History CombatPragmatist / RealLife

** To a certain degree, the second bombing was one of political pragmatism as well. Hiroshima proved the U.S. had a superweapon. Nagasaki proved the ability to produce more than one, and do so reliably. This was something of a bluff, as the three devices produced thus far (Trinity, Fat Man, and Little Boy) represented essentially all of the U.S. reserves of fissionables suitable for such devices, but it did make a very important implication that things had changed and that the U.S. had the ability and will to use such weapons in war. China and the U.S.S.R. were also intended recipients of this implication.

* Your basic self-defense class is simply a few "dirty" techniques that will buy the attacker time to run away from the encounter. Assuming you fail to run away as an opener. However, some dirty tricks are considered ill-advised, such as clawing the face, for the other pragmatic reason that if the other guy's face looks like a bloody mess, people might confuse you for the aggressor.

** By the same logic as above, [[BladeOnAStick a good spear]] was a way to keep someone at a distance where they couldn't hurt you, and easily paired with a shield for better defense. Entire armies were equipped with this simple combination and almost impossible to fight head-on without taking severe losses. Spears became longer and longer as time passed until they were so long they weren't spears at all, but pikes. While only the first two lines of a spear formation could fight the enemy, using pikes allowed the first ''six'' lines of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Syntagma_phalangis.jpg Macedonian phalanx]] to present a forest of sharpened metal that was functionally impossible to get past. Or at least it was until the invention of the bill: like a pike, but shorter, more maneuverable, and with a hooked blade as well as a point. However long your enemy's pike might have been, once you chopped the point off, it was just a stick.

* Kinamutay (commonly but incorrectly spelt as kino mutai) is a very specific section of Filipino Martial Arts (almost all of them qualify on this list), emphasizes "dirty" fighting techniques like pinching, ripping, eye-gouging, and is known especially for it [[ManBitesMan biting]] techniques. One key principle of the "style" is the concept of uninterrupted biting; where one places oneself in a position that can hold a bite as long as one wants, disabling the opponent from escaping using of grappling techniques and manipulation of nerve and pressure points. The biting aspect of kinamutay concerns itself with where to bite, how much to bite at a time, and the angle and movement of the bite. Favored targets include sensitive and easily accessible areas such as the face, neck, ears, groin, nipples, and parts of the arms, these targets are also chosen over others because of the difficulty countering a kinamutay practitioner biting them, ensuring an uninterrupted bite can take place to inflict pain and can be used to cut arteries which can cause severe bleeding.

** Tangentially related are UsefulNotes/TheThirtySixStratagems, which are sometimes (possibly mistakenly) attributed to Sun Tzu. A careful reading will reveal that none of the Stratagems involve a straight-on, equal, honorable fight, and all of them involve screwing around with your opponents, exploiting their weak points, and, if possible, ending a fight before your enemy even realizes there even is one.

** In actual fact, spotted hyenas are very capable predators and can out-persist the lion on their own with enough skill (they've got a lot more stamina than your average lion and are no slouches in manoeuvrability, however weird their movements might look), let alone with company. Lions occasionally steal ''their'' kills, so it's all tit-for-tat. And, a juvenile male alone on his own is easy pickings.

*** Pure carnivores in general have to be this since even a minor injury can keep them from hunting causing them to be weakened from hunger. Therefore, it's in their best interest to stay as healthy as possible by avoiding unnecessary fights.

* In general, American military doctrine has always (and consistently) been about "dishonorable" combat: when entering a battlefield, US forces specifically work to end the conflict as quickly as possible. The last "honorable" offensive the US undertook was Operation Overlord (conducted jointly with the British and Canadians), the attack on Normandy in World War 2, and even then, only by virtue of being too big to properly conceal (and ''they did it anyway''). Special operations, clandestine operations, sabotage, stealth missions, and subversive activities are how the US operates.

