TrueLife - The Strategy of Warfare in Relationships Part 2: Tactics, Influence & Emotional Combat

Starting point is 00:00:01 Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Heirous through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:49 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Well, listen up, Pilgrim. You say, you and your men over there are gonna come into my house and take my things. Well, you might be able to. Maybe. Maybe after you eat the peanuts out of my shit.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Ha ha ha ha. How's that for a John Wayne impression? I got to work on it, don't I? I know, I know. I'm trying. What are you going to do? He's the duke. He's hard.

Starting point is 00:01:48 He's often replicated but never duplicated. All right? But I'm trying. We're going to work some more on strategy. applying battlefield techniques and strategy to everyday life situations. The most complete and happy victory is this, to compel one's enemy to give up his purpose while suffering no harm oneself.

Starting point is 00:02:18 Belisarius. By in directions, find directions out. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act two, scene one. The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack. Napoleon. All military action is permeated by intelligent forces and their effects, Klauschwitz. A clever military leader will succeed in many cases in choosing defensive.

Starting point is 00:02:57 positions of such an offensive nature from the strategic point of view that the enemy is compelled to attack us in them. Galant fellows. These soldiers, they always go for the thickest place in the fence. Admiral D. Robeck. Well, let's jump into it. You guys, remember where we left off at? we left off with the Hitler and German armies advancing. They were utilizing the strategy of the indirect attack. For those of you just tuning in, or you may not have listened to these in sequence, let me catch you up to speed here.

Starting point is 00:03:40 The true purpose of strategy is to diminish the possibility of resistance. And from this follows another axiom, that to ensure attaining an objective, one should have alternative objectives. An attack that converges on one point should threaten and be able to diverge against another. Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war. Exploiting the weak points of the Weimar Republic, playing on human weakness, alternatively playing off capitalist and socialist interest against each other,

Starting point is 00:04:21 appearing to turn first in one direction and then in another so that by successive indirect steps he approached his goal let's think about that particular piece of strategy there the first one in those two paragraphs is to ensure attaining an objective one should have alternative objectives an attack that converges on one point should threaten and be able to diverge against another Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war. So you should have multiple attacking points. And one battle should lead you to multiple avenues. The strike you make now should open up two more strikes, depending on what the person does.

Starting point is 00:05:18 It's the same thing in a conversation. If you're going to be in a crucial conversation, if you're going to define yourself at a table or in a meeting or some sort of debate. You should have pre-gamed what you're going to say in your mind and you should have. You should understand that what you say is a lead up to the next thing you say. And that each verse or each argument you make should have a few follow-ups. You should be able to attack this point. If you're talking about a specific situation that happened, you should be able to bring up that situation.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And regardless of what the person says about that situation, you should be able to attack it in two different ways. Let's say, for example, you're speaking with a teacher or someone at your kid's school and they're talking about the topic of diversity. And that topic comes up. A good strategy there would be for you to say something like, oh, can you tell me the difference between diversity and inequality and then just kind of watch them for a while? And if they're smart, they'll catch on what you're doing. They probably won't. However, you ask them that question.

Starting point is 00:06:43 What's the difference between diversity and inequality? And they'll think for a minute and they'll give you some answer. And then you would follow it up with, okay. regardless of what they say, you would follow it up with something like this. Okay, if I put five bowls out in front of me and I filled each bowl up with a different level of water, would those bowls be a diverse group of bowls? Would they have a diverse amount of water or would they have an in equal amount of water? And at that point in time, it should dawn on the person that it's the same exact word. It's just that people who want to use it in a specific way will choose. which word they want to use, if it's a negative connotation or a positive connotation. And it's a good way of thinking about the particular strategy we were talking about. The battle should lead you to multiple avenues of the next battle, depending on where you want to take it.

Starting point is 00:07:42 All right. So let's dig a little bit further into this particular book and read a little bit more about what happened. In the original plan, the main effort was to have been on the right wing. by Bach's army group, but early in 1940 the plan was radically changed, and the center of gravity shifted following the arguments of General von Mondstein, chief of staff at Rudstead's Army group, that a thrust through the Ardenines would have a much better chance of success, being the line of least expectation. The most significant feature of the Western campaign was the German

