An Essay on Decisiveness.

As the frequent reader will remember, I've written often about conflict. Conflict occurs when strategies pursue incompatible futures. Two entities desire to implement incompatible versions of reality.
Some people carry the mindset that conflict is bad. This is pedantic. Conflict is a tool used to pursue objectives. Typically, virtuous cultures use seduction and negotiation first and resort to conflict as a last resort. Less progressive cultures use force first and always.
Is it bad when a cat uses force to protect it's kittens? Is it bad when a free people dethrone a ruthless dictator? Conflict determines the conditions of survival. Freedom or Bondage, Poverty or Plenty. Conflict can contain varying levels of force. Can the war to drive the Japanese from Nanking or the Philipines be compared to the purges under Stalin or the horrors of the Holocaust?

When conflict occurs it does not end until a decision is reached. Like a street fight, the decision can occur in a number of ways.

• Decisive Event, such as a knockout.
  
• Surrender Decision, one belligerent decides to be the loser.
  
• Stand-off, Both belligerents decide to discontinue the immediate tactics and seek a more advantageous strategy.
  
• Interference, a third party with clout decides to intervene.

Certain momentous battles appropriately get labled as decisive. They act somewhat like the knockout blow. They remove the ability to resist. In the days before international agreements decisive battles paved the way for pillage and plunder.

For the last 400 years, decisive battles generally led to surrender decisions. The plunder was less aggressive, often in the form of natural resources or taxes. The guarantee of less brutal outcomes (International Law) made surrender less objectionable than fighting to the death.

It is important to understand that the end of a conflict is a decision that shapes the future in an ever expanding spiral. The failure of the Kaiser to keep Hitler in a cage caused the deaths of millions. Eventually it spurred the creation of a Jewish State (Isreal, not Florida) and that helped fuel Arab victimism and the disgruntled Islamic mindset.

The each decision sets events in motion that cannot be predicted to final outcome. Conflict will follow conflict. Whether the fight is over land, water, food, treasure or ideology, it will eventually be followed by another conflict. It is only a matter of time.

With this knowledge, one can look at conflict as waves. They crest and trough and there is a certainty that with time they end. How much time it takes is variable. But each one has a decision point and someone that understands the waveform nature of conflict can shape strategy to drive the advantageous decision.

The first rule of being the winner is deciding not to lose. The ultimate in decisiveness is deciding to win.

Never give up. Never...Never...Never - Winston Churchill

We lost in Viet-Nam when we lost the will to win. Biographies and histories written by key North Vietnamese Leaders agree that after the failure of the Tet offensive, the North was ready to seek peace and truce...until they saw the cracks in the world famous "American Resolve."

If someone asks you "When will we have peace?" The answer is "when all persons decide to be satisfied with what they have." Because the the end of conflict is a decision that determines the future. Conflict will not end until everyone decides that what they have is good enough. That is another example of conflict ending with a decision.

But until then, The next wave of conflict is starting to swell. Grab your board - Surf's Up!