Applying Military Strategy in Life - Microsoft Talk

This is not a book about strategy. There are thousands of other books out there on that subject. This is a book about military strategy, a very particular form of knowledge, a philosophy that I believe has incredible relevance to any conflict and to all kinds of situations that we encounter in everyday life. However, there's something very peculiar about military strategies—something that I don't think is ever really commented on. What I mean is the following.

Over the centuries, all kinds of brilliant ideas have evolved about how to fight wars in the most efficient manner. These ideas have been collected to form a kind of body of military knowledge. On occasion, these ideas have actually been written down into various pamphlets and manuals. The most famous of which is Sun Tzu's *The Art of War*. However, this knowledge was never studied in universities, and these books were never read by the public at large.

Instead, this massive information on the art of war was jealously guarded and hoarded by the elites who ran the country. For instance, a king or ruler of a country would have a copy of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." He would keep it by his bedside, read it, and share it with his closest advisors and top military leaders. These handful of men would meet on occasion to discuss the ideas and how to apply these concepts and strategies to the wars and situations they were facing. Meanwhile, the officers and soldiers in an army would study tactics.

Tactics are essentially the art of how you deal with immediate needs and problems, but they were rigorously excluded from any study of the broader subject of strategy. The same situation prevailed in the country at large. Educated elites could read books on all kinds of abstract spiritual matters, philosophy, and various topics, but they could never, ever get their hands on books like *The Art of War*. I can think of no other form of knowledge that has had a deep and lasting impact on history that has actually been studied by so few people. I think, of course, this obviously begs the question: why?

At first glance, you might think, "Well, military strategy is a very technical, arcane subject," but I don't think it has anything to do with that. I believe it's a power issue. You see, contained in this knowledge and in these books are all kinds of brilliant ideas on how to change any negative situation into a positive one. There are strategies for identifying the particular psychological weaknesses in your opponent and ways to exploit those weaknesses to the point where the enemy defeats themselves. There are also ideas on how to organize your army and inspire it to fight.

Essentially, military strategy is a kind of bridge between an idea and its transformation into reality. It is what I call the ultimate practical philosophy. This kind of very practical knowledge in the hands of citizens and soldiers could be very dangerous. It could lead to change. It could lead to revolution.

And so the information was kept away from them. In 1801, when the slaves on the island of what is now known as Haiti revolted against their French masters, the first thing they did was get their hands on books on military strategy that had been left behind. They studied these manuals night and day. They did this obviously because they knew that Napoleon Bonaparte himself had sent a ship full of soldiers to put down this rebellion. These men had never studied strategy, and they desperately needed this knowledge to be able to fight Napoleon's army in the field.

But there was something else going on, something a little more fundamental. This was kind of the ultimate battle, the ultimate stressful environment. It was a choice between preserving the slender little thread of freedom that they had or returning to slavery. In this kind of situation, the tendency was to become very confused, very emotional, and to make mistakes, losing control of the situation. Military strategy represented, for them, a kind of stairway that they could climb to elevate themselves above this very stressful, very confusing situation, gain perspective on the entire battlefield and everything that was happening, achieve clarity about the situation, act with some purpose and direction, and regain control of the situation.

And of course, the leaders of this revolt studied strategy, which was very appropriate, as they became the very first army in history to defeat a French army under Napoleon, an absolutely remarkable achievement. Now, you're probably wondering, "It's all very interesting, Mr. Green, on a historical level and all that, but what does that have to do with us now? We don't live in times like that. This is an enlightened modern era, and everything has changed." Well, I'm here to report that, in fact, nothing has changed.

Military strategy remains a subject that is really only studied in depth by specialists in very cloistered military schools. A very small number of people, mostly men, are involved, which is basically the same situation that has prevailed for thousands upon thousands of years. Now, I'm not suggesting that there are elites in this country who are controlling access to this information on military strategy. I think there's something else going on—something ideological or cultural. We live in a culture that tends to promote certain values and ideals: values of getting along with other people, cooperating, being a team player, and not creating a lot of conflict or confrontation.

These are values of peace. War, on the other hand, is seen as something rather dark and sinister, a relic of our barbaric past. In modern democracy, as a superpower, war is considered a necessary evil. And as a necessary evil, we have a military, a group of specialists who study and wage wars for us. It's almost as if we erect this incredibly solid barrier. On one side, we have the military, and on the other side, we have social or private life.

And a person who would cross this barrier and take the knowledge that is contained in "The Art of War" and would actually try to apply it in a social situation, like in an office, for instance, would bring a lot of aggression, conflict, and confrontation to this delicate social environment. This is a cultural prejudice that is, in fact, not based on the truth. Two thousand five hundred years ago, the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu defined "The Art of War" in a way that I think will never be surpassed. He said that "The Art of War" is to win with the minimum bloodshed and the minimum violence. If to win a war you have to shed a lot of blood, you must not fight that war.

That the closest an artist of war tries to get to this ideal as possible. In fact, a person who is steeped in the art knows how to resolve a conflict in a sane and rational manner. A person steeped in the art of war knows how to avoid petty entanglements and how to choose his or her battles very carefully. A person who understands the art of war actually creates less conflict around him or her, less resistance, and fewer problems. Now, at the same time that there is this kind of cultural prejudice that I'm discussing, there is something else going on on the ground.

The reality that we are dealing with day to day is very different. There's a significant disconnect. I think we would all agree that, compared to the lives of our parents and grandparents, the world we inhabit is much more competitive and even a lot nastier than anything they ever knew. Society has splintered into all sorts of groups. We have these wars: business wars, culture wars, internet wars, and political wars.

What happens in a lot of groups is that people no longer have strong ties to the company, the nation, or whatever group they belong to. In this very competitive environment, individuals inevitably think first and foremost about themselves, their own agendas, and their own interests. At times, this clashes with the interests of the group. When you spread this out over the globe, with millions upon millions of people who are now hungry for power and control over their lives and destinies, you create an unprecedented moment in history. Many people are engaging in power struggles in environments like companies that never existed before. For instance, office politics is a completely new phenomenon; we may not even realize that 40 years ago, there was no such term, and this is a relatively new concept.

