ENVELOP THE ENEMY
People will use any kind of gap in your defenses to attack you or revenge themselves on you. So offer no gaps. The secret to envelop your opponents--create relentless pressure on them from all sides, dominate their attention, and close off their access to the outside world. Make your attacks unpredictable to create a vaporous feeling of vulnerability. Finally, as you sense their weakening resolve, crush their willpower by tightening the noose. The best encirclements are psychological--you have surrounded their minds.
THE HORNS OF THE BEAST
In December 1878 the British declared war on the Zulus, the warrior tribe of present-day South Africa. The rather flimsy pretext was border troubles between Zululand and the British state of Natal; the real aim was to destroy the Zulu army, the last remaining native force threatening British interests in the area, and to absorb Zulu territories into a British-run confederation of states. The British commander, Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford, drafted a plan to invade Zululand with three columns, the central one aimed at the capital of Ulundi, the heart of the kingdom.
Many Englishmen in Natal were thrilled at the prospect of war and at the potential benefits of taking over Zululand, but no one was as excited as forty-eight-year-old Colonel Anthony William Durnford. For years Durnford had bounced from one lonely British Empire outpost to another, finally ending up in Natal. In all his years of military service, Durnford had not once seen action. He yearned to prove his valor and worth as a soldier, but he was approaching the age when such youthful dreams could no longer be fulfilled. Now, suddenly, the impending war was sending the opportunity his way.
Eager to impress, Durnford volunteered to organize an elite force of native soldiers from Natal to fight alongside the British. His offer was accepted, but as the British invaded Zululand in early January 1879, he found himself cut out of the main action. Lord Chelmsford did not trust him, thinking his hunger for glory made him impetuous; also, for someone with no battle experience, he was old. So Durnford and his company were stationed at Rorke's Drift, in western Zululand, to help monitor the border areas with Natal. Dutifully but bitterly, Durnford followed his orders.
British failed to locate the main Zulu army, only trickles of men here and there. They were growing frustrated. On January 21, Chelmsford took half of the central column, which was encamped at the foot of a mountain called Isandlwana, and led it east in search of the Zulus. Once he had found the enemy, he would bring the rest of his army forward--but the elusive Zulus might attack the camp while he was away, and the men at Rorke's Drift were the closest reserves. Needing to reinforce Isandlwana, he sent word to Durnford to bring his company there. As colonel, Durnford would now be the highest-ranking officer at the camp, but Chelmsford could not worry about Durnford's leadership qualities--the impending battle was the only thing on his mind.
Early on the morning of January 22, Durnford received the news he had been waiting for all his life. Barely able to contain his excitement, he lead his four hundred men east to Isandlwana, arriving at the camp at around 10:00 a.m. Surveying the land, he understood why Chelmsford had put his main camp here: to the east and south were miles of rolling grassland--Zulus approaching from that direction would seen well in advance. To the north was Isandlwana, and beyond it the plains of Nqutu. This side was a little less secure, but scouts had been placed at key points in the plains and at the mountain passes; attack from that direction would almost certainly be detected in time.
Shortly after his arrival, Durnford received a report that a seemingly large Zulu force had been spotted on the plains of Nqutu heading east, perhaps to attack Chelmsford's half of the central column from the year. Chelmsford had left explicit orders to keep the 1,800 men at Isandlwana together. In case of attack, they had enough firepower to defeat the entire Zulu army--as long as they stayed concentrated and kept their lines in order. But to Durnford it was more important to find the main Zulu force. The British soldiers were beginning to grow edgy, not knowing where this vaporous enemy was. The Zulus had no cavalry, and many of them fought with spears; once their hiding place was uncovered, the rest would be easy--the superior weaponry and discipline of the British soldiers would prevail. Durnford thought Chelmsford was too cautious. As senior officer at the camp, he decided to disobey orders and lead his 400 men northeast, parallel to the plains of Nqutu, to find out what the Zulus were up to.
As Durnford marched out of the camp, a scout on the plains of Nqutu saw a few Zulus herding cattle some four miles away. He gave chase on his horse, but the Zulus disappeared into thin air. Riding to the point where they had vanished, he stopped his horse just in time: below him lay a wide, deep ravine, completely hidden from the surface of the plains, and crowded into the ravine, as far as he could see in both directions, were Zulu warriors in full war regalia, an eerie intensity in their eyes. They seemed to have been meditating on the imminent battle. For a second the horseman was too stunned to move, but as hundreds of spears were suddenly aimed at him, he turned and galloped away. The Zulus quickly rose and began clambering out of the ravine.
