Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

Why do you think of the MAlign as a military force?

The E wrote:Why do you think of the MAlign as a military force?

Honor explained that much better than I could ever hope to...

"It was also Clausewitz who said 'Politics is the womb in which war is developed,' Mr. Houseman. My own view is a bit simpler than that. War may represent the failure of diplomacy, but even the best diplomats operate on credit. Sooner or later someone who's less reasonable than you are is going to call you, and if your military can't cover your I.O.U.s, you lose."

cthia wrote:Honor explained that much better than I could ever hope to...

*sigh*

All those starships the MAlign has built and is building are a distraction. They're ultimately irrelevant to the Alignmnent as a whole, just as Mesa is ultimately irrelevant to the Alignment. They're a tool, created to exploit a temporary advantage and to create a favourable situation in the short period of time where they can be operated safely, not a long-term investment.

To use an analogy, these ships are the brute with the pistol hollering at you to keep you distracted while someone else sneaks into your house to steal all your stuff. They're undeniably threatening and dangerous and they must be dealt with, but they're not the real danger in the scenario.

The question of where the Alignment would be if not for these ships is easy to answer: They'd still be a massively influential organization that has some really impressive intelligence gathering capabilities and is both able and willing to operate on timespans long enough to evade classical counterintel strategies.

The mistake you're consistently making is treating the Alignment as a classical honorverse foe similar to Haven or the Andermani. The Alignment is closer to a religion, and just like it is impossible to kill a religion by killing everyone who raises arms in its name, the Alignment can't be killed or even fundamentally disrupted by killing its navy (whereas a nation like Haven can be).

The Alignment is as close to a true Outside Context Problem as the Honorverse gets. The principal actors of the series (with one or two exceptions) are fundamentally incapable of dealing with it.

kzt wrote:Instead of the relatively simpleminded nanotech of most ships' "paint," the surface of Apparition's hull was capable of mimicking effectively any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Her passive sensors detected any incoming radiation, from infrared through cosmic rays, and her computers mapped the data onto her hull, where her extraordinarily capable nannies reproduced it. In effect, anyone looking at Apparition when her stealth was fully engaged would "see" whatever the sensors exactly opposite his viewpoint "saw," as if the entire ship were a single sheet of crystoplast.

"That was the theory, at least, and in this case, what theory predicted and reality achieved were remarkably close together."

The problem with this approach is no matter how good it can only cloak them on one axis. They must know where the ship they are hiding from is and it can't be done if you have two ships with a substantial separation but still on the same basic side. (Say, 60 or 90 degrees from each other.)

Loren Pechtel wrote:The problem with this approach is no matter how good it can only cloak them on one axis. They must know where the ship they are hiding from is and it can't be done if you have two ships with a substantial separation but still on the same basic side. (Say, 60 or 90 degrees from each other.)

All stealth in the Honorverse is magic + plot. The ships are too big and too warm to hide on IR. Hell, the super stealthy recon drones should be glowing red when they are not white hot.

So if you have any complaints please feel free to address them to Mr. David Weber.

The E wrote:Why do you think of the MAlign as a military force?

cthia wrote:Honor explained that much better than I could ever hope to...

"It was also Clausewitz who said 'Politics is the womb in which war is developed,' Mr. Houseman. My own view is a bit simpler than that. War may represent the failure of diplomacy, but even the best diplomats operate on credit. Sooner or later someone who's less reasonable than you are is going to call you, and if your military can't cover your I.O.U.s, you lose."

The E wrote:*sigh*

All those starships the MAlign has built and is building are a distraction. They're ultimately irrelevant to the Alignmnent as a whole, just as Mesa is ultimately irrelevant to the Alignment. They're a tool, created to exploit a temporary advantage and to create a favourable situation in the short period of time where they can be operated safely, not a long-term investment.

To use an analogy, these ships are the brute with the pistol hollering at you to keep you distracted while someone else sneaks into your house to steal all your stuff. They're undeniably threatening and dangerous and they must be dealt with, but they're not the real danger in the scenario.

The question of where the Alignment would be if not for these ships is easy to answer: They'd still be a massively influential organization that has some really impressive intelligence gathering capabilities and is both able and willing to operate on timespans long enough to evade classical counterintel strategies.

