way they cannot rise up again during the entire campaign. --Fredrick The Great

16 - Hit them where it hurts: The Center-of-Gravity Strategy

Find where your enemy's power lies and destroy it. This can be their money, their fame, their personality, social circle. Attacking the source of power will hurt your enemy the most of any attack you can launch.

Key Thought: When the vanes are removed from an arrow, even though the shaft and the tip remain it is difficult for the arrow to penetrate deeply. --Chieh Hsuan

17 - Defeat them in detail: The divide-and-Conquer strategy

Do not be intimidated by your enemy. Begin to see how the whole structure is built. . . see it as separate elements making up the whole.

By getting these separate elements to fight each other you can bring down an entire structure no matter how strong. The easiest parts to target are the connections, the relationships connecting the elements. Focus on these to make the job easier.

Key Thought: Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? --Luke 11:14

18 - Expose and attack your opponent's soft flank: The turning strategy

Never attack directly. When you do you'll make them react stiffly to your direct attack and this is dangerous to you.

When you attack from the flanks, people are caught off-guard, will react without thought, and be rendered helpless.

Green writes: "The Lobster. The creature seems intimidating and impenetrable, with its sharp claws quick to grab, its hard protective shell, it's powerful tail propelling it out of danger. Handle it directly and you will pay the price. But turn it over with a stick to reveal its tender underside and the creature is rendered helpless."

Key Thought: Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness. --William Shakespeare

19 - Envelop the enemy: The annihilation strategy

Create pressure on all sides of your opponent. Wall the off, allow them no quarter by dominating their thoughts. As they react to your unrelenting pressure tighten the noose around their necks. Do this by "surrounding their minds."

"You must make your opponent acknowledge defeat from the bottom of his heart." --Miyamoto Mushashi (1584-1645)

This is a powerful strategy that can leave you vulnerable if not completely successful. You must be fully committed to successfully annihilating your opponent quickly. Make sure you're in the right position to win quickly if you use this strategy.

Key Thought: Place a monkey in a cage and it is the same as a pig, not because it isn't clever and quick, but because it has no place to exercise its capabilities. --Huainanzi

20 - Maneuver them into weakness: The ripening-for-the-sickle strategy

War is expensive. Maneuvering correctly, before engaging in an all-out war is the best way to catch your opponent with it's pants around it's ankles. Robert Green talks about "creating dilemmas" for your opponents, choices that force their hand into bad choices. Chaos and loss of hope are your friend if you choose this route,

When your enemy is frustrated, confused, scared, and mad they are like ripe fruit on the branch, the slightest breeze makes them fall.

Key Thought: So to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence, the highest excellence is to subdue the enemy's army without fighting at all. --Sun-Tzu

21 - Negotiate while advancing: The diplomatic-war strategy

In negotiation people will try to get things from you. They will appeal to your kindness, your pity, fairness and morality. Never forget this: Negotiation is a power or position move, always.

You must move and advance your own forces while negotiating, waiting to pounce. Build your reputation as a fierce negotiator so people are already on their heels before they meet you,

Everyone wants something without any idea of how to obtain it, and the really intriguing aspect of the situation is that nobody quite knows how to achieve what he desires. But because I know what I want and what the others are capable of I am completely prepared. --Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859)

Key Thought: Let us always carry the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, always ready to negotiate but negotiating only while advancing. --Prince Klemens Von Metternich

22 - Know how to end things: The exit strategy

You are judged in this world how you bring things to an end. What a powerful statement. If you leave a messy incomplete wake of destruction, you will ruin your reputation. Never go too far destroying your enemy, or you will surely make many more.

End your campaign with flair and style. The way you win sets you up for the next conquest. Never become embroiled in a situation where there are no opportune exits.

Key Thought: To go too far is as bad as to fall short. --Confucius

23 - Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction: Misperception Strategies

You cannot survive if you cannot use your senses. If you can't see the world around you you can't see people attacking. This strategy involves disturbing your enemy's focus, thus their strategic power. If they're constantly reacting to their confusion rather than strategically planning your put in a position to win.

Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. The best deceptions are based on ambiguity, mix fact and fiction so one can't separate one from another.

Control your enemy's reality and you control them.

Key Thought: In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. --Winston Churchill

24 - Take the line of least expectation: The Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy

People expect convention, be unconventional. As a strategist, you must be unpredictable to create chaos within their minds and ranks.