Starting point is 00:08:22 commands care to avoid any direct assault. And its continued use of the indirect approach, despite superiority in modern means of attack, it did not attempt to penetrate the Magot line. Instead, by a baited offensive against the two small neutrals, Holland and Belgium, it managed to lure the Allies out of their defenses on the Belgian frontier. Then, when they had advanced deep to Belgium, their march began deliberately unimpeded by the German Air Force. It struck in behind them with a thrust at the uncovered hinge of the French advance. This deadly thrust was delivered by a striking force that formed only a small fraction of the total German army, but was composed of armored divisions. The German command had been shrewd enough to realize that for any

Starting point is 00:09:22 chance of quick success, it must rely on mechanics rather than on mass. Even so, this spearhead was so small that the German generals were far from confident that the stroke would succeed. That it did was chiefly due to the recklessness or perilous conventionality of the French command in concentrating almost the whole of their left wing for a massive advance, to offer battle in Belgium, while leaving a few second-rate divisions to guard the pivotal sector facing the Ardenines, a wooded and hilly area, which they assumed to be too difficult as a line of approach for mechanized divisions. The Germans, by contrast, in exploiting its possibilities for

Starting point is 00:10:14 surprise, had shown their appreciation of the oft-taught lesson that natural obstacles are inherently less formidable than human resistance in strong defenses. Let me just read that part again for you, because that is something that the majority of people will never know. In exploiting its possibilities for surprise, the Germans had shown their appreciation of the oft-taught lesson that natural obstacles are inherently less force, formidable that human resistance in strong defenses.

Starting point is 00:10:57 Think about that. Keep that one in your pocketbook. It is clear, too, that the rapid progress of the German penetration beyond sedan benefited much from the fact that it successfully threatened alternative objects and kept the French in doubt as to its real direction. First, whether it was towards Paris, or the rear of the forces in Belgium, then when the German armored division swung westwards, whether they were moving on Amiens or Lil,

Starting point is 00:11:32 selling the dummy first one way and then the other, they swept on to the Channel Coast. Right, so that strategy of selling the dummy, like which way am I going? It's kind of like a reverse pickle. You know what I mean by that? You're trying to sell the dummy. Like, which way am I going to go?

Starting point is 00:11:54 Which way am I going to go? The tactics of the German forces correspond to their strategy, avoiding head-on assault and always seeking to find soft spots. Again, in the first podcast, we talked about if you want to strike hard, if you want a great victory, then you should strike where people are weak. However, it's one of those things that's often looked past. One of those things that's right in your face that you don't even see. while the allied statesmen vitally misunderstanding modern warfare called on their armies to meet the invasion by furious unrelenting assault

Starting point is 00:12:34 the german tank tide swept round and passed their clumsy infantry mops the allied troops might perhaps have stemmed it if they had not been told to cast away the idea of defending barrier lines nothing could have been less effective than their attempts at counterattack while the allied commanders thought in terms of battle, the new German commanders sought to eliminate it by producing the strategic paralysis of their opponents, using their tanks, dive bombers, and parachutists to spread confusion and dislocate communications. This is one of those points that I want to bring up where you're seeing a new type of warfare being fought for the first time. in conventional terms. It's like, you ever heard that saying? Like, the generals are fighting the last war? Often you'll hear, if you listen to some military leaders speak, or if you listen to some commentary,

Starting point is 00:13:41 you'll often hear that term that the generals are always fighting the last war. Well, that's not always true. In fact, there's a lot of great young men and women that are engaging in new tactics and coming up with new ideas, is and that's usually what wins the wars is a new strategy and this is this is a good book to get at and this is a good passage in this book because it illustrates what's happening here you have the allied state the allied powers and they are in fact fighting the strategies of the old war you have this new

Starting point is 00:14:13 nimble german force that's going out of their way to try and never have a head on attack in fact they're always sweeping behind to kind of pulling that napoleon maneuver so it's a it's a It's a great way to look back at history and see these tactics being used. Ultimately, what I try to do when I'm reading this, and I hope that you guys try and do also, is that as we are taking time to read a little bit of the book and read these passages and break down the battles, we can go back and look at what they did.

