Saturday, February 13, 2010

When it rained Cats in Egypt.

The fourth rule of power tactics says," Make your enemy live upto their own rules". Now, I don't know if this story is truth or legend, but it sounds feasible. When the ancient egyptians were engaged in a battle with another army and were at the verge of victory, the General of the opposing army found out something. The Egyptians considered cats to be divine and would not dare hurt them. The Egyptians were rendered totally inactive later when they saw a barrage of cats approaching them from the enemy's side. The Egyptians became sitting ducks for the other army and lost eventually.
Many kingdoms have falllen due to their restrictive rules of engagement. What every nation must finally come to terms with is, when it comes to war, THERE ARE NO RULES.

3 comments:

ahmed said...

but then all hell will break loose and no holds barred stops at nothing short of nuclear catastrophe . . bombing Qana in Lebanese Israeli war was something which exemplifies this argument.Collective punishment meted out to all for sins of few is something I find hard to fathom .. plus 'all is fair in war' is a cliché of victors only for loser is often an 'aggressor' or terrorist :(

Hari Pillai said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hari Pillai said...

Sometimes one needs to have some degrre of ethics in war.But hardly it is followed. Assuming the aggressor targets women and children, or the oppressed hides behind women and children. This act will be considered cowardly and unethical but follows the 4th rule.I think when it comes to survival people can stoop to any extent.Hence all rules are rendered inactive. Nuclear bombing by US on Japan was to portray their might, i.e to survive in front of japan's ever increasing power.