From grimoire
Wins against stronger opponents by undermining their dependencies rather than attacking their strength. Use when direct competition is costly or unwinnable.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/grimoire:apply-indirect-strategyThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Identify what the opponent's strategy depends on, attack that dependency rather than their strength, and make their position untenable without direct confrontation.
Identify what the opponent's strategy depends on, attack that dependency rather than their strength, and make their position untenable without direct confrontation.
Origin: Sun Tzu's most cited principle: "Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." (不戰而屈人之兵, Ch.3). The chapter on Attack by Stratagem argues that attacking the opponent's strategy is superior to attacking their alliances, which is superior to attacking their army, which is superior to attacking their cities. Direct attack on strength is the lowest form of strategy.
Adopted by: B.H. Liddell Hart formalised the indirect approach as military doctrine after studying WWI's catastrophic direct-attack failures (Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele). His Strategy (1967) remains required reading at the US Army War College. Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005) is the dominant business strategy framework built on the same logic: make competition irrelevant by competing on different terrain, not on the incumbent's chosen battlefield. Amazon's distribution flywheel, Netflix's DVD-to-streaming pivot, and Apple's iTunes-to-iPod ecosystem are canonical indirect strategy executions.
Impact: Direct confrontation against an entrenched opponent is expensive, slow, and often fails. Indirect strategy wins by making the opponent's position structurally untenable — their distribution advantage becomes irrelevant, their business model becomes uneconomic, their customer relationships get bypassed. The opponent's strength becomes a liability when the rules of the game change.
Why best: Most competitive strategy defaults to direct imitation: copy the leader's features, underprice them, and fight for the same customers through the same channels. This produces commoditisation and margin destruction. Indirect strategy identifies the structural dependency the leader's position rests on and attacks that dependency, often with a fraction of the resources required for direct competition.
Sources: Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Giles trans. 1910) — Ch.3 (Attack by Stratagem); Liddell Hart, Strategy (2nd ed., 1967) — the indirect approach in military history; Kim & Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy (2005) — making competition irrelevant; Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma (1997) — disruption as indirect strategy from below
Understand their strategy before designing yours. Identify:
The indirect attack will be aimed at the dependency or assumption that is most critical to their position and most vulnerable to disruption.
Find the single resource, relationship, or condition that their strategy cannot function without. This is the indirect attack target.
Examples of structural dependencies:
The indirect approach works by changing the terrain so that the opponent's advantages no longer apply. Ask: "If the rules of this market changed in [specific way], would their strength become a weakness or irrelevance?"
| Rule change | Incumbent advantage → liability |
|---|---|
| Distribution shifts online | Physical retail scale → cost burden |
| Open source commoditises the stack | Proprietary platform premium → obsolete |
| Regulation changes | Incumbency advantage → compliance burden |
| Customer willingness-to-pay shifts to different segment | Premium brand → over-engineered for new buyers |
| New technology bypasses existing infrastructure | Scale investment → stranded asset |
Concentrate resources on undermining the structural dependency, not on competing feature-for-feature or price-for-price.
Tactics for attacking dependencies:
Indirect strategy does not avoid conflict entirely — it delays direct confrontation until the opponent's structural position has been degraded enough that the confrontation can be won.
Once the indirect action has:
Then move to direct competition on the new terrain — which is now terrain that favours you.
Do not shift to direct confrontation prematurely. The indirect approach works precisely because the opponent does not recognise the threat until the dependency has already been undermined. Early direct confrontation triggers defensive response and helps the incumbent fix the vulnerability.
"Move only if there is an advantage to be gained. Fight only if a position is critical. A leader must not start a campaign out of anger." (Sun Tzu, Ch.12, Giles trans.)
Amazon vs. retail (distribution dependency attack): Retail incumbents' structural dependency: physical store networks and the logistics to supply them. Amazon attacked the dependency by building superior fulfilment infrastructure and bypassing physical stores entirely. By the time traditional retailers attempted to respond, Amazon's logistics infrastructure was a decade ahead and their cost structure was incompatible with a profitable response.
Netflix vs. Blockbuster (business model dependency attack): Blockbuster's dependency: late fees (contributing ~16% of revenue) and physical store economics. Netflix's DVD-by-mail model bypassed the store, and the subscription model made late fees structurally impossible. Blockbuster's late fee elimination attempt in 2004 cost them $400M and proved the dependency: removing it destroyed their unit economics while failing to match Netflix's convenience.
Startup flanking a B2B incumbent (segment attack): Incumbent owns enterprise segment with 5-year contracts and deep integration. Indirect approach: enter the SMB segment the incumbent ignores (too small, too low-margin). Build product and distribution in SMB for 3 years. Move upmarket as SMB customers grow. By the time the incumbent notices the threat, the challenger has the infrastructure, the case studies, and the customer relationships to compete in mid-market.
Open source vs. proprietary database (standard attack): PostgreSQL and MySQL attacked Oracle's dependency on database licensing revenue. The open-source standard was not initially competitive on features — it flanked the pricing dependency, making Oracle's core revenue model untenable for all but the highest-stakes deployments. Oracle's strength (enterprise sales relationship, support contracts) became a niche rather than a market.
Attacking the front line first: Competing feature-for-feature or on the incumbent's chosen battlefield before establishing a differentiated position. This is direct strategy masquerading as competition. Result: commoditisation, margin pressure, no structural advantage.
Confusing flanking with niche retreat: Entering a small segment is not a strategy unless there is a path to scaling that position into the target market. Identify the beachhead-to-expansion path before committing to the segment.
Abandoning the indirect approach too early: Shifting to direct competition before the dependency has been sufficiently degraded. The incumbent sees the threat and fixes the vulnerability. Maintain the indirect approach until the structural change is irreversible.
Targeting the wrong dependency: Attacking a dependency the incumbent can easily replace or defend. The target dependency must be structural — deeply embedded in the opponent's business model or market position — not easily substituted.
Ignoring the opponent's adaptive response: A capable opponent will identify the indirect attack and attempt to adapt. Monitor their response and anticipate their counter-moves. The indirect approach requires ongoing adaptation, not a fixed plan.
npx claudepluginhub jeffreytse/grimoire --plugin grimoireMaps an opponent's countermoves and systematically closes them off before revealing your intent. Use when planning a major competitive move to pre-emptively secure distribution, talent, supply, regulatory, or ecosystem position.
Routes to the correct strategy skill for adversarial, competitive, or negotiation situations. After framing the challenge, it directs to specialized skills like terrain analysis, intelligence auditing, timing, force economy, or positioning.
Develops business strategies using frameworks like Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT, Blue Ocean, and Good Strategy kernel. Use for market entry, competitive analysis, pricing, positioning, and strategic planning.