Word.ws English Dictionary

never fight a land war in Asia

never fight a land war in Asia phrase: don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win.

Phrase

never fight a land war in Asia

  1. Don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win.
    • Although Britain is one of the world's most lucrative markets, with retail sales of £286bn last year, expensive shop rents and world-class local competition have kept international groups at bay. Indeed, some analysts put the UK in the "never fight a land war in Asia" category due to the challenges...2010 October 1, Zoe Wood, “Retail therapy: foreign chains glimpse window of opportunity in UK market”, in The Guardian
    • Apple’s mistake in instigating a patent war with Samsung is illustrative of a larger pattern involving large stockpiles of patents. “Never fight a land war in Asia” comes to mind.2014 July 4, Evan Jensen, “The Patent Wars”, in Lexology

Examples of never fight a land war in Asia in a sentence

  • Indeed, some analysts put the UK in the "never fight a land war in Asia" category due to the challenges posed by the market.2010 October 1, Zoe Wood, “Retail therapy: foreign chains glimpse window of opportunity in UK market”, in The Guardian:
  • "Well listen here, Walmart," wrote blogger Caroline Gallay, "you should heed the advice of Vizzini in The Princess Bride: Never fight a land war in Asia."2016, Philip Kotler, François Maon, A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Pressures, Conflicts, and Reconciliation...

Synonyms of never fight a land war in Asia

Forms of never fight a land war in Asia

alternative formnever start a land war in Asia

Origin of never fight a land war in Asia

Attributed to various military leaders, including Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, the quotation has existed in various forms since the Second World War. It was popularized when used by the character Vizzini in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride (after appearing in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride). Asia is far more heavily populated than Europe or North America, and while Western armies had technological advantages post-WWII, these could be overcome (as they were in Korea by the Chinese PLA and Vietnam by the PAVN) by sheer numbers.

Questions about never fight a land war in Asia

What does never fight a land war in Asia mean?
Never fight a land war in Asia means don't bite off more than you can chew; don't start a fight that is too big to win.
How do you use never fight a land war in Asia in a sentence?
Indeed, some analysts put the UK in the "never fight a land war in Asia" category due to the challenges posed by the market.
What part of speech is never fight a land war in Asia?
Never fight a land war in Asia is a phrase.

Words near never fight a land war in Asia in the dictionary

  1. never event
  2. never events
  3. never ever
  4. never ever have I
  5. never fear
  6. never fight a land war in Asia
  7. never have I ever
  8. never in a million years
  9. never in a month of Sundays
  10. never judge a book by its cover
  11. never look a gift horse in the mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: never fight a land war in Asia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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