Lose battles but win the war : GRAND STRATEGY.

I think Gerry McCann has read this piece of work......but there is some
excellent guidance for those determined to stand their ground and fight
back. .
Grand
strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and
calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”


―
Robert Greene,

The 33 Strategies of War



Part I


SELF-DIRECTED WARFARE



1: Declare war on your enemies: Polarity


You cannot fight effectively unless you
can identify them. Learn to smoke them out, then inwardly declare war.
Your enemies can fill you with purpose and direction.



2: Do not fight the last war: Guerilla-war-of-the-mind


Wage war on the past and ruthlessly force yourself to react to the present. Make everything fluid and mobile.



3: Amidst the turmoil of events, do not lose your presence of mind: Counterbalance


Keep your presence of mind whatever the
circumstances. Make your mind tougher by exposing it to adversity. Learn
to detach youself from the chaos of the battlefied.



4: Create a sense of urgency and desperation: Death-ground


Place yourself where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.


Part II


ORGANIZATIONAL WARFARE

5: Avoid the snares of groupthink: Command-and-control


Create a chain of command where people do
not feel constrained by your influence yet follow your lead. Create a
sense of participation, but do not fall into groupthink.



6: Segment your forces: Controlled-chaos


The critical elements in war are speed and
adaptability--the ability to move and make decisions faster than the
enemy. Break your forces into independent groups that can operate on
their own. Give them the spirit of the campaign, a mission to
accomplish, and room to run.



7: Transform your war into a crusade: Morale


Get them to think less about themselves
and more about the group. Involve them in a cause, a crusade against a
hated enemy. Make them see their survival is tied to the success of the
army as a whole

DEFENSIVE WARFARE



8: Pick your battles carefully: Perfect-economy


Consider the hidden costs of war: time,
political goodwill, an embittered enemy bent on revenge. Sometimes it is
better to undermine your enemies covertly.



9: Turn the tables: Counterattack


Let the other side move first. If aggressive, bait them into a rash attack that leaves them in a weak position.



10: Create a threatening presence: Deterrence


Build a reputation for being a little
crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. Uncertainty can be better than an
explicit threat. If your opponents aren't sure what attacking you will
cost, they will not want to find out.



11: Trade space for time: Nonengagement


Retreat is a sign of strength. Resisting
the temptation to respond buys valuable time. Sometimes you accomplish
most by doing nothing.



Part IV


OFFENSIVE WARFARE

12: Lose battles, but win the war: Grand strategy


Grand strategy is the art of looking
beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate
goal and plot to reach it.



13: Know your enemy: Intelligence


The target of your strategies is not the army you face, but the mind who runs it. Learn to read people.



14: Overwhelm resistance with speed and suddenness: Blitzkrieg


Speed is power. Striking first, before
enemies have time to think or prepare will make them emotional,
unbalanced, and prone to error.



15: Control the dynamic: Forcing


Instead of trying to dominate the other
side's every move, work to define the nature of the relationship itself.
Control your opponent's mind, pushing emotional buttons and compelling
them to make mistakes.



16: Hit them where it hurts: Center-of-gravity


Find the source of your enemy's power. Find out what he cherishes and protects and strike.



17: Defeat them in detail: Divide and conquer


Separate the parts and sow dissension and division. Turn a large problem into small, eminently defeatable parts.



18: Expose and attack your opponent's soft flank: Turning


Frontal assaults stiffen resistance.
Instead, distract your enemy's attention to the front, then attack from
the side when they expose their weakness.



19: Envelop the enemy: Annihilation


Create relentless pressure from all sides
and close off their access to the outside world. When you sense
weakening resolve, tighten the noose and crush their willpower.



20: Maneuver them into weakness: Ripening for the sickle


Before the battle begins, put your
opponent in a position of such weakness that victory is easy and quick.
Create dilemmas where all potential choices are bad.



