{"id":1987,"date":"2013-04-19T08:18:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T12:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antipaucity.com\/?p=1987"},"modified":"2013-04-19T08:18:03","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T12:18:03","slug":"the-33-strategies-of-war-by-robert-greene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/?p=1987","title":{"rendered":"the 33 strategies of war by robert greene"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve now read [almost] all of {{Robert Greene}}’s books (just pending is {{The 50th Law}}, which I’ll have reviewed in a couple weeks). Thanks to my local library<\/a>, I have not had to spend gobs o’ cash in the process (though at least one of his books<\/a> I think is most definitely worth the expenditure).<\/p>\n

{{The 33 Strategies of War}} is Greene’s rewriting of {{Sun Tzu}}’s {{The Art of War}} (review<\/a>\u00a0and chapters<\/a>) with “modern insights” and the inclusion of a vast network of historical examples. It’s certainly an interesting text, but not one that I personally think warrants its own work – especially when the 2500-year-old book is still so insightful.<\/p>\n

That being said, since I have read and\/or skimmed the book, here are some thoughts. The best aspect of the book is still the “{{Joost Elffers}}-ification” of the book, with extensive marginal comments, highlights, funny textual formatting, etc.<\/p>\n

Greene does an admirable job in this book, and it’s worth skimming – though I think the table of contents (reproduced below) is more useful than the whole text. It’s more of a pick-and-choose type of reading than something you should consume cover-to-cover.<\/p>\n

\n

TOC<\/h2>\n

Part 1 | Self-Directed Warfare<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Declare war on your enemies: The polarity strategy<\/li>\n
  2. Do not fight the last war: The guerrilla-war-of-the-mind strategy<\/li>\n
  3. Amidst the turmoil of events, do ot lose your presence of mind: The counterbalance strategy<\/li>\n
  4. Create a sense of urgency and desperation: The death-ground strategy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Part 2 | Organizational (Team) Warfare<\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. Avoid the sense of groupthink: The command-and-control strategy<\/li>\n
    2. Segment your forces: The controlled-chaos strategy<\/li>\n
    3. Transform your war into a crusade: Morale strategies<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Part 3 | Defensive Warfare<\/h3>\n
        \n
      1. Pick your battles carefully: The perfect-economy strategy<\/li>\n
      2. Turn the tables: The counterattack strategy<\/li>\n
      3. Create a threatening presence: Deterrence strategies<\/li>\n
      4. Trade space for time: The nonengagement strategy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Part 4 | Offensive Warfare<\/h3>\n
          \n
        1. Lose battles but win the war: Grand strategy<\/li>\n
        2. Know your enemy: The intelligence strategy<\/li>\n
        3. Overwhelm resistance with speed and suddenness: The blitzkrieg strategy<\/li>\n
        4. Control the dynamic: Forcing strategies<\/li>\n
        5. Hit them where it hurts: The center-of-gravity strategy<\/li>\n
        6. Defeat them in detail: The divide-and-conquer strategy<\/li>\n
        7. Expose and attack your opponent’s soft flank: The turning strategy<\/li>\n
        8. Envelop the enemy: The annihilation strategy<\/li>\n
        9. Maneuver them into weakness: The ripening-for-the-sickle strategy<\/li>\n
        10. Negotiate while advancing: The diplomatic war strategy<\/li>\n
        11. Know how to end things: The exit strategy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Part 5 | Unconventional (Dirty) Warfare<\/h3>\n
            \n
          1. Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction: Misperception strategies<\/li>\n
          2. Take the line of least expectation: The ordinary-extraordinary strategy<\/li>\n
          3. Occupy the moral high ground: The righteous strategy<\/li>\n
          4. Deny them targets: The strategy of the void<\/li>\n
          5. Seem to work for the interests of others while furthering your own: The alliance strategy<\/li>\n
          6. Give your rivals enough rope to hang themselves: The one-upmanship strategy<\/li>\n
          7. Take small bites: The\u00a0fait accompli<\/em> strategy<\/li>\n
          8. Penetrate their minds: Communication strategies<\/li>\n
          9. Destroy from within: The inner-front strategy<\/li>\n
          10. Dominate while seeming to submit: The passive-aggression strategy<\/li>\n
          11. Sow uncertainty and panic through acts of terror: The chain-reaction strategy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            I’ve now read [almost] all of {{Robert Greene}}’s books (just pending is {{The 50th Law}}, which I’ll have reviewed in a couple weeks). Thanks to my local library, I have not had to spend gobs o’ cash in the process (though at least one of his books I think is most definitely worth the expenditure). …
            Continue reading the 33 strategies of war by robert greene<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,38],"tags":[56,728,833],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-1987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-review","tag-48laws","tag-strategy","tag-war"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1987"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fkeyring_services&post=1987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}