Soon the other scouts on the plains saw the same terrifying sight: a wide line of Zulus filling the horizon, some 20,000 men strong. Even from a distance, it was clear that they were moving in formation, each end of their line coming forward in a shape resembling horns. The scouts quickly brought word to the camp that the Zulus streaming down the slope. He quickly formed his own men into lines to fight them off while retreating to the camp. The Zulus maneuvered with incredible precision. What Durnford could not see was that the men in the left tip of the horn were moving through the tall grass toward the rear of the camp, to link up with the other end of the horn and complete the encirclement.
The Zulus facing Durnford and his men seemed to grow out of the earth, emerging from behind boulders or from out of the grass in ever-greater numbers. A knot of five or six of them would suddenly charge, throwing spears or firing rifles, then disappear back into the grass. When ever the British stopped to reload, the Zulus would advance ever closer, occasionally one reaching Durnford's lines and disemboweling a British soldier with the powerful Zulu spear, which made an unbearable sucking sound as it went in and out.
Durnford managed to get his men back into camp. The British were surrounded, but they closed ranks and fired away, killing scores of Zulus and keeping them at bay. It was like target practice: as Durnfod had predicted, their superior weaponry was making the difference. He looked around, the fight had turned into a stalemate, and his soldiers were responding with relative confidence. Almost imperceptibly, though, Durnford noticed a slight slackening in their fire. Soldiers were running out of ammunition, and in the time it took them to open a new crate and reload, the Zulus would tighten the circle and a wave of fear would ripple through the men as here and there a soldier in the front lines would be impaled. The Zulus fought with a intensity the British had never seen; rushing forward as if bullets could not harm them, they seemed to be in a trance.
Suddenly, sensing the turning point in the battle, the Zulus began to rattle their spears against their shields and emit their war cry: "Usuthu!" It was a terrifying din. At the northern end of the camp, a group of British soldiers gave way--just a few yards distant, but the Zulus poured through the gap. As if on cue, those in the circle between the two horns rained spears on the British, killing many and making havoc of their lines. From out of nowhere, a reserve force rushed forward, fanning around the circle and doubling its squeezing power. Durnford tried to maintain order, but it was too late: in a matter of seconds, panic. Now it was every man for himself.
Durnford ran to the one gap in the encirclement and tried to keep it open so that his remaining men could retreat to Rorke's Drift. Minutes later he was impaled by a Zulu spear. Soon the battle at Isandlwana was over. A few hundred managed to escape through the gap that Durnford had died in securing; the rest, over fourteen hundred men, were killed.
After such a devastating defeat, the British forces quickly retreated out of Zululand. For the time being, the war was indeed over, but not as the British had expected.
Interpretation
A few months after the defeat at Isandlwana, the British mounted a larger invasion and finally defeated the Zulus. But the lesson of Isandlwana remains instructive, particularly considering the incredible discrepancy in technology.
The Zulu way of fighting had been perfected earlier in the nineteenth century by King Shaka Zulu, who by the 1820s had transformed what had been a relatively minor tribe into the region's greatest fighting force. Shaka invented the heavy, broad-bladed Zulu spear, the assegai, that was so devastating in battle. He imposed a rigorous discipline, training the Zulus to advance and encircle their enemies with machine-like precision. The circle was extremely important in Zulu culture--as a symbol of their national unity, a motif in their artwork, and their dominant pattern in warfare. The Zulus could not fight for extended periods, since their culture required lengthy cleaning rituals after the shedding of blood in battle. During these rituals they were completely vulnerable to attack--no Zulu could fight again, or even rejoin the tribe, until he had been cleansed. The immense Zulu army was also costly to maintain in the field. Once mobilized, then, the army not only had to defeat its enemies in battle, it had to annihilate every last one of them, eliminating the possibility of a counterattack during the vulnerable cleansing period and allowing a speedy demobilization. Encirclement was the Zulu method of obtaining this complete kind of victory.
Before any battle, the Zulu would scout the terrain for places to hide. As one looks out over the grasslands and plains of South Africa, they seem to offer wide visibility, but they often conceal ravines and gullies undetectable from any distance. Even up close, grasses and boulders provide excellent coverage. The Zulus would move more quickly to their hiding places, their feet tough as leather from years of running over the grasslands. They would send out scouting parties as distractions to hide the movements of the main force.
