Epstein Secrets

if it involves spending real money or running real risks— will only set us up for more humiliating failures. The strategist must know himself, warns Sun Tzu; we must stop pretending to ourselves at least that we are more united and strong willed than we really are. We must also acknowledge the pervasive

f separate republics. Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Central Asian states and the Baltic republics set out on an independent existence. Then, as Lenin and his heirs consolidated power in Moscow, the various breakaway republics returned (in some cases more willingly than others) to the fold. By 193

s or and Felix Gilbert, eds., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986) and Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, Filiquarian (1986) 52 “Within five hours”: Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscenes (Naval Institute Press, 1964), 354 53 “The exploding

are lucky, however, they live in an age where their crazy hopes catch onto some larger human hunger. Khomeini worried that the Shah would never fall. Lenin was preparing to abandon revolutionary politics in 1916. Jobs was told the iPhone could never be built as he wished. Then, in an instant, revolution.

ed (as happened to the Manchus). "Domineering and overwhelming ... ruthless and aloof, poet and warrior, prophet and scourge"-Mao's true hero was not Lenin but the tyrannical, book-burning "first emperor," Qin Shi Huang, who united China in 221 B.C. In a similar way, Kissinger shows, the current generati

als— unintentionally inviting new deadlocks to elicit new proposals." We could learn a thing or two from the Chinese, Kissinger implies, particularly Sun Tzu's concept of shi, meaning the "potential energy" of the overall strategic landscape. Our tendency is to have an agenda of 10 different points, each one