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STRATEGY & TACTICS

Pain and Pleasure Strategy
Pain and Pleasure

While many pleasurable or painful things are universal, the degree to which people or groups will find them painful or pleasurable will differ. For example one person may find international travel highly pleasurable while another may find it only marginally enjoyable.

Human Nature - Tactics
Human Behaviour & Tactics

Tactics are used by people on people and critically they must anticipate how other people will behave or respond. Therefore it is essential that the tactician also understands human behaviour. The great tactician out-thinks his or her opponent. Most tactics are designed to manipulate or manoeuvre other people in a way that is advantageous to the tactician.

Bricolage Strategy and Tactics
Bricolage Strategy

As a tactic, bricolage is a form of subversion or resistance that involves taking an activity or item designed for one purpose and instead of rejecting it, the activity is repeatedly and covertly altered until it assumes a purpose often completely different from the one that was originally intended.

Hit and Run Strategy
Hit and Run Strategy

The “hit and run” tactic is one largely used by the military. The purpose of the tactic is not to acquire territory but to “hit” an opponent, causing damage and then “run” before they can retaliate. This approach is most commonly used when a strong opponent must be attacked by a weaker force.

Kilkenny Cats Strategy
Kilkenny Cats Strategy

This tactic is best described as: “forcing or manipulating two of your opponents to fight each other thus weakening them to the point where neither remains a threat to you.”

Eating the Elephant Strategy
Eating the Elephant Strategy

The Eat the Elephant tactic is primarily focused on breaking up a significant and dangerous task into many smaller, seemingly less dangerous, challenges. In a sense you: eat your enemy’s strength. The tactical part is that each participant in one of the smaller tasks does not know how challenging and daunting is the overall strategy.

The Leaking the Story Tactic
Leaking the Story Tactic

The “Leaking the Story” tactic is a way of releasing information to the public without it appearing to come from an official source. This allows the true source to judge public reaction to the information before confirming or refuting it.

Lady or the Tiger Strategy
Lady or the Tiger Strategy

The Lady or the Tiger is a particularly clever and distracting tactic – it is also one of the most unethical. It has been around for centuries but is well described in Frank Stockton’s short story by the same name – The Lady or the Tiger.

The Poisoned Chalice Strategy
Poisoned Chalice Strategy

A poisoned chalice is something that seems good at first (a beautiful cup filled with delectable wine) but after the person accepts the cup and drinks from it he or she discovers that it is poisoned.

Strategy & Tactics

The value of the strategy information contained in the Aquiziam website will depend on how it is used and the way you apply them to achieve what you want. One of the main tools of the strategist is the tactic. This section provides a strategy list ranging from the works of Sun Tzu the mystery savant of China to the insights of Niccolo Machiavelli and the Medici princes.

To define tactics we can say that a tactic, whether for the realisation of a military or non-military objective, involves out-manoeuvring an opponent by deploying and directing information and resources to cause the opponent to behave in a certain way – often within an environment requiring concealment because, if recognised, these actions would be opposed.

Throughout history there have been people who have refined and recorded their ability to understand and use strategy. Aeneas Tacticus, Aelianus Tacticus, Alexander the Great, Sun Tzu, Musashi, Julius Caesar, Niccolo Machiavelli, Napoleon, Carl von Clausewitz, and Winston Churchill. A comprehensive study of their works as well as those from some less well known strategy specialists can be found here.