* This is the entire point of [[RedsWithRockets Soviet Operational Art]]. While combat is ''always'' just [[StrategyVersusTactics a means to greater Strategic ends]] in the Red Army's conception of warfare, the ''best'' way of making combat unequal is not to field better weapons than the enemy but to be as strong as possible relative to the enemy wherever your forces actually engage them. In theory, a force that is 10% more combat-efficient/'stronger' man-for-man than an enemy force of the same size will inflict minimal losses upon and be utterly destroyed in combat by a force that is twenty times stronger than itself ([[ZergRush numbers]] being the key to this greater strength, of course). All good in theory, but only works against a force that sits there and lets it happen, and has no reserve force or reconnaissance capabilities. In reality, throwing twenty battalions of tanks at one battalion will lead to overly entangled supply lines, bogged together troops heavily vulnerable to artillery and airpower, and comedically large losses.
* Contrary to the [[ArtisticLicenseHistory popular image]], the usual means of waging war during UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar was by using what is called "indirect warfare" - instead of attacking the French army, the English soldiers attacked the enemy's ''means'' of waging war. This is known as ''chevauchee'' and meant [[RapePillageAndBurn attacking French towns and setting everything on fire whenever possible]]. Field battles were considered as an erratic and uncertain way of winning battles, and most field battles occurred either when one of the armies had trapped the other and the other had no way of averting it, or when they blundered into each other unexpectedly. Therefore, two groups would basically rush at each other until one side was weakened enough to get unorganized and wounded. Then, the burning of supplies continued.
** On that note, people like to imagine that Medieval wars were mostly a series of glorious battles. Not so. Mostly it was a series of ''sieges''. An attacking army loves a siege because they have a massive advantage. The besieging army can bring food and supplies from elsewhere, but the defenders are stuck with whatever finite supplies they have on hand. As long as the attackers don't do anything stupid they can just sit and wait for the defenders to deplete their own stores, then accept an honorable surrender. Field battles, by contrast, were rare events. No one wanted to jump into a pitched battle unless they had no other choice or, again, their side had a massive advantage. For every tale of a legendary battle there is another tale of two armies meeting on the field, waiting a while, and then just deciding a battle wasn't worth the risk.
** And, of course, peasant soldiers fought brutally, rarely if ever taking prisoners and sometimes even delighting in their reputation for unforgiving savagery -- the Swiss were the most infamous for this, but so were the Frisians, the Dithmarschers (both from Northern Germany), and the Spanish. Indeed, Spanish Almogavars, specialist light infantry raiders, were ''notorious'' for eagerly taking on mounted and armored knights one on one and killing them with contemptuous ease.

** And then there's the modern counterpart to the siege: the blockade. A blockade is simply where you take your fleet, and park it ''just'' out of range of the enemy, and sink anything trying to enter or leave said port. It has much the same effect but on a larger scale. Rather than starving out a single castle, a blockade attempts to starve an entire nation's economy by restricting its access to trade.

** They had also heard the Americans were coming, and the Hessian commander put his men on alert after getting warned. However, a few hours later they were attacked by about a dozen men who inflicted a few casualties and fled. The Hessian commander, Von Rahl, decided that ''this'' was the American attack. He told his men that "those wretched peasants" were beaten and told them to stand down and celebrate the holiday. [[ForegoneConclusion And a few hours later...]]
** George Washington was also one of the earliest users of biological warfare: Washington and his troops would march through the malaria-infested swamps in Virginia, knowing his enemies were there and would follow them through the swamps. Washington and his men grew up in the area and had largely gained resistance to malaria. His enemies, coming from areas where malaria was absent...were not. Eventually, Washington's people would turn around and face their opponents, and the ones who hadn't already died from malaria were severely weakened and in no condition to fight.

** They also used many other effective tactics. Littering the woods with booby traps designed to wound soldiers so that when the others came to rescue them the Vietnamese would shoot them. The tunnel system drew a platoon of Americans with a small force and then had reserves pop up out of the ground and destroy them. They also [[HoneyTrap used prostitutes as spies]].
** Amusingly, the Tet Offensive failed utterly. Nearly half of the communist forces involved were killed in the offensive, and they failed to cause a general uprising in the south - indeed, it most likely weakened their position[[note]]The Viet Cong, which formed the vast majority of the combat forces in the South, was effectively crippled and unable to fight for the rest of the war, with action being taken over by the regular North Vietnamese Army[[/note]]. The use of the offensive in propaganda was purely opportunistic, never part of the original plan.
*** The propaganda was, however, quite effective. For the first time, mainstream commentators in the US began to say that the US ''could not'' win the war, despite the fact that it was far closer to being won at this point than it had ever been.

* Egypt's invasion of Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Not only was it a religious holiday for Jews, it was also during Ramadan - the Muslim fasting month where war is ''supposed'' to be ceased. Some Arabs know it as the Ramadan War, by the way, while others call it the October War. In Egypt, it's usually just called '73.
** During Yom Kippur it is traditional to fast from sundown of the previous evening to the next sundown -- so not only were they praying, they were also underfed.

