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I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It's a great book---in fact, for a while, it was my favorite book---but humans have been fighting wars for thous

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It's a great book---in fact, for a while, it was my favorite book---but humans have been fighting wars for thousands of years. The Romans ruled the ancient world, and the Mongols Asia, with their mobility. And yet we're supposed to believe that "hey, strategic and tactical movement is pretty great" is a new idea? Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. The reason Card writes about weakness combined with movement and agility and brilliant insight is the same reason we are all fascinated with startups---because they're all counterintuitive (read: loses most of the time) and therefore fun to watch. That's it. Not because it's always a superior fighting style. Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. Now, I am an underweight computer programmer, so I don't know what I'm talking about. All I've done is think, and play video games. Which is precisely what Card has done. And I say this as a fan of Card's work. But turning military fiction into the Art of War is a little much, it seems.

eru 14y ago
Since you mention World War I, and new tactics, you might like to read about the original stormtroopers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper).
kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago
Startups are intuitive for most founders because of the scope of our resources. It would usually be counter intuitive for a big business or wealthy individual(s) to create a business as a startup (unless there's a lot of risk involved, perhaps) because they have what would be necessary to go at it full force. Imagine having 1mm in funding the day the MVP starts getting built because you, as a founder, have that liquid cash ready to invest. This isn't a scrappy startup, it's a well funded one. Most people don't have that. Most people HAVE to start small, or burn the midnight oil working on their MVP, trying to get traction. It's not because we necessarily want to, it's because we're hungry to win and we just don't have the firepower that our established competitors have. It seems like there are a few different frames people have to think about startups. Some think of it like gambling (as you've said), some think startups are x-wings trying to take down the death star (with enough skill and a LOT of luck, a startup will hit it big), some want to reign startups back into being a business (start with an idea that makes money!), and then there are the founders in the trenches fighting on the daily. We're the guys that have been persistently working on our businesses, our projects, our hare-brained business models that just might work. We're grounded by reality - that this is very hard - but we just keep fighting down here. I'm going to stay on these front lines until I lead the guys here who believe in me to a decisive victory.
kiba 14y ago
Maneuver warfare is not just for little guys and startups. US military doctrine is based on maneuver warfare.
- dfc 14y ago
  Do you have a citation for that?
  - yelid 14y ago
    Geesh! Crack a book once in a while! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
    - dfc 14y ago
      Crack a book? That's a wikipedia link, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for? Maneuver warfare is 3GW, yesterday's war. How does maneuver warfare fit in with counter insurgency? Do you see a lot of current TRADOC referring to maneuver warfare and the use of swift armored forces to defeat an insurgent force armed with IEDs? You don't think increased use of SOF is a clear indicator that large-scale maneuver warfare is a thing of the past? Why the tossaway account?
      - dmpk2k 14y ago
        It's only "yesterday's war" as far as COIN is concerned. Against state actors, maneuver is still the order of the day. Even with counterinsurgency, moving infantry with helicopters is a force multiplier. It's true that asymmetric warfare is the most likely face of warfare in the future, but countries with standing armies still remain a greater threat to the United States. When, not if, the US gets in a fight with another country, it'll be the typical blitzkrieg again. So no, it's not "yesterday's war".
        dfc 14y ago
        Its true that maneuver warfare is not completely dead. But don't forget the same things were said about maneuver warfare and the impending conflict with the Soviets during the cold war. And blitzgreig was yesterdays war.
thaumaturgy 14y ago
> And yet we're supposed to believe that "hey, strategic and tactical movement is pretty great" is a new idea? Well, no -- I don't think that point was really argued anywhere in the article. The tactics of movement are perhaps only recently being formalized, but I think most students of history would agree that all modern military strategy has historical precedent ... assuming that you generalize the tactic broadly enough. > Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Hmm. There are two ways I can see to parse this: one is historical -- "most of the time, size and power have won the day" -- and the other is theoretical -- "most of the time, size and power will win the day". I would readily agree with the first, but I'm circumspect about the latter. I avoid computer games because they're a time sink that I can't afford, but I did get introduced to Sins of a Solar Empire a while back, and I still set aside a little time for it now and again. It is a game that depends very strongly on relative sizes to determine victories. But, my favorite race is militarily also the weakest one. I have the most fun trying to break the game, coming up with less obvious tactics and strategy. I think there are enough exceptions to the rule of the mightiest throughout history that it's somewhat self-defeating to assume that force size will decide a battle. > Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. Although there are some parallels, business is different from war. We shouldn't use businesses to make points about military strategies. > The reason Card writes about weakness combined with movement and agility and brilliant insight is the same reason we are all fascinated with startups---because they're all counterintuitive (read: loses most of the time) and therefore fun to watch. Well, sure. That doesn't mean that it can't also be a good example of a subject. > Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. I would counter-argue that WWI in particular was such a messy, horrible, ugly disaster particularly because of the use of non-fancy maneuvers combined with new technology. Trench and chemical warfare was direct force-on-force conflict, and because planes were relatively new inventions, they were de-emphasized despite being exactly what each side needed to win the war.
- azernik 14y ago
  > I would counter-argue that WWI in particular was such a messy, horrible, ugly disaster particularly because of the use of non-fancy maneuvers combined with new technology. Most of the military histories of that war I've read don't so much blame the tactics, but technological limitations. Radios were still too large and power-hungry to be practical anywhere but at sea, last-mile telephone cables tended to get cut by artillery as soon as battle started, and optical signalling (e.g. flags) were difficult to make out near the front, leaving commanders basically with runners and carrier pigeons as soon as battle started. When a local engagement can be won and lost in half an hour to an hour, but the communications RTT is 2-3 hours, maneuver warfare gets impractical (as do a lot of other things, like long range artillery against anything other than fortifications).
