A simple plan: action, confusion, and retreat
Prior to his invasion of Russia, Napoleon reportedly said: “[M]y campaign plan is a battle, and all my politics is success.” However, following a Pyrrhic victory in Borodino, Napoleon found himself without a plan or success. Not anticipating Tsar Alexander I’s refusal to surrender and General Mikhail Kutuzov’s strategic withdraw from Moscow into the vast Eurasian steppe, the Grande Armée was left exposed and exhausted. With the weight of a Russian winter coming, Napoleon submitted to a confused retreat, ultimately leading to the Little Emperor’s defeat. According to historian John Lewis Gaddis, Napoleon had transgressed Carl von Clausewitz’s maxim on strategy, whereby war must be subordinate to policy. When leaders fall in love with war, making it an end unto itself, the “culminating points of their offensives are self-defeat.”
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Too early to past judgement on what will be the final outcome in trade talks between China and the U.S.. But I do know that the current trade gap between the U.S. and China is not sustainable in the long run (for the Americans), and I also know that China is not willing to change the current trade arrangement In this situation the question no longer becomes "will the U.S. make the hard decisions to curb Chinese imports unilaterally" ..... even if it risks major disruptions in trade patterns .... but when.
