The Game Of Nations

  Far better feared than loved.  When dealing with men, either destroy them completely or raise them to honor.  When making camp at night, fortify.  Divide and conquer.  Flow like a river.  Make your word believed.  Nits make lice.  Do not deal from weakness.  Never, ever pay tribute.  Far better any decision now than the perfect one too late.  Get there first with the most.  Hit 'em where they ain't.  To defend all is to lose all.  Life is like a cavalry charge, as long as you are well armed and seated, you will be left alone.  Lose a stirrup, take a wound, your horse begins to limp, and enemies will converge from all sides.

     In 1015 the Bulgars were defeated in battle by Basil II of the Eastern Empire.  He took 15,000 prisoners.  He then blinded them all, with one out a hundred left with one eye to guide the others home.  Message received 5 X 5.  When the Conqueror of the aforementioned Empire, Mehmet the Second, took umbrage at the high-spirited behavior of Vlad Dracula, he sent a huge army into Wallachia and led them himself.  Vlad fell back and fell back through the mountains and forests of that foreboding place, poisoning every well and destroying all resources.  The word 'resources' includes 'Wallachians'.  The Turks could not send out foraging parties without sending out half the army with them, they began to starve.  One night Vlad attacked the Sultan's camp with everything he had, almost getting Mehmet who hid in a ditch.  He would have got him too but the man leading the other half of his army did not attack as ordered.  It does not even bear thinking about how Vlad dealt with that guy.  The shaken sultan then marched on Vlad's capitol of Tirgoviste, where he was greeted by 20,000 Turks impaled outside the city.  Dressed like Turks, anyway.  Point taken high, wide and handsome.  Mehmet went home.  The moral here is that you do not do things half-way.  Vlad was known as 'The Impaler' at a time when impalement was as common a sight as a Starbucks is to us.  He was very strict.

It is always a temptation, to an armed and agile nation,

to call upon a neighbor and to say,

We invaded you last night and are quite prepared to  fight-

unless you pay us gold to go away.

It is also a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

to puff and look important and to say-

We know we would defeat you, but we haven't time to meet you.

So we will pay you gold to go away.

(Listen Up)

We never pay anyone Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost-

for the end of that game is oppression and shame,

and the Nation that plays it is lost!

Oh yeah, I forgot one.  When two neighbors are at war, let them exhaust each other then jump in on the losing side.  This is known as Statesmanship!

Greetings from Tirgoviste.  Wish you were here!