Not Knowing The ‘Enemy’
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Sun Tzu, Art of War, III.18
I am always amazed how little western governments are aware of their own (lack of) capabilities as well as of the nature and capabilities of their ‘enemies’.
They tend to not know the basic economic and sociological facts about their opponents. They operate on whatever nonsense they have come to believe about their ‘enemies’. They overestimate their own position, miscalculate and are astonished when, as a result, the factual situation turns against them.
We may recount, as Tucker Carlson does here, that the U.S. was “assured by some of the dumbest people on the planet, who currently serve in the United States Senate, that Russia was merely ‘a gas station with nuclear weapons’.”
Sanctions were imposed on Russia but failed to trouble it. They hurt those who imposed them the most.
The Trump administration recently put a 50% tariff on all goods from Brazil (even though it has a trade surplus with that country). This was to punish its government and judiciary for pursuing charges against the former president Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup after he had lost the elections.
Brazil is a nationalistic, well developed country which is allergic to interference by foreign powers. Anyone knowing that fact could have anticipated this reaction:
For [President] Lula, whose left-wing allies face a tough 2026 election, the moment is a windfall. Polls show revived support for his administration in t
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
