CHAPTER 1
Deterring International Rivals From
War and Escalation
Barry R. Schneider
Why do we seek to understand our enemies? If we are already at
war with them the answer is we want to anticipate their actions so we are
prepared to counter them effectively and minimize our losses.
Forewarned is forearmed. The better we understand them, the more
likely we are to win against them, the less likely we are to be surprised
and defeated by them.
The ancient Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, put it this way:
“One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be
endangered in a hundred engagements.
One who does not know the enemy but knows himself, will
sometimes be victorious.
One who knows neither the enemy, nor himself, will
invariably be defeated in every engagement.”
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When engaging a modern day adversary armed with nuclear,
biological, or chemical weapons capable of inflicting mass casualties, one
should understand the enemy’s red lines or likely trigger points when he
would be most likely to escalate to the use of both conventional force and
weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
To understand this, one ought to know things like the following:
• past cases when the adversary leader and his regime have used
military force;
• past cases when the adversary has used weapons of mass
destruction;
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