In addition, because this is a culture that frowns upon overt aggression, many people revert to a kind of passive aggression to get what they want. They become very sly and manipulative, operating like guerrilla warriors in a social environment. When you add all of this up—the newness of this phenomenon, the confusion of various battles occurring in our lives, and the subtlety with which many people now fight—you create a very difficult and dangerous environment for us to navigate. When facing a situation with numerous battles coming at them from different directions, people tend to become very tactical. In this sense, tactics mean doing the best we can to deal with the immediate problems happening around us.

We are reacting to what people are giving us, and I call this basically tactical hell. Once you get into tactical hell and you're constantly reacting to what people are doing around you, it's extremely difficult to get out of it. You get locked into this mode. We could benefit immensely now more than ever. We could gain incredible benefits from a kind of mental transformation that allows us to rise above all of this confusion and the battles going on around us. This transformation would provide us with a heightened perspective and the clarity and direction that precisely military strategy is designed to offer.

The same kind of perspective that has given elites power for centuries is what the slaves who revolted in Haiti managed to grasp. My book is an attempt to liberate military strategy from the prison it has inhabited for thousands of years and to release it to each and every one of you so that you can do with it what you want and become your own master strategist. My discussion of war, in this sense, is not a moral issue; it is not a question of whether what I'm doing is good or evil. It is a power issue.

Will people who have traditionally been excluded from this kind of information, such as women and minorities, suddenly have more access to it, or will they not? My book is also an attempt to provide a clear way to escape what I'm calling "tactical hell." This concept, my solution to getting you out of tactical hell, is based on a premise: strategy is not formulaic, which is what most people tend to think of it. Most people believe that strategy involves memorizing specific points, such as A, B, and C, or 1, 2, and 3.

I learn what the master says about strategy, I memorize it and I apply it here and there. That's formulaic thinking. That's tactical thinking disguised as strategy. Strategy is, in fact, a philosophy. It is a way of looking at the world, a different way of looking at the world, a viewpoint. A philosophy I happen to find very beautiful and very fascinating.

And once you absorb the basic ideas in this philosophy, they become internalized. You start seeing things differently. From the inside out, you begin applying these strategies to your own circumstances. You adapt them to your own life, as opposed to the other way around. This can be very liberating and very empowering.

Now, I want to clarify my entire approach to strategy, and I would like to discuss one of the chapters in my book. This chapter on strategy, which I believe is perhaps the most fundamental and important of all, is titled "Do Not Fight the Last War." To elucidate this concept, I would like to share a story that I recount in that particular chapter. This story involves perhaps the most famous Japanese samurai warrior who ever lived and one of the greatest strategists of all time: Miyamoto Musashi. Miyamoto Musashi lived around the turn of the 17th century in Japan. When Musashi was about 21 years old, he fought and killed two members of the Yoshioka clan in duels.

The Yoshioka family was very famous for its sword-fighting skills. One of the youngest members of this clan, a young man named Matashichiru, vowed to get revenge on Musashi for this. So, he challenged Musashi to a duel. Musashi's friends sensed a trap and warned him not to accept the duel. Naturally, Musashi accepted; he would never listen to anybody.

They said, "Well, you better not go to this duel alone because there will probably be an ambush." Of course, Musashi went to the duel alone. In the last two duels with the Yoshioka clan, Musashi had arrived late. That was a favorite technique of his—to make his opponent uneasy, to put them off their game and get them upset. This time, he arrived early, and he hid himself behind a tree.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Musashi showed up, surrounded by an army of nine other samurai warriors. Musashi could hear them talking, and one of them said, "Ha ha, that Musashi, he always shows up late. Well, that trick's not going to work this time." The samurai warriors began to sit down and wait for Musashi to arrive. A few seconds later, Musashi jumped out from behind the tree, holding his sword, and he said, "I've waited long enough, Matashichiro," as he started coming at him.

Matashichiro scrambled to his feet to try to defend himself, but Musashi killed him in an instant. The other nine men were so startled by this that they had no time to think about surrounding him, which would have been the only solution. Instead, they charged at him in a kind of broken line, and he went down the line, killing every single one of them. This is perhaps the most famous duel in Japanese samurai history. It was immortalized by Kurosawa in a film.

After this, Musashi roamed the countryside looking for challenges. He heard of a very famous warrior named Baiken. Baiken fought with a strange and unusual weapon that no one had seen before. Essentially, he wielded a long, very sharp sickle, and at the end of the sickle was a chain, with a heavy steel ball attached to the chain. What Baiken would do was start twirling the chain and the ball until it gained a lot of momentum.

And then he would charge at his opponent, and as his opponent thought of defending himself, he would hurl the steel ball at the opponent's face. The opponent would naturally lift his sword to parry the blow, at which point the sickle would come striking across his neck and kill him. No one had ever come close to defeating Baiken. So naturally, Musashi challenged him to a duel, and Baiken happily accepted. He showed up for the duel with a short sword in his left hand and a long sword in his right hand. No one had ever fought with two swords like that.

Baiken had never seen such a thing. It was very strange. Before Baiken had his usual chance to charge at his opponent, Musashi was charging at him—quite the opposite. So, he backed up and did the only thing he knew how to do, the only way he had ever fought his whole life. He started twirling the ball, backing up, and then threw it at Musashi's face.

Musashi parries the blow with the short sword and then with the right sword, finally defeating this unbeatable man. A few years later, Musashi hears of a very famous samurai, perhaps the greatest warrior of them all in Japan, a man named Ganryu. Ganryu is not only a brilliant fighter and a very powerful man, he possesses the longest sword anyone has ever seen. This sword is so long and so beautiful, adorned with intricate carvings. The sight of it being unsheathed is enough to make his opponents tremble with fear. Musashi naturally challenges Ganryu to a duel, and Ganryu accepts.

