{"id":22001,"date":"2013-09-06T00:01:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T04:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=22001"},"modified":"2020-03-26T16:02:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:02:40","slug":"qotd-risk-taking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/09\/06\/qotd-risk-taking\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Risk-taking"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>This necessity for taking risks had previously been stressed by a passage in a letter written by James Wolfe when a colonel on the staff in 1757, a passage that has become justly famous:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Experience shows me that &#8230; pushing on smartly is the road to success; that nothing is to be reckoned an obstacle to your undertaking which is not found really so upon trial; <b>that in war something must be allowed to chance and fortune, seeing it is in its nature hazardous and on option of difficulties<\/b>; that the greatness of an object should come under consideration as opposed to the impediments that lie in the way; that the honour of one&#8217;s country is to have some weight; and that in particular circumstances and times the loss of a thousand men is rather an advantage to a nation than otherwise, seeing that gallant attempts raise its reputation and make it respected; whereas the contrary appearance sink the credit of a country, ruin the troops, and create infinite uneasiness and discontent at home.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>General Robert E. Lee puts it in fewer words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p>There is always hazard in military movements, but we must decide between the possible loss from inaction and the risk of action.<\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Napoleon laconically brings out the same basic idea:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Shuffling half-measures lose everything in war.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lt. Colonel Alfred H. Burne, &#8220;The Strands of War&#8221;, <em>The Art of War on Land<\/em>, 1966.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This necessity for taking risks had previously been stressed by a passage in a letter written by James Wolfe when a colonel on the staff in 1757, a passage that has become justly famous: Experience shows me that &#8230; pushing on smartly is the road to success; that nothing is to be reckoned an obstacle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5,41],"tags":[31,572,1365,359],"class_list":["post-22001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-quotations","tag-army","tag-leadership","tag-risk","tag-uncertainty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5IR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22001"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55858,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001\/revisions\/55858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}