Mike Glaser

“However, as American scholar Williamson Murray had written, “One of the foremost attributes of military effectiveness must lie in the ability to recognize and adapt to the actual conditions of combat, as well as to the new challenges that war inevitably throws up.” It was probably one of her favorite quotes. She often pondered this idea.”
― Mick Ryan, White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan

“We may wish to control or influence the behavior of others in conflict, and we want, therefore, to know how the variables that are subject to our control can affect their behavior. If we confine our study to the theory of strategy, we seriously restrict ourselves by the assumption of rational behavior — not just of intelligent behavior, but of behavior motivated by a conscious calculation of advantages, a calculation that in turn is based on an explicit and internally consistent value system. We thus limit the applicability of any results we reach. If our interest is the study of actual behavior, the results we reach under this constraint may prove to be either a good approximation of reality or a caricature. Any abstraction runs a risk of this sort, and we have to be prepared to use judgment with any results we reach. The advantage of cultivating the area of “strategy” for theoretical development is not that, of all possible approaches, it is the one that evidently stays closest to the truth, but that the assumption of rational behavior is a productive one. It gives a grip on the subject that is peculiarly conducive to the development of theory. It permits us to identify our own analytical processes with those of the hypothetical participants in a conflict; and by demanding certain kinds of consistency in the behavior of our hypothetical participants, we can examine alternative courses of behavior according to whether or not they meet those standards of consistency. The premise of “rational behavior” is a potent one for the production of theory. Whether the resulting theory provides good or poor insight into actual behavior is, I repeat, a matter for subsequent judgment.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict

“If the option of taking the course pass-fail (without a letter grade) is available to all students, it is usually observed that there are some who will elect pass-fail no matter how many others do, some who will elect letter grades no matter how many elect pass-fail, and an intermediate group who will elect pass-fail if enough do but will choose letter grades if pass-fail is uncommon. Notice that the first and second groups’ behavior is independent of how the third group chooses, but not vice versa; the people whose behavior is uninfluenced nevertheless influence others.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The art of looking at the problem from the other person's point of view, identifying his opportunities and his interests, an art that has traditionally been practiced by diplomats, lawyers, and chess players, is at the center of strategic analysis.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Choice and Consequence