The duel is to take place on a very small island near Ganryu's home at about 8 in the morning. Ganryu arrives at 8 a.m., and the island is packed with spectators. This is the equivalent of Ali versus Frazier, the two greatest samurais of the time. Gonryo is waiting. No Musashi. It's 9 a.m. No Musashi.

It's 10 a.m., and he's still not there. He's pacing the island, furious and determined not only to kill him but to rip him to shreds. Around 10 a.m., a small wooden boat can be seen approaching the island. As it gets closer, everyone sees that there's a man seated in the back who's kind of half-asleep, whittling a very large wooden oar. When the boat gets close enough, they all realize that it's Musashi. He doesn't pay any attention to anyone.

Finally, the boat takes its sweet time, and it arrives at the island. He gets off the boat, and the first thing he does is take a dirty towel from the boat and tie it around his head. Then, he jumps off the boat, carrying a wooden oar. No sword at all—just a wooden oar.

And he jumps off, ready for the duel. Well, Ganryo can't believe this. Into the biggest fight of his life, and he's wearing a dirty towel for a headband, which is a sign of extreme disrespect. He's carrying a large wooden oar. This is a madman. Before he has a chance to do what he usually does, Ganryo charges him to impale him with his beautiful sword. Here is Musashi, suddenly charging at him with a wooden oar. He does the only thing that he knows how to do.

He strikes back with his sword, but he misses by an eighth of an inch, cutting the towel in half as it falls down. At that moment, Musashi's wooden oar comes crashing down on his skull, killing him. After that, Musashi's name is made for good, and he becomes, as I said, the greatest samurai who ever lived. Now, in analyzing Musashi and why I think it's important, you have to look at the two different ways of fighting here. Musashi's opponents always tended to do the same thing: they depended on their incredible weapons, such as an unusual sickle or a beautiful sword. They relied on the techniques they used time and again, repeating them for each battle.

What I say is the equivalent of fighting the last war: something very physical and very mechanical. Musashi was the exact opposite. He never did the same thing twice. Every time he fought an opponent, he looked at that opponent, studied him, and determined what that person's weakness was and how he was going to attack him in the moment.

He adapted each and every one of his strategies to the particular characteristics of his opponent. If you expected him to arrive late, he arrived early. If you expected him to have one sword, he had two. If you expected him to show up at this incredible duel in a very respectful costume, he arrived as a drunken, dirty peasant.

Now, I see this as a kind of metaphor for the difference between strategic thinking and non-strategic thinking, and how a lot of people operate in life. Most people, in any kind of situation, depend on something. Everybody depends on something when they go into battle. Usually, what people depend on is something very physical. They depend on the fact that they have more money than the other side.

They depend on the fact that they have more friends, more power, more influence, that their company is larger—whatever it is: physical, mechanical things. A person who uses strategy does not depend on physical or mechanical things. Instead, a person who relies on strategy depends on their creativity, in the moment. They learn about what it is in that particular battle through which they can gain an advantage by exploiting the weaknesses of the other person, whatever those may be.

Sun Tzu wrote that every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought. What he meant is that there is something going on in the mind, the strategy itself, that is either right or wrong. By the time you arrive for battle, you’ve either won or lost. The battle he is referring to is the battle in your mind. If your mind is filled with all kinds of ideas from the past and if you repeat the same formulas that you’ve used again and again, you’ve already lost the war.

If, on the other hand, you try this other approach and ground yourself in the idea of "do not fight the last war," which I maintain is the foundation of all solid strategic thinking, you have already won the war before it even happens. Now, I want to switch gears here a little bit and go in a slightly different direction. I mentioned earlier that I talked about tactical hell. In that scheme, you can kind of imagine strategy as something that lifts you up to purgatory. Well, I'm here to say that there is actually a heaven above this purgatory, and that heaven is what is known in military terms as grand strategy.

And I want to take you back for a moment to ancient Greece. I hope you don't mind, where grand strategy originated as a philosophy. In particular, I'm going to take you to the cult of Athena, who is the Greek goddess of war, strategy, and grand strategy. Let me just have a sip of water. Now, in ancient Greece, when a carpenter was about to build a house, or an architect was about to design a temple, or a navigator was about to cross the sea, or a politician was about to run for office, all of these men and women would seek out a temple to Athena. They would go there and pray. When Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont to begin his conquest of the Persian Empire, the first thing he did was dedicate his arms to Athena and build a beautiful temple in her honor, praying to her night and day.

Now, what these men and women were praying for was not some kind of superstitious luck or that she would intervene in their affairs. What they were praying for was that Athena's spirit would suddenly inhabit them, enabling them to build a house with a solid foundation. They wanted to cross the sea successfully, win the election, or prevail in war. The spirit of Athena, however, requires a bit of understanding regarding her lineage. Athena's mother was the goddess Metis, probably the most formidable goddess of them all.

Metis had the power to change into any shape she desired, and she was also the cleverest of all the immortals. Zeus was another god who had ambitions to become the chief god on Mount Olympus, but he knew he could not possibly achieve that as long as Metis was around. However, Zeus was a very clever man. One night, he seduced Metis and convinced her to marry him. A few weeks into their marriage, he began challenging her about her powers to change into different shapes.

He said, "I bet you can't change into a lion," and sure enough, she changed into a lion and roared. He feigned being afraid. Then he said, "Well, I bet you can't change your shape into a drop of water." Sure enough, she changed into a drop of water, at which point he grabbed the drop of water and swallowed it. In one fell swoop, Zeus had gotten rid of his main rival, and he incorporated her powers and cleverness into himself. But he didn't realize at the time that Medusa was actually pregnant with a child.