Once they emerged from their hiding place and headed into battle, the Zulus would form what they called the "horns, chest, and loins." The chest was the central part of the line, which would hold and pin the enemy force. Meanwhile the horns to either side would encircle it, moving in to the sides and rear. Often the tip of one horn would stay hidden behind tall grass or boulders; when it emerged to complete the encirclement it would at the same time give the enemy a nasty psychological shock. The loins were a reserve force kept back to be thrown in for the coup de grace. These men often actually stood with their backs to the battle, so as not to grow overly excited and rush in before the right moment.
Years after Isandlwana a commission laid the blame for the disaster on Durnford, but in reality it was not his fault. It was true that the British had let themselves be surrounded, but they manged to form lines in decent order and fought back bravely and well. What destroyed them was what destroyed every opponent of the Zulus: the terror created by the precision of their movements, the feeling of being encircled in an ever-tightening space, the occasional sight of a fellow soldier succumbing to the horrible Zulu spear, the war cries, the spears that rained down at the moment of greatest weakness, the nightmarish sight of a reserve force suddenly joining the circle. For all the superiority of their weaponry, the British collapsed under this calculated psychological pressure.
We humans are extremely clever creatures: in disaster or setback, we often find a way to adapt, to turn the situation around. We look for any gap and often find it; we thrive of hope, craftiness, and will. The history of war is littered with stories of dramatic adjustments and reversals, except in one place: the envelopment. Whether physical or psychological, this is the only true exception to the possibility of turning things around.
When properly executed, this strategy gives your opponents no gaps to exploit, no hope. They are surrounded, and the circle is tightening. In the abstract space of social and political warfare, encirclement can be any maneuver that gives your opponents the feeling of being attacked from all sides, being pushed into a corner and denied hope of making a counterattack. Feeling surrounded, their willpower will weaken. Like the Zulus, keep a force in reserve, the loins to work with your horns--you hit them with these forces when you sense their weakness growing. Let the hopelessness of their situation encircle their minds.
You must make your opponent acknowledge defeat from the bottom of his heart.
--Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
KEYS TO WARFARE
Thousands of years ago, we humans lived a nomadic life, wandering across deserts and plans, hunting and gathering. Then we shifted into living in settlements and cultivating our food. The change brought us comfort and control, but in a part of our spirit we remain nomads: we cannot help but associate the room to roam and wander with a feeling of freedom. To a cat, tight, enclosed spaces may mean comfort, but to us they conjure suffocation. Over the centuries this reflex has become more psychological: the feeling that we have options in a situation, a future with prospects, translates into something like the feeling of open space. Our minds thrive on the sense that there is possibility and strategic room to maneuver.
Conversely, the sense of psychological enclosure is deeply disturbing to us, often making us overreact. When someone or something encircles us--narrowing our options, besieging us from all sides--we lose control of our emotions and make the kinds of mistakes that render the situation more hopeless. In history's great military sieges, the greater danger almost always comes from the panic and confusion within. Unable to see what is happening beyond the siege, losing contact with the outside world, the defenders also lose their grip on reality. And animal that cannot observe the world around it is doomed. When all you can see are Zulus closing in, you succumb to panic and confusion.
The battles of daily life occur not on a map but in a kind of abstract space defined by people's ability to maneuver, act against you, limit your power, and cut into your time to respond. Give your opponents any room in this abstract or psychological space and they will exploit it, no matter how powerful you are or how brilliant your strategies--so make them feel surrounded. Shrink their possibilities of action and close off their escape routes. Just as the inhabitants of a city under siege may slowly lose their minds, your opponents will be maddened by their lack of room to maneuver against you.
There are many ways to envelop your opponents, but perhaps the simplest is to put whatever strength or advantage you naturally have to maximum use in a strategy of enclosure.
To envelop your enemies, you must use whatever you have in abundance. If you have a large army, use it to create the appearance that your forces are everywhere, an encircling pressure.
Remember: the power of envelopment is ultimately psychological. Making the other side feel vulnerable to attack on many sides is as good as enveloping the physically.