** However, it must be admitted that the means by which the Egyptians penetrated the much-vaunted Israeli Bar-Lev Line of defensive barricades fits this trope perfectly. The Line consisted of massive sand fortifications--essentially huge man-made dunes--along the Suez Canal that would be virtually impossible to traverse and against which even the heaviest of conventional artillery and explosives would be useless. The Egyptian solution? [[KillItWithWater Water cannons]]. The Israelis were apparently really confused at why the Egyptians had ordered a bunch of German high-pressure water pumps...until they found out why, with Egyptian tanks coming at them moments later.
** On the other hand, an Arab will tell you that the ultimate failure was really more because the North Africans didn't pull through with the amphibious assault that Gaddafi suggested. Well that, and Sadat had [[ThePurge purged]] one of his two competent generals for political reasons, and the second had been killed while visiting the front lines during the War of Attrition.

** On the fourth hand, it's pretty likely that Egypt never actually intended to win the war, they just wanted to use it to get Israel to the negotiating table to get the Sinai, which they had lost in the Six-Day War(and which Israel had only occupied to get Egypt to negotiate in the first place). In which case, Egypt got exactly what it wanted.
* Speaking of Egypt vs. Israel, Israel's actions during the Six-Day War are all about this. Israel attacked first, even though they had not (yet) been attacked. A large-scale surprise air strike was the opening of the Six-Day War, with Israel destroying about the entire Egyptian air force, which guaranteed Israeli air superiority for the rest of the war.

** Well, one of them anyway. The main one was that the French knights were [[BloodKnight too gung-ho for their own good]], [[LeeroyJenkins and started the battle before their army was anywhere near ready]].

** At Agincourt, the French attacked on foot. The original battle plan was about dismounted knights attacking on foot at center, then when the battle was engaged, the mounted knights attacking at flanks, performing an envelopment operation, and a local knight, Isembard d'Agincourt, attacking at the English rear with his retinue as he knew the local pathways. Because of extremely bad leadership, rain which had turned the fields into mud, and that Isembard d'Agincourt was more interested in looting the English baggage than fighting, it all ended up in Total Snafu.
** "Knightly"? Definitely. Civilized? Not so much. Many times the French lost battles because their just so proud cavalry charged over their own infantry and crossbowmen making the fight actually easier for the English. But hey, turns out France had [[WeHaveReserves reserves]]. [[ZergRush Many reserves]]. And from 1400 onward, also lots of [[StuffBlowingUp gunpowder weapons]].
** This happened just twice - at Crecy 1346 and Agincourt 1415. The reason why the English prevailed was that they just had better discipline and better generals. The French eventually learned this, abolished the feudal army, and set up a professional army consisting of competent professionals - knights, infantry, and artillery.

** Also, Hathcock sometimes went out to snipe with an ''[[MoreDakka M2 heavy machine gun]]''. Being very accurate and longer-ranged than pretty much any sniper rifle at the time it allowed him to snipe enemies at longer ranges, and if enemy infantry found where he was and tried to attack... Well, he'd just switch the fire selector and fire full-auto.

** In the process, he more or less invented the modern understanding of total war: if they're giving you everything they've got, then everything they've got is fair game. Since most of that stuff is behind their lines, this wasn't very useful in most wars in later years...until UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, where you could ''fly'' over enemy lines if you had air superiority. Lo-and-behold, we now have strategic bombing. Though "strategic bombing" actually was [[http://www.it-aac.org/images/AmericasDefenseMeltdownFullText.pdf not very effective]], thanks to [[ATeamFiring the pure inaccuracy of the bombs used]].
** This concept is OlderThanPrint. The warfare during the Age of Chivalry wasn't particularly chivalrous; rather than risking troops on field battles, knights far rather waged war by attrition - by fighting the enemy's ability to fight rather than his forces. That meant killing his peasants, burning his crops, and devastating his countryside.

