How to Think Clearly About War

Now, contrary to any Rambo movies you may have seen, wars are not fought by individuals. Armies fight wars.

Yet this is exactly what many people thought before World War I started. Now that there was industry and technology, the argument went, now that humanity had unlocked achievements that we’d never unlocked before, we could turn our backs on the barbaric practice of war. To quote Reuters, “A 1910 bestselling book, The Great Illusion, used economic ar

La guerre, évidemment, a toujours été une science, mais elle a été aussi jadis un art, et nos pères chrétiens ont même réussi à en faire une espèce de sainteté. Durant des siècles, il a été tenu pour déshonorant de frapper le cheval, c’est-à-dire de démonter l’adversaire. Des milliers d’hommes ont refusé de sauver ainsi leur vie, en face d’un ennem

Doubt is unnerving save to philosophic minds, and armies are not composed of philosophers, either at the top or at the bottom. In no activity is optimism so necessary to success, for it deals so largely with the unknown—even unto death. The margin that separates optimism from blind folly is narrow. Thus there is no cause for surprise that soldiers

We all know that prior to the Trisolar Crisis, we had been advocating for the examination of the future of war from scientific and rational perspectives, and a powerful inertia has sustained this mentality to the present day. This is particularly the case in the present space force, where it has been exacerbated by the influx of a large number of a