History Main / ToWinWithoutFighting

* ''LightNovel/MaoyuuMaouYuusha'''s Hero and Demon Queen actively try to avoid battles and fighting whenever possible, as they are trying to end a war in such a way that all the factions win. They have limited success because of their opponents being {{Proud Warrior Race}}s or ruthless WeHaveReserves generals, but they still have their bloodless victories, as when Hero managed to free Gateway City without a single casualty. In fact, The Hero initially has quite a bit of {{Wangst}} over the fact that beating people up is all he's ''good'' for, when his meeting with the Demon Queen has taught him that doing so never actually solves anything. Starting with the Gateway City events, however, he starts to realize that his tactical insight and raw power can be applied towards this trope -- using intimidation and psychological warfare to shift the strategic situation without actually killing anyone.

** The Battle of Coventry, where the Jade Falcons attack the planet Coventry in an attempt to salvage some dignity, get hamstrung when [[BloodKnight Khan Vlad Ward]] of their longtime rivals, Clan Wolf (who is in a secret alliance with the Lyran Alliance) declares that they're going to be marauding through their now thinned rear ranks. Honor-bound to continue the assault on Coventry, the Jade Falcon leadership is caught in a bind. [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Katrina Steiner]] (the other half of the secret alliance) calls for aid from [[NGOSuperpower Comstar's Com Guard]]. Her brother (whom she hates) Victor Davion joins up with the task force, along with several regiments from across the Inner Sphere. How does Vic solve the Coventry crisis? With advice from a Clan warrior on loan for counsel, he offers ''Hegira'', a Clan custom of honorable withdrawal. The Falcons are off of Coventry, and the Falcons can now bring the force of their (still somewhat weakened) armed forces upon the Wolf marauders. Katherine is furious that Victor extricated himself from a bloody fight that she was hoping he would have been killed in. Not only that, but Victor's bloodless victory gave him the political clout to call an interstellar meeting to unify the entire Inner Sphere against the Clans.

** Bribing your enemy generals with spies until there's nothing left but the King. It requires a lot of money, but it's doable.

** The Battle of Coventry, where the Jade Falcons attack the planet Coventry in an attempt to salvage some dignity, get hamstrung when [[BloodKnight Khan Vlad Ward]] of their longtime rivals, Clan Wolf (who is in a secret alliance with the Lyran Alliance) declares that they're going to be marauding through their now thinned rear ranks. Honor-bound to continue the assault on Coventry, the Jade Falcon leadership is caught in a bind. [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Katrina Steiner]] (the other half of the secret alliance) calls for aid from [[NGOSuperpower Comstar's Com Guard]]. Her brother (whom she hates) Victor Davion joins up with the task force, along with several regiments from across the Inner Sphere. How does Vic solve the Coventry crisis? With advice from a clan warrior on loan for counsel, he offers ''Heigra'', a clan custom of honorable withdrawl. The Falcons are off of Coventry, and the Falcons can now bring the force of their (still somewhat weakened) armed forces upon the Wolf marauders. Katherine is furious that Victor extricated himself from a bloody fight that she was hoping he would have been killed in. Not only that, but Victor's bloodless victory gave him the political clout to call an interstellar meeting to unify the entire Inner Sphere against the Clans.

* Invoked by the "loser" in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' book ''Discworld/NightWatch''. Vimes' realisation that he cannot win and his decision not to fight saves them all by persuading the mob to not destroy the station, and avoids the impression that the police are arming themselves against their own people.

