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Slide 1 of 41

If war is so terrible that we should end it quickly as Sun Tzu warned us thousands of years ago, why do men go to war--organized, armed violence upon each other? Or more specifically why do men kill other men if the process and results are so terrible? In LTC Dave Grossman's first book, On Killing he layed out that man has an inner void in his life, the realization in the back of his mind that at some point he is going to die. Man tries to fill this inner void with achievements and debauchery but neither fully satisfy. This internal tension manifests itself in two types of behaviors drawn from man's basic visceral, physical animal existence of his body (killer) and his cerebral, civilized, organizing, and moral side (angel). Another view is that of "Cain" and "Abel" in the Bible.

The act of killing can be done from either carnal emotional cravings or coldly analyctical and efficient organization. Since man is indeed a "Killer Angel" as Michael Schaara concludes in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel on the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, its not enough that men band together and say they will not do war anymore. The well spring of war does not come from democratic nations that energize the organizing, angelic side of human beings to put their energies into constructive endeavours and a search for meaning in life through God, the fountain of war emanates from man's craven, savage half. We are learning again in the 21st Century that wars DO NOT have to be fought for nation-state political ends as Clausewitz defined war, but simply because some men like to kill as futurist Martin Van Crevald has proven.

The true understanding of "war" would be that its any form of conflict emanating from the human heart not just when it devolves into organized violence of groups of men. This better understanding would then see that war is a continuum of conflict arising in the human heart manifesting itself next in verbal arguments then possibly proceeding to legal redress through the human government if the person(s) are moral then if the conflict of ideas cannot be resolved peaceably to force and violence on an escalating scale until entire nation-states and even the entire world are fighting for their very survival. War is really a conflict of whose IDEAS or WILL dominates. In western democracies man's innate carnal conflicts are kept sub-rosa from organized violence upon other nation-states, a major achievement but not perfect. It is true that within western democracies much "war" is going on but its in the form of peaceful legal redress and the exception is violent crime handled by our internal warriors of law enforcement. However, other nations that are not democratic have no civilizing component to keep their conflicts in-house and can and will attack those nation-states that want to remain at peace and external warriors--the military are needed to execute organized war in the most destructive ways possible to keep free civilizations together.

Now that we understand that war is primarily a conflict of whose ideas will dominate a given situation, and that at best man can only keep the "war" down to within the borders of democratic nation-states offering civil redress of grievances, the sad reality of today's nation-state system must be discussed. With the demise of the bi-polar world between the super-power confrontation of the U.S. and the free world versus the Soviet Union and its communist allies, a new anarchy has swept across the globe, some have tried to put a positive spin on it by calling it "Globalization".

Globalization is an attempt to describe how modern media communications has covered the globe instantly with thoughts, ideas, facts and lies such that old tribal and personal grudges once held in check by the nation-states have been given wings to strike anywhere in the world. Man's appetite for carnage and satisfaction for the better trappings in life have magnified as images of "Coca Cola" and "blue jeans" did more to collapse the communist world than any other idea the west exported. These rising expectations and hopes for a better life through better civilizations that can harness the earth's resources combined with craven and selfish men who use power at the expense of the people have created a world today at war all over the globe in sub-national forms. The "New World Disorder" exploded in our faces on September 11, 2001 when allegedly sub-national terrorists threatened for the first time a standing nation-state with a super-terrorist act of diving hijacked airliners into prominent U.S. buildings to get mass media effects. Van Crevald has defined our current age being in the "4th Generation" of war; whereas the first generation was sticks and stones weapons powered by animal muscle, the second internal combustion machines, the third maneuver, the current manifestation of war is all about bypassing organized armies and striking directly at the will and MIND of the people itself. Unlike the marine foot-infantry narcissists who have perverted 4GW theory to fit their anti-equipment hubris by wrongly defining this as ONLY sub-national conflicts, both sub-national groups AND nation-states can attack the will of the civil populace in true 4GW theory. Human western civilization itself is under attack from those who have let their baser natures dictate their actions under the guise of a false religion. To think the "global war" on terrorism is caused just by bad nation-state economies is dangerously wrong since today's global Islamist terrorists were home-grown in affluent, oil-rich nations. So poverty wasn't their lack it was the lack of it that led them to the anti-materialist knee-jerk. To think nation-state war is obsolete because it fits into your prejudices is dangerous ignorance of human nature to feed someone's avant garde' ego.

