The North Coast times-eagle., October 01, 2003, Page 14, Image 14

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equivalent to gaining the object of policy. But as most of the
thinking about war has been by the military profession, there has
been a very natural tendency to lose sight of the basic national
object, and to identify it with the military aim.”
It was natural for the exponent of the indirect approach
to recommend an indirect victory. But it was a victory neverthe­
less A different opinion altogether, challenging victory itself,
was put forward by Professor Anatol Rapoport:
"The victorious wars of Napoleon, the German victories
of 1864, 1866 and 1870, and the triumph of Japan over China
(1895) and Russia (1905), were only episodes presaging the
eventual defeat of France, Germany and Japan. If, then, we
extend Clausewitz’s dictum that only the outcome of the final
war counts in the career of a war-waging state, we must con­
clude on the basis of historical experience that military prowess
is more likely to lead to defeat than to victory."
Rapoport knows more about victory than the most
distinguished generals. However, he does not draw any con­
clusions. He does not make the necessary step of relating
victory — as he understands it — to the real aim of war.
This missing link in the otherwise logical chain of thought has
been provided not by historians, soldiers or politicians, but by
persons of letters. “Misery me,” cried Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit
by J.R.R Tolkien ). “I have heard songs of many battles, and I
always understood that defeat may be glorious."
Another writer, Joseph Heller, says it more explicitly
(Catch 22):
“You put so much stock in winning wars...The real trick
lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has
been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly
we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual
state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers....Italy won a war in
Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory
gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start
a world war we hadn’t a chance of winning. But now that we are
losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we
will certainly come up on top again if we succeed in being
defeated."
Some have been suspicious of the alleged positive
effects of victory. Others have been aware of the superiority
of defeat. Nobody, however, has tried to put into practice this
unconventional but more realistic approach. When we watch the
huge professional armies with their incredible firepower, with
their scientists, with their electronic computers and with the
synthetic rationalism of their Herman Kahns, this neglect seems
almost unbelievable.
If we agree that a military disaster may produce a better
postwar situation than victory, then there should be a science of
military disasters as there is a science of military victories. Such
a science must comprise a theory and practice. The practice
should provide the armies with handbooks and textbooks for the
Accomplishment of defeats and surrenders. The fact that the big
powers of today are powerful enough to make absurd any effort
by lesser powers to overcome them in the traditional way makes
an alternative to victory the more urgent.
Let us take, for example, a political conflict: the invasion
of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. The discrepancy
in power between the two forces was so great that the Czechs
had to revert to the only stratagem left to them — namely that of
surrender. The Czechs were almost experts in the art of submis­
sion. They sabotaged the war machine of the Austro-Hungarian
empire in the First World War by similar methods; as a result,
they won an independent state of Czechoslovakia. While others
rebelled, killed and were killed, the Czechs won independence
by conforming to every rule and law no matter how stupid and
ridiculous Readers interested in details should read The Good
Soldier Schweik, by Jaroslav Hasek. Though written as literary
fiction, it is a practical (and classic) manual of howto produce
military disasters.
The outcome of the Czechs surrendering to the Russian
invasion of 1968 was that they were made a better offer than
were the Hungarians after their bloody revolt of 1956. Moreover,
the Soviet Union with all its might, with all it’s A & H bombs and
with all its intercontinental missiles, had to withdraw its forces
with almost no shots fired. Emil Zátopek, the famous Czech
sportsman, was quoted in the British press as saying, “The
Russians came crashing in here stupidly, with none of the gentle
movement of sportsmen. They came with all their armaments
and their might, but were defeated by our children with nothing
but flags on their chests and the power of their words to unite
our people *
Even if the superiority of defeat over victory is accept­
ed. people could still argue that once we grasp the idea, a hand­
book for defeat is unnecessary because it is easy to lose a war,
and that all one has to do in order to be defeated is to handle
the war in an inefficient manner. It is easy to show that this is a
impractical approach. If “inefficient manner” means the handling
of a war not in the way it is taught in the military academies,
then we will be surprised to learn how many wars have been
won in this way. Colonel Alfred H. Burne, in a textbook for win­
ning wars that is much in use in military institutions around the
world, admits that some generals have won battles in spite of
transgressing or by ignoring one or more of these "principles
of war, while other generals appear to have observed them and
yet have suffered defeat.” No one can lose a war by handling it
inefficiently any more than one can win by handling it efficiently.
This is so not because there are no rules in warfare, but because
*And of course, there is no Soviet Union anymore The
Czech state divided in two and prospers, brand new members
of the European Union.
SURRENDER WITH THE HANDS UP
Hands-up surrender does not involve the use of artifacts as does that of White Flag. Artifacts are, in
fact, an obstacle to this mode of surrender, which demands the unhindered use of both hands. After
the soldier has thrown away his weapons, he stands at ease or walks slowly toward the enemy with
both his hands raised in the air with the palms flat open facing the enemy. (No closed fists are allowed
in hands-up surrender since they may conceal weapons.) In a proper hands-up posture the arms are
bent in a trident-like position, forming two right angles: one at the elbow (between the upper and the
forearm) and the other at the armpit (between the upper arm and the trunk). When the enemy is within
15 to 12 feet, the soldier halts and lifts his arms still higher, until the elbows are level with the top of
the head. In this position the climax of surrender is reached. Every movement or emotion must be
frozen fora minute or two. If nothing happens in this interval, the surrender can be regarded as
successfully accomplished.
