By William Tucker, Wake Up World

While you may think that you have no impact on war, acts of terrorism, prejudice or racism, let me assure you, nothing is further from the truth. Every person or citizen of any nation plays an important part in the fostering of love or hate. So how does this work?

Lets take a look at one of the more obvious examples of how nations go to war. It is actually a long and involved process, and first and foremost a battle for your mind.

Warfare 101

Contrary to the image portrayed by the press, wars are not started overnight as a reaction to a single isolated event. Yes, I am aware that history books love to cite the “historic incidents” that sparked wars. The truth, however, is something entirely different. There’s a lot more going on than “one terrible incident.”

Warfare, as taught in WestPoint or any other military academy, is based on the rules and laws of strategy. While the equipment and resources vary from army to army or nation to nation, strategy is a skill of the mind – the ability to look at the resources at hand and how to best utilize them for the highest probability of success. Examples of resources include troops, equipment, vehicles, weather conditions, and terrain, to name a few. Wars are won or lost based on the strategic deployment and availability of resources and types of troops.

Strategy includes such painfully obvious actions as providing winter gear for troops in arctic regions. Sound obvious doesn’t it? Well fortunately for the free world, both Napoleon and Hitler failed to take cold weather gear into account when sending their armies to invade Russia. Their armies literally froze to death and were decimated by the Russian winter. Historians trace both of their downfalls in part to this strategic blunder.

Thus strategy is of the utmost importance. One needs to have all one’s ducks in a row, and to have the correct resources in the right place at the right time.

What is the most valuable asset of any military campaign?

Most people will answer this question with some sort of variation of the same answers: “military might,” “stronger tanks,” “bigger bombs,” “faster planes …” But military textbooks and the rules of strategy proclaim something different.

Public opinion is the primary asset in the military arsenal. There is no single other element quite as vital as this one thing, public opinion, in waging a successful war.

Without at least the tacit approval of a population no war succeeds.

Ancient military commanders knew this. One of the oldest books on strategy written roughly 5000 years ago, and probably the most studied book by military commanders throughout the ages, is “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. This book covers public opinion as the very first point of consideration before engaging in warfare.

Sun Tzu uses the more archaic term for “public opinion:” Moral Law.

“The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.”—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Read the rest here: https://wakeup-world.com/2019/05/09/prejudice-war-and-the-battle-for-your-mind/