a clash, like blind moles, and then reciprocal extermination will
begin.’
The decision on tactics is never an easy one. It was said by
Clausewitz that ‘War is nothing but the continuation of politics
with the admixture of other means’, and you should normally
wait to launch an attack until you are certain that the normal
process of peaceful negotiation is not going to get you anywhere.
The decision will also be affected by your ability to understand
your opponent’s strategy and tactics so that you can take pre-
emptive action. Crisis management is very much about
analysing other people’s motives, intentions and ploys, and
responding accordingly. Another adage from Clausewitz is
worth bearing in mind: ‘Despise the enemy strategically, respect
him tactically.’ In other words, you may be quite certain that in
the longer term your opponent will come to grief, but in the short
term he may fight hard and you may have to fight back equally
hard. Losing one battle may not lose the war but a succession of
defeats must prejudice your chances, however just your cause
and however superior your strategy.
Thomas Schelling (1960), a leading commentator on crisis
management, commented wisely on the fight or flight decision
as follows:
What is in dispute is usually not the momentary right of way, but
everyone’s expectations about how a participant will behave in the
future. To yield is a signal that one can be expected to yield. To yield
often or continuously may communicate an acknowledgement that
that is one’s role. To yield readily up to some limit, and then say
‘enough’, may guarantee that the first show of obduracy loses the
game for both sides.Crisis management may or may not take place within a well-
defined strategy, but, whatever happens, the tactics have got
to be worked out on the basis of a complete understanding of
the situation, especially those aspects of it which concern
other people’s intentions. If you yield, then, as Schelling says,
take care to ensure that, because you have misunderstood or
underestimated your opponent, he will not take advantage of it.
Beware also of the possibility that both of you might lose in the
end.
If you decide to fight, remember the following precepts of St
Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas on what is a just war:
How to Manage a Crisis 161