Starting point is 00:14:48 Try to go back in your mind's eye and replay some crucial conversations and think about the strategy that you used. Think about a time you won a negotiation or think about a time you've lost a negotiation and what strategy did you use? Have you thought about using the nimble approach of not having a head on attack

Starting point is 00:15:09 and coming around the backside? By that you would, instead of having a face-to-face all-out argument like an all-out battle, you may want to kind of tiptoe up to it and then get people to ask a question. You know what I mean? that, you would ask a question that would make them think of something that would, then you could

Starting point is 00:15:32 ask the next question. And because you'd already primed them, you'd already primed them with, well, you know, I think you're an honest person or we all believe that leaders should be honest, right? Most people are going to say yes. So you've kind of set up that little battle right there. And then you can ask them about something they did that you know was wrong. And now they're kind of in a catch 22 where they've already told you they're an honest person or they've already told you they agreed that a leader should be honest. So now it's going to be very difficult for them to admit that they've lied to you when you know they've done, when you know that they have or when they've done something wrong. And when you can pull off a maneuver like that, it's devastating.

Starting point is 00:16:15 And I highly recommend it. So just think about these battles and the strategies you're using and how you can apply them. All right, let's jump back into the book here. The outcome cast an ironical reflection on the comforting assumptions of field marshal Ironside that the opposing generals would be handicapped by the fact that none of them had been more than captains in the last year.

Starting point is 00:16:39 Eight years earlier, Hitler had criticized the German generals as blind to the new and surprising things, as imaginatively sterile, as being imprisoned in the coils of their technical knowledge. Some of the latter vendage, however, showed an exceptional capacity to appreciate new ideas. But this exploitation of new weapons, tactics, and strategy does not cover all the factors in Germany's run of success. For in Hitler's warfare, the indirect approach was carried into wider fields and deeper strata. Here he profited by studying the Bolshevik technique.

Starting point is 00:17:19 of revolution, just as the new German army had profited by applying the British evolved technique of mechanized warfare, whether he knew it or not, the basic methods in both spheres could be traced back to the technique of Mongols' warfare under Genghis Khan. To prepare the way for his offensive, he sought to find influential adherents in the other country who would undermine its resistance, make trouble in his interest, and be ready. to form a new government compliant to his aims. Bribery was unnecessary. He counted on self-seeking, ambition, authoritarian, inclination, and party spirit

Starting point is 00:18:01 to provide him with willing and unwilling agents among the ruling classes. Think Juan Guido. Then to open the way at the chosen moment, he aimed to use an infiltration of stormtroopers who would cross the frontier while peace, peace still prevailed as commercial travelers or holiday makers and don the enemy's uniform when the word came their role was to sabotage communications spread false reports and if possible kidnap the other country's leading men this disguised vanguard would in turn be backed up by airborne troops in the warfare he intended to stage frontal advances would be either a bluff or a walking on part

Starting point is 00:18:49 the leading role would always be played by the rear attack in one of its forms. He was contemptuous of assaults and bayonet charges, the ABC of the traditional soldier. His way in warfare began with a double D, demoralization, and disorganization. Above all, war would be waged by suggestion, by words instead of weapons, propaganda replacing the projectile, just as an artillery bombardment, was used in the last war to crush the enemy's defenses before the infantry advanced,

Starting point is 00:19:24 so a moral bombardment would be used in future. All types of ammunition would be used, but especially revolutionary propaganda. Generals, in spite of the lessons of war, want to behave like chivalrous knights. They think war should be waged like the tourneys of the Middle Ages. I have no use for knights. I need revolutions. The object of war was to make the enemy capitulate. If his will to resist could be paralyzed, killing was superfluous. Besides being a clumsy and expensive way of attaining the object,

Starting point is 00:20:00 the indirect way of injecting germs into the body of the opposing nation, to produce disease in its will, was likely to be far more effective. Such was Hitler's theory of war with psychological weapons. Those who tried to check him should have taken care to understand it. the value of its application to the military sphere was proved to paralyze the enemy's military's nerve system is a more economical form of operation than to pound his flesh its application to the political sphere was proved in effect but not in content it is open to question whether it would have succeeded in demoralizing resistance but for the paralyzing effect of the new type forces applying new methods of attack even in the case of France, the German superiority and military technique suffices to account for her collapse, apart from any decay or disorder of the national will. Something to think about quite a bit is the level of propaganda, the psychological warfare that happens,

Starting point is 00:21:09 regardless of which military is infiltrating who. There's tons of examples of leaflets being flown and dropped over, via helicopter on places or or rebel groups or people that are just unhappy with society be it like the kKK or the BLM or la raza or you name it it doesn't take a whole lot to get a rumor out there and rumors can be incredibly paralyzing especially if if they can be targeted to the right people I think one thing happening with COVID right now is that they are in fact targeting a lot of the older generation. A lot of the people who have spent their whole lives saving and getting to retirement. And now all of a sudden there's this threat of the market crashing and this new disease that's specifically targeting old people.

