Posted on 08/30/2009 2:26:12 PM PDT by Scanian
A decisive shift in the political battleground has taken place, and few analysts have noticed. Sun Tzu, the Chinese warlord who assembled the psychological philosophy widely known today as The Art of War, knew what he was talking about, and would have been a formidable political strategist.
With the exception of the queen, the game of chess assigns each piece very specific tactics, and very specific limitations. The queen can project its power in any direction and distance, thus rendering it a formidable piece. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the pawn. With the exception of its opening move, the pawn is limited to the advancement of but one square at a time, and can only attack to an advancing diagonal square. The pawn can never retreat.
The pawn is historically analogous to a common peasant soldier in the ancient times of Master Sun Tzu, the Chinese warlord who assembled the psychological philosophy widely known today as The Art of War. Sun Tzu understood that the lowly foot soldier, when properly motivated, would become the most powerful piece on the battlefield.
In chess, the lowly pawn advances from friendly territory in a very docile manner at first, but with each successive challenge from the opponent's forces, its aggression becomes more apparent. The game respects the pawn's aggression and offers it a reward, for if the pawn advances all the way across the board to the back rank of the opponent, the game promotes the pawn to a stronger piece of the player's choosing. It would be folly to list all the choices, for each and every player who is successful in advancing a pawn to this level chooses the near invincibility of the queen.
The deepest back ranks of the opponent's territory, from which there is no retreat is analogous to the psychological territory that Sun Tzu called death ground. Just as the game of chess rewards the lowly pawn with the attributes of the mighty queen piece, so too does death ground release a trigger in the peasant soldier, producing the psychological clarity and will to turn and fight for his life with ultimate focus and resolve. Sun Tzu regards death ground as a battlefield advantage rather than peril because only upon death ground are the ranks fully fortified in their determination. Over the centuries, many generals have foolishly, and to their own demise, placed their opponent upon death ground.
The polar opposite of death ground, by Sun Tzu's logic, is dispersive ground, or one's own territory. Upon one's own territory, the forces are close to the comforts of home and easily distracted by their personal enthusiasms. They are easily dispersed, both mentally and physically because they are at ease with the familiarity of the surroundings. This is where the forces are ultimately the most vulnerable. Politics is no different. In On War, his addendum to Sun Tzu's philosophy, Prussian General Carl Von Clausewitz observed that "war is politics by other means," and it is from this parallel that I present the following observation.
After the conservative electorate took legislative control when they handed Congress to the Republicans in 1994 to break the single-party rule of Bill Clinton's election to the Presidency, the conservative ideology began to stagnate, and the promises of the Contract With America -- the prime motivation of grassroots conservatives -- quickly began to lose importance among Republicans, who were taking great delight in the comforts of their new prestige. Once George W. Bush was in the White House, and a comfortable gridlock of ideology existed within the Supreme Court, all three branches of government fell under control Republican ideology, and the aggregate conservative movement grew dangerously complacent. To Sun Tzu's line of thinking, conservatives were on dispersive ground.
Interesting and motivational.
Object lesson: Never get too big for your britches!
Intriguing and instructive application of Sun Tzu to the current political environment.
Swords, shields and pikes were the weapons.
Today a single soldier with a well stocked machine gun can take out dozens of enemy troops at a time.
True Death Ground will only be achieved when support for politicians who constantly thwart a conservative agenda are defeated.
That isn’t how I understood the point the writer was making. He was analogizing the application of Sun Tzu’s rules of war to a political setting, not a shooting war.
A big story just to tell us that citizens must make their feelings known to their elected officials. The constitution gives us enormous rights. We can start a revolution if nothing else will set our government right.
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He is saying “do not become fat, dumb and happy, never let your guard down”
Sun Tzu's "Art of War" teaches today's students the signs of when to attack your enemy, when not to, how to subdue him without fighting, preparing the State for conflict and so on...
Just because we have machine guns, stealth fighters, and strategic and tactical nuclear weapons doesn't mean the lessons gleaned from thousands of years of military history shouldn't be studied and applied to future conflicts.
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