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To expound on what I mean by this, The 48 Laws of Power will make you shrewder with people,
but it won't help you formulate effective business strategies. Whilst the 33 Strategies of War will
arm a man with the understanding necessary to engage in corporate warfare, it will do little to
assist him interpersonally. As such, neither is a comprehensive education in power, but together
they form a complete and unassailable treatise. Combine these texts with Machiavelli's "The
Prince", and one has both the psychological tools and philosophical understanding to develop a
masterful competency in cunning.
You cannot fight effectively unless you can identify them. Learn to smoke them out, then
inwardly declare war. Your enemies can fill you with purpose and direction.
Wage war on the past and ruthlessly force yourself to react to the present. Make
everything fluid and mobile.
3: Amidst the turmoil of events, do not lose your presence of mind: Counterbalance
Keep your presence of mind whatever the circumstances. Make your mind tougher by
exposing it to adversity. Learn to detach youself from the chaos of the battlefied.
Place yourself where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get
out alive.
Create a chain of command where people do not feel constrained by your influence yet
follow your lead. Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into groupthink.
Get them to think less about themselves and more about the group. Involve them in a
cause, a crusade against a hated enemy. Make them see their survival is tied to the
success of the army as a whole.
Consider the hidden costs of war: time, political goodwill, an embittered enemy bent on
revenge. Sometimes it is better to undermine your enemies covertly.
Let the other side move first. If aggressive, bait them into a rash attack that leaves them
in a weak position.
Build a reputation for being a little crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. Uncertainty can be
better than an explicit threat. If your opponents aren't sure what attacking you will cost,
they will not want to find out.
Retreat is a sign of strength. Resisting the temptation to respond buys valuable time.
Sometimes you accomplish most by doing nothing.
Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead.
Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.
13: Know your enemy: Intelligence
The target of your strategies is not the army you face, but the mind who runs it. Learn to
read people.
Speed is power. Striking first, before enemies have time to think or prepare will make
them emotional, unbalanced, and prone to error.
Instead of trying to dominate the other side's every move, work to define the nature of the
relationship itself. Control your opponent's mind, pushing emotional buttons and
compelling them to make mistakes.
Find the source of your enemy's power. Find out what he cherishes and protects and
strike.
Separate the parts and sow dissension and division. Turn a large problem into small,
eminently defeatable parts.
Frontal assaults stiffen resistance. Instead, distract your enemy's attention to the front,
then attack from the side when they expose their weakness.
Create relentless pressure from all sides and close off their access to the outside world.
When you sense weakening resolve, tighten the noose and crush their willpower.
Before the battle begins, put your opponent in a position of such weakness that victory is
easy and quick. Create dilemmas where all potential choices are bad.
Before and during negotiations, keep advancing, creating relentless pressure and
compelling the other side to settle on your terms. The more you take, the more you can
give back in meaningless concessions. Create a reputation for being tough and
uncompromising so that people are giving ground even before they meet you.
You are judged by how well things conclude. Know when to stop. Avoid all conflicts and
entanglements from which there are no realistic exits.
Make it hard for your enemies to know what is going on around them. Feed their
expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves.
Control people's perceptions of reality and you control them.
Upset expectations. First do something ordinary and conventional, then hit them with the
extraordinary. Sometimes the ordinary is extraordinary because it is unexpected.
The cause you are fighting for must seem more just than the enemy's. Questioning their
motives and making enemies appear evil can narrow their base of support and room to
maneuver. When you come under moral attack from a clever enemy, don't whine or get
angry--fight fire with fire.
The feeling of emptiness is intolerable for most people. Give enemies no target to attach.
Be dangerous and elusive, and let them chase you into the void. Deliver irritating but
damaging side attacks and pinpricks.
27: Seem to work for the interests of others while furthering your own: Alliance
Get others to compensate for your deficiencies, do your dirty work, fight your wars. Sow
dissension in the alliances of others, weakening opponents by isolating them.
Take small bites to play on people's short attention span. Before they notice, you may
acquire an empire.
Infiltrate your ideas behind enemy lines, sending messages through little details. Lure
people into coming to the conclusions you desire and into thinking they've gotten there
by themselves.
To take something you want, don't fight those who have it, but join them. Then either
slowly make it your own or wait for the right moment to stage a coup.
Seem to go along, offering no resistance, but actually dominate the situation. Disguise
your aggression so you can deny that it exists.
33: Sow uncertainty and panic through acts of terror: Chain Reaction
Terror can paralyze a people's will to resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic
response. The goal is to cause maximum chaos and provoke a desperate overreaction. To
counter terror, stay balanced and rational.