21: Negotiate while advancing: Diplomatic war


Before and during negotiations, keep
advancing, creating relentless pressure and compelling the other side to
settle on your terms. The more you take, the more you can give back in
meaningless concessions. Create a reputation for being tough and
uncompromising so that people are giving ground even before they meet
you.



22: Know how to end things: Exit strategy


You are judged by how well things
conclude. Know when to stop. Avoid all conflicts and entanglements from
which there are no realistic exits.


UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE


23: Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction: Misperception


Make it hard for your enemies to know what
is going on around them. Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality
to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. Control people's
perceptions of reality and you control them.



24: Take the line of least expectation: Ordinary-Extraordinary


Upset expectations. First do something
ordinary and conventional, then hit them with the extraordinary.
Sometimes the ordinary is extraordinary because it is unexpected.



25: Occupy the moral high ground: Righteousness


The cause you are fighting for must seem
more just than the enemy's. Questioning their motives and making enemies
appear evil can narrow their base of support and room to maneuver. When
you come under moral attack from a clever enemy, don't whine or get
angry--fight fire with fire.



26: Deny them targets: The Void


The feeling of emptiness is intolerable
for most people. Give enemies no target to attach. Be dangerous and
elusive, and let them chase you into the void. Deliver irritating but
damaging side attacks and pinpricks.



27: Seem to work for the interests of others while furthering your own: Alliance


Get others to compensate for your
deficiencies, do your dirty work, fight your wars. Sow dissension in the
alliances of others, weakening opponents by isolating them.



28: Give your rivals enough rope to hang themselves: One-upmanship


Instill doubts and insecurities in rivals,
getting them to think too much and act defensive. Make them hang
themselves through their own self-destructive tendencies, leaving you
blameless and clean.



29: Take small bites: Fait Accompli


Take small bites to play on people's short attention span. Before they notice, you may acquire an empire.



30: Penetrate their minds: Communication


Infiltrate your ideas behind enemy lines,
sending messages through little details. Lure people into coming to the
conclusions you desire and into thinking they've gotten there by
themselves.



31: Destroy from within: The Inner Front


To take something you want, don't fight
those who have it, but join them. Then either slowly make it your own or
wait for the right moment to stage a coup.



32: Dominate while seeming to submit: Passive-Aggression


Seem to go along, offering no resistance,
but actually dominate the situation. Disguise your aggression so you can
deny that it exists.



33: Sow uncertainty and panic through acts of terror: Chain Reaction


Terror can paralyze a people's will to
resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic response. The goal
is to cause maximum chaos and provoke a desperate overreaction. To
counter terror, stay balanced and rational.

If the war is to be carried out in a courtroom I would think twice before entering into it, especially if the enemy has written evidence of contradictory statements etc. in their arsenal. Cross examination under oath - oh eeeerrrrr that is far,far from easy .

The strategy employed by the McCanns and co. seems to follow many of these rules. It is a matter of outsmarting them, hubris will be the downfall of the couple imo. They are not as smart as they think they are.

russiandoll wrote:The strategy employed by the McCanns and co. seems to follow many of these rules. It is a matter of outsmarting them, hubris will be the downfall of the couple imo. They are not as smart as they think they are.

They are keeping the wrong company to give them sound advise and sucker. They are surrounded by people whose job it is to conceal, at all costs. They are holed up in a fortress that appears impenetrable yet their energy is spent perpetually trying to repair the holes in their fortress walls.
Outside, the assembling forces are intent on breaking the impenetrable defense.
In a fortress, it's possible to become a sitting target, surrounded on all sides by an unknown quantity with unknown intelligence and resources.
How were fortress felled in the past. Water supply poisoned, infected carcasses flung over the parapets into the central courtyards, burning torches shot in, barbaric methods (in today's terms) but which didn't require a futile bombardment which could be repaired.
Someone would eventually open the castle gates to rush out from the inferno, the spreading disease, the desperate need for pure water.
Time and constancy, with the search for justice on ones side, is an intelligent use of mass intelligence.