This is the essence of "frame control", which means projecting your reality onto someone else. You don't allow people to project their reality onto you. Act conventional until your enemy expects it, then shake things up. You will create terror because you use unpredictability as a weapon.

No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected. --Julius Caesar

Key Thought: Chaos--where brilliant dreams are born. --The I Ching

25 - Occupy the moral high ground: The Righteous Strategy

Key Thought: The pivot of war is nothing but name and righteousness. Secure a good name for yourself and give the enemy a bad name; proclaim your righteousness and reveal the unrighteousness of the enemy. Then your army can set forth in a great momentum, shaking heaven and earth. --Tou Bi Fu Tan A Scholar's Dilettante Remarks on War

26 - Deny them targets: The Strategy of the Void

Key Thought: Anything that has form can be overcome ; anything that takes shape can be countered. This is why sages conceal their forms in nothingness and let their minds soar in the void. --Huainanzi

27- Seem to work for the interests of others while furthering your own: The Alliance Strategy

Key Thought: The forces of a powerful ally can be useful and good to those who have recourse to them... but are perilous to those who become dependent on them. --Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince

28- Give your rivals enough rope to hang themselves: The One-Upmanship Strategy

Key Thought: Never interfere with an enemy that is in the process of committing suicide. --Napoleon Bonaparte

29 - Take small bites: The Fait Accompli Strategy

Key Thought: To multiply small successes is precisely to build one treasure after another. In time one becomes rich without realizing how it has come about. --Frederich The Great

30 - Penetrate their minds: Communication Strategies

"The most superficial way of trying to influence others is through talk that has nothing behind it. The influence produced by such mere tongue wagging must necessarily remain insignificant." The I Ching

Robert Greene's research shows how "communication is a type of war." It is a war of one person's mind against another. Influence is a matter of impacting someone's perception and molding their thoughts.

Ideas are the bullets by which this war will be won. Learn to disseminate information "properly", through the right channels to gain trust, partnerships, to alienate some, while pulling others close.

Greene advises not using preachy, boring, or intimate words. . . push people toward "action" to win using this strategy.

Key Thought: Even more foolish is one who clings to words and phrases and thus tries to achieve understanding. It is like trying to strike the moon with a stick, or scratching a shoe because there is an itchy spot on the foot. It has nothing to do with the truth. --Zen Master Mumon

31 - Destroy from within: The Inner-Front Strategy

Never allow the enemy to see you until it's too late. Work from within an enemy's walls, preferably the walls of their mind to destry them from within.

This strategy allows you to discover their weaknesses. Remaining hidden is a matter of never revealing your intentions. Act as if you're part of their campaign, gain the enemy's trust and confidence.

"Speak deferentially, listen respectfully, follow his command, and second him in everything. He will never imagine you might be in conflict with him. Our treacherous measures will then be settled." Tai Kung

Key Thought: The worst [military strategy is] to assault walled cities... If your commander, unable to control his temper, sends your troops swarming at the walls, your casualties will be one in three and still you will have not taken the city... Therefore the expert in using the military subdues the enemy's forces without going to battle, takes the enemy's walled cities without launching an attack. --Sun-Tzu "The Art Of War"

32 - Dominate while seeming to submit: The Passive-Aggression Strategy

Bending people to your will without knowing they are bending is the name of the game. Offer no resistance to people, because resistance belies intent. You want no-one to know what you're thinking. Play your cards behind people's backs, be helpless, do not commit. . . to anything.

Some people will spot your ploy and call you on it, but you have done "nothing", on the surface you're 100% innocent. The only guilt lies with them since you're like trying to nail jello to a wall.

Greene uses Gandhi as the ultimate passive-aggressive warrior, using the guilt of his attackers against them and gaining support for his campaign by being a public martyr for all the world to see.

Key Thought: As dripping water wears through rock, so the weak and yielding can subdue the firm and strong. --Sun Haichen Wiles of War

33 - Sow Uncertainty and Panic Through Acts of Terror: The Chain-Reaction Strategy

"Terror is the ultimate way to paralyze a people's will to resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic response." -Robert Greene

This strategy is front-page news in every Evening newscast. Terror causes confusion and fear in people who can never know for sure whether they'll become a victim of what seem to be random acts.

Terrorists blend into a population and cause paranoia and irrationality in the masses. These random acts seep into the unconscious of a population and cause damage through paralysis.

Key Thought: There is no fate worse than being continuously under guard, for it means you are always afraid. --Julius Caesar