The mistake you're consistently making is treating the Alignment as a classical honorverse foe similar to Haven or the Andermani. The Alignment is closer to a religion, and just like it is impossible to kill a religion by killing everyone who raises arms in its name, the Alignment can't be killed or even fundamentally disrupted by killing its navy (whereas a nation like Haven can be).

The Alignment is as close to a true Outside Context Problem as the Honorverse gets. The principal actors of the series (with one or two exceptions) are fundamentally incapable of dealing with it.

****** *


The Art of War is obviously a staple of the Detweilers...

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. –Sun Tzu, The Art of War

My niece, Tierney Jenkins, is going to pester the hell out of me regarding this post. Pester may be a bit too strong of a word. One, because she doesn't have the time these days. Two, because she is much too sweet to ever be guilty of such a crime. However, there's nothing stopping her from LHAO after she sees it though. And laugh she will because what is good for the goose is good for the gander and her uncle, regrettably now in hindsight, found it rather hilarious when she found herself in my exact same shoes fielding the same incredulous thinking. I apologize for the time it took me to find time to respond to this post. My home, and time, is still occupied by holiday visitors on vacation. And dredging thru many series of emails between my niece and several college students is a copper-plated Ransom of a task. Forgive its length and the likely typos and errors which I am sure are numerous.

Way back during the Honorverse Top Ten Tactician's thread found here that RFC liked so much, Tierney had trouble convincing the college students to broaden the discussion to include the MAlign. They would not relent. These were college students discussing strategy and tactics with a 12-yr-old and they did not agree that the MAlign should be praised with accolades approaching great strategists and tacticians. My niece's choice for the number one strategist in the Honorverse is Leonard Detweiler. So, a heated discussion was ignited. And raged on.

What follows are several or more excerpts from my niece's attempt to disseminate her objection to excluding the MAlign from the discussion. Only her responses are included and not the students', for brevity and significance. Forgive me for using some of her arguments in various places throughout my post but I could really find no cause or precious time to reinvent the wheel.

They are all out of the mind of a precocious child prodigy at the ripe old age of 12-yrs-old discussing strategy and tactics with a group of college students.

"So you are proposing that there are no weapons of mass destruction in MAlign space?

...

Then you must consider them a military force. Even though they barely got a sniff of them, I am willing to bet that you will never convince the RMN that it was simply articulated ideologies that came calling on the Manticoran Home system. You can also bet that "ideologies" are not what Sonja and Shannon are going to be tuning their systems to detect. They will be looking for a military force hiding in space and you can bet Houseman's ass on it!"

"A nation is not characterized by its military but by its safety, morals, scruples and values. If there is no military emplaced then the good news is that these ideologies still exist; they are not destroyed. The bad news is that they are replaced by one's enemies', or lack thereof."

"The military is only a vehicle to carry out the whims of madmen. Men made mad by circumstance or by happenstance. The military is the weakest link in a nation's mind of rage to kill, steal, protect or destroy. Nonetheless, its military is the first sniff of the raging lunatic that you get."

"A military is not categorized by its weaponry but by its need to conquer. Always to conquer. One may argue that a true and pure military is formed to protect and not to conquer. But what is there to protect if at first there was no need to conquer one's own territory.

"The MAlign has access to the largest military in the Honorverse. They can collectively send the SLN, RHN, GSN and RMN to fight their battles. You maintain they are not a military power? Tell that to the thousands killed at the hands of their Op OB. Tell it to the treecats. To the GSN. The MAlign are much more than a military force yes, but their ideologies are not what destroyed Manticoran infrastructure. The extention of their ideologies is what destroyed Manticoran infrastructure and that extension was a military force. You can rest assured that Sonja and Shannon are out at Bolthole developing technologies to deal with a military force, not an intangible ideology. That is the job of the elected officials who control the navy as are the civilians who control the MAN. However, it is the MAN that enters your system undetected no matter who or what are behind the ideologies that sent them."

"A military is not made up of the steel and iron that makes its weapons. It is comprised of the steel in the soul of its leaders (see Soul of Steel) and the iron in the resolve of its soldiers. And it depends on the collective will of both. That is what drives the leaders to make the tools to carry out the steel in their resolve. You have to deal with the tools before you can deal with the soul."