A few well-timed blows to make your enemies feel vulnerable in multiple ways and from multiple directions will do the same thing for you. Often, in fact, less is more here: too many blows will give you a shape, a personality--something for the other side to respond to and develop a strategy to combat. Instead seem vaporous. Make your maneuver impossible to anticipate. Your psychological encirclement will be all the more sinister and complete.
The best encirclements are those that prey on the enemy's preexisting, inherent vulnerabilities. Be attentive, then, to signs of arrogance, rashness, or other psychological weakness. Feed the fears of the paranoid and they will start to imagine attacks you hadn't even thought of; their overheated brains will do much of the encirclement for you.
When the Carthaginian general Hannibal was planning what turned out to be perhaps to most devastating envelopment in history--his victory at the Battle of Cannae in 216B.C.--he heard from his spies that one of the opposing Roman generals, Varro, was a hothead, arrogant and contemptuous. Hannibal was outnumbered two to one, but he made two strategic decisions that turned this around. First, he lured the Romans onto tight terrain, where their greater numbers would find it hard to maneuver. Second, he weakened the center of his lines, placing his best troops and cavalry at the lines' outer ends. Led by the rash Varro, the Romans charged into the center, which gave way. The Romans pushed farther and farther. Then, just as the Zulus would encircle the British within two horns, the outer ends of the Carthaginian line pushed inward, enclosing the Romans in a tight and fatal embrace.
The impetuous, violent, and arrogant are particularly easy to lure into the traps of envelopment strategies: play weak or dumb and they will charge ahead without stopping to think where they're going. But any emotional weakness on the opponent's part, or any great desire or unrealized wish, can be made an ingredient of encirclement.
In luring your enemies into such a trap, always try to make them feel as if they are in control of the situation. They will advance as far as you want them to.
Finally, do not simply work to envelop your opponent's forces or immediate emotions, but rather envelop their whole strategy--indeed, their whole conceptual framework. This ultimate form of envelopment involves first studying the rigid, predictable parts of your opponents' strategy, then crafting a novel strategy of your own that goes outside their experience.
REVERSAL
The danger of envelopment is that unless it is completely successful, it may leave you in a vulnerable position. You have announced your plans. The enemy knows that you are trying to annihilate it, and unless you can quickly deliver your knockout punch, it will work furiously not only to defend itself but to destroy you--for now your destruction is its only safeguard. Some armies that have failed in their envelopments have found themselves later encircled by their enemies. Use this strategy only when you have a reasonable chance of bringing it to the conclusion you desire.
THE HORNS OF THE BEAST
In December 1878 the British declared war on the Zulus, the warrior tribe of present-day South Africa. The rather flimsy pretext was border troubles between Zululand and the British state of Natal; the real aim was to destroy the Zulu army, the last remaining native force threatening British interests in the area, and to absorb Zulu territories into a British-run confederation of states. The British commander, Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford, drafted a plan to invade Zululand with three columns, the central one aimed at the capital of Ulundi, the heart of the kingdom.
Many Englishmen in Natal were thrilled at the prospect of war and at the potential benefits of taking over Zululand, but no one was as excited as forty-eight-year-old Colonel Anthony William Durnford. For years Durnford had bounced from one lonely British Empire outpost to another, finally ending up in Natal. In all his years of military service, Durnford had not once seen action. He yearned to prove his valor and worth as a soldier, but he was approaching the age when such youthful dreams could no longer be fulfilled. Now, suddenly, the impending war was sending the opportunity his way.
Eager to impress, Durnford volunteered to organize an elite force of native soldiers from Natal to fight alongside the British. His offer was accepted, but as the British invaded Zululand in early January 1879, he found himself cut out of the main action. Lord Chelmsford did not trust him, thinking his hunger for glory made him impetuous; also, for someone with no battle experience, he was old. So Durnford and his company were stationed at Rorke's Drift, in western Zululand, to help monitor the border areas with Natal. Dutifully but bitterly, Durnford followed his orders.
British failed to locate the main Zulu army, only trickles of men here and there. They were growing frustrated. On January 21, Chelmsford took half of the central column, which was encamped at the foot of a mountain called Isandlwana, and led it east in search of the Zulus. Once he had found the enemy, he would bring the rest of his army forward--but the elusive Zulus might attack the camp while he was away, and the men at Rorke's Drift were the closest reserves. Needing to reinforce Isandlwana, he sent word to Durnford to bring his company there. As colonel, Durnford would now be the highest-ranking officer at the camp, but Chelmsford could not worry about Durnford's leadership qualities--the impending battle was the only thing on his mind.