!!Examples

* ''LightNovel/MaoyuuMaouYuusha'''s Hero and Demon Queen actively try to avoid battles and fighting whenever possible, as they are trying to end a war in such a way that all the factions win. They have limited success because of their opponents being {{Proud Warrior Race}}s or ruthless WeHaveReserves generals, but they still have their bloodless victories, as when Hero managed to free Gateway City without a single casualty.
** In fact, The Hero initially has quite a bit of {{Wangst}} over the fact that beating people up is all he's ''good'' for, when his meeting with the Demon Queen has taught him that doing so never actually solves anything. Starting with the Gateway City events, however, he starts to realize that his tactical insight and raw power can be applied towards this trope -- using intimidation and psychological warfare to shift the strategic situation without actually killing anyone.
* In ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', Kircheis is sent with 2,000 ships to put down a rebellion on a planet, with the rebels having a network of {{Kill Sat}}s that obliterated the previous 3,000-strong fleet that had tried. When he's finished ''preparing'' the battle, the Kill Sats are obliterated, and the rebels are surrendering (aside from their leader, who promptly gets killed by his own men). For this and the record time (scarcely two days), Kircheis becomes a hero.

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[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* Discussed in ''FanFic/WorldwarWarOfEquals''. Shiplord Straha suggest that rather than sending soldiers to fight and die trying to conquer Earth, they just batter the planet with [[NukeEm nukes]] until the Humans give in. The plan is shot down instantly due to a glassed planet not being a good place for the colonists.
* In ''FanFic/{{Sight}}'', Ichigo wins control of his Inner Hollow by choosing not to fight him. Ichigo reasons that the hollow is a part of him and will not allow the baser aspect of himself control him by deeming him a threat that he must fight. This act figuratively and literally disarms the Inner Hollow.

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* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', the idea with the Death Star, a giant battle station able to blow off entire planets, is not so much to use it, but to use the fear of what it could do to hold rebellious systems in line. In what is now ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', the Tarkin Doctrine is fully explained, referencing experiences with the Star Destroyers. While much smaller than the Death Star, they were still much bigger than any other warship before them, a fact which would by itself often keep people from fighting. Which, in Tarkin's words, made it possible to ''"Rule through the fear of force rather than through force itself"''. [[MachiavelliWasWrong In the end, the doctrine backfired when people, instead of becoming fearful, got angry over what the Death Star could do -- and did.]]
** In current canon, the Death Star nearly worked: as shown in ''Film/RogueOne'', just finding out of the Death Star was so terrifying that most of the Rebel Alliance just ''gave up'', with the ones that stole the plans for the Death Star and continued the fight being the last unyielding ones that Tarkin had already accounted for and [[MakeAnExampleOfThem planned to kill to show the galaxy what fate awaited those who'd rebel against the Empire]]. It's not until [[Film/ANewHope the Death Star is destroyed]] that the Rebel Alliance reassembles itself-and the indignation about the destruction of Alderaan drives people to join the Rebellion.

--> '''Cato:''' You have lost Rome, without unsheathing your sword. ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis You have lost! ROME!]]''

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** Much of the art of warfare as practiced by the post-Alexander the Great Greek kingdoms was about position and getting every possible advantage, so that the enemy would cede the battle before it began. Both sides were composed largely of highly-drilled professional sarissa-style pikemen or phalanxes, and usually similar in numbers. Actual combat was a grinding, attrition-based affair that resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, weakening the victor almost as much as the loser. It was in no one's interest to fight head-on, and difficult to force an enemy to fight at a disadvantage when cavalry was often helpless against their infantry's ranked pikes, so warfare usually consisted of maneuvering until one side or the other found themselves in a bad position and sued for terms. The Roman citizen-armies, willing to take heavy losses and unwilling to leave aside a war without being annihilated or victorious, completely wrecked this style of warfare within a couple of generations.

* [[UsefulNotes/GulfWar Operation Desert Storm]] had many instances of this as most of the Iraqi army surrendered to the Allied forces--despite predictions that they'd fight to the death, and that "body bags would be coming back full of American casualties". As comedian Creator/BillHicks mused, Iraq's "elite Republican Guard" were discussed in hushed tones, but shortly became just "the Republican Guard", until one was left wondering if there were any Iraqi guards ''at all''.
** There was also at least one instance of an Iraqi unit so desperate to surrender and avoid getting destroyed in battle, that they tried to surrender to an Italian film crew. Other units [[http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/dstorm/ds5.htm surrendered to a UAV]] (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).
*** The UAV wasn't an act of simply being desperate to surrender; in Gulf 1 the [=UAVs=] in use were Navy, used for shore bombardment spotting for the ''Iowa''-class battleships. The Iraqis correctly deduced that the presence of the UAV meant it was soon going to rain 16" shells. With no defense against the battleship guns, they took the smart way out.