Again, all of the above thoughts are via the courtesy of my then 12-yr-old niece to a collective group of college students that she encountered at one of her piano recitals. Parts of that encounter can be found here in the Honorverse Top Ten Tactician's Thread.

The E wrote:*sigh*

All those starships the MAlign has built and is building are a distraction. They're ultimately irrelevant to the Alignmnent as a whole, just as Mesa is ultimately irrelevant to the Alignment. They're a tool, created to exploit a temporary advantage and to create a favourable situation in the short period of time where they can be operated safely, not a long-term investment.

That certainly is a long time to be "distracted" even if you really feel that centuries to research and develop technologies is not a "long-term investment."

That may very well mimic the thinking of the MAlign. Though I seriously doubt it by the books I've been reading. At any rate, it is a moot point. As Honor explained, sooner or later someone is going to call on the MAlign, and if their military cannot cash the checks that their asses has written, they lose. The MAlign has written a lot of checks that will sooner or later come due. If at that point they do not have a military and were simply writing rubber checks, game over MAN!

Frankly, I seriously doubt that an 'Inner Onion of Alphas' is apt to make that mistake.

At any rate, I think I know what you are trying to say, but you need to dig a bit deeper under the surface. As it is with many an insight in this thread, only topical ointment is applied—failing to peer under the epidermal layer...

"The MAlign are much more than a military."
—The one quote that I'll include from the mind of a college student.

"True. So too are the Havenites, so too are the Graysons, so too are the Manticorans. They are more than the weight of their capital ships and missiles. The Manticorans did not arrive in their system long ago with the notion to create the most powerful and advanced metal of military might that the galaxy has ever seen. They entertained more salient delusions of grandeur, like a moral and thriving society of royals and loyals. In short form they quickly realized that these and theirs are concepts that mean nothing unless you can project and protect. A military places a fence around your yard to keep the pests and rodents out. Without which, your ideals become invaded by the wills of these same pests and weeds. The MA make as much of a political demand as any and politics is the instigator of conflict. Significant politics is the instigator of war. " —Tierney Jenkins

The E wrote:To use an analogy, these ships are the brute with the pistol hollering at you to keep you distracted while someone else sneaks into your house to steal all your stuff. They're undeniably threatening and dangerous and they must be dealt with, but they're not the real danger in the scenario.

No different than any other navy's strategy. Wasn't it Honor who, very loosely paraphrasing, essentially said the same thing in "When they show you what they want you to see as a distraction?"

Also found in Sun Tzu's The Art of War...

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. – Sun Tzu, the Art of War

"You musn't get it twisted, their navy is the real danger at the moment. It is the immediacy. You have to deal with the flunkies before you can deal with who sent them." —12-yr-old Tierney Jenkins

"A nation is not characterized by its military but its safety, morals, scruples and values are. If there is no military then these ideologies are not destroyed. They are simply replaced by your enemy's." —12-yr-old Tierney Jenkins

"Likewise, the Graysons are much more than their navy as well. They are committed to serving the spiritual realm. They are not categorized nor defined by the Protector's Own, their own navy or their alliance with the GA. Irregardless, if you manage to ruffle their feathers, these are the instruments that will come calling on you."

Sparta was not defined by its military either. They were made by their military. Sparta was defined by the incomparable soul of Sparta. Nevertheless, their swords and spears were the immediacy." —12-yr-old Tierney Jenkins

As I said, I understand and agree with one salient point you are seemingly trying to make. As was recognized by my niece and disseminated to the college students...

What you are effectively saying boils down to this...

"Know your enemy."

"That is a recognized staple of war. Also found in the annals of The Art of War..."

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." –Sun Tzu

"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy." – Sun Tzu


"Oftentimes, you have to endure a few kerfuffles before you can grab the collar of your enemy and pull his sword thru your body (even if in your last dying breath) to get a chance to peer into the eye of the man you are about to kill, or kill you." –Tierney Jenkins

"First impressions are lasting, and the MAlign made one hell of a first militaristic impression. No other "force" ever managed to pull anything like that off. That which we call a military by any other name would still kill as dead."