Early on the morning of January 22, Durnford received the news he had been waiting for all his life. Barely able to contain his excitement, he lead his four hundred men east to Isandlwana, arriving at the camp at around 10:00 a.m. Surveying the land, he understood why Chelmsford had put his main camp here: to the east and south were miles of rolling grassland--Zulus approaching from that direction would seen well in advance. To the north was Isandlwana, and beyond it the plains of Nqutu. This side was a little less secure, but scouts had been placed at key points in the plains and at the mountain passes; attack from that direction would almost certainly be detected in time.
Shortly after his arrival, Durnford received a report that a seemingly large Zulu force had been spotted on the plains of Nqutu heading east, perhaps to attack Chelmsford's half of the central column from the year. Chelmsford had left explicit orders to keep the 1,800 men at Isandlwana together. In case of attack, they had enough firepower to defeat the entire Zulu army--as long as they stayed concentrated and kept their lines in order. But to Durnford it was more important to find the main Zulu force. The British soldiers were beginning to grow edgy, not knowing where this vaporous enemy was. The Zulus had no cavalry, and many of them fought with spears; once their hiding place was uncovered, the rest would be easy--the superior weaponry and discipline of the British soldiers would prevail. Durnford thought Chelmsford was too cautious. As senior officer at the camp, he decided to disobey orders and lead his 400 men northeast, parallel to the plains of Nqutu, to find out what the Zulus were up to.
As Durnford marched out of the camp, a scout on the plains of Nqutu saw a few Zulus herding cattle some four miles away. He gave chase on his horse, but the Zulus disappeared into thin air. Riding to the point where they had vanished, he stopped his horse just in time: below him lay a wide, deep ravine, completely hidden from the surface of the plains, and crowded into the ravine, as far as he could see in both directions, were Zulu warriors in full war regalia, an eerie intensity in their eyes. They seemed to have been meditating on the imminent battle. For a second the horseman was too stunned to move, but as hundreds of spears were suddenly aimed at him, he turned and galloped away. The Zulus quickly rose and began clambering out of the ravine.
Soon the other scouts on the plains saw the same terrifying sight: a wide line of Zulus filling the horizon, some 20,000 men strong. Even from a distance, it was clear that they were moving in formation, each end of their line coming forward in a shape resembling horns. The scouts quickly brought word to the camp that the Zulus streaming down the slope. He quickly formed his own men into lines to fight them off while retreating to the camp. The Zulus maneuvered with incredible precision. What Durnford could not see was that the men in the left tip of the horn were moving through the tall grass toward the rear of the camp, to link up with the other end of the horn and complete the encirclement.
The Zulus facing Durnford and his men seemed to grow out of the earth, emerging from behind boulders or from out of the grass in ever-greater numbers. A knot of five or six of them would suddenly charge, throwing spears or firing rifles, then disappear back into the grass. When ever the British stopped to reload, the Zulus would advance ever closer, occasionally one reaching Durnford's lines and disemboweling a British soldier with the powerful Zulu spear, which made an unbearable sucking sound as it went in and out.
Durnford managed to get his men back into camp. The British were surrounded, but they closed ranks and fired away, killing scores of Zulus and keeping them at bay. It was like target practice: as Durnfod had predicted, their superior weaponry was making the difference. He looked around, the fight had turned into a stalemate, and his soldiers were responding with relative confidence. Almost imperceptibly, though, Durnford noticed a slight slackening in their fire. Soldiers were running out of ammunition, and in the time it took them to open a new crate and reload, the Zulus would tighten the circle and a wave of fear would ripple through the men as here and there a soldier in the front lines would be impaled. The Zulus fought with a intensity the British had never seen; rushing forward as if bullets could not harm them, they seemed to be in a trance.
Suddenly, sensing the turning point in the battle, the Zulus began to rattle their spears against their shields and emit their war cry: "Usuthu!" It was a terrifying din. At the northern end of the camp, a group of British soldiers gave way--just a few yards distant, but the Zulus poured through the gap. As if on cue, those in the circle between the two horns rained spears on the British, killing many and making havoc of their lines. From out of nowhere, a reserve force rushed forward, fanning around the circle and doubling its squeezing power. Durnford tried to maintain order, but it was too late: in a matter of seconds, panic. Now it was every man for himself.
