Know Thy Enemy
JAKUB GRYGIEL
The modern Western penchant for trusting in the equal rationality of all is strategic folly. Aeschylus understood this well.
Good strategy requires a sound understanding of ones rivals. A rival in any walk of life is, in a sense, an interlocutor. To engage him effectively in debate one must understand his speech and reasoning patterns. Without that knowledge, conversation is at best pointless, at worst self-defeating. So it is in strategy. It is futile to engage in competition with a rival power without having at least an inkling about his thoughts, fears, and desires.
The modern Western penchant for trusting in the equal rationality of all suggests otherwise. According to this conceit, there is no reason to plumb the nature of an enemys thinking because it is no different in essence from ones own. But this is wrong. A rivals response to ones strategy is not predictable as a simply rational and universal reaction that can be generalized and grasped with relative ease. Rival states or groups respond to similar actions in different ways based on their culture, worldview, history, and the proclivities of their leaders. Good strategy, as Bernard Brodie once put it, presupposes good anthropology and good sociology.
One of the earliest examples we have of good anthropologyor rather, of being able to put oneself in the mind of the enemyis in a 5th-century BCE Greek tragedy, The Persians, written by Aeschylus. ...
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/01/23/know-thy-enemy/
I don’t know how to post click link but you must check this out for dumbest answer at the pageant. You won’t believe this, just wow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww