Source: Farnam Street
“War ends at the moment when peace permanently wins out. Not when the articles of surrender are signed or the last shot is fired, but when the last shout of a sidewalk battle fades, when the next generation starts to wonder whether the whole thing ever really happened.”
The Basics
In a classic American folktale, a stubborn railroad worker decides to prove his skill by competing with a drilling machine.
John Henry, enraged to hear that machines might take his job, claims that his digging abilities are superior. A contest is arranged. He goes head to head with the new drill. The result is impressive — the drill breaks after three meters, whereas John Henry makes it to four meters in the same amount of time. As the other workers begin to celebrate his victory, he collapses and dies of exhaustion.John Henry might have been victorious against the drill, but that small win was meaningless in the face of his subsequent death. In short, we can say that he won the battle but lost the war.
Winning a battle but losing the war is a military mental model that refers to achieving a minor victory that ultimately results in a larger defeat, rendering the victory empty or hollow. It can also refer to gaining a small tactical advantage that corresponds to a wider disadvantage.
One particular type of hollow victory is the Pyrrhic victory, which Wikipedia defines as a victory that “inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.” That devastating toll can come in the form of an enormous number of casualties, the wasting of resources, high financial costs, damage to land, and other losses.
Or, in that folktale, the death of the railroad worker.Another hollow victory occurs when you engage in a conventional war and prompt a response from an opponent who has significantly more firepower than you do. The attack on Pearl Harbor was considered a victory for the Japanese. However, by provoking an army with superior forces, they set something in motion they could not control.
While the concept of a hollow victory arises in military contexts, understanding the broader principle allows you to apply it to other areas of life. It can often be helpful in the context of non-zero-sum situations, in which both parties suffer even if one has technically succeeded.
We have won a battle but lost a war whenever we achieve some minor aim that leads to wider loss.
We have won a battle but lost a war whenever we achieve some minor (or even major) aim that leads to wider loss. We might win an argument with a partner over a small infraction, only to come across as hostile and damage the relationship. We may achieve a short-term professional goal by working overtime, only to harm our health and reduce our long-term productivity. We might pursue a particular career for the sake of money, but feel unfulfilled and miserable in the process.
“Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. It requires that you focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”
— Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War
The Original Pyrrhic Victory
The term “Pyrrhic victory” is named after the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus. Between 280 and 279 BC, Pyrrhus’s army managed to defeat the Romans in two major battles. Striding into Italy with 25,000 men and 20 elephants — a new sight for the Romans — Pyrrhus was confident that he could extend his empire. However, the number of lives lost in the process made the victory meaningless. According to Plutarch, Pyrrhus is said to have told a friend that another victory against the Romans would “utterly undo him.”
Pyrrhus did not have access to anywhere near enough potential recruits to replenish his army. He had, after all, lost most of his men, including the majority of his friends and commanders. Meanwhile, the Romans were only temporarily defeated. They could replace their lost soldiers with relative ease. Even worse, the two losses had enraged the Romans and made them more willing to continue fighting. The chastened king gathered his remaining troops and sailed back to Greece.
The Battle of Bunker Hill
A classic example of a Pyrrhic victory is the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on June 17th, 1775, during the American Revolutionary War. Colonial and British troops grappled for control of the strategically advantageous Bunker Hill in Massachusetts.
Four days earlier, on June 13th, the colonial army received intelligence that the British were planning to take control of the hills around Boston, which would give them greater authority over the nearby harbor. About 1200 colonial soldiers situated themselves on the hills, while others spread throughout the surrounding area. The British army, realizing this, mounted an attack.
The British army succeeded in their aim after the colonial army ran out of ammunition. Yet the Battle of Bunker Hill was anything but a true victory, because the British lost a substantial number of men, including 100 of their officers. This left the British army depleted (having sustained 1000 casualties), low on resources, and without proper management.
This Pyrrhic victory was unexpected; the British troops had far more experience and outnumbered the colonial army by almost 2:1. The Battle of Bunker Hill sapped British morale but was somewhat motivating for the colonials, who had sustained less than half the number of casualties.
In The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the situation is described this way:
… the British were stopped by heavy fire from the colonial troops barricaded behind rail fences that had been stuffed with grass, hay, and brush. On the second or third advance, however, the attackers carried the redoubt and forced the surviving defenders, mostly exhausted and weaponless, to flee. …
If the British had followed this victory with an attack on Dorchester Heights to the South of Boston, it might have been worth the heavy cost. But, presumably, because of their severe losses and the fighting spirit displayed by the rebels, the British commanders abandoned or indefinitely postponed such a plan. Consequently, after Gen. George Washington took colonial command two weeks later, enough heavy guns and ammunition had been collected that he was able in March 1776 to seize and fortify Dorchester Heights and compel the British to evacuate Boston.… Also, the heavy losses inflicted on the British in the Battle of Bunker Hill bolstered the Americans’ confidence and showed that the relatively inexperienced colonists could indeed fight on par with the mighty redcoats of the British army.
In The War of the American Revolution, Robert W. Coakley writes of the impact of Bunker Hill:
Bunker Hill was a Pyrrhic victory, its strategic effect practically nil since the two armies remained in virtually the same position they had held before. Its consequences, nevertheless, cannot be ignored. A force of farmers and townsmen, fresh from their fields and shops, with hardly a semblance of orthodox military organization, had met and fought on equal terms with a professional British army. …[N]ever again would British commanders lightly attempt such an assault on Americans in fortified positions.
“I wish we could sell them another hill at the same price.”
— Nathanael Greene, leader of the colonial army
The Battle of Borodino
Fought on September 7, 1812, the Battle of Borodino was the bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars. The French army (led by Napoleon) sought to invade Russia. Roughly a quarter of a million soldiers fought at the Battle of Borodino, with more than 70,000 casualties. Although the French army succeeded in forcing the Russians into retreat, their victory was scarcely a triumphant one. Both sides ended up depleted and low on morale without having achieved their respective aims.
The Battle of Borodino is considered a Pyrrhic victory because the French army destroyed itself in the process of capturing Moscow. The Russians had no desire to surrender, and the conflict was more costly for the French than for their opponent.
By the time Napoleon’s men began their weary journey back to France, they had little reason to consider themselves victorious. The Battle of Borodino had no clear purpose, as no tactical advantage was gained. Infighting broke out and Napoleon eventually lost both the war and his role as leader of France.
History has shown again and again that attempting to take over…
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