* Essentially, this is what police negotiators ''WANT'' to happen, as the authorities will always outnumber the suspects in a siege like situation. Many times, however, this fails, as the suspects are extremely desperate.
** Sun Tzu talked about this as well (smart man, he was). Basically, it came down to, "make the enemy think that there is a way out, to avoid him fighting desperately to the death." On the flip side, he also said, [[BurningTheShips "if you're on the wrong end of this, cut off your own escape routes to get your troops to fight to the death."]]

* Judging from his [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} Wikiquote page]], Carl von Clausewitz was not a fan; this perhaps should not be construed as saying that Clausewitz was a BloodKnight, however--he is likely more commenting on the fact that WarIsHell no matter what you did, and being an ActualPacifist got you nowhere once war became inevitable.
-->''"Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst."''

* The first rule of virtually any martial art or fighting discipline boils down to some variation on "the best way to win a fight is to not get into one in the first place".

* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', the idea with the Death Star, a giant battle station able to blow off entire planets, is not so much to use it, but to use the fear of what it could do to hold rebellious systems in line. In the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'', the Tarkin Doctrine is fully explained, referencing experiences with the Star Destroyers. While much smaller than the Death Star, they were still much bigger than any other warship before them, a fact which would by itself often keep people from fighting. Which, in Tarkin's words, made it possible to ''"Rule through the fear of force rather than through force itself"''. [[MachiavelliWasWrong In the end, the doctrine backfired when people, instead of becoming fearful, got angry over what the Death Star could do -- and did.]]

* [[Literature/TheGeneral Raj Whitehall's]] life's ambition is to win a war without actually fighting a battle.

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[[folder:Web Original]]
* It is mentioned in the ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'' that sieges of demon castles often went along these lines, if the defense felt they were outmatched and would just surrender. The war itself was fairly bloodless...[[CurbstompBattle on the human side]].
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', VillainProtagonist Skitter successfully pulls this off several times when fighting her HeroAntagonist opponents, such as when she was captured by Flechette but managed to get her to leave Skitter to look after her friend Parian to ensure that Parian was not walking into a trap.
** Another example occurs when [[spoiler:Skitter is cornered in a high school cafeteria by Dragon and Defiant, her secret identity exposed, and uses her status as a VillainWithGoodPublicity to convince the high schoolers to side with her and nonviolently walk out of the building with her -- the heroes refuse to attack innocent civilians just to get Skitter.]]
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* Happens once in the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology. The [[BigBadDuumvirate Big Bad Triumvirate]] are using a scheme to make it look as if Grand Admiral Thrawn, the greatest military genius the galaxy has ever known, is BackFromTheDead, and the galaxy's not sure if this is a trick or not. One group sends a small force against him as a test. The Triumvirate manages to figure out who they are and start the opening move of one of Thrawn's responses against these people, a response which had the last time totally decimated their taskforce. Convinced, the small force flees.

* Kreia in ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2'':

** "Literature/TheMule": After the Mule's fleet has begun invading the Foundation, the Independent Traders are suspicious of how the generals/admirals from the capital are [[CurbStombBattle surrendering as soon as combat begins]]. When his fleet invades the capital planet, Terminus, by surprise, his Extinguishing Field helped to [[CurbStompBattle take over the entire planet in one attack]]. However, it is never used effectively again, but he conquers Haven just as easily. Each CurbStompBattle situation comes from him using his PsychicPowers to "adjust" people. In the battles where he couldn't be present or pre-program the officers, the combat is much longer and much more even. Bayta figures out from this that [[spoiler:Magnifico is [[TwoAliasesOneCharacter secretly the Mule]], and his [[BizarreInstrument Visi-Sonar]] concerts were [[CrimeConcealingHobby cover for when he programmed people into surrendering in battle]]]].

