Strategic Disadvantage Quotes

[Russia] has been haunted by its relative backwardness, particularly in the military and industrial spheres.

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

Further, a defensive policy involves the loss of the initiative, with all the consequent disadvantages to the defender.

I didn't know so well chess theory, the theory of chess openings. And so, of course I knew the theory, but not on the level of the best players, so this was my... this was always my weakness.

For Germany, the war was like an end game in chess in which she possessed one castle less than her adversary. The loss of the war was as certain as the loss of an end game under these conditions.

You can't disengage yourself from that game if you are completely unaware of what people out there might be doing, you're just going to be tripped up, you're going to find yourself continually at a disadvantage.

It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans.

Canada remains alienated from its allies, shut out of the reconstruction process to some degree, unable to influence events. There is no upside to the position Canada took.

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

If you come to a fight thinking it will be a fair one, you didn't come prepared.

You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well.

Playing against 10 is harder than playing against 11 players. You know why? The team with 11 will think "ok, we can take it easy now", while the team with 10 will think "We really have to work hard now."

Bad weather has grounded the Luftwaffe and now we must stand by and watch countless thousands of the enemy getting away to England under our noses.

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.

One thing in common between politics and marketing is that your greatest strength can often be your greatest weakness.

But to fight something, you really have to try to understand its motivations—particularly when the something you’re fighting holds most of the cards, the deck is stacked against you, and the whole gambling hall is on fire and filled with thugs.

One can only repeat about air warfare: we are in a position of almost hopeless inferiority and must grin and bear it as we take the blows from the English and the Americans. [Germans in the bombed cities] are gradually beginning to lose their courage. Hell like that is hard to bear for any length of time, especially since the inhabitants along the Rhine and Ruhr see no prospect of improvement.

If the large power voluntarily abstains from using its full power or feels the strategic situation to be such that it cannot do so, it in effect loses the advantage of being a big power.

The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.

Unilateral sanctions only make foreign rivals stronger and taint us as unreliable suppliers.

If you are situated at a great distance from the enemy, and the strength of the two armies is equal, it is not easy to provoke a battle, and fighting will be to your disadvantage.

Never let people see what you want, because they will not let you have it. Never let anybody see what you feel, because it gives them too much power. You're probably better off not showing weakness whenever you can avoid it, because they'll go for you.

It's never a good thing when an opponent has a solid read on you pre-flop.

They have the troops; we only have the arguments.

From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.