Bruce Hill came up with the "guest columnist" idea a while ago, in which he submitted a very good post to fellow blogger Josh Trevino's i330 site and vice-versa. I quite liked the idea. After yesterday's post about "Biochemical Terrorism: A Scenario and its Consequences," I have just decided to take the "Guest Blogger" concept a step further.

Simon doesn't have a blog, but he's a smart guy. He sent me a very intelligent email the other day. Which, with his permission, becomes his Guest Column on Winds of Change...

They'll Quit When They Lose All Hope
by M. Simon

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 WWI and WWII. 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: the current oil war. The direct strikes are to gather people's attention. 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 battlefield 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.

(c) M. Simon - All rights reserved. M. Simon is an industrial controls designer and Free Market Green.

Simon Says: "If you would like to find out more about how our limited government is supposed to work go to my web page for the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and other good stuff. Free. Pass it on."