"If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told."
This is still widely believed in an era with no more battlefields, no more battles fought with swords or chariots, no more battles in which the casualties are mostly soldiers. And even those who question war, and even those who question vicious punishments for whistleblowers, rarely question the very idea of secrecy or the idea on which it is based, namely enemies. But secrecy vanishes without enemies, and enemies vanish without war -- war as a permanent state of mind, even among people who mouth aphorisms about how it's better to avoid a fight if possible.
"The only way to prevent war is to know how to wage it and win it better than your enemy." That's from Dallas Galvin's introduction to the Barnes & Noble edition of The Art of War, and it's ridiculous. Imagine someone saying with a straight face:
The only way to prevent dueling is to know how to duel better than your enemy.
The only way to prevent slavery is to know how to enslave better than your enemy.
The only way to prevent blood feuds is to know how to feud better than your enemy.
Contrast this nonsense with an empirical observation:
The more you learn and prepare for war, the more wars you fight.
Sun Tzu says to avoid prolonged warfare, and be sure to loot and pillage to support your army. But a global empire must be in permanent war, and you could loot and pillage the poor countries of a dozen earths and never fund Lockheed Martin.
Peace activism requires prolonged struggle and the opposite of looting and pillaging.
"Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp; the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn baggage-trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines; the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy."
The Pentagon's updated list goes into the hundreds. What does this piddly little contribution of five add? But a peace movement really does not gain by trying to determine who or what to attack with fire. Should a peace movement be strategic? Obviously. It's been telling itself as much for decades with never a single voice of dissent whatsoever. But lying, deceiving, acting swiftly before quitting, and burning everything with fire is all wrong. Special forces is all wrong. Secret ancient wisdom is all wrong.
Sun Tzu claims that he who knows himself and his enemy and so forth shall win. And then he claims that by knowing which side is stronger he can predict which will win. This is muddled nonsense, but clear recognition that one side's knowledge guarantees it nothing. One side's commitment to always lying and deceiving guarantees it only the eternal absence of peace.
A peace movement, to succeed, needs human and financial resources, it needs truth and credibility, it needs masses of people, it needs the ability to communicate a worldview that rejects the maintenance of enemies, it needs relentlessness and endurance. It needs to take on winnable struggles against specific policies while advancing the broader goal of a world beyond war. It does not need to think of peacemaking as warmaking. It does not need to destroy, intimidate, or trick the major enemy that is popular acceptance of war. It needs to eliminate enemies by making them allies. It needs to maneuver facilitators of war against it without thinking of them as people who should be attacked with fire.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