** Grant's strategy wasn't explicitly one of attrition by throwing his army at Lee's without regard to his own casualties (although he was often accused of it). By possessing an army roughly twice the size of Lee's, Grant was able to pin Lee down with half of his army then maneuver with the other half toward Richmond. Lee was then forced to retreat lest Grant gets between him and the capital of the Confederacy. Each time the maneuvering part of Grant's army would continue until it engaged Lee in new defensive positions resulting in an inconclusive battle with high casualties. The strategy continued until Grant ran out of room to maneuver to the east and was forced into trench warfare around Petersburg, which was the rail hub that supplied food to Richmond. The stalemate was finally broken when Grant finally managed to cut all the rail links and flushed Lee's army out into the countryside where he could be chased down and defeated.

** In fact, one of his Ten Commandments of [=SpecWar=] is: "There Are No Rules - Win At All Costs".

** Whether he qualifies as a pragmatist or a psychopath is a matter of some debate, though it is worth noting the above example of his suggestion for handling civilians was very much ''not'' pragmatic. Slaughtering a bus full of civilians would have been a war crime, and earned America a sharp drop in international reputation, diplomatic penalties, and a reckoning with the UN. To qualify as a pragmatist, one needs to actually plan for the long-term impact of their actions.
* Naval mines are the main weapon of the Finnish Navy. Likewise, Finnish warships are basically examples of GlassCannon - armed as heavily as possible for their size and intended to retreat in the safety of the archipelago immediately once they have delivered their payload. Hiding behind an island is a far better idea than going and exchanging shots in the open.
* This argument has long been used as the defense for the USA's UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, given the choice between (a) killing high numbers of Japanese instantly and convincing the Japanese to surrender quickly or (b) killing even more of them (possibly all of them, as they had declared they would fight to the last) as well as the predicted several-hundred-thousand US dead and crippled (and several hundred thousand more wounded) over the couple of years that Operation Downfall was expected to take. That said, the ''second'' bombing and its timing (just a couple of days after the first) has no other explanation than being directed at getting the Junta to hurry up and surrender ''before the Soviets could take too much Japanese territory'' (what with them advancing into Japanese-occupied China at the time).
** This was also the reasoning behind the US Strategic Bombing campaign, part of that being the firebombing of Tokyo. The campaign up another interpretation of the argument mentioned above. In March of 1945, the US conducted a bombing raid on Tokyo. By itself this was nothing special, however, what was special was the weapon they were using; incendiaries. Keep in mind that most of the buildings in Tokyo at this time were made of wood and tar paper. When incendiaries were dropped all over the city, it didn't just burn; it incinerated. Over 100,000 Japanese were killed in one night, more than were killed at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet this incident gets considerably less attention than the atomic bombings which brings up issues of morality; is it really more wrong to use one extremely powerful weapon to instantly kill large numbers of people than it is to use less powerful weapons to kill the same amount of, or even more, people over a period of time?

** To a certain degree, the second bombing was one of political pragmatism, as well. Hiroshima proved the U.S. had a superweapon. Nagasaki proved the ability to produce more than one, and do so reliably. This was something of a bluff, as the three devices produced thus far (Trinity, Fat Man, and Little Boy) represented essentially all of the U.S. reserves of fissionables suitable for such devices, but it did make a very important implication that things had changed and that the U.S. had the ability and will to use such weapons in war. China and the U.S.S.R. were also intended recipients of this implication.
** There's also the fact that as horrible as the A-bombs were, they were still less bloodthirsty than some of the other plans being more or less seriously discussed. Like the one for using germ and chemical warfare to destroy Japan's rice harvest, or Curtis [=LeMay=]'s plan for [[KillItWithFire saturation bombing Japan with napalm]]. [[NoKillLikeOverkill Lots and lots and lots of napalm]].

** Knowing they did not have the size or resources no confront the US military directly, the Japanese also trained extensively in night combat, which they used to inflict heavy casualties on the US Navy early in the war.

* Russian militaries have used their country's harsh winter, immense size, and destroying of supplies left behind to aid in invasions; from [[UsefulNotes/CarolusRex Charles XII]] of Sweden during UsefulNotes/TheGreatNorthernWar, Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars, and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Rather than fully engaging the enemy immediately, the Russians retreated back slowly, luring the enemy deeper and deeper into the country, causing the invaders to overextend their supply lines, the "Scorched Earth" policy of destroying supplies left behind to prevent the enemies from using them, and waiting for the winter (nicknamed "General Winter") to set in which would greatly slow down the enemy's advance, badly damage enemy morale, and cause huge amounts of cold weather injuries and deaths.

