"The best defense is a good offense" is an adage that has been applied to many fields of endeavor, including games and military combat. It is also known as the strategic offensive principle of war. Generally, the idea is that proactivity (a strong offensive action) instead of a passive attitude will preoccupy the opposition and ultimately hinder its ability to mount an opposing counterattack, leading to a strategic advantage.
George Washington wrote in 1799: "...make them believe, that offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only (in some cases) means of defence". [1]
Mao Zedong opined that "the only real defense is active defense", meaning defense for the purpose of counter-attacking and taking the offensive. [2] Often success rests on destroying the enemy's ability to attack. This principle is paralleled in the writings of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. [3]
Some martial arts emphasise attack over defense. Wing chun, for example, is a style of kung fu which uses the maxim: "The hand which strikes also blocks."
During World War I, Germany planned to attack France so as to quickly knock it out of the war, thereby reducing the Entente's numerical superiority and to free up German troops to head east and defeat Russia.
In some board games, such as Risk , one's ability to build up armies depends on aggressively attacking so as to acquire territory; however, in Risk , luck in rolling the dice is the ultimate determining factor. Players who fail to do so, and concentrate instead on holding the line against enemy attack, will likely end up in a weak position. In-depth info argues that this adage does not always apply: "When the battle rages between two players one should put every ounce of power in the offense, but when several players are involved, the political element changes this dynamic." [4]
In chess, one's ability to prevent enemy attacks often depends on maintaining the initiative – i.e., making a series of threats that the opponent must use his turns to parry, rather than launching his own attacks; thus, common tips used in conjunction with this adage are that the best way to upset an opponent's plans is to become menacing and that the best way to stop an enemy threat to one's own king is to attack the opponent's.[ original research? ]
In sports such as football and basketball, [5] the adage is used to note that success can hinge on an effective offense that keeps the ball on the other team's side of the field, thus not only creating scoring opportunities but preventing the opposing team from scoring.
The phrase has appeared in the inverted form "The best offence is a good defence" as non-player character dialogue in Skyrim.
The adage has also been applied in the intellectual property realm, in reference to patent trolls. [6]
The adage has also been applied in court where the defense counsel attacks and breaks the prosecutor's case. It is the prosecution's burden to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
There are strict rules of criminal procedure code which require the prosecution to first prove a prima facie case, before the defense could be called or even invited to set out material aspects of its position, and the prosecution's task to present its case at the trial.
In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Empath, Captain Kirk says, "The best defense is a good offense, and I intend to start offending right now." [7]
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when first used during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", or "'the art of arrangement" of troops. and deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.
In many team sports, defense or defence is the action of preventing an opponent from scoring. The term may also refer to the tactics involved in defense, or a sub-team whose primary responsibility is defense. Similarly, a defense player or defender is a player who is generally charged with preventing the other team's forwards from being able to bear down directly on their own team's goalkeeper or goaltender. Such positions exist in association football, ice hockey, water polo and many other sports.
The point guard in basketball is usually the shortest player and has great ball-handling and passing skills. The term “floor general” or “coach at the floor” are other names for the point guard used on the court. They frequently shoot short-range shots well and move very quickly. They frequently have the most assists on their team and may set up shots for themselves and their teammates. Depending on their ability level, they can make shots outside the key, but most of them are made inside the three-point line.
Axis & Allies: Europe is a strategic board wargame produced by Hasbro under the Avalon Hill name brand. Designed by Larry Harris, who designed the original Axis & Allies board game, Axis & Allies: Europe focuses game play on the European Theatre of World War II.
Turtling is a gameplay strategy that emphasizes heavy defense, with little or no offense. A player who turtles minimizes risk to themselves while baiting opponents to take risks in trying to overcome the defenses.
In sports, a utility player is one who can play several positions competently. Sports in which the term is often used include association football, basketball, American football, baseball, rugby union, rugby league, softball, ice hockey, and water polo.