balsam 14y ago
In WWI the Allies DID eventually use mobile warfare (why didn't anybody think of tanks tanks tanks) to decisively finish off the Germans [1][2]. Too besides, as pointed out below, EG is a recommended text in US military academies. Sometimes fun and games are improved by a little research. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)#Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)#Plan "The Battle of Amiens was a major turning point in the tempo of the war. The Germans had started the offensive with the Schlieffen Plan before the war devolved into trench warfare, the Race to the Sea slowed movement on the Western Front, and the German Spring Offensive earlier that year had once again given Germany the offensive edge on the Western Front. Armoured support helped the Allies tear a hole through trench lines, weakening once impregnable trench positions. The British Third Army with no armored support had almost no effect on the line while the Fourth with fewer than a thousand tanks broke deep into German territory, for example"
Kim_Bruning 14y ago
"Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done." This happened. 1940, Germany (maneuver warfare style called "Blitzkrieg") vs. British Expeditionary Force and France using more traditional strategy and tactics, in roughly the same area as the world war 1 battles. BEF was routed, France forced to surrender.
glurgh 14y ago
Actually, not only have 'humans been fighting wars for a long time', the entire idea of maneuver warfare predates both Ender's game _and_ it making its way into US army literature. And this you can surmise not by digging up some obscure work from a library but simply by reading the wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare#Development_of_Maneuver_Warfare_theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare#Development_of... The notion that Ender's game, whatever one might think of its merits, was somehow an early and unrecognized insight into maneuver warfare is ludicrous and silly.
- robertskmiles 14y ago
  I don't think anyone is claiming that, just that it is a good introduction to the principles.
  - glurgh 14y ago
    "Despite this aggregation of martial thought, the best book on maneuver warfare is in fact a 30 year old science fiction novel. Although incomplete in addressing all aspects of theory, Ender’s Game is one of the best books on maneuver warfare ever written." I think the OA is very much and very ludicrously claiming that.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      Being a good book - even the best book - is not the same as containing new and/or undiscovered insights.
nnq 14y ago
> Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. Because in economy the "giants" are well adapted to the current set of rules and the rules change very slowly. Also, the "giants" have more to say when new rules get crafted. I a "real war", you have no rules. That's why economical wars and other fights for power are not actually "wars". And this is a good thing! You wouldn't want to be part of a "real war". A "real war" doesn't even have the concept of "war crimes", these are facts judged afterwards by the winners (anything "goes", including killing millions in concentration camps and other mostruosities)! Thank god we didn't have any large-scale "real wars" in the last half of century, and pray neither us nor our children ever experience such thing!
walshemj 14y ago
you obviously don't know much about tactics the Sturmtruppen in ww1 did use more complex tactical maneuvers and where successful. And the french system (impulse) developed out of the 7 years war and used by Napoleon used manover with combined arms to defeat the static linear armys he was facing
Symmetry 14y ago
Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. That's a common misconception about WWI, but it's really not true. At the beginning of the war the Germans came very close to out maneuvering the French army and seizing Paris with barely a fight, ending the war instantly. And on the eastern front the Germans very successfully used maneuver warfare to destroy one of the main Russian armies right at the beginning, allowing the Austrians to shift their troops south to compensate for their sudden betrayal by the Italians. In the trenches themselves the Germans did use fancy maneuvers very successfully (see the other comment about stormtroopers), but contrary to popular opinion the trenches were never the real problem. Both sides were able to break through a trench line when they were willing to devote enough resources throughout the war. The real problem was that once the line was broken, what do you do next? There was no motorized transport on the offence, soldiers had to travel on foot carrying all their food and supplies and nobody can keep doing that quickly for long. And the advancing soldiers had no way of communicating with command, meaning that they couldn't adapt their attack to changing conditions. By contrast, the defenders trying to contain the breakthrough had railroads and telegraphs to let them move around and communicate. So while both's side can and did create breakthroughs, the only effect was to move the front back a few dozen kilometers. But of course, those factors aren't obvious to the naked eye like the trenches are, so are often forgotten. By the time world war II rolled around attacking forces had internal combustion engines and the radio that let them have the same maneuverability and communications as the defenders. But as the Japanese and Germans found, while superior maneuver might let you defeat stronger foes, if you fight someone who is so much bigger that they can absorb defeat after defeat and still come on strong sooner or later they'll up their game, figure out how to fight as well as you do, and crush you.
- run4yourlives 14y ago
  To be fair the German's lost the war to two separate things, neither of which was due to anything that happened on the battlefield directly. Hitler's move to bomb cities in Britian cost them London. His decision to change his objectives half way through the Russian campaign cost them Moscow (although you could argue invading Russia at all was dumb, the German army was still poised to overcome this, amazingly. As for Japan, I think your point stands.
njharman 14y ago
Late in the war to solve the trench impasse the German's developed infiltration tactics which were winning the war (loss was due to blockades starving people). These tactics led to blitzkrieg which led to modern maneuver warfare.
DennisP 14y ago
There's a lot more to it than mobility. For a good overview, which also applies the principles to business, a great book is Certain to Win by Chet Richards, who collaborated with John Boyd on the manuscripts before Boyd died. The most famous principle Boyd formulated is the OODA loop, which says that if you can observe the situation, figure out what's going on, decide what to do and take action faster than your enemy can, you probably win. A lot of the book is about how you do that faster, in a business situation. Some of it is about making your enemy slower (but that's more difficult to apply in business). It's true that it didn't all start with Boyd. Some goes back to Sun Tzu, and the Germans applied it to great effect with the Blitzkrieg.

