The phrase is used pejoratively in political language, implying a panicked and cowardly retreat, and it has been used by politicians as a criticism of calls to withdraw troops from various armed conflicts, becoming particularly associated with the Iraq War and with the diction of the United States Republican Party.
[1] It was defined by Englishman David Steel in 1794 as "to cut the cable and make sail instantly, without waiting to weigh anchor";[2] late 19th century nautical dictionaries provide the same definition.
[5] This practice was long in use by then, as it was described in 1623 by Henry Mainwaring in The Seaman's Dictionary: "Cut the cable in the hawse; that is most commonly used when we ride in some storm and desire to set sail, but cannot stay the weighing of the anchor for fear of driving too much to leeward, or the like.
[1][9] In 2003, Paul Dickson defined the phrase in American military slang during World War II as describing an "operation consisting of a sudden attack followed by an immediate withdrawal, before a counterattack can be mounted".
[10] Admiral Sir James Somerville used the phrase in this sense in summarizing the March 1942 operations of the Eastern Fleet for Hutchinson's Pictorial History of the War (1945).
[12][13] In May 2004, William Safire in The New York Times noted that the phrase, when used in reference to politics and war, lost its "lighthearted sense" and came to become a pejorative implying panic and "cowardice, going beyond an honorable surrender" and is "said in derogation of a policy to be opposed with the utmost repugnance".