To Win Without Fighting: Difference between revisions

** There was also at least one instance of an Iraqi unit so desperate to surrender and avoid getting destroyed in battle, that they tried to surrender to an Italian film crew. Other units [http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/dstorm/ds5.htm surrendered to a UAV] (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).

*** The UAV wasn't an act of simply being desperate to surrender; in Gulf 1 the [[UA Vs]] in use were Navy, used for shore bombardment spotting for the ''Iowa''-class battleships. The Iraqis correctly deduced that the presence of the UAV meant they were shortly to suffer 16" bombardment. With no defense against the battleship guns, they took the smart way out.

* Epaminondos is famous for winning at Leuctra (by overweighting one wing to make the side opposed collapse before the Spartans could compensate, while pulling back, "refusing" the other to buy time). His greatest achievement though was to realize that Sparta's economy and military system was dependent on the labor of large numbers of Helots who had little reason to love Sparta and much reason not to. All he had to do was have an army-in-being for a long enough time in Spartan territory, large enough to survive, and the Helots would all run away at once knowing their masters were busy. No Helots, no Sparta. In retrospect it seems odd that someone didn't think of this earlier. Sparta could have recovered from losing Leuctra or any given battle. It could never recover from losing its Helots.

** Actually, plenty of Greek (And Persian) strategists realized this-- just about every plan for war with Sparta ended with "And then we'll free the Helots and make sure Sparta never rises again!" and formed the third leg of Athens' strategy in the First Peloponnesian War. The Spartans themselves knew it, since the basic alliance in the Peloponnesian League was, "Sparta swears to defend this city with its army, this city promises to defend the helot system." Not quite phrased that way, but true.

** One good reason against the death penalty. If death is already certain, there's nothing to gain by surrendering.

** Sun Tzu talked about this as well (smart man, he was). Basically, it came down to, "make the enemy think that there is a way out, to avoid him fighting desperately to the death." On the flip side, he also said, [[Taking You With Me|"if you're on the wrong end of this, cut off your own escape routes to get your troops to fight to the death."]]

* [[Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud]] did this once to the Al-Rashids by going behind his lines and raiding. As the Rashid's army cared ''much'' more about the fate of their camels then about the Rashid's cause, they all left, allowing Ibn Saud to end the year with a successful campaign.

* This trope was essentially the basis of tactical doctrine in eighteenth century wars, in which the best generals were considered those who could position their troops in such a way to force the enemy to surrender without losing any men. When the [[French Revolution]] came along and men started fighting to the death for political and national ideals, the generals of the old school found it hard to adapt.