To defeat the IDEAS of sub-national enemies will require a better Dominant Strategic Idea (DSI). The DSI of our current enemy can be summarized below:

"We are right with god, you are not".

The DSI the west is emanating to the rest of the world is below:

"We have (oil) technology, and we live better than you"

As you can quickly see, the philosophical divide is truly as God warns us "man shall not live by bread alone". "Bread and Circuses" is clearly not enough as the Romans would warn us of their own falling empire. If we are to defeat our sub-national Islamist enemies we must counter their basic grievance, their DSI with as better one. To get the "victory" Sun Tzu spoke of, not prolong operations as lives are destroyed and economies are ruined. We have far meaningful things to do on the earth on a vertical plane than killing each other horizontally. To take the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ to heart, the epitome of war-fighting is to make your enemy into your FRIEND. Thus, our DSI should be changed;

"We can be right with God and honor our neighbors with technology"

Notice a better DSI will require that we in the west must change and use technology for the good and not feed our carnal lusts as the recent depravity of video mass murder conditioning games has swept across America increasing the sub-rosa war levels to dangerous highs.

Having layed out a grand strategy to defeat the minds of our enemies with a better idea they can share in, we have to face the sad fact that some people once set on a ruinous course will never change. These men will have to be resisted and killed. While its true that both Germany and Japan after losing in WWII were humbled and became friends to the west, the truth is it only took place after the majority of their selfish die-hards were killed in combat.

COMBAT is necessary violence that must be excuted well and indeed better than the savages with cunning that threaten human civilization today, both internally and externally. At all times we must remember that the enemy, too is a "Killer Angel" who can use the logical, civilizing powers of the human mind to effect violences on a scale far beyond the best world-class shooter with breath control. While we delve into understanding and maximizing the human physiological potential for combat, we must remember that man's mind can create powerful extensions of his power through machines, explosives and devices that transcend what can be attained within the human biological body. We must combine the best human-factors enabled weaponry, armored vehicles, shielding and sensors plus a superior warrior mindset and physiology to kill and capture the die-hards who cannot be made into our friends through Reasoned persuasion.

For example we have excellent "shooters" in Iraq today, however if they ride in unarmored trucks that run-over explosive devices the enemy who didn't have to face any risk will have killed our warriors without them able to fire a shot. Part of the mental preparations of a warrior must be the humble respect for the enemy, all earthly factors and then creating the best parameters for victory; which in this case would be driving in a tracked armored vehicle with underbelly/side armor with gunshields to survive the enemy's first volley and fire back successfully to fight aggressively with an excellent man/machine interface like the chariots of old.

Another excellent example of this was the U.S. Civil War. The South clearly had better, more charismatic leaders who knew how to rally the troops and with operational art, out-maneuver the plodding Union Army. These men knew how men react in battle and how to maximize their behavior even against the newly devastating massed rifle fire encountered. However, the Union acting on the more logical side of human nature, realized organized wars need logistics--threw down a coastline blockade all around the south so no supplies could be brought in by ships from other nations, then strangled the internal Mississippi river. While in the early years of the war, the South was beating the North at the tactical, human physiological level with Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Longstreet; the North was winning at the human cerebral, strategic, operational level until such time that it found through trial and error the charismatic leaders more than a match for the Southern technotacticians; Grant, Sherman, Chamberlain, Buford and Sheridan.

Because men in war seek mechanical advantage to extend their bodily powers, in waging war there are two basic battles; the battle against the earth (TBATE) itself and the battle against men (TBAM). In the battle against the earth, men must overcome the terrain and weather to achieve military force that can be directed to control ground, change governments and peoples and kill/capture/encircle/collapse opposing military forces. If the human body cannot eat, it cannot fight. This is exactly what General Sherman did in the U.S. Civil War, he cut out all his tentage and wagons and lived off the land as his Army marched through the south destroying their supplies and factories to build war instruments. Freed from the need for railroads to resupply him, the Confederate Generals couldn't predict where he could strike next. In the final analysis the South was mercifully beaten by starvation than annihilation on the battlefield; soon the "enemy" was made into our friends within the Union again, starting with Chamberlain's present, arms! salute of the Confederates at Appomattox Court House after surrender. To wage war you have to have in your mind the desirable peaceful end-state as you overcome both the earth itself and your human foe.