** The Red Army also had a history of using "blocking units" or "barrier troops" from its inception in 1918 -- formations behind the front lines meant to act both as a reserve and to shoot at any retreating units from their own side. Stalin re-instituted the practice in 1941 with Order 1919.

* The reason why the {{Ninja}} were so successful as spies and assassins was because of their complete disregard for the code of honor that almost all warriors in Japan were expected to follow, as well as the social code that civilians followed. Ninja had no issue with running from fights, catching their enemy off guard, and using weapons disguised as farming or gardening implements. They also would disguise themselves as farmers, gardeners, and even [[DisguisedinDrag geisha and prostitutes]]. A samurai would literally die before being seen dressed as anything other than a proper nobleman.

* Snipers in general either are this trope or on the receiving end of this trope. By their nature, they are operating at ranges that mean other small arms cannot retaliate back, and/or use stealth to avoid retaliation. Snipers often wait until the target is at its most vulnerable before striking out of nowhere. Many snipers also employ psychological warfare, such as shooting the first in line, to make no one want to lead a patrol.

*** This was most notably done by the Red Army in an attempt to end Simo Häyhä's reign of terror in the Winter War...not that it worked, as Häyhä was able to get away and continue picking off Russians until the end of the war.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_parachutists Firing at enemy aircrew parachuting from their aircraft]]. Most pilots found this inhumane and unfair, while others justified it, at least, over enemy territory, as the enemy pilot could just get another plane. It was only made a war crime in 1949.

** One of the single most common (and devastating) steppe nomad tactics was a false retreat. Humans, like any other predators, have an instinctual urge to pursue weak, fleeing prey. Not only were steppe peoples masters of using this to draw out and destroy defensive formations as well as wear out pursuers and lead them into ambushes, but they were masters of shooting backwards while on horseback. Another common tactic learned from herding animals, was to give a surrounded enemy an "out" by weakening their formation deliberately. This usually resulted in panicking forces dropping their weapons and fleeing en masse for the "exit," at which point they could easily be harried down instead of fighting desperately with their backs to the wall. Mongols were absolute masters of psychological warfare.

* Military advancement is basically the study of forcing unequal battle: weapons development is making better ways to neutralize the enemy as efficiently as you can manage; armor development is finding better materials and designs for protecting your soldiers from getting hurt; better strategies, tactics, and organization all made an army more effective at winning wars; various little pieces of equipment that had significant impact on the effectiveness of an army (for example, stirrups are small and usually taken for granted nowadays, but they are what allowed cavalry to become dominant throughout Europe).

** That said, ValuesDissonance and RuleOfSymbolism can have a large effect on this. What is and is not considered "fair" or "honorable" in war can be a matter of culture and time. For example, during World War I, the German Empire vowed to execute any American POW found to have fought with a shotgun for war crimes because the shotgun was the weapon of the hunt (for game), and the Germans found it insulting. (American soldiers were using shotguns because they were ''very'' effective in clearing out trenches.) To try to substantiate the argument, the Germans claimed that wounds from shotgun shells were not instantly fatal and that victims would die a slow and ''extremely painful death,'' though in reality, that depends on where you get shot (''just like any other type of gun''). As for time, it used to be a war crime to drop bombs from the air (the Hague Convention of 1899). Admittedly, the German objection to the use of combat shotguns was largely insincere in nature - while they argued that it was inhumane (due to a technicality about firing multiple shot) and undignified, they mostly wished to create legal hassles to slow the use of a weapon that was devastatingly effective. To put this into perspective, while Germany was arguing against the shotgun, they were launching shells filled with chlorine gas.

** By the same logic as above, [[BladeOnAStick a good spear]] was a way to keep someone at a distance where they couldn't hurt you, and easily paired with a shield for better defense. Entire armies were equipped with this simple combination and almost impossible to fight head-on without taking severe losses. Spears became longer and longer as time passed until they were so long they weren't spears at all, but pikes. While only the first two lines of a spear formation could fight the enemy, using pikes allowed the first ''six'' lines of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Syntagma_phalangis.jpg Macedonian phalanx]] to present a forest of sharpened metal that was functionally impossible to get past. Or at least it was until the invention of the bill: like a pike, but shorter, more maneuverable and with a hooked blade as well as a point. However long your enemy's pike might have been, once you chopped the point off, it was just a stick.