And so one night, Zeus heard a terrible noise in his ears and clanging in his head, giving him a horrible headache. Suddenly, the baby goddess Athena was born from his forehead, wearing full-body armor, clanging her sword, and yelling out a war cry. With this lineage, Athena naturally became the Greek goddess of war. However, there was another god of war on the scene: Ares, her half-brother, who was also the son of Zeus.

Ares was a different kind of god of war. On the scene was Ares, her half-brother, who was also the son of Zeus. Ares loved warfare—of the violence, the aggression, and the chance to kill.

And he loved the glory that would come from killing. Athena hated warfare. What Athena liked was winning. She decided, though, that to win, being aggressive and fighting wasn't the answer. The answer was to be smart and intelligent.

The animal that is associated with the goddess Athena is the owl, and the owl is a symbol of wisdom. An owl perches itself on the limb of a tree, and it has the capacity to turn its head around in all directions. It also has the most powerful vision of all the birds. It can see farther and wider than any other creature. Like an owl, whenever there was any kind of battle, Athena would not rush into the fray like Ares would.

Instead, she would step back from the situation and look at everything happening around her. She would examine the past more deeply and gaze further into the future. She would see far and wide what was unfolding around her. While she didn't have the shape-shifting powers of her mother, her mind had the ability to take on different forms.

She had an incredibly fluid and dynamic mind. She could adapt her thoughts to her surroundings and perceive various circumstances. When you combine her ability to see everything happening around her with her sharp intellect, she became a formidable force. In this way, she was considered the goddess of strategy. In the *Iliad*, Ares and Athena engage in battle on many occasions, and each time, Athena decisively defeats him.

And Ares goes crying up to Zeus on Mount Olympus, whining about his sister Athena. It is Athena who inspires the idea of the Trojan Horse. One little stratagem that ends nine years of futile, endless Ares-like bloodshed. Just one little clever idea. Now, to the ancient Greeks, all human beings are part Ares and part Athena.

The Aries part of us represents our animal nature. It reflects our tendency to react to the most immediate stimuli and to become very emotional. Athena symbolizes our consciousness and rationality, which elevate us above other animals. However, the Aries aspect of our nature tends to dominate. Even when we find ourselves in situations where we believe we are being clever and strategic, with the perfect idea or plan, in the heat of the moment—when things become stressful and the pressure mounts—Aries rears its ugly head, making us emotional. We become impatient and greedy, causing us to lose our focus and veer off course.

And we build a house that's very flashy but has a terrible foundation. Or we don't cross the sea successfully. Or we lose the war; we lose the election. So when these men and women went to a temple to pray to the goddess Athena, what they were praying for was that her spirit would come and vanquish this very ugly aspect of their nature, represented by Ares. They hoped that with her spirit, they would have the calmness and detachment that she always brings to people in times of stress, in times of battle.

That they would have her ability to see more of what was going on around them than their opponents, that they would literally take in more of their surroundings, and that they would possess her very fluid and dynamic mental powers as well. All of this is what I refer to and is known as grand strategy. Grand strategy is a military term that refers to a very particular way of thinking. Most often, in any situation when we are facing an opponent of any size, we tend to look at what is most immediate around us.

It's human nature. Battle is a very visceral affair, and because of that, we tend to react to what is most in front of us. Even though we might plan and strategize, when our vision is locked in on that immediate battle, we lose something vital. What grand strategy is, is simply this.

You move away from the battlefield for a moment, forcing yourself to detach and actually try to observe more of what is going on around you than you did before. You avoid the temptation to react and to focus solely on the physical components of your opponent. Instead, you compel yourself to look deeper into the history of the conflict. You reflect on the future as well. You take a seat, instead of engaging in the usual actions of warfare.

You think of politics, culture, and the social aspects of the battle. You take in everything; you absorb as much as you can. By thinking and planning in this way, you create what is known as a campaign. Most people focus on battles and their immediate successes.

The idea in grand strategy, as I discuss in my chapter, is that you may lose battles but win the war. You think in terms of several years down the line, considering what your ultimate goal is, and you craft a very powerful and rational campaign. The icon of grand strategy is Alexander the Great himself, probably the first grand strategist of all. Alexander the Great was a man who prayed most fervently to the spirit of Athena. When Alexander the Great crossed into Persia to take on the Persian Empire, he had an army of about 40,000 men and was preparing to confront an army of 750,000 men.

Seemingly impossible odds. But what Alexander the Great did, instead of rushing into battle and fighting the Persians—what almost any other general would have done—was to avoid fighting them altogether. He worked very carefully to understand Persian culture and Persian politics. He went from city to city, winning them over politically, and introducing them to a new kind of world: the Alexandrian Empire, creating a new culture. He did this for several years, and he had essentially won over a huge chunk of the Persian Empire without ever fighting a single battle. By the time he finally met the Persians in battle, he had already absorbed their entire empire.

They had nothing to depend on. They had no economy. They had nothing left. And then he simply defeated them in battle. This is the idea of grand strategy. When I've looked at all of the greatest strategists in history—your Napoleons, your Hannibals, your Queen Elizabeth I, your Abraham Lincolns—I determined that all of them possessed this grand strategic spirit in abundance.

This was actually the source of their success, not necessarily their knowledge of strategy, but rather the fact that they have this power of vision. Now, I believe that this is a power that lies dormant in each and every one of you. It's not a question of praying to Athena anymore, although you can do that if you want. It's more a question of doing a simple process. Whenever you're about to enter into a battle, and there is an important decision to make or a crisis occurring, instead of rushing forward as we normally would, take a moment to pause.

You take a step back. This is literally what Napoleon would do before any of his large battles. You completely reassess your strategy. You tell yourself, "My ideas are probably very limited because I have not been looking at the whole situation." You tear up your strategy and think in these terms: "If I had actually enacted what I had planned to enact, how would this probably lead to some kind of disaster?"

You think about how, you think in larger terms, about what could be the consequences of this strategy that you've come to believe is brilliant. You tear it up and decide that you're going to focus on something else. You force yourself, literally, to take in more of the environment around you. You reflect more deeply on the social circumstances of this battle, something that is extremely important and was key to Napoleonic warfare. You are determined to consider more of the cultural circumstances as well.