"Whether they are a military is besides the point. How should you think of them? What do you need to defeat them? You need a military. And should it matter where they recruit their military from, or rather whose military they use by proxy? Not unlike the North and South Vietnamese in the Viet Nam War who also operated by proxy. That doesn't change the essentials. A country without a military is a land without a voice.

"If you are correct and they are not a military might, then they better assume the position immediately considering they have balls as huge as their political ambitions and only a military can support the weight of such testicles if they want to wear the knickers of the Honorverse. Taking on an empire with the most advanced and seasoned navy known is tantamount to suicide. The MAlign wants to impose their will on the galaxy. Under these conditions, No Navy = No Gravy."

"Not only is the MAlign a military force to be reckoned with, I consider them to be amongst the top echelon of forces in the Honorverse as one would expect from someone who obviously feeds on Sun Tzu's The Art of War."

All of the above is from my niece's rage against the college machine. LOL

If cthia is allowed to weigh in, Gustav Anderman in his "There is no little enemy" sums it all up in a nutshell.

The E wrote:The question of where the Alignment would be if not for these ships is easy to answer: They'd still be a massively influential organization that has some really impressive intelligence gathering capabilities and is both able and willing to operate on timespans long enough to evade classical counterintel strategies.

Granted.

However, under the circumstances of their actions, that will remain true only until they are discovered. At that point they'd better be prepared to either "phuck or fight" as they say.

The E wrote:The mistake you're consistently making is treating the Alignment as a classical honorverse foe similar to Haven or the Andermani. The Alignment is closer to a religion, and just like it is impossible to kill a religion by killing everyone who raises arms in its name, the Alignment can't be killed or even fundamentally disrupted by killing its navy (whereas a nation like Haven can be).

I disagree on all points. The MAlign are in no way close to a religion. Unless you see the Detweiler name as a God. The Alignment labors for itself, not for a higher power. If you mean that they act like zealots, I'd agree.

The equation is a bit different in the Honorverse. Even if the MAlign were a religion, they are separate from humanity as a whole. They can be killed by destroying the planet(s). Unlike America's military trying to weed out one religion spread across our own planet.

No polity, Haven or any other, can be destroyed by destroying its military. If a planet is a weed in your plans, you have to kill the weed at the root which includes a total destruction of its denizens or they will rise from the ashes. Haven didn't always have a military. Nor did the Manticorans.

The E wrote:The Alignment is as close to a true Outside Context Problem as the Honorverse gets. The principal actors of the series (with one or two exceptions) are fundamentally incapable of dealing with it.

Adapt and Destroy - the hallmark of a great nation.

cthia wrote:My niece, Tierney Jenkins, is going to pester the hell out of me regarding this post. Pester may be a bit too strong of a word. One, because she doesn't have the time these days. Two, because she is much too sweet to ever be guilty of such a crime. However, there's nothing stopping her from LHAO after she sees it though. And laugh she will because what is good for the goose is good for the gander and her uncle, regrettably now in hindsight, found it rather hilarious when she found herself in my exact same shoes fielding the same incredulous thinking. I apologize for the time it took me to find time to respond to this post. My home, and time, is still occupied by holiday visitors on vacation. And dredging thru many series of emails between my niece and several college students is a copper-plated Ransom of a task. Forgive its length and the likely typos and errors which I am sure are numerous.

Way back during the Honorverse Top Ten Tactician's thread found here that RFC liked so much, Tierney had trouble convincing the college students to broaden the discussion to include the MAlign. They would not relent. These were college students discussing strategy and tactics with a 12-yr-old and they did not agree that the MAlign should be praised with accolades approaching great strategists and tacticians. My niece's choice for the number one strategist in the Honorverse is Leonard Detweiler. So, a heated discussion was ignited. And raged on.

What follows are several or more excerpts from my niece's attempt to disseminate her objection to excluding the MAlign from the discussion. Only her responses are included and not the students', for brevity and significance. Forgive me for using some of her arguments in various places throughout my post but I could really find no cause or precious time to reinvent the wheel.

They are all out of the mind of a precocious child prodigy at the ripe old age of 12-yrs-old discussing strategy and tactics with a group of college students.

