True fact: if you look at the numbers, in terms of victory/losses, during the Revolutionary War you see that Washington only decisively won a few battles. All the rest were either losses or a draw. Washington realized that beating the British in a stand-up fight was not in the cards, so he avoided engagements that he knew would wipe out his army. How is that a recipe for victory? Washington didn’t have to win…he just had to not lose. As long as he still had an army the British would have to keep fighting. And all Washington had to do was ‘prolong the war’ until the British finally got tired of it. It’s the now-standard way of smaller and inferior forces. The technique was best exemplified in Vietnam – the North didn’t have to win…they just had to drag things out long enough that we got sick of the whole thing and quit.

It’s a good thing to remember that, despite it sounding like a cliche, sometimes surviving is a victory. And ‘he who fights and runs away’ really does live to fight another day. So, next time you’re feeling up against the wall try to remember that you don’t necessarily have to win, you just have to survive.

But..uhm….post some really good perimeter sentries on Christmas Eve just in case.