eru 14y ago

Since you mention World War I, and new tactics, you might like to read about the original stormtroopers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper).

kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago

Startups are intuitive for most founders because of the scope of our resources. It would usually be counter intuitive for a big business or wealthy individual(s) to create a business as a startup (unless there's a lot of risk involved, perhaps) because they have what would be necessary to go at it full force. Imagine having 1mm in funding the day the MVP starts getting built because you, as a founder, have that liquid cash ready to invest. This isn't a scrappy startup, it's a well funded one. Most people don't have that. Most people HAVE to start small, or burn the midnight oil working on their MVP, trying to get traction. It's not because we necessarily want to, it's because we're hungry to win and we just don't have the firepower that our established competitors have. It seems like there are a few different frames people have to think about startups. Some think of it like gambling (as you've said), some think startups are x-wings trying to take down the death star (with enough skill and a LOT of luck, a startup will hit it big), some want to reign startups back into being a business (start with an idea that makes money!), and then there are the founders in the trenches fighting on the daily. We're the guys that have been persistently working on our businesses, our projects, our hare-brained business models that just might work. We're grounded by reality - that this is very hard - but we just keep fighting down here. I'm going to stay on these front lines until I lead the guys here who believe in me to a decisive victory.

kiba 14y ago

Maneuver warfare is not just for little guys and startups. US military doctrine is based on maneuver warfare.

