THEY'LL QUIT WHEN THEY LOSE ALL HOPE

I have been re-reading one of my favorite books on military history lately.
The name of the book is "Strategy" by Basil Henry Liddell (B.H. L.) Hart.
The book was first published in 1929 under the title "The Decisive Wars of
History". The edition I'm reading was first published in 1967.

The book is mainly about warfare. Two thousand five hundred years of
warfare. From the battle at Marathon to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49
(this section was written by Yigael Yadin Chief of Staff of the Israeli
Army at the time.) The two major sections of the book cover World War One
and World War Two.By studying the various battles, how the soldiers
reacted, what the generals and admirals did, how the battles affected
heads of state and the people of the various countries involved he came to
a very simple conclusion. When it comes to dealing with people or battles
butting heads is seldom effective. The indirect approach usually works
better and is more economical.

Let us look at an example of the indirect approach to battle and then see
how the idea applies to other parts of life where humans are involved. In
the current oil war. The direct strikes are to gather peoples attentions.
The real war is economic. The question is will the current oil powers be
able to maintain their economic power. The answer is no. First American
technologists are working with other countries besides the Arab countries
to help them increase their oil and gas output. Second technologies are
coming on line to nearly double the efficiency of use of current energy
supplies. Like a combined cycle fuel cell and gas turbine electric plant
that turns an astounding 80 percent of the fuel into electricity. A third
point is that America is installing wind power at an astounding rate with
the size of the standard installed turbine doubling over the last two years
from three quarters of a megawatt to one point five megawatts. Each
doubling of size only increases cost by a factor of one point five. That
means a cost reduction of twenty five percent. With more to come.

In time despite some battle field wins their power based on control of the
worlds energy supplies is on the decline due to the emergence of new
technology in the use and production of energy. So the new technology
becomes an indirect attack on the oil fascists. They have no counter weapon
because the advance of technology is more diffuse than their attacks. Even
if the attacks are diffuse compared to normal warfare. They are already
beaten. They just don't know it.

In winning any modern war truth is essential at the strategic level. Goals
must be honestly stated although deception as to methods and timing are
certainly to be expected. In the war against the communists the lies of the
communists about the real nature of the two systems could not paper over
what the people under Communism were promised and yet only the western
capitalists managed to deliver. Again, here, the main war was economic and
cultural. The troops were to there to deter military action while economics
did the real work.

What is common to war against all fascist societies is that they do not
give up their ambitions of dominance until the leaders and people are
completely without hope. Some like the Soviet Union come to this conclusion
by rational calculation and change before military conquest is necessary.
Others like the National Socialists in Germany needed a military occupation
because of their preference for war.

America has dealt with both kinds of fascist before. We will deal with this
new batch according to the rationality of their decisions. If they insist
on a war to the death it is going to be theirs not ours.

I think America and Americans would love nothing more than a peaceful world
based on mutual respect and commerce. No force, no fraud. None of this
convert to our religion or else. The great genius of founders of this
country was the separation of church and state.

What the separation of church and state means is that the job of government
is only to be the guardian of public morals. Private morals are up to the
individual. The funny thing is if we keep our public morals the private
one's tend to come in line as well. In public we must be honest in our
dealings with each other, give good service, and work to keep the peace. If
we follow this in our public lives our private lives in time will follow.
Every time we have seriously deviated from this ideal of the separation of
moral spaces we have come to grief. Alcohol prohibition is the most noted
failure whose cycle we have completed. Drug prohibition is our current most
serious deviation from the ideal of the separation of church and state.
There is no doubt of the grief we are suffering because of that deviation.
Enriched criminal gangs and massive state spending on prisons are just two
of the many undesirable side effects of this moral crusade. But like every
other moral crusade it's proponents will not give up until they lose all
hope. Hope is what keeps wars going. Loss of hope ends them.

If you would like to find out more about how our limited government is
supposed to work go to: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/msimon669/index.html
for the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of
Independence, and other good stuff. Free. Pass it on.

M. Simon is an industrial controls designer and Free Market Green

(c) M. Simon - All rights reserved. Permission granted for one time use in
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