You look more deeply at your enemy. You look through your enemy's eyes and see how they are seeing you. With this heightened perspective, you then hit upon a completely new strategy that has so much more vision and fluidity to it that you will naturally come to a grand strategic decision. While I was writing this book, a war was being planned and waged in Iraq.

And it was very interesting to follow this war as I was writing the book because I saw it as a confirmation of everything that I was thinking and writing—specifically, what I am discussing today. So, I want to briefly examine the Iraq War and how I analyzed it. However, I want to do this by delving into the mind of the person who planned and executed this war and exploring the strategy, if you will, of President Bush. Most people, when they think about the Iraq War, begin their analysis there. I took a different approach and looked further back in time.

I looked at the Desert Storm experience. Now, if you know anything about George W., he's a man who has a kind of almost Freudian or Oedipal obsession with his father. He will not repeat any of the mistakes that his father made. He is determined to go in a completely new direction. And obviously, the greatest mistake that his father ever made was supposedly not finishing the Iraq War, not getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

So well before the Iraq War was ever an issue, George W. Bush had this idea that he wanted to be the one who would right the wrong of his father; he would be the one to get rid of Saddam Hussein. The next thing that happens, obviously, is the 9/11 attack. Clearly, in the wake of this, as we all did, the tendency is to become very emotional. For the president, there was a sense of America being shown as weak and vulnerable, a desire to demonstrate that America wasn't weak, that we were strong, and even an unconscious desire for some sort of revenge. Now, when dealing with an enemy that is so vaporous, like Al-Qaeda, it's hard to pinpoint exactly whom to attack. After the invasion of Afghanistan, naturally, eyes would fall on Saddam Hussein.

He could provide precisely that kind of enemy who could show our resolve and allow for a little bit of vengeance, a little bit of revenge. It's not a question of whether he actually believes Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack; it is the fact that he had a predisposition, a desire to see a connection between the two. He was inclined to believe that there was some kind of peripheral involvement. As we know from the history of war, people often see what they want to see in any kind of intelligence. At the same time, George W. Bush is surrounded by the neocons, the neoconservatives.

And the neoconservatives come to him with this incredible scenario of what's going on. What will happen when you get rid of Saddam Hussein? This scenario is that democracy is now anchored in Iraq, in the Middle East, for the first time. This kind of new democracy suddenly spreads like a virus to Iran, to Syria, to Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, the area experiences incredible stability. Oil interests are now secure.

Israel is no longer threatened, and the situation continues to evolve. It's a kind of reverse domino effect—an incredibly seductive scenario. With the removal of Saddam Hussein, you create this remarkable peace spreading across the Middle East. The last thing to know about George W. Bush is that he is a man who values resolve and loyalty above all else. He believes that the most important thing is to decide on a course of action and follow it all the way through to the end, ensuring that everyone around you is on board. No quibbling, no disloyalty—he emphasizes finishing the job that you started.

Now, when you add up all of these factors, I think you see an incredible degree of emotions influencing his strategic decisions. I don't see anyone really ever commenting on this. Maybe it's because, when you look at these people, like Bush or particularly Cheney, you don't really think that there's emotion involved. But when you examine the strategy, there is. There is a predisposition to want to take out Saddam Hussein.

There is a desire to show our resolve, to seek vengeance, and so on. The whole notion of demonstrating resolve and finishing the job to the end is crucial in warfare; resolve is a very important quality. However, if it is not coupled with intelligence and cleverness, it simply becomes stubbornness, which is, in fact, another emotional quality. When a person approaches strategy with all of these emotions clouding their mind—such as revenge and resolve—I also forgot to mention the belief in an incredibly rosy scenario that almost borders on wish fulfillment. With all of these emotions swirling in the back of your mind, you tend to create strategies that are not truly connected to reality.

Instead of looking at Iraq and saying, "Hmm, this is a country that has never had democracy, incredibly divided, that was created in 1916 or whatever," that maybe American-style democracy will not take root, you don’t think that. You see what you want to see. Instead of imagining that this scenario you have painted of peace spreading could actually turn into the opposite, you never see. So, I remember when the war was first being planned.

I would be yelling at the television; I would be yelling at anybody who would listen to me. There were many people who listened to me, but I could not, for the life of me, see how this war would end. I didn't mean it in a political sense; I could not see how this war would end if you signal your intentions that democracy will spread through the Middle East like some kind of virus, and that you really want to get rid of the regimes in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. You were signaling to these countries that you intended to remove them. If you have this timetable where you want to get out of the Middle East in three or four years, leaving behind a very fragile, band-aid-like democracy, why wouldn't you think that countries like Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia would have a stake in this battle and want it to fail? They would not want Iraq to remain a democracy. As soon as you leave, they will do everything they can to disrupt it, which is exactly what happened when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan—a war that I think is the greatest parallel to this one, and I discuss it in the book. So, if you decide, on the other hand, that you're going to stay for 10 or 15 years, you create a whole other slew of problems.

So anything that you do, no matter what it is, you can't ever have a logical or rational endgame. This was a group of strategists who entered a war with a very hazy endgame and a very hazy exit strategy, and they're paying a dear price for that. Now, I don't mean this analysis in a political sense; I am looking at it strictly from a strategic perspective. I could make just as ruthless an analysis of John Kerry's disastrous campaign in 2004. It's more about strategy. I don't see this as an isolated incident. I do not think of this as just war because I believe war is related to society, and the problems we see here are problems that go deeper and are even social in nature.

Everybody thinks that when they enter a situation, they have a plan and a strategy. Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a plan until they get their face smashed." So, you enter into a battle, and every leader believes they know what's going on, that they have a strategy and a plan in hand, and that it's going to work out for the best. Nobody is foolish; nobody assumes they have no strategy. The problem is that, inevitably, emotions color your perception of the world and influence how you create your strategy. You want to see certain results and to believe that this is what your adversary is like.