dfc 14y ago
Do you have a citation for that?
- yelid 14y ago
  Geesh! Crack a book once in a while! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
  - dfc 14y ago
    Crack a book? That's a wikipedia link, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for? Maneuver warfare is 3GW, yesterday's war. How does maneuver warfare fit in with counter insurgency? Do you see a lot of current TRADOC referring to maneuver warfare and the use of swift armored forces to defeat an insurgent force armed with IEDs? You don't think increased use of SOF is a clear indicator that large-scale maneuver warfare is a thing of the past? Why the tossaway account?
    - dmpk2k 14y ago
      It's only "yesterday's war" as far as COIN is concerned. Against state actors, maneuver is still the order of the day. Even with counterinsurgency, moving infantry with helicopters is a force multiplier. It's true that asymmetric warfare is the most likely face of warfare in the future, but countries with standing armies still remain a greater threat to the United States. When, not if, the US gets in a fight with another country, it'll be the typical blitzkrieg again. So no, it's not "yesterday's war".
      - dfc 14y ago
        Its true that maneuver warfare is not completely dead. But don't forget the same things were said about maneuver warfare and the impending conflict with the Soviets during the cold war. And blitzgreig was yesterdays war.

thaumaturgy 14y ago

> And yet we're supposed to believe that "hey, strategic and tactical movement is pretty great" is a new idea? Well, no -- I don't think that point was really argued anywhere in the article. The tactics of movement are perhaps only recently being formalized, but I think most students of history would agree that all modern military strategy has historical precedent ... assuming that you generalize the tactic broadly enough. > Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Hmm. There are two ways I can see to parse this: one is historical -- "most of the time, size and power have won the day" -- and the other is theoretical -- "most of the time, size and power will win the day". I would readily agree with the first, but I'm circumspect about the latter. I avoid computer games because they're a time sink that I can't afford, but I did get introduced to Sins of a Solar Empire a while back, and I still set aside a little time for it now and again. It is a game that depends very strongly on relative sizes to determine victories. But, my favorite race is militarily also the weakest one. I have the most fun trying to break the game, coming up with less obvious tactics and strategy. I think there are enough exceptions to the rule of the mightiest throughout history that it's somewhat self-defeating to assume that force size will decide a battle. > Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. Although there are some parallels, business is different from war. We shouldn't use businesses to make points about military strategies. > The reason Card writes about weakness combined with movement and agility and brilliant insight is the same reason we are all fascinated with startups---because they're all counterintuitive (read: loses most of the time) and therefore fun to watch. Well, sure. That doesn't mean that it can't also be a good example of a subject. > Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. I would counter-argue that WWI in particular was such a messy, horrible, ugly disaster particularly because of the use of non-fancy maneuvers combined with new technology. Trench and chemical warfare was direct force-on-force conflict, and because planes were relatively new inventions, they were de-emphasized despite being exactly what each side needed to win the war.

azernik 14y ago
> I would counter-argue that WWI in particular was such a messy, horrible, ugly disaster particularly because of the use of non-fancy maneuvers combined with new technology. Most of the military histories of that war I've read don't so much blame the tactics, but technological limitations. Radios were still too large and power-hungry to be practical anywhere but at sea, last-mile telephone cables tended to get cut by artillery as soon as battle started, and optical signalling (e.g. flags) were difficult to make out near the front, leaving commanders basically with runners and carrier pigeons as soon as battle started. When a local engagement can be won and lost in half an hour to an hour, but the communications RTT is 2-3 hours, maneuver warfare gets impractical (as do a lot of other things, like long range artillery against anything other than fortifications).

balsam 14y ago

In WWI the Allies DID eventually use mobile warfare (why didn't anybody think of tanks tanks tanks) to decisively finish off the Germans [1][2]. Too besides, as pointed out below, EG is a recommended text in US military academies. Sometimes fun and games are improved by a little research. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)#Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)#Plan "The Battle of Amiens was a major turning point in the tempo of the war. The Germans had started the offensive with the Schlieffen Plan before the war devolved into trench warfare, the Race to the Sea slowed movement on the Western Front, and the German Spring Offensive earlier that year had once again given Germany the offensive edge on the Western Front. Armoured support helped the Allies tear a hole through trench lines, weakening once impregnable trench positions. The British Third Army with no armored support had almost no effect on the line while the Fourth with fewer than a thousand tanks broke deep into German territory, for example"

Kim_Bruning 14y ago

"Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done." This happened. 1940, Germany (maneuver warfare style called "Blitzkrieg") vs. British Expeditionary Force and France using more traditional strategy and tactics, in roughly the same area as the world war 1 battles. BEF was routed, France forced to surrender.

