On arriving late to a battle Napoleon was quoted as saying to his on-scene commander, "There isn't enough time to win this battle, but there's time to win another." He also said something about his pocketwatch being his most important tool, or something like that.
Coram: When Cheney became secretary of defense, he was rare in that he knew more about strategy than most of his generals did. He called Boyd out of retirement in the early days of the Gulf war, and from him got an updating, if you will. And it was Boyd's strategy, not [Gen. Norman] Schwarzkopf's, that led to our swift and decisive victory in the Gulf war.
According to Bob Woodward's book, "The Commanders," Schwarzkopf was "playing" the DC warplanners when he gave them his initial battle plan (Hey-diddle-diddle, Up-the-middle). He expected that it would be rejected and that he would therefore get the extra troops he was asking for.