And you very subtly see how this infects the way you make your plans and your strategies. To me, if I had one wish, it would be that the Iraq War serves as an incredible lesson for our generation, for all of us who are alive now. This is what happens; these are the results of bad strategy. These are the consequences of allowing emotions to color your understanding of the world. This is what occurs when you become detached from reality. Strategy only succeeds to the degree that you are attuned to exactly what is happening around you and are able to detach yourself from your emotions, even to the slightest degree.

In conclusion, I would like to share a couple of brief thoughts about my book. The book is structured into several different parts. The first part discusses the mind and how to prepare it for battle, which is very important. The second section focuses on how to organize your group and your army. I maintain that I follow the Napoleonic ideal, which is that the structure of your organization is the most crucial strategic decision you can make.

If you have a bad, dysfunctional organization or structure, you're never going to be able to execute a good strategy. The third section is defensive war, followed by offensive war, and it concludes with unconventional or dirty war. The book begins with the most primitive aspect of war, the mental process, and ends in chapter 33 with terrorism. As you know from my other books, my method includes stories to illustrate everything, and, of course, half of the stories pertain to war.

And my personal favorite strategists include notable figures like Napoleon Bonaparte, Hannibal, T.E. Lawrence, and Mao Tse-tung, among others, to illustrate everything. Naturally, half of the stories revolve around war. However, the other half consists of stories that take place in daily life, what I call social warfare. These include accounts of great politicians who applied strategy, such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

I have artists, writers, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. A lot of the stories I create are actually about Hollywood because I've worked in that industry. I see the role of a director as almost being a kind of general. Of course, I've tried to loosen the stranglehold that men and masculinity have on war, as it is a very male-oriented environment. I strive to include as many stories as possible about women whom I see as great strategists, such as Queen Elizabeth I, but also actresses like Mae West. I know it may seem counterintuitive to include Mae West in a war book, but she was actually a brilliant strategist. In conclusion, I'd just like to say one thing.

If there's one thing you could take away from this book, it would be that in any kind of battle, it is not, in the end, the physical that will prevail. It’s not the money, the influence you have, or the power that you might possess. What will always prevail in any kind of conflict is the strategy, the creativity, and the mental aspect that you bring to the battle. You can lose everything that you have: your money, your influence, your power. But if you know the art of war, you will prevail in every conflict.

That's basically what I wanted to say. I'm really hoping I get some questions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes?

A couple of questions. Sure. In your analysis of the Gulf War, it seems to me that many times one of the mistakes we tend to make is ascribing our own motivations to the people who are analyzing or to our opponents. Yes. I think it's somewhat inaccurate to assume that the reasons we perceive are the same for them. I base this on conversations I've had with people who were involved in the situation.

You know, I think it's a simplistic analysis to believe that decisions at that level are made based on emotions. I will agree that we went into Iraq, and this is obviously a known factor; the reason we went into Iraq was to set an example, as you would say. However, I believe it was a logical, rather than an emotional, decision. When you need to make an example of something like that, you do it for a good reason, such as deterrence. Well, maybe you misunderstood me. I'm not saying that emotions drove us into Iraq.

What I was saying is that emotions colored our strategy. You begin with a logical idea, which serves as a deterrent against terrorists. An idea that Israel, for example, has used to great effect starts with very rational and logical concepts that, on the surface, seem sensible. However, what I'm suggesting is that these supposedly rational and logical ideas are heavily influenced by various emotions. You can see this in the fact that if there's any book I would recommend you read, it would be "The Assassin," which was released about three months ago and discusses the Iraq War. It's a brilliant book that examines the incredible mistakes made in this conflict from the very beginning. The belief was, quite literally, that they would be greeted by Iraqis with flowers in their hands, that democracy would take hold, and that they would be able to leave in three months.

That's as long as they thought it would take. Now, you're telling me that is logical and rational? On the surface, it appears that way, but something else is going on. I'm saying that basically, I think you like to say, I understand that when we're talking about war versus talking about it like a business. Even in a business situation, the problem with everybody's strategy—and Bismarck noted that basically the friction of wars or the problems—is that your opponent also has a strategy. Your opponent is going to adapt his strategy based on what you're doing. Well, why wouldn't you take that into consideration?

You know, obviously, I mean, look, I've been studying war since I was maybe 10 years old, but I don't know, probably, I haven't studied as in-depth as, let's say, Colin Powell has. But why wouldn't you assume that before you go into war? And why wouldn't you think about your opponent's strategy? It was very clearly indicated in documents that were discovered that Saddam Hussein planned a guerrilla-style war from the beginning. That's how he was going to defeat the United States in this. Why wouldn't you consider it?

Why would you consider the fact that the enemy is trying to drag you into a protracted struggle, which is the goal of any kind of guerrilla war? You draw your enemy into a prolonged conflict and engage them in an attrition-style battle. Why would you at least consider that option? I think it was considered, but you also have to recognize the underlying issues. One of the significant problems with the United States in fighting conflicts like this—this is a strategic problem that can also be viewed through a business lens—is that we apply certain rules to the game that our opponents do not follow.

For instance, we will deliberately risk our combatants' lives in order to avoid risking innocent bystanders' lives, while our opponents will deliberately target innocent bystanders if it allows them to kill more. However, war is the ultimate aim in a moral environment. It doesn't matter whether you have good intentions and your opponent does not; you have to consider what is going to happen. You have to think about what is occurring on the ground.

I agree with you. I think I'm going to invoke the host's privilege. This is a really interesting topic, but it could easily become a diversion from the broader issues at hand. So, while you made some good points, let's shift our attention away from that. Yes, sir, I understand what you're saying about the immoral environment.