Starting point is 00:22:04 You know, that level of panic, that level of propaganda is in fact another disease that can lead to the, crippling of the nerve system, just exactly like what this book is talking about. Since we're talking about propaganda, let me, I'm sure some of you know this, but let me tell you a little bit about the Smith Mund Act. The U.S. Information and Education Exchange Act of 1948. Popularly called the Smith Mund Act is the basic legislative authorization for propaganda activities conducted by the U.S. Department of State, sometimes called public diplomacy. The Act was first introduced by Congressman Carl E. Munt in January 45 in the 79th Congress. It was subsequently passed by the 80th Congress and signed into law by President Harry as Truman in January 27th,

Starting point is 00:22:55 1948. Okay, now listen to this beauty part right here. The Smith Mund Modernization Act of 2012, thank you, Obama, which was contained within the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013 section 1078 a amended the united states information an educational exchange act of 1948 and the foreign relations authorization act of 1987 allowing for materials produced by the state department and the broadcasting board of governors to be available within the united states basically the smith mund act allowed us the united states to weaponize propaganda everywhere in the world in 2012 Obama the entirety of congress you name it all of them they're all on board they allowed that same propaganda that was wielded in world war two in vietnam in the

Starting point is 00:24:05 Middle East, they now allowed our government to use the propaganda on the American people. Just to be clear, the legislation authorizes the U.S. State Department to communicate to audiences in the United States through broadcasting, face-to-face contacts, exchanges, educational, cultural, and technical, the publishing of books, magazines, and other media of communication and engagement. funding for these activities comes from the legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. So you as the taxpayer get to pay for the propaganda wield it against you. Magical. So if you want to do something that is interesting and disheartening, go back and start looking at when the media started talking about fake news.

Starting point is 00:25:00 And I think you can track it down to about 2012, 2013. legal 100% for propaganda that's been developed at the State Department to be used on all Americans. Pretty disheartening, right? Back to the book. Force can always crush force given sufficient superiority in strength or skill. It cannot crush ideas. Being intangible, they are invulnerable, save to psychological penetration and their resilience has baffled innumerable believers in force. None of them perhaps were so aware of the power of ideas as Hitler, but the increasing extent to which he had to rely on the backing of force as his power extended showed that he had overestimated the value of his political technique in converting ideas to his

Starting point is 00:25:52 purpose. For ideas that do not spring from the truth of experience have relatively brief impetus and a sharp recoil. Real quickly, let me just. just talk a little bit about strategy there. I think it's obvious that force can always crush force given sufficient superiority and strength or skill. However, the idea that it can't crush ideas is something we can see examples of in the not too distant past, be it Occupy Wall Street, even though people were brought in to subvert that movement, the idea never died.

Starting point is 00:26:31 The BLM movement, that idea is not. going to die. The idea, the preppers, you know, there's all these different ideas that can't be crushed by force. In fact, when they're crushed by force, they're just splintered. And when they're splintered, it's like the hydra, right? You cut off one head, it grows three more. I think it's also a, it has, it has roots in the idea of decentralization. If there is no one leader, than the army, the military power, the group, the rebels, whatever it is. If it doesn't have one direct leader, it's much more difficult to crush. There's a similar, not exactly the same, but a similar strategy in a book called The Starfish and the Spider

Starting point is 00:27:26 that talks about the spider, obviously being at the center of web and the starfish being able to regrow its own limbs. It's a fascinating book. If you get a chance to check that out, it's talks a lot about this particular type of strategy. So back to the book. Hitler gave the art of offensive strategy a new development. He also mastered better than any of his opponents the first stage of grand strategy, that of developing and coordinating all forms of warlike activity and all the possible instruments which may be used to operate against the enemy's will. But like Napoleon, He had an inadequate grasp of the higher level of grand strategy, that of conducting war with a far-sided regard to the state of the peace that will follow. To do this effectively, a man must be more than a strategist. He must be a leader and a philosopher combined.

Starting point is 00:28:27 While strategy is the very opposite of morality, as it is largely concerned with the art of deception, grand strategy tends to coincide with morality through having always to keep in view the ultimate goal of the efforts it is directing that is a pretty deep thought right there maybe i should go over it again just so that i can kind of nail it down in my own mind the first stage of grand strategy that of developing and coordinating all forms of warlike activity and all the possible instruments which may be used to operate against the enemy's will. You guys got it. That's the first stage of grand strategy.

