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Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

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Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#51

Post by mikhailfranco »

lostlogin wrote: post #20
pjc50 wrote: post #15

> “an adversary is more hurt by desertion than slaughter.” And disease, starvation, and the general problems of the march. This is one of the things I learned from Clausewitz's discussion of Napoleon's march on Moscow, the one that produces the famous Tufte diagram. The Grande Armeé numbered 422,000 per Tufte/Minard, 1 million per Wikipedia, the same as several large music festivals; and they almost all had to walk t…

The original graph is best, I think. It demonstrates this effect very well. http://nowscape.com/images/map_napoleon_moscow.gif https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

This is what one of those little steps in the graph was like: the crossing of the Berezina river - a desperate battle between 100,000 men, with combat engineering of a 100m bridge, and stragglers falling to marauding cossacks ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berezina

Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#52

Post by brightrooms »

pjc50 wrote: post #15

> “an adversary is more hurt by desertion than slaughter.” And disease, starvation, and the general problems of the march. This is one of the things I learned from Clausewitz's discussion of Napoleon's march on Moscow, the one that produces the famous Tufte diagram. The Grande Armeé numbered 422,000 per Tufte/Minard, 1 million per Wikipedia, the same as several large music festivals; and they almost all had to walk t…

Hence why the truely great generals (alexander, genghis khan, etc ) understood the importance of logistics and incompetant ones like napoleon didn't.

> and they almost all had to walk the ~3,000 kilometers to Moscow

Closer to 800 km than 3000. Napoleon's invasion of russia started at the neman river near lithuania. It didn't start in paris.

Now compare napoleon's "short walk" to moscow with the thousands of kilometers of logistics that alexander or genghis khan had to deal with ( and they succeeded while napoleon failed miserably ).

Another great napoleon logistic fail was his failure in egypt where he lost another army. It shows how propaganda frames the people's minds that we think that napoleon was a competent, let alone a great military leader. Objectively, Napoleon's major failures and the fact that he destroyed the french empire makes him one of the greatest military fools in human history.

Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#53

Post by hazeii »

KevinKallmes wrote: post #11

This relates to the Nobel-prize-winning game theory of Thomas Schelling ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_... ), who argued that intentional handicaps could be strategically useful in negotiations.

In similar vein, there is the "poison pill" defence in business where a company that does not wish to be acquired (typically by hostile takeover) makes itself unpalatable to potential acquirers.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan#Common...

Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#54

Post by dredmorbius »

hodgesrm wrote: post #26

Cutting loose from your supply lines is a time-honored way to win big in war. The best example in the US is Grant's Vicksburg campaign. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign

Napoleon offers an alternative take.

Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#55

Post by dredmorbius »

Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

Ch`en Hao quotes the saying: "Birds and beasts when brought to bay will use their claws and teeth." Chang Yu says: "If your adversary has burned his boats and destroyed his cooking-pots, and is ready to stake all on the issue of a battle, he must not be pushed to extremities."

-- Sun Tzu, Art of War, Maneuvering

https://suntzusaid.com/book/7

In hemmed-in situations, you must resort to stratagem. In desperate position, you must fight.

https://suntzusaid.com/book/8

At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him. He carries his men deep into hostile territory before he shows his hand.

He burns his boats and breaks his cooking-pots; like a shepherd driving a flock of sheep, he drives his men this way and that, and nothing knows whither he is going.

To muster his host and bring it into danger:—this may be termed the business of the general.

https://suntzusaid.com/book/11

Re: Paradoxical Geniuses: “Let us burn the ships” (2017)

#56

Post by gnopgnip »

golemotron wrote: post #30
quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not having a fallback position leads to higher commitment That's what the article claims, but that doesn't necessarily make that statement accurate. There's no proof Cortez et. al.'s troops actually felt higher commitment as a consequence of having their ships burned - we are expected to conclude that's what happened, but we have only Cortez's word to tell us this and an article demonstrating selection bias.

You can't think of an example from your own life? Imagine feeling less committed at a job and not really feeling like looking for another yet. Then, you're fired while being on the hook for all of your living expenses. You become committed to the new search then because there's no backstop. This is a natural human response. Relatable even without testimony from Cortez's troops.

There are plenty of counterexamples of this. Like every parolee who reoffends
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