I wouldn't discount the MAlign's military force; though as with all governments their military is a tool to achieve their ends. The military is firmly subservient to the strategies of Leonard Detweiler and the innermost onion; and I'd argue, even in this late stage, not their primary tool to achieving their strategic goals. (Or at least their strategic goals go far beyond what any military could achieve; since they don't just want to conquer systems they want to do some mental jujitsu and make everyone think the MAlign is right about how humanity should evolve)

But despite freely admitting that they've got an effective (if so far apparently only very specialized) military, I'd argue against putting Leonard Detweiler high on a list of military tactitions. He's never (as far as we know) been in tactical command during a military operation, not even in launching a total devastating ambush, much less the kind of situation that separates the truly gifted from the merely very competent. Heck I can't even recall any evidence that he was involved in developing the specialized tactics the spider drive ships use to maximize their unique technological benefits.

You could make some arguments for him on the grand societal strategy level - though the way he rushed things once Manticore didn't play along by losing to Haven might knock him down a few rungs on that rating. But at least he's known to have operated in that sphere -- we just got nothing to base a judgement of his military tactical acumen on because we've never seen it displayed or talked about.

Well, we could clearly assume one consequence of such Eridani Edict violation: it would be tremendous boost toward the SURVIVAL of Solarian League.

Because every single Solarian - in the Core, on the Verge, in Protectorates - would suddenly understood that there are someone who are perfectly ready to smash a planet into dust. The obsiouvs way of thinking? "Such thing started because the authority of Solarian League and superiority of SLN was questioned!" And power in numbers, of course.

So, there would be a tremendous rush toward League - just because the survival OUTSIDE the League would suddenly be put under the question. Any single star system could be bombed out relatively easily even with just civilian ships making a relativistic pass. Only the threat of retaliation - which single-system nations and small blocks would hardly be able to mantain - could harness that monster.

And in a few months the Honorverse would have the unified League, determined to do anything but mantain the absolute supriority - and without any signs of internal strife. Even the protectorates would probably be consider "well, at least guys from Frintire Security are protecting us from what happened with Manticore"...

(I'm not going to bother addressing the points of someone who is only part of this discussion at a remove)

cthia wrote:That certainly is a long time to be "distracted" even if you really feel that centuries to research and develop technologies is not a "long-term investment."

It's not the Alignment that's being distracted. It's you, or to be more precise, the people who the Alignment wants to remove from power.

Everything the Alignment does is based on misdirection. This scary huge fleet of theirs is more of the same, a big spectacle waiting to be destroyed, but it's not the real threat, and its destruction will serve to allow the MAlign to further embed themselves in the galaxy's political structures.

That may very well mimic the thinking of the MAlign. Though I seriously doubt it by the books I've been reading. At any rate, it is a moot point. As Honor explained, sooner or later someone is going to call on the MAlign, and if their military cannot cash the checks that their asses has written, they lose. The MAlign has written a lot of checks that will sooner or later come due. If at that point they do not have a military and were simply writing rubber checks, game over MAN!

Honor is wrong though. At its core, the Alignment is nothing but the idea of transhumanism. That idea, that concept, cannot be eradicated by blowing up ships.

Ultimately, the Alignment itself is irrelevant too. Whether or not the Detweilers all end up in front of a Graser, the idea they represent of a humanity freed from the benign dictatorship of the Beowulf Code, is out there and pretty hard to eradicate.

The whole thing about needing a military to cash the checks is not applicable to the Alignment, just as the question of how many divisions the Pope commands is a sign of a fundamental misunderstanding of how a church operates.

At any rate, I think I know what you are trying to say, but you need to dig a bit deeper under the surface. As it is with many an insight in this thread, only topical ointment is applied—failing to peer under the epidermal layer...

I've said this in threads past: The Alignment has already won. Even if it is destroyed, the social forces they've set in motion won't be going away anytime soon.

However, under the circumstances of their actions, that will remain true only until they are discovered. At that point they'd better be prepared to either "phuck or fight" as they say.

You are not devious enough for this game, I think.

I disagree on all points. The MAlign are in no way close to a religion. Unless you see the Detweiler name as a God. The Alignment labors for itself, not for a higher power. If you mean that they act like zealots, I'd agree.

The Alignment is an extremist expression of a benign idea, headed by a leader who is bound by tradition into a particular course of action long after that course has been invalidated by societal shifts around them.

Sounds very much like a religion to me.