Starting point is 00:29:17 But like Napoleon, he had an inadequate grasp of the higher level of grand strategy. So let's reread what the higher level of grand strategy is. That of conducting war with a far-sided regard to the state of the peace that will follow. It's like the end, the higher end of grand strategy. is understanding and visualizing what the state of peace will look like after the war. That means you need to know the hearts and minds of the people. You need to know what it is at the end of the war that's going to bring them back together. You need to have multiple outcomes in case one doesn't work.

Starting point is 00:30:05 If you don't have one objective, or if you have one objective, then you should have backup objectives. That means that you need to have a plan ready to go to put people back in somewhat of a working environment, and somewhat of a rebuilding environment. And that is incredibly difficult to even begin to think about doing it. I like this next part too. While strategy is the very opposite of morality, because it is based in the art of deception, grand strategy tends to coincide with morality through having always to keep in view the ultimate goal of the efforts it is directing

Starting point is 00:30:50 it's amazing to think of a grand strategy having a type of morality to it fascinating to think about in trying to prove their irresistibility in attack the Germans had weakened their own defenses in many ways strategic, economic, and above all psychological. As their forces spread over Europe, bringing misery without securing peace, they scattered widespread the germs of resentment, from which resistance to their ideas would develop. And to these germs, even their own troops became more susceptible from being exposed to contact with the people of the occupied countries, and made sensitive to the feelings they

Starting point is 00:31:36 inspire. This began to damp the martial enthusiasm, which Hitler had to, assiduously stimulated and to deepen their longing for home. The sense of being friendless reinforces the effect of staleness, opening the way for the infiltration of war war wariness as well as of counter ideas. By his offensive expansion, Hitler had provided his remaining opponent with opportunity to rest the advantage from him. It could have been developed more quickly by a fuller vision of grand strategy on her side, but even without that, the opportunity was likely to grow so long as Britain remained invincible. To impose his peace, he needed to complete victory, which he could not attain without conquering Britain. While the further he advanced elsewhere, the more he enlarged

Starting point is 00:32:26 his own problem in holding down the conquered peoples. Each step forward increased the dangers of a slip. Britain's problem was a simple one, though a hard one. She had to hold. pulled out until he made an irreparable slip as Napoleon had done. Fortunately for her, he made this slip very soon before the strain on her had become crippling and the slip became irreparable. Because his flare for offensive strategy was not matched by a corresponding sense of defensive strategy.

Starting point is 00:33:00 The immensity of his earlier successes led him as Napoleon had been led to believe that the offensive offered a solution of all problems. So in conclusion, try and think about, let's go back just a few paragraphs and try to wield this in your life.

Starting point is 00:33:24 Try to think about the higher level of grand strategy in relationships. And that is to be able to understand the outcome, be able to understand the peace that the battle you wage will eventually end up in. What outcome do you want from this? What is going to be the way to get people to work together once you have begun the battle or won the battle or begun the war or won the war? Whatever it is, what is going to repair the damage that you did? The first stage of grand strategy.

Starting point is 00:34:12 That of developing and coordinating all forms of warlike activity and all the possible instruments which may be used to operate against the enemy's will. That's the first form. That's the first stage of grand strategy. The higher level of grand strategy, that of conducting war with a far-sided regard to the state of the peace that will follow. To do this effectively, a man must be more than a strategist. He must be a leader and a philosopher combined, while strategy is the very opposite of morality. Just try to wrap your head around that for a minute. Strategy is the opposite of morality,

Starting point is 00:34:55 as it is largely concerned with the art of deception. Grand strategy tends to coincide with morality through having always to keep in view the ultimate goal of the efforts it is directing. Well, there you go, my friends. There you go. You got war, battlefield war applied to everyday relationships. Battlefield strategy applied to everyday relationships.

Starting point is 00:35:23 I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, wow, George, can this battlefield strategy, these tactics in war, are these the same tactics in war that the organism uses in evolution? I know, that's probably what you're thinking, right? That's what I was thinking. probably what do you think we learn them from how do you think we know them it's usually something we see some animal do aren't we animals anyways i like it i like getting into the nitty gritty and finding out why don't you you should always ask that question questions are in fact the best way to get to

Starting point is 00:36:03 the bottom of all problems all right my friends i hope you have a great day and we'll be be back at it tomorrow. Aloha.

TrueLife - The Strategy of Warfare in Relationships Part 2: Tactics, Influence & Emotional Combat

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