Notice to all common law groups and sheriffs: As part of a series of Training videos our Central Office is producing, we have revised the following crucial Rules of War adapted from the great strategists Karl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. Please study these principles and apply them to your own situation and battles. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God - John Adams, 1775 The Art and Rules of War (with acknowledgment to Sun Tzu and Karl von Clausewitz) 1. The sole purpose of war is the annihilation of the enemy. To aim at anything short of this invites defeat. 2. Striking at the heart of the enemy is the ultimate doctrine for victory and has no substitute. All strategy must be directed towards this purpose. 3. Engagement with an enemy cannot be avoided. Maneuver is an unreliable means to victory, and as a tactic cannot become central to command strategy. 4. Any maneuver of avoidance is cowardice elevated to a strategy. Warfare by its very nature compels direct engagement. 5. Nothing will demoralize and defeat an army primed for battle quicker than avoiding a direct engagement with an enemy. Therefore, all maneuver must always be aimed at and result in such rapid engagement. 6. An army that sees fear or indecision in its commanders will collapse. Chain of command is sustained fundamentally by the valor and the determined example of the commanders, and by their demonstrated capacity to grapple directly with the enemy and triumph. 7. Shock attack is preferable to stealth, for shock maximizes an armys impact as well as the fighting spirit of its troops. 8. There can be no reliable defence in war, since any defensive posture invites attack. 9. To receive a blow, even when prepared, is to be weakened by it. One can only gain victory through the offensive. Defend and one is insufficient. Attack and one has a surplus. 10. Seasoned enemies expect and are trained for the unpredictable, and cannot be easily ambushed, decoyed or misled. Win victory therefore through naked force aimed at an enemys weakest point and not by maneuver or indirect means. 11. Command can never win victory simply by taking advantage of random events and shifting opportunities, but only by purposefully shaping these factors. 12. Battles are won only when a unified leadership transforms random events into controlled outcomes. 13. Morale is not ultimately decisive in battle because of its random and shifting nature, and therefore must not determine commands purpose and strategy, only its means of victory. 14. Successful tactics are the offspring of true experience but must always remain supple and expendable. Tactics that become enshrined as a permanent strategical doctrine are a recipe for disaster. 15. Every additional link required in the attaining of an objective causes the probability of delay, confusion and failure to increase exponentially. 16. Every link removed from the achieving of an objective causes the probability of clarity and success to increase exponentially. 17. Whoever depends on a majority for victory must reflect its weakest aspects and must thereby be defeated. 18. Seasoned minorities alone are capable of sustained and purposeful action and thereby, victory. Only veterans are capable of victorious combat, by leading the inexperienced mass in their wake. The sharpening and leadership of this vanguard of veterans is the key to victory in every battle. 19. Victory is formed by the strategic command but is won by the operational commanders. The quality of these secondary leaders and their cadres is therefore the key to success in every battle. 20. Operations must always be geared to the raid seizure and exploitation of the key moment of opportunity created in battle. The prime purpose of operational commanders is to recognize and act decisively upon such moments. 21. Purpose precedes action and must never be shaped by it. Defeat is assured when action precedes purpose. 22. Battles are lost when purpose dissolves into random response. 23. Nothing is permanent in war except uncertainty. Successful commanders therefore possess a single quality that pervades all of their actions: the unshakeable will to pursue victory that overcomes every unforeseen factor. 24. Therefore, one skilled in battle summons others and is not summoned by them. 25. One skilled at moving an enemy forms, and the enemy must follow; offers, and the enemy must take. 26. Form the ground of battle before engaging an enemy, on terms favourable to you. Then shape the ground to deceive the enemy, with actions that fit the enemys own mind and action. Thus you form victory before battle by standing on the ground of no defeat. 27. Never repeat successful manuevers with the same enemy or they will recover and adapt to your tactics. 28. Knowing the enemy and knowing yourself: in every battle, no danger. Not knowing the enemy and knowing yourself: one defeat for every victory. Not knowing the enemy and not knowing yourself: In every battle, certain defeat. 