* The ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' series lives off this trope. The protagonists use historical forces to achieve victory, instead of direct combat.
** One of the antagonists uses it to a lesser extent. [[spoiler:The Mule uses his mental powers to convert his enemies to his side. He would latter use the Visi-sonor to create mass despair, causing his enemies to lose the will to fight before any battle occurs.]]
** One of the first victories achieved by the Foundation involves a prince-regent sending a large fleet, including a cruiser recently repaired by the Foundation against Terminus in order to crush them and use their technology to rule. [[spoiler:The Mayor of Terminus merely uses the ever-present monks who control all atomic technology to stop the fleet and incite mass riots on the prince-regent's planet. It helps that the repaired cruiser stops dead at exactly the right moment to panic its superstitious crew because of some additions made by the Foundation repair crews.]].

Compare WinByDoingAbsolutelyNothing.

* ''Series/{{Rome}}:'' When it becomes apparent that Julius Caesar has [[PointOfNoReturn crossed the Rubicon]] with his legions intent on installing himself in Rome as its absolute ruler, the Republican faction in the city discuss how they can stop him. Pompey has to concede that an adequate defense cannot be mustered in time to stop him, and they must retreat from the capital. [[WhatTheHellHero Cato mercilessly chews him out for this.]]

* Wargames might be the last place you expect this trope to appear, but it is in fact part of the canon of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', and enacted by the {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s known as the Clans no less, who believe firmly that honorable victory on the battlefield is the apex of achievement. It says something, then that Clan Wolf, perhaps the only GenreSavvy Clan of the invaders, manages to spare themselves the cost of men and materiel in invading the heavily defended planet of Gunzburg by meeting with the defending commander and convincing him that while the defenders might be able to put up a fight, they would ultimately lose even a battle of attrition, and that his people would suffer. This realization touches the defending commander, who turns over the world peacefully for the sake of not bringing war to his people, and leading to the legend of a Clan warrior single-handedly capturing the planet.

GeneralRipper is ignored as men throw down their weapons and surrender in droves to the good guys. DrillSergeantNasty desperately tries to restore order but is defeated and maybe even murdered by the soldiers he has been oppressing the spirits of for so long. The EvilOverlord screams in frustration and indicates for his FiveBadBand to defend him, only for the TokenGoodTeammate to be the first to break ranks, followed shortly by the rest of the group and finally, to the {{Big Bad}}'s horror, even his faithful [[TheDragon dragon.]] The matter is completely resolved and the EvilArmy disbanded without anyone getting killed by the good guys.

-->-- '''Sun Tzu''', ''Literature/TheArtOfWar''

A situation where one side wins by putting the other side at such a massive disadvantage that the issue of fighting it out never comes up. Named for Sun Tzu's recommendations in Literature/TheArtOfWar, it is often the mark of a BadassPacifist or sometimes a GuileHero, and particularly of the AllLovingHero, and it often can happen on a small scale as well with one group putting the other at such a disadvantage that they give up without ever coming to blows.

* The TropeNamer is Sun Tzu's ''Literature/TheArtOfWar'', of course. See the page quote. A big part of Sun Tzu's military philosophy is that fighting is a matter of last resort, and that it is far better (i.e. cheaper, less destructive, and less bothersome) to win by simply making victory seem impossible to the enemy. (The victory doesn't have to ''be'' impossible; only ''seem'' impossible to ''them''.)

* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' prequel ''Bluestar's Prophecy'', Sunstar decides to take back Sunningrocks from [=RiverClan=] by walking into their camp with a patrol and announcing that it's [=ThunderClan=]'s territory now, and that any [=RiverClan=] blood spilled in an attempt to re-claim it will be on their leader Hailstar's paws. As Sunstar had planned, every Clan knows how strong [=ThunderClan=] is at that point, and [=RiverClan=] doesn't make an attempt to re-claim it after that.