Axis & Allies: Pacific is a strategy board game produced by Hasbro under the Avalon Hill name brand. Released on July 31, 2001 and designed by Larry Harris, the designer of the original Axis & Allies game, Axis & Allies: Pacific allows its players to recreate the Pacific Theater of World War II.
Strategy forms a major part of American football. Both teams plan many aspects of their plays (offense) and response to plays (defense), such as what formations they take, who they put on the field, and the roles and instructions each player are given. Throughout a game, each team adapts to the other's apparent strengths and weaknesses, trying various approaches to outmaneuver or overpower their opponent in order to win the game.On offense your job on the field is to score you can do that by scoring a touchdown by advancing the ball into the end zone either by running the ball or passing it another way to score is by field goal which is worth three points.Your job on defense is to prevent the other team from scoring and from gaining ground this way they get as little points as possible
In basketball, there are five players that play per team, each assigned to positions. Historically, these players have been assigned to positions defined by the role they play on the court, from a strategic point of view. The three main positions are guard, forward, and center, with the standard team featuring two guards, two forwards, and a center. Over time, as more specialized roles developed, each of the guards and forwards came to be differentiated, and today each of the five positions is known by a unique name and number: point guard (PG) or 1, the shooting guard (SG) or 2, the small forward (SF) or 3, the power forward (PF) or 4, and the center (C) or 5.
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical, and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of war, not limited only to nuclear arms.
Zone defense is a type of defense, used in team sports, which is the alternative to man-to-man defense; instead of each player guarding a corresponding player on the other team, each defensive player is given an area to cover.
Principles of war are rules and guidelines that represent truths in the practice of war and military operations.
Man-to-man defense, or man defense, is a type of defensive technique used in team sports such as American football, association football, basketball and netball, as in which each player is assigned to defend and follow the movements of a single player on offense. Often, a player guards his counterpart, but a player may be assigned to guard a different position. However, the strategy is not rigid, and a player might switch assignment if needed, or leave his own assignment for a moment to double team an offensive player. The term is commonly used in both men's and women's sports. The alternative to man-to-man defense is zone defense, a system of defense in which each player guards an assigned area rather than a specified opponent.
Players use different strategies while playing tennis to enhance their own strengths and exploit their opponent's weaknesses in order to gain the advantage and win more points.
In the study of military tactics, a counter-offensive is a strategic military/ tactical response, initially done by a defending force, against an aggressors attack. This involves engaging the aggressors force to disrupt their offensive operations and to regain control. The objective of a counter-offense is to neutralize the enemy attack.
In martial arts, the terms hard and soft technique denote how forcefully a defender martial artist counters the force of an attack in armed and unarmed combat. In the East Asian martial arts, the corresponding hard technique and soft technique terms are 硬 and 柔, hence Goju-ryu, Shorinji Kempo principles of go-ho and ju-ho, Jujutsu and Judo.
In military tactics, a flanking maneuver is a movement of an armed force around an enemy force's side, or flank, to achieve an advantageous position over it. Flanking is useful because a force's fighting strength is typically concentrated in its front, therefore, to circumvent an opposing force's front and attack its flank is to concentrate one's own offense in the area where the enemy is least able to concentrate defense.
Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive structures on or along their path of attack. This typically means building a variety of different structures that serve to automatically block, impede, attack or destroy enemies. Tower defense is seen as a subgenre of real-time strategy video games, due to its real-time origins, even though many modern tower defense games include aspects of turn-based strategy. Strategic choice and positioning of defensive elements is an essential strategy of the genre.
An offensive is a military operation that seeks through an aggressive projection of armed forces to occupy or recapture territory, gain an objective or achieve some larger strategic, operational, or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is "invasion", or the more general "attack". An offensive is a conduct of combat operations that seek to achieve only some of the objectives of the strategy being pursued in the theatre as a whole. Commonly an offensive is carried out by one or more divisions, numbering between 10 and 30,000 troops as part of a combined arms manoeuvre.