This echos "Desperate Ground"[1] or "Death Ground" in Sun Tzu's Art of War. I've put myself deliberately in this position many times in order to succeed. The day-to-day uses of this idea tend to be far less dramatic than the name implies. I've even applied it to process where I would phrase it as, "Create processes when you must, not when you can."

1. https://suntzusaid.com/book/11