** One of the single most common (and devastating) steppe nomad tactics was a false retreat. Humans, like any other predators, have an instinctual urge to pursue weak, fleeing prey. Not only were steppe peoples masters of using this to draw out and destroy defensive formations as well as wear out pursuers and lead them into ambushes, but they were masters of shooting backwards while on horseback. Another common tactic learned from herding animals, was to give a surrounded enemy an "out" by weakening their formation deliberately. This usually resulted in panicking forces dropping their weapons and fleeing en masse for the "exit," at which point they could easily be harried down instead of fighting desperately their backs to the wall. Mongols were absolute masters of psychological warfare.

** And if you want to start twirling your mustache as well, you can even throw some land-mines in with the ordinance as well, further delaying the repairs to the runway as some unfortunate souls have to get out there and clear the mines while crossing their fingers that there aren't any more time-delayed bombs ready to go off, and potentially having their commanders threaten their own lives if they don't get the runway fixed faster. Needless to say, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP233 JP233]] combined all of the above into one nice little device.

** At that note Radio Operators. "Request fire mission on coordinates XXXX-XXXX, full barrage, over." BOOM. "Thank you, TOC, out."

** And then there's the modern counterpart to the siege, the blockade. A blockade is simply where you take your fleet, and park it ''just'' out of range of the enemy, and sink anything trying to enter or leave said port. It has much the same effect but on a larger scale. Rather than starving out a single castle, a blockade attempts to starve an entire nation's economy by restricting its access to trade.

* UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington was quite the pragmatist when it came to waging war. Launching a major attack on ''Christmas morning'', when the enemy was sure to be drunk/sleeping/both, is only his most infamous act of dishonorable warfare. Many historians have attributed the American victory to this, as there was little chance of them beating a town-full of badass [[PrivateMilitaryContractors mercenaries]] by any other method available to them.

* The North Vietnamese also took advantage of a day that was a holiday when they launched the Tet Offensive on January 30th, 1968. That was Tet, the first day of the New Year, probably the most important holiday of the Vietnamese calendar. On top of that, they had previously announced that they would honor a two-day ceasefire to allow the celebration of the holiday. Given the scope of the attack, they never had any intention of honoring that ceasefire. Worse still, they didn't attack soldiers: they attacked ''camera crews'', hoping that the footage sent back to America would lessen morale at home. It was at that point that the war really started to be perceived negatively by the public.
** They also used many other effective tactics. Littering the woods with booby traps designed to wound soldiers so when the others came to rescue them the Vietnamese would shoot them. The tunnel system drew a platoon of Americans with a small force and then had reserves pop up out of the ground and destroy them. They also [[HoneyTrap used prostitutes as spies]].

** Grant's strategy wasn't explicitly one of attrition by throwing his army at Lee's without regard to his own casualties (although he was often accused of it). By possessing an army roughly twice the size of Lee's, Grant was able to pin Lee down with half of his army then maneuver with the other half towards Richmond. Lee was then forced to retreat least Grant get between him and the capital of the Confederacy. Each time the maneuvering part of Grant's army would continue until it engaged Lee in new defensive positions resulting in an inconclusive battle with high casualties. The strategy continued until Grant ran out of room to maneuver to the east and was forced into trench warfare around Petersburg, which was the rail hub that supplied food to Richmond. The stalemate was finally broken when Grant finally managed to cut all the rail links and flushed Lee's army out into the countryside where he could be chased down and defeated.

* Richard Marcinko, U.S Navy SEAL. He wrote in his book ''Rogue Warrior'' how he was sitting in the Pentagon during Operation Eagle Claw, the 1980 failed attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. Everything went wrong, including a bus full of Iranian civilians accidentally showing up at the landing zone. When the men at the landing zone asked what to do about the civilians, Marchinko said, "Kill them". He got some strange looks for that from his fellow soldiers. Needless to say, they weren't killed.

** This was also the reasoning behind the US Strategic Bombing campaign, part of that being the fire bombing of Tokyo. The campaign up another interpretation of the argument mentioned above. In March of 1945, the US conducted a bombing raid on Tokyo. By itself this was nothing special, however what was special was the weapon they were using; incendiaries. Keep in mind that most of the buildings in Tokyo at this time were made of wood and tar paper. When incendiaries were dropped all over the city, it didn't just burn; it incinerated. Over 100,000 Japanese were killed in one night, more than were killed at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet this incident gets considerably less attention than the atomic bombings which brings up issues of morality; is it really more wrong to use one extremely powerful weapon to instantly kill large numbers of people than it is to use less powerful weapons to kill the same amount of, or even more, people over a period of time?