WHITE FLAG
of two elements in war that cannot be predicted: chance and
friction. Friction and chance make perfection in fighting impos­
sible. Wars have been won despite imperfections and even
despite grave mistakes. This was recognized long ago by
the ancient Greeks. “Many badly planned enterprises,” says
Thucydides in the History of the Pelopponnesian War, “have
had the luck to be successful because the enemy had shown
an even smaller degree of intelligence."
Even if war could — theoretically speaking — be
handled properly, there is still a need for a manual like The
White Flag Pnnciple, for the following reasons:
Let us assume for a moment that by handling a war
inefficiently it is possible to lose it. This may have a chance of
success if the enemy is stronger than or equal to one's power.
If one’s enemy is much weaker than oneself, merely pursuing
the war in an inefficient manner will not bring about the desired
results. The Russians fought the Finns in 1939 in a most ineffi­
cient manner and still were unable to lose the war. It may also
happen that the enemy, though stronger, had decided to lose.
In this case, too, not to handle the war in an “efficient manner"
will only achieve victory.
Mere desire to win has never guaranteed victory; so also
a desire to lose is not enough to guarantee defeat. For example:
it is difficult, almost impossible, to be defeated if one’s economy
is flourishing.Countries with a strong economy tend to win rather
than lose. The same can also be said about a strong and united
society or a well-balanced and clever foreign policy. To pave the
way for military disaster, one may have to ruin one's own econ­
omy, disunite a united society and carry out a bad foreign policy.
All of this must be an integral part of The White Flag Principle.
Even when the war has been eventually lost, some problems
still remain unsolved; for example, howto march into captivity,
and how to face charges as war criminals — a thing quite likely
to happen to the vanquished.
At this point in my introduction to the idea of defeat as
the best outcome of a war, a brief explanation must be given for
the use of a paradoxical term: the power of submitting.
Though the expression “power of submitting" may sound
as if it is contradicting itself, this is not so. It is true though that
submission, surrender, defeat, debacle and the like, result from
lack of power, or more precisely, from lack of sufficient power.
This applies only to situations in which both the opponents fight
for victory, each opposing power with power. However, as in
judo, it is possible to oppose power with weakness — that is,
to use the enemy’s strength to put him out of balance. In this
sense, the use of a phrase like “power of submitting” is mean­
ingful.
When there is a war between two sides and one of them
gives himself up, the victor takes full possession of the loser.
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Since justice, pity, sympathy and love always go to the under­
dog, the victor has, morally at least, lost. He might even be
considered the aggressor (if he was not considered so before).
The most evil warmonger has sympathy on his side the moment
he loses the battle.Justice is a good argument in war and is used
by the belligerent as a sort of weapon. However, the moment
the battle is over, it is useless to the victor. He looks ridiculous
indeed if he tries to add justice and morals to his power. Israel
lost a great deal of world sympathy after its formidable victory
over the Arabs in 1967, and its moralistic justifications since
then for the occupation of Arab territory have sounded ridiculous
and self-serving.
The fate of conquered people should be compared with
the fate of free people, and especially of free people belonging
to powerful and victorious regimes. In The Secret History,
Procopius describes the fate of the free citizens of Byzantium
under their most glorious leader Justinian the Great:
“Without hesitation he (Justinian) issued orders for the
seizure of towns, the burning of cities, and the enslavement of
entire nations, for no reason at all. So that if one chose to add
up all the calamities which have befallen the Romans from the
beginning and to weigh them against those for which Justinian
was responsible, I feel sure that he would find that a great
slaughter of human beings was brought about by this one than
took place in all the preceding centuries. As for other people's
money, he seized it by stealth without the slightest hesitation;
for he did not even think it necessary to put forward any excuse
or pretense of justification before taking possession of things to
which he had no claim. Yet when he secured the money, he was
quite prepared to show his contempt for it by reckless prodigality
or to throw it to potential enemies without the slightest need. In
short, he kept no money himself and allowed no one else in the
world to keep any, as if he were not overcome by avarice. Thus
he cheerfully banished wealth from Roman soil and became the
creator of nationwide poverty."
Even from a purely military point of view the vanquished
are better off than the victors. Guerrilla warfare for example, the
only kind of warfare that can challenge the mightiest army, can
only be used by the vanquished. It is impossible for a victor to
employ guerrilla warfare. This is the most ironical consequence
of victory. By being victorious the winner is prevented from
using the only kind of warfare that is more powerful than his
own. The vanquished are immune not only from guerrilla
warfare but also from nuclear weapons. They cannot even be
threatened by them. An enemy can be threatened with nuclear
weapons as long as he is fighting, but the moment he surrenders
or has been defeated he cannot be threatened by anything.
Hydrogen bombs and intercontinental missiles become as
useless as Stone Age clubs.
There is also the false impression that the vanquished
suffer more casualties than the victors. Though this may be true
of ancient battles, it is not necessarily true today. In the battle of
Chattanooga in 1863, the defeated Confederate general Braxton
Bragg had only 3,000 casualties as against 5,815 casualties of
the victorious Union army of U. S. Grant. In the five years of the
U.S. Civil War, the victorious North had 334,624 killed and dead
from wounds or disease, as against 192,345 of the vanquished
South. French casualties in their seven defeats in the Great
Turkish War of 1683-1699 are summed up as being only 43,000,
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