Out of curiosity, in modern warfare and the environment we work in, where we face complex challenges, it seems that both modern warfare and the workplace are settings where we are expected to uphold moral obligations before making decisions or taking action. So, there's a two-part question: How much of a military strategy must you discard when working in a moral environment, and can you identify a great strategist in the post-1945 era who embodies a new moral approach? Well, that's a really good question. Obviously, if you're aggressive or if your military tactics are causing all kinds of problems in the office, it can create significant issues. However, I would argue that the art of war is about winning with minimum bloodshed and minimum violence.

So you're trying to resolve conflicts in a sane way. If you approach the situation in a very aggressive manner and disregard other people, you're not going to get very far. That is not an effective way of fighting. War is all about having an effective fighting strategy that is adapted to your environment. This idea, rooted in Sun Tzu's teachings, can be adapted to any situation.

And if this is an environment where you have to be very careful about this, and rightly so, and act in a moral way, then this is definitely a component of how you fight and what you bring to it. I talk about Gandhi in this context. I have a chapter on passive resistance, which also segues into a chapter on passive aggression. Gandhi is a very moral fighter. I analyze it from a strategic point of view, not from a right or wrong perspective, but as a brilliant strategist who employed the strategy of passive resistance that he believed in, which was also very clever and well-adapted to the circumstances of India at that time. I don't know if I'm answering your question.

Yes, gentlemen. Can you comment on Tom Friedman's book, *The World Is Flat*, and the concept of globalization? Well, you know, I haven't really read the book. I read his articles all the time on the New York Times op-ed page. I'm somewhat aware of his ideas and have read about his analysis of the Iraq war.

He actually has really good analyses of the Iraq War. But I don't know if I ascribe to that. Maybe I have to hear more about it. I had a friend recently who came back from India, and he said that the book is a load of bunk because India has nothing to do with the world, at least not in the way we know of. It's still a totally different world.

It's not flat at all. While globalization may have reached certain elites in some large cities in India, it hasn't impacted millions upon millions of people. That's just anecdotal, though. Was there a reason you were asking that? It has been described as one of the most contagious issues in the last five years and last century.

It would seem to factor into a lot of strategic thinking going forward. Well, yes, but there will always be differences. It would be a temptation to fall into the fallacy that everyone is just like us. This is a fallacy that I still think is relevant. If I may go back to the Iraq War, the idea that people in Iraq just want what we want illustrates this point. A strategist must take into consideration the particularities of the culture and the social environment he is dealing with. That is a trap that many people fall into.

They ignore that, and they only look at the technical aspects of a struggle. Yes, sir? I have a question. Napoleon said one of his maxims is that morale is to physical strength as three is to one. Now, my question really is: how do you reconcile that with what we were just talking about? No, no, no, you don't understand.

No, I'm trying to finish that up. Okay, so there's a school of thought that suggests that right now, for instance, in Iraq, there is concern among young people, especially that Al-Qaeda might be worried about the changes occurring within the 12 to 16 and 18-year-old age group. Not because of any one specific reason, but I believe Osama has been quoted as saying that basically the 12 to 16-year-olds are his soldiers, his next generation. So, the moral part—I read that board table. How does that tie into a grand strategy? I am not asking about opposition; I am curious how you think that relates to rallying people behind it, etc. Rightly or wrongly, how do you feel about that?

Well, the one thing is, I talk about that dictum of Napoleon. Sure. But the word "moral" in French is "morale." Right. You understand?

Yeah, it's not morality. No, understand. Okay, to understand is what I mean. You're getting an idea across.

Right. How does that fit in? How does that fit in the sense that people—even if it's an emotionally based strategy—buy into that idea? We know the great things that have been accomplished by people since we've been alive. Yes, I have a chapter on that, a chapter on morale, because it's a huge issue in war.

And Napoleon does rightly say that if your army is motivated and you've inspired it, you have three times the force of another army. He literally had a formula for that. I think it's extremely valid that there are examples throughout history of motivated armies defeating mercenary armies while facing incredible odds. I'm not sure if I need to hear your question again, but I think you’re on the right track. However, there is a real problem in Iraq.

You have an enemy that, in many ways, is more motivated than we are. This has been the case for a while, perhaps. This was the problem that ultimately emerged in Afghanistan among the Soviet soldiers. I don’t mean to exaggerate; it was much worse for them than the current war. You have soldiers who are on police action, and this is not how soldiers are accustomed to fighting. They do not like this approach at all.

No, they don't like it, and morale is actually quite low; it is quite a problem. As a generalization, I totally agree. There is a very political environment right now in the Pentagon where many people don't want to speak up about it. However, someone like Jack Martha, who did speak up, highlighted that it is a real issue. Morale is not very high among a lot of people, but it is very high among the motivated terrorists. So, it's a terrible problem.

I know what you said about getting out fast, too. The thing I’d add is the old Hertz-Avis situation; switching, but the idea that they pretended for a while that they were number two when they weren't—they were actually number six or seven. And this was years ago; it's a classic story. They sold the idea to everyone that they were number two when they were really number seven. Pretty soon, they were number one or two, and everyone bought into it.

They advertised that way. You may recall that. Yes, I'm old enough to remember that. I'm old enough to remember. I said you did that.

It's interesting because they got people to buy into something that wasn't really factual. Right. Oh, I see your point. I'm sorry, yes, go ahead. No, you.

Sure! Here’s a reformat of your text with correct capitalization and spelling: "Yeah, I was thinking—go ahead. No, you—yeah—I was considering if there are any scenarios or situations in which the principles you outlined either don't apply or are not as effective. Have you thought about that?"

Oh, completely. That's why I try to make the point of not fighting the last war. I emphasize this over and over again in my books. It's not a formula; it's not just a matter of, you know, I have a chapter in there about the annihilation strategy and an envelopment strategy. You don't want to apply that to many of the situations you are facing in life.

You know, I have a chapter in the Power Book about crushing your enemy totally. You're not going to be doing that in your day-to-day affairs. It's something for a very specific circumstance. I was not referring to the point that he made, which is about thinking about situations in the moment and considering them from different perspectives, trying to interpret things in new ways. I'm sorry, I don’t follow your question. So, my question is, are there any situations in which you would not do that?