The equation is a bit different in the Honorverse. Even if the MAlign were a religion, they are separate from humanity as a whole.

They're really not.

They can be killed by destroying the planet(s). Unlike America's military trying to weed out one religion spread across our own planet.

Ah yes, "destroy the planets", that's going to work so well.

See, there is no ethically justifiable course of action that would allow someone to eradicate the Alignment or its philosophical underpinnings. That's why they've already won.

No polity, Haven or any other, can be destroyed by destroying its military. If a planet is a weed in your plans, you have to kill the weed at the root which includes a total destruction of its denizens or they will rise from the ashes. Haven didn't always have a military. Nor did the Manticorans.

You have read the books about the first havenite war, yes? I somehow do not remember that bit where the People's Republic continued to exist after its military collapsed.

Adapt and Destroy - the hallmark of a great nation.

You really need to internalize the implications of what "Outside Context Problem" means.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:My niece, Tierney Jenkins, is going to pester the hell out of me regarding this post. Pester may be a bit too strong of a word. One, because she doesn't have the time these days. Two, because she is much too sweet to ever be guilty of such a crime. However, there's nothing stopping her from LHAO after she sees it though. And laugh she will because what is good for the goose is good for the gander and her uncle, regrettably now in hindsight, found it rather hilarious when she found herself in my exact same shoes fielding the same incredulous thinking. I apologize for the time it took me to find time to respond to this post. My home, and time, is still occupied by holiday visitors on vacation. And dredging thru many series of emails between my niece and several college students is a copper-plated Ransom of a task. Forgive its length and the likely typos and errors which I am sure are numerous.

Way back during the Honorverse Top Ten Tactician's thread found here that RFC liked so much, Tierney had trouble convincing the college students to broaden the discussion to include the MAlign. They would not relent. These were college students discussing strategy and tactics with a 12-yr-old and they did not agree that the MAlign should be praised with accolades approaching great strategists and tacticians. My niece's choice for the number one strategist in the Honorverse is Leonard Detweiler. So, a heated discussion was ignited. And raged on.

What follows are several or more excerpts from my niece's attempt to disseminate her objection to excluding the MAlign from the discussion. Only her responses are included and not the students', for brevity and significance. Forgive me for using some of her arguments in various places throughout my post but I could really find no cause or precious time to reinvent the wheel.

They are all out of the mind of a precocious child prodigy at the ripe old age of 12-yrs-old discussing strategy and tactics with a group of college students.

I wouldn't discount the MAlign's military force; though as with all governments their military is a tool to achieve their ends. The military is firmly subservient to the strategies of Leonard Detweiler and the innermost onion; and I'd argue, even in this late stage, not their primary tool to achieving their strategic goals. (Or at least their strategic goals go far beyond what any military could achieve; since they don't just want to conquer systems they want to do some mental jujitsu and make everyone think the MAlign is right about how humanity should evolve)

But despite freely admitting that they've got an effective (if so far apparently only very specialized) military, I'd argue against putting Leonard Detweiler high on a list of military tactitions. He's never (as far as we know) been in tactical command during a military operation, not even in launching a total devastating ambush, much less the kind of situation that separates the truly gifted from the merely very competent. Heck I can't even recall any evidence that he was involved in developing the specialized tactics the spider drive ships use to maximize their unique technological benefits.

You could make some arguments for him on the grand societal strategy level - though the way he rushed things once Manticore didn't play along by losing to Haven might knock him down a few rungs on that rating. But at least he's known to have operated in that sphere -- we just got nothing to base a judgement of his military tactical acumen on because we've never seen it displayed or talked about.

Jonathan, I think you're mixing the Detweilers. Leonard was the original thinker and in his mind was the whole encompassing centuries old plan conceived. A strategy encompassing centuries is certainly grand. And looking centuries ahead in chess moves is a great strategical thinker, at least. At most, at best. I think my niece is correct in placing him on the top ten strategists list. Albeit Grand Strategy, in her bout with the college students, further expanding "strategy" would not have been feasible. She never insisted on him as a tactician. Leonard never needed tactics. His was the overall design -- strategy. Now Albrecht, he was a horse of a different color. And an argument for him as a tactician may be solid by proxy, since he would have had to authorize every chess move, even those suggested by Anisimovna.