Yesterday's State of the Union address clearly demonstrates one of the most basic, non-intuitive aspects of Sun Tzu's Warrior's Rules: that small moves are more powerful than larger ones (5.5 Focused Power). After President Obama spoke for 70 minutes on a wide variety of issue, what most people are talking about today is the two second response by Justice Alioto, shaking his head and mouthing "Not true."

Obama's long, detailed litany of conflicting promises, inflated claims, and competitive attacks was formulated on the basis of the mistaken strategy of "more is better" (3.4 Dis-Economies of Scale). This approach always creates the target-rich environment that always arises from spread-out positions (4.6.1 Spread-Out Conditions). Alioto's simply head shake dominated the news today and triggered an avalanche of fact-checking simply because of its focused power.