Durnford ran to the one gap in the encirclement and tried to keep it open so that his remaining men could retreat to Rorke's Drift. Minutes later he was impaled by a Zulu spear. Soon the battle at Isandlwana was over. A few hundred managed to escape through the gap that Durnford had died in securing; the rest, over fourteen hundred men, were killed.
After such a devastating defeat, the British forces quickly retreated out of Zululand. For the time being, the war was indeed over, but not as the British had expected.
Interpretation
A few months after the defeat at Isandlwana, the British mounted a larger invasion and finally defeated the Zulus. But the lesson of Isandlwana remains instructive, particularly considering the incredible discrepancy in technology.
The Zulu way of fighting had been perfected earlier in the nineteenth century by King Shaka Zulu, who by the 1820s had transformed what had been a relatively minor tribe into the region's greatest fighting force. Shaka invented the heavy, broad-bladed Zulu spear, the assegai, that was so devastating in battle. He imposed a rigorous discipline, training the Zulus to advance and encircle their enemies with machine-like precision. The circle was extremely important in Zulu culture--as a symbol of their national unity, a motif in their artwork, and their dominant pattern in warfare. The Zulus could not fight for extended periods, since their culture required lengthy cleaning rituals after the shedding of blood in battle. During these rituals they were completely vulnerable to attack--no Zulu could fight again, or even rejoin the tribe, until he had been cleansed. The immense Zulu army was also costly to maintain in the field. Once mobilized, then, the army not only had to defeat its enemies in battle, it had to annihilate every last one of them, eliminating the possibility of a counterattack during the vulnerable cleansing period and allowing a speedy demobilization. Encirclement was the Zulu method of obtaining this complete kind of victory.
Before any battle, the Zulu would scout the terrain for places to hide. As one looks out over the grasslands and plains of South Africa, they seem to offer wide visibility, but they often conceal ravines and gullies undetectable from any distance. Even up close, grasses and boulders provide excellent coverage. The Zulus would move more quickly to their hiding places, their feet tough as leather from years of running over the grasslands. They would send out scouting parties as distractions to hide the movements of the main force.
Once they emerged from their hiding place and headed into battle, the Zulus would form what they called the "horns, chest, and loins." The chest was the central part of the line, which would hold and pin the enemy force. Meanwhile the horns to either side would encircle it, moving in to the sides and rear. Often the tip of one horn would stay hidden behind tall grass or boulders; when it emerged to complete the encirclement it would at the same time give the enemy a nasty psychological shock. The loins were a reserve force kept back to be thrown in for the coup de grace. These men often actually stood with their backs to the battle, so as not to grow overly excited and rush in before the right moment.
Years after Isandlwana a commission laid the blame for the disaster on Durnford, but in reality it was not his fault. It was true that the British had let themselves be surrounded, but they manged to form lines in decent order and fought back bravely and well. What destroyed them was what destroyed every opponent of the Zulus: the terror created by the precision of their movements, the feeling of being encircled in an ever-tightening space, the occasional sight of a fellow soldier succumbing to the horrible Zulu spear, the war cries, the spears that rained down at the moment of greatest weakness, the nightmarish sight of a reserve force suddenly joining the circle. For all the superiority of their weaponry, the British collapsed under this calculated psychological pressure.
We humans are extremely clever creatures: in disaster or setback, we often find a way to adapt, to turn the situation around. We look for any gap and often find it; we thrive of hope, craftiness, and will. The history of war is littered with stories of dramatic adjustments and reversals, except in one place: the envelopment. Whether physical or psychological, this is the only true exception to the possibility of turning things around.
When properly executed, this strategy gives your opponents no gaps to exploit, no hope. They are surrounded, and the circle is tightening. In the abstract space of social and political warfare, encirclement can be any maneuver that gives your opponents the feeling of being attacked from all sides, being pushed into a corner and denied hope of making a counterattack. Feeling surrounded, their willpower will weaken. Like the Zulus, keep a force in reserve, the loins to work with your horns--you hit them with these forces when you sense their weakness growing. Let the hopelessness of their situation encircle their minds.
You must make your opponent acknowledge defeat from the bottom of his heart.
--Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
KEYS TO WARFARE
Thousands of years ago, we humans lived a nomadic life, wandering across deserts and plans, hunting and gathering. Then we shifted into living in settlements and cultivating our food. The change brought us comfort and control, but in a part of our spirit we remain nomads: we cannot help but associate the room to roam and wander with a feeling of freedom. To a cat, tight, enclosed spaces may mean comfort, but to us they conjure suffocation. Over the centuries this reflex has become more psychological: the feeling that we have options in a situation, a future with prospects, translates into something like the feeling of open space. Our minds thrive on the sense that there is possibility and strategic room to maneuver.
Conversely, the sense of psychological enclosure is deeply disturbing to us, often making us overreact. When someone or something encircles us--narrowing our options, besieging us from all sides--we lose control of our emotions and make the kinds of mistakes that render the situation more hopeless. In history's great military sieges, the greater danger almost always comes from the panic and confusion within. Unable to see what is happening beyond the siege, losing contact with the outside world, the defenders also lose their grip on reality. And animal that cannot observe the world around it is doomed. When all you can see are Zulus closing in, you succumb to panic and confusion.
The battles of daily life occur not on a map but in a kind of abstract space defined by people's ability to maneuver, act against you, limit your power, and cut into your time to respond. Give your opponents any room in this abstract or psychological space and they will exploit it, no matter how powerful you are or how brilliant your strategies--so make them feel surrounded. Shrink their possibilities of action and close off their escape routes. Just as the inhabitants of a city under siege may slowly lose their minds, your opponents will be maddened by their lack of room to maneuver against you.
There are many ways to envelop your opponents, but perhaps the simplest is to put whatever strength or advantage you naturally have to maximum use in a strategy of enclosure.
To envelop your enemies, you must use whatever you have in abundance. If you have a large army, use it to create the appearance that your forces are everywhere, an encircling pressure.
Remember: the power of envelopment is ultimately psychological. Making the other side feel vulnerable to attack on many sides is as good as enveloping the physically.
A few well-timed blows to make your enemies feel vulnerable in multiple ways and from multiple directions will do the same thing for you. Often, in fact, less is more here: too many blows will give you a shape, a personality--something for the other side to respond to and develop a strategy to combat. Instead seem vaporous. Make your maneuver impossible to anticipate. Your psychological encirclement will be all the more sinister and complete.
The best encirclements are those that prey on the enemy's preexisting, inherent vulnerabilities. Be attentive, then, to signs of arrogance, rashness, or other psychological weakness. Feed the fears of the paranoid and they will start to imagine attacks you hadn't even thought of; their overheated brains will do much of the encirclement for you.
When the Carthaginian general Hannibal was planning what turned out to be perhaps to most devastating envelopment in history--his victory at the Battle of Cannae in 216B.C.--he heard from his spies that one of the opposing Roman generals, Varro, was a hothead, arrogant and contemptuous. Hannibal was outnumbered two to one, but he made two strategic decisions that turned this around. First, he lured the Romans onto tight terrain, where their greater numbers would find it hard to maneuver. Second, he weakened the center of his lines, placing his best troops and cavalry at the lines' outer ends. Led by the rash Varro, the Romans charged into the center, which gave way. The Romans pushed farther and farther. Then, just as the Zulus would encircle the British within two horns, the outer ends of the Carthaginian line pushed inward, enclosing the Romans in a tight and fatal embrace.
The impetuous, violent, and arrogant are particularly easy to lure into the traps of envelopment strategies: play weak or dumb and they will charge ahead without stopping to think where they're going. But any emotional weakness on the opponent's part, or any great desire or unrealized wish, can be made an ingredient of encirclement.
In luring your enemies into such a trap, always try to make them feel as if they are in control of the situation. They will advance as far as you want them to.
Finally, do not simply work to envelop your opponent's forces or immediate emotions, but rather envelop their whole strategy--indeed, their whole conceptual framework. This ultimate form of envelopment involves first studying the rigid, predictable parts of your opponents' strategy, then crafting a novel strategy of your own that goes outside their experience.
REVERSAL
The danger of envelopment is that unless it is completely successful, it may leave you in a vulnerable position. You have announced your plans. The enemy knows that you are trying to annihilate it, and unless you can quickly deliver your knockout punch, it will work furiously not only to defend itself but to destroy you--for now your destruction is its only safeguard. Some armies that have failed in their envelopments have found themselves later encircled by their enemies. Use this strategy only when you have a reasonable chance of bringing it to the conclusion you desire.
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