Strategic surrender
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Strategic surrender is a strategy of attrition. What the loser avoids by offering to surrender is a last, chaotic round of fighting that would have the characteristics of a rout. The victor can obtain his objective without paying the costs of a last battle.[1]
In 1958, Senator Stuart Symington accused the RAND Corporation of defeatism for studying how the United States might surrender to an enemy power. This lead to the passage of a prohibition on the spending of tax dollars on the study of defeat or surrender of any kind. However, the senator had apparently misunderstood, as the report was a survey of past cases in which the US had demanded unconditional surrender of its enemies, asking whether or not this had been a more favorable outcome to US interests than an earlier, negotiated surrender might have been.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Kecskemeti, P. (1958). Strategic surrender; the politics of victory and defeat.. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-521-27376-5.
- ^ Poundstone, W. (1992). Prisoner's Dilemma. Doubleday.