** The business about telling Japanese civilians that the US soldiers would do horrible things to them wasn't really meant as propaganda, either. The Japanese had not signed the Geneva Conventions (which governs things like the treatment of captured civilians as well as captured soldiers) and, for cultural reasons, had a great deal of difficulty accepting the idea that US troops would treat captured civilians (or soldiers, for that matter) any better than Japanese troops had. When US troops actually ''did'' do so, and commanders like General [=MacArthur=] gave explicit orders forbidding any degrading treatment of Japanese people and even ordering the destruction of Imperial symbols on captured equipment (to avoid disgracing the Emperor's insignia), it was a bit of a mind breaker for some. These actions constitute being a sort of Occupation Pragmatist on [=MacArthur=]'s part.

** There were also female ninja, called Kunoichi, who did very well in disguise, because who are you expecting to stick a knife in your back? Not the pretty lady in the lovely kimono, the geisha makeup and the tessen, [[ExplainExplainOhCrap a fan with metal struts...]]

** During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Italian Navy developed a nasty habit of strapping torpedoes on speedboats and send them to sink Austro-Hungarian warships in harbour. After the first time, the Austro-Hungarians wised up and upped the surveillance and started placing torpedo nets. This, and shock, saved them the second time: the speedboats ''still'' evaded surveillance, but the torpedoes were stopped by the nets, and the fleet being too shocked to give chase (the torpedo nets had been placed against the protests of the captains because the surveillance was believed adequate to thwart another attempt) saved them from ''being torpedoed by a flotilla of destroyers and other torpedo-armed ships waiting for them at the exit of the bay''. Then they sank the Austrian flagship after stumbling on it, with another Austrian ship filming what had happened and nobody realized what the hell had just happened until the Italian radio started bragging on it.

* England. 1455, 22nd of May. The First Battle of St. Albans started a mixture of political and combat pragmatism that would characterise thirty years of intermittent conflict; go in, kill their leaders, any way you can. At Barnet, the Earl of Warwick was killed by a common soldier while trying to retrieve his horse. At Wakefield, the Duke of York and his sons were specifically targetted and killed by the Lancastrians. The English had long favoured combat pragmatism ever since Edward III had demonstrated its necessity at Dupplin Moor, up to the moment your opponent was defeated; after which the foe (provided he was noble) was spared and ransomed. After St. Albans? Kill him, kill his sons, eliminate his claim to the throne, and do it by any means necessary. This resulted in the Battle of Towton, the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, and Tewkesbury, where Lancastrians were dragged out of a church seeking sanctuary and executed. By the end of thirty years of it? Henry Tudor won, essentially by being the last man standing.

* Perhaps surprisingly, Tai Chi, that meditative martial art like exercise that old people and hippies do in the park? That's based on a Chinese martial art. Recall that big, flowing, windmill motion you make with your arms where you sink into a crouch as you sweep your hands across and out from you? What you're actually doing is grabbing dirt... and throwing it in your enemy's eyes.

** 18th century soldier, duelist, and adventurer Donald [=McBane=] dedicates an entire chapter to "dirty tricks" in his combination autobiography and fencing treatise, ''The Expert Sword-Man's Companion''.

* UsefulNotes/KravMaga is founded on the concept and designed to have your ''survival'' as the highest goal of a fight. Put simply, ''everything'' is allowed, including the GroinAttack, going for the eyes, the throat, clawing and ''especially'' biting.

* Traditional Jiu Jitsu predominantly makes use of throws and locks, with varying amount of groundwork and strikes based on the style. Outside of competitions, almost anything goes. [[EyeScream Eye raking]], spinal locks, striking floored opponents, and breaking joints are all considered legitimate tactics. As it originated on the battlefield, it's not surprising that it involves techniques designed to quickly stun, cripple or kill an opponent.

* Creator/BruceLee. His personally developed fighting style, Jeet Kune Do, is based on the philosophy of doing 'whatever it takes' to win. In one apocryphal case, during a sparring match, he was pinned by a judo practitioner who asked what he'd do if this was a real fight. He responded, "Bite you, of course." Basically, he acknowledges that, if you're fighting for real, you use ''everything'' at your disposal, including crotch kicks, eye-gouges, hair-pulling, biting, or even using weapons (he always carried a gun on him, since all the martial arts in the world would be meaningless if your opponent wanted to shoot you). Of course, he was also perfectly capable of fighting 'by the rules' for martial-arts tournaments and movies, but that's another matter.