29. The victorious army is first victorious and then does battle. The defeated army first does battle and after that seeks victory. 30. It is the nature of warfare that swiftness rules. Everything will be won with swift action at the right moment, or lost without it. 31. Do not respond to the ground your enemy has prepared for you, but instead, shape their ground. Then they have no alternative but to be led by you, as if it was their own idea. This is skill. 32. Hide the time of battle from an enemy, and make what he loves and defends your first objective. When near, manifest far; when able, manifest inability, so as to confuse him. 33. Let your plans be as dark as night, then strike like a thunderbolt with utter surprise. Prior to such a surprise attack, feign weakness and offer the enemy a truce, to lull his defences. The unexpected attack always negates the superior strength of an enemy. 34. Respond to aggression by creating space, so as to control the actions of the aggressor. Resist, and you swell the attacker. Create room for the aggressor and he will dissipate. 35. When I am few and the enemy is many, I can use the few to strike the many because those whom I battle are restricted, being larger and more unwieldy. 36. Use order to await chaos. Use stillness to await clamor. At the right moment, not acting is the most skillful action. 37. The clarity and the will of the commander forms the ground of his entire army; and clarity comes from personal honesty and realism. The commander must never issue ambiguous orders but act only from his own clarity and will. 38. Always carefully discern the enemys purpose. True knowledge of the enemy comes from active contact. Provoke them to reveal themselves, assessing their nature and responses. Prick them and know their movements. Probe them and know their strength and deficiencies. 39. Power is found not in solid things but in the constant flow of relationships, which are never still. The power of a squirrel to cross a river on a log lies neither in the squirrel nor the log, but in their momentary combination. That combination is its power. 40. Never reinforce error or a defeat, but let your understanding move fluidly with each new experience. There is never a final or definitive outcome to the army that moves like water. 41. Being without permanent form and fluid in your movements and tactics, you compel your enemy to defend against you at every point. He is thereby dissipated and weakened, and kept ignorant of your purpose while forced to reveal his condition to you. 42. By this means of formlessness, you can form the strongest enemy to the ground you have chosen for it, on the terms of your victory. But without foreknowledge of the ground itself, none of this is possible. 43. Hostile ground heightens your focus. Cut off from home support, you take nourishment from the enemy. Such supply lines cannot be severed. Use the threat surrounding you to stay united and sustain your army. 44. Place your soldiers where they cannot leave. Facing death, they find their true strength and cannot be routed. When they cannot leave, they stand firm and fight. For thus do extreme situations cause your troops to respond from profound sources of inner power. Training and commands cannot accomplish this. Dire circumstances automatically evoke it, unsought yet attained. The right relationships unleash enormous power greater than the individual parts. 45. If a mightier enemy pauses though enjoying an advantage, they are tired. If divisions appear in their ranks, they are frightened. If their commander repeatedly speaks soothing reassurances to his army, he has lost his power. Many punishments indicate panic. Many bribes and rewards means the enemy is seeking retreat. 46. Bind your own army to you with deeds. Do not command them with words. 47. Engage an enemy with what they expect, so that what you allow them to see confirms their own projections. This settles them into predictable patterns of response, distracting them from your actions while you wait calmly for the extraordinary moment: that which they cannot anticipate or prepare for. Use the extraordinary to win victory. 48. Be in this manner invisible and unfathomable to your enemy. To be thus without form, first be so orthodox that nothing remains to give you away. Then be so extraordinary that no-one can predict your action or purpose. 49. Ride the inadequacies of your enemy. Go by unpredicted ways. Attack where your enemy has not taken precautions and avoid where they have. 50. Do not confront the enemy in their strength, but at the points of their weakness. Seize something the enemy holds dear. Their strength is then rendered useless; they must stop and respond. Likewise, whatever you love makes you vulnerable. Prepare yourself to relinquish it. iclcj
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 18:51:31 +0000
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