glurgh 14y ago

Actually, not only have 'humans been fighting wars for a long time', the entire idea of maneuver warfare predates both Ender's game _and_ it making its way into US army literature. And this you can surmise not by digging up some obscure work from a library but simply by reading the wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare#Development_of_Maneuver_Warfare_theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare#Development_of... The notion that Ender's game, whatever one might think of its merits, was somehow an early and unrecognized insight into maneuver warfare is ludicrous and silly.

robertskmiles 14y ago
I don't think anyone is claiming that, just that it is a good introduction to the principles.
- glurgh 14y ago
  "Despite this aggregation of martial thought, the best book on maneuver warfare is in fact a 30 year old science fiction novel. Although incomplete in addressing all aspects of theory, Ender’s Game is one of the best books on maneuver warfare ever written." I think the OA is very much and very ludicrously claiming that.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Being a good book - even the best book - is not the same as containing new and/or undiscovered insights.

nnq 14y ago

> Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. Because in economy the "giants" are well adapted to the current set of rules and the rules change very slowly. Also, the "giants" have more to say when new rules get crafted. I a "real war", you have no rules. That's why economical wars and other fights for power are not actually "wars". And this is a good thing! You wouldn't want to be part of a "real war". A "real war" doesn't even have the concept of "war crimes", these are facts judged afterwards by the winners (anything "goes", including killing millions in concentration camps and other mostruosities)! Thank god we didn't have any large-scale "real wars" in the last half of century, and pray neither us nor our children ever experience such thing!

walshemj 14y ago

you obviously don't know much about tactics the Sturmtruppen in ww1 did use more complex tactical maneuvers and where successful. And the french system (impulse) developed out of the 7 years war and used by Napoleon used manover with combined arms to defeat the static linear armys he was facing

Symmetry 14y ago

Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. That's a common misconception about WWI, but it's really not true. At the beginning of the war the Germans came very close to out maneuvering the French army and seizing Paris with barely a fight, ending the war instantly. And on the eastern front the Germans very successfully used maneuver warfare to destroy one of the main Russian armies right at the beginning, allowing the Austrians to shift their troops south to compensate for their sudden betrayal by the Italians. In the trenches themselves the Germans did use fancy maneuvers very successfully (see the other comment about stormtroopers), but contrary to popular opinion the trenches were never the real problem. Both sides were able to break through a trench line when they were willing to devote enough resources throughout the war. The real problem was that once the line was broken, what do you do next? There was no motorized transport on the offence, soldiers had to travel on foot carrying all their food and supplies and nobody can keep doing that quickly for long. And the advancing soldiers had no way of communicating with command, meaning that they couldn't adapt their attack to changing conditions. By contrast, the defenders trying to contain the breakthrough had railroads and telegraphs to let them move around and communicate. So while both's side can and did create breakthroughs, the only effect was to move the front back a few dozen kilometers. But of course, those factors aren't obvious to the naked eye like the trenches are, so are often forgotten. By the time world war II rolled around attacking forces had internal combustion engines and the radio that let them have the same maneuverability and communications as the defenders. But as the Japanese and Germans found, while superior maneuver might let you defeat stronger foes, if you fight someone who is so much bigger that they can absorb defeat after defeat and still come on strong sooner or later they'll up their game, figure out how to fight as well as you do, and crush you.

run4yourlives 14y ago
To be fair the German's lost the war to two separate things, neither of which was due to anything that happened on the battlefield directly. Hitler's move to bomb cities in Britian cost them London. His decision to change his objectives half way through the Russian campaign cost them Moscow (although you could argue invading Russia at all was dumb, the German army was still poised to overcome this, amazingly. As for Japan, I think your point stands.

njharman 14y ago

Late in the war to solve the trench impasse the German's developed infiltration tactics which were winning the war (loss was due to blockades starving people). These tactics led to blitzkrieg which led to modern maneuver warfare.

DennisP 14y ago

There's a lot more to it than mobility. For a good overview, which also applies the principles to business, a great book is Certain to Win by Chet Richards, who collaborated with John Boyd on the manuscripts before Boyd died. The most famous principle Boyd formulated is the OODA loop, which says that if you can observe the situation, figure out what's going on, decide what to do and take action faster than your enemy can, you probably win. A lot of the book is about how you do that faster, in a business situation. Some of it is about making your enemy slower (but that's more difficult to apply in business). It's true that it didn't all start with Boyd. Some goes back to Sun Tzu, and the Germans applied it to great effect with the Blitzkrieg.