* The Red Baron collected his victories this way: he was just decent at flying, but had a very good aim and would use every trick in the book to get close to his target from behind, possibly with the sun behind him, before revealing his presence with a burst of machine gun fire.

** By the same logic as above, [[BladeOnAStick a good spear]] was a way to keep someone at a distance where they couldn't hurt you, and easily paired with a shield for better defense. Entire armies were equipped with this simple combination and almost impossible to fight head-on without taking severe losses. Spears became longer and longer as time passed until they were so long they weren't spears at all, but pikes. While only the first two lines of a spear formation could fight the enemy, using pikes allowed the first ''six'' lines of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Syntagma_phalangis.jpg Macedonian phalanx]] to present a forest of sharpened metal that was functionally impossible to get past. Or at least it was until the invention of the bill: like a pike, but with a blade as well as a point. However long your enemy's pike might have been, once you chopped the point off, it was just a stick.

** Combat engineers take this trope UpToEleven. They are trained in mine warfare, booby-trapping, and improvised munitions. The classical booby trap is to tilt a picture on the wall slightly, then rig an explosive charge with a mercury trigger behind it. When an enemy soldier - usually an officer - attempts to right the harmless-looking picture on the wall -- KABOOM!

** The Kingdom of Sardinia had little money or plains for actual cavalry, so they trained the Bersaglieri, fast-running light infantry trained to quickly form an infantry square, repeal cavalry charges and then ''charge the cavalry as it pulled back to regroup, [[UpToEleven possibly on the flank]]'' (they actually charged Russian cavalry busy attacking French infantry at the Battle of the Chernaya, routing the Russians, and then continued when they pulled back to regroup. [[OhCrap The Russians ran]]).

*** Since then, Israel’s policy has been that if they are about to be overrun by ''any'' Arab army, they will nuke ''all'' of the Arab countries, plus Iran (and possibly Turkey, too, for good measure). Which might have something to do with the fact that no Arab national military has tried to invade Israeli territory since 1973. Terrorist organizations are another story.

** the Tet Offensive was far from the first time that the Vietnamese attacked during these holidays. 200 years earlier, during the Qing invasion of Vietnam, Vietnamese forces led by Emperor Quang Trung also attacked the unsuspecting Qing army during the same holidays. Unlike the Tet Offensive, this battle was a legendary success, allowing the Vietnamese to defeat the entire 300,000-man Qing invasion in one fell swoop.

** Tet was far from the first time that the Vietnamese attacked during Tet. 200 years earlier, during the Qing invasion of Vietnam, Vietnamese forces led by Emperor Quang Trung also attacked the unsuspecting Qing army during the same holidays. Unlike the Tet Offensive, this battle was a legendary success, allowing the Vietnamese to defeat the entire 300,000-man Qing invasion in one fell swoop.

** Oda Nobunaga was famous for his pragmatic brutality. In the Siege of Mount Hiei, a hill containing Buddhist temple forts, Oda Nobunaga set the hill on fire, with orders to kill anyone who managed to escape the flames.

** It is constantly pointed out by other martial artists that Tai Chi "meditation" (especially in Western countries) is only used at "training speed," but the complete training means you're supposed to get up to FULL SPEED at some point (as seen in WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender). It's not an offshoot of the ''famously brutal'' Shaolin style for nothing.

** It is constantly pointed out by other martial artists that Tai Chi training (especially in Western countries) is incomplete because people only use it at "training speed," when you're supposed to eventually use it at FULL SPEED (as seen in WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender). It's not an offshoot of the ''famously brutal'' Shaolin style for nothing.

** It is constantly pointed out by other martial artists that Tai Chi training (especially in Western countries) is incomplete because people only use it at "training speed," when you're supposed to eventually use it at FULL SPEED (as seen in AvatarTheLastAirbender). It's not an offshoot of the ''famously brutal'' Shaolin style for nothing.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko Lyudmila Pavlichenko]] is among the most famous female snipers in the history of warfare, much of which boiled down to doing whatever it took to get an edge and increase her kill count, from killing dogs that could sniff her out to wounding enemies in the legs so their cries would attract more enemy targets.