Oh, you mean the "do not fight the last war" approach, where you're very aware of what is going on and very fluid. I don't know; I mean, I kind of want to make the point that this is the foundation of any solid strategy. To me, strategy can be boiled down to how closely your mind aligns with reality. The closer your mind gets to reality, the better your strategy. If you exist in your little bubble with your own ideas, your strategy will misfire unless you have great luck. To be realistic, you have to meld your mind with exactly what is happening around you.

That doesn't mean that you're just a fluid person who only does what's in the moment. Please don't misunderstand me. I have a chapter here about planning, which I consider the secret to Napoleon's success in warfare. This was a man who planned to an incredible degree. He planned in incredible detail.

And then, once he hit upon a plan, he made sure that the plan had all kinds of looseness within it so he could go in different directions. I'm not saying you should just be free-flowing and go with the moment. That's not strategy. It's part of strategy, I guess. Yes, splendid.

I've read both of your "The 48 Laws of Power" and "The Art of Seduction" books, and they were excellent. The examples you provided were always drawn from historical events. I was wondering if you could take an example from one of those books and explain how you would apply one of the concepts in your own life—not as someone trying to defeat enemies on the battlefield, but as someone trying to get published or sell books. What are your thoughts on this?

I never get asked about my own life. I don't think I'm ready for that. Well, you know, as a writer, life is very different because you're not in a group; you're by yourself a lot, and your access to the world is only through three or four people—like your agent, you know, your editor. So it's very difficult—very cloistered and very unusual. But yeah, I'm having to apply strategy all the time. I have a partner, as you know, on my book—a man named Joost Elfers, who is the designer and all that. Sometimes it can be a little bit contentious; I wonder whether he may be taking a little too large of a cut, just between you and me. I have to calm myself down, and it's always a struggle not to get emotional. I tell myself that this is business, and if I get emotional and upset, it's going to have consequences that I don't want. So I always find a way to ensure that those feelings do not influence very important decisions in my life.

I guess that could be answered in any way. But I'm not someone who goes around being Machiavellian with every person I meet, you know? It is scary to say that they were kept out of the hands of civilians because Sun Tzu had six different Japanese editions a thousand years ago. Yes, but who was reading those Japanese editions?

Oh, no, no. I mean, Japan had a very separate caste of warriors and samurai fighters. A merchant wouldn't be reading those books or a common citizen. I could be wrong. Maybe Japan is a special circumstance.

But what I was thinking of is that the main point is that someone in China—a citizen, a peasant, or someone who wasn't part of the elite—had no access to that book. "The Art of War" was never printed and published until recent times, and it was originally written on bamboo sheets. In fact, it was lost for a long time, and the only way people knew about it was through word of mouth. Some generals would comment on what they had heard, and those comments would get written down. So, there was no book, "The Art of War," that people were passing around and reading.

I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Touching on a graph, just briefly, even personally, I would argue that no matter how things go on the ground, it was a successful war, and public perception says that we're being decisive and active. With that in mind, can you think of any historical strategic example where there has been a decisive defeat on the ground, and yet in some broader sense, the war was won decisively and was successful? I don't follow that. North Vietnam. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Maybe I have to understand the question. A war where what happened? The military operation failed, and yet in some broader sense, the war succeeded. Well, he just said it: the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive, which I analyzed, was probably one of the most brilliant bits of strategy in military history. I think the Vietnam War, for instance, is an unbelievable laboratory of ideas, because you take a country that had communications and technology that were basically from the 19th century, and they beat the Americans. Now that's brilliant to me.

The Tet Offensive is one of the cleverest and most brilliant strategies. Essentially, the Tet Offensive was a form of suicide. All of the Viet Cong that had been gathered for years—these secret North Vietnamese sympathizers in the South—were suddenly out in the open and attacked places like Saigon and Hue. It was a massacre, the worst massacre, because the Vietnamese strategy had always been to avoid battles.

This was the first battle that they entered, but they did it on purpose because they knew, and there are now documents that show it, that American support for the war was diminishing to a point where if they showed Americans at home, watching on television, that this was a war in which they were making no progress, then winning that kind of political and cultural battle was far more important than, unfortunately, sacrificing the lives of what ended up being thousands who were butchered in that conflict. Ultimately, the Tet Offensive became the turning point of the Vietnam War. It caused Lyndon Johnson to decide not to run for president, marking the beginning of the end. The police office in Paris had to scale back operations, but it worked.

Yeah. Well, I think it was actually serendipitous because when they launched the attack they intended, they thought they would win a big victory, and they didn't. Did you know that the North Vietnamese actually strongly considered suing for peace in 1968? But then he started reading the newspaper and said, "Christ, the Americans, they got peace." Well, there's debate on that.

There's debate on that. I mean, my take on it was that they were aware of what was going on. Giap's memoirs say that they were considering suing for peace, and they realized that they had achieved a strategic victory out of a tactical defeat. However, there are also aspects that Giap talks about where he was aware this was their strategy—that they were literally targeting certain locations. Why would he choose places where all the media was located?

Well, that was after Ted, basically. No, that was part of Ted. The whole attack on Saigon was geared very strategically for places where Walter Cronkite was. Well, I think they wanted to have a very visible thing; there's no doubt about that. But they didn't take over Hue because of the press; they took over Hue for strategic reasons. No, no, I disagree with that, because there are some really good books on Hue, and they took Hue strictly for propaganda purposes.

They never intended to hold Hue. Never. And why did they stay there for six weeks until they were driven out? Because they wanted to make a point. They wanted to demonstrate that Hue was vulnerable.

And if you look at how they constructed all of their tunnels under the citadel, which is an amazing story, they never intended to stay. They never stockpiled enough weapons or supplies to remain. Their intention was always to leave.