[May 24, 2022] Never underestimate your enemy. The ‘enemy’ symbolically refers to people opposed to you, those with competitive opposing ideas, desires, and missions. They could be an opposing army, a terrorist group, a strongman dictator, a megalomaniac who wants to destroy the world, or the metaphysical Devil. The enemy can be as tiny as a drunk friend trying to drive his car home after a binging on alcohol or a foreign nation’s tyrant running a country and planning to do your nation great harm.
“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.” – Antisthenes
“Know your enemy” has been a truism since before recorded history. Failure to know your enemy could lead to your death and a Darwinian demise of those around you. In the business world, a related axiom is “Never underestimate the competition.” People suffer when we underestimate the enemy – massacres, genocides, and holocausts occur and bring untold misery. Such historical events today still reverberate throughout our social fabric. Many twentieth-century horrific deaths are there for seeing; the world miscalculated Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao. And sometimes, sadly, your greatest enemy is yourself.
Combined with fear and the lack of moral courage, failure to know your enemy will lead to the expansion of evil. Today, we see the worldwide strategic growth of terror, the crushing of reasonable ideas, the rejection of Christendom, the intolerance of progressivism, and the acceptance of mediocracy. Our response has been timid, underwhelming, and restricted mainly to the West. An enemy is destroyed through strength and courage, never through acquiescence or appeasement.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy. The surviving texts from the ancient world tell of a Chinese General named Sun Tzu. He wrote more than two millennia ago, “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” He is saying to put yourself in the position of your enemy so that you can understand and predict his actions. Know his strengths and weaknesses, learn his strategies and tactics, and hold his core ideas close, for that is how you can see what he will do next. Learn to read your enemy, his situation, patterns of behavior, what he hungers for, where he is weak and strong, and his values and virtues. Knowing these are the path to victory.
Never underestimating your enemy means knowing your enemy but also knowing yourself and your troops. Only then can you win.
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Please purchase my new book, “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).
Take a close read of this article as Gen. Satterfield has given us a true message of importance. Now, you say, this is an old, ancient message as well. True, but it remains important. Whether your “enemy” – a literal enemy – or your “competition” – loosely taken, all are important. One of Gen. S’s best.
Good comment Adolf. This is one of the best leadership blogs out there. Oh, and don’t forget to purchase the recent publsihed book by Gen. Satterfield. Here is the link:
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Longest-Year-Iraq-Construction/dp/1737915510/
Gotta know your enemy. Yes, this is, indeed, an ancient message and will remain true for as long as humans walk this earth. No amount of PC ideology will change that.
Gen. Satterfield, the quotes you have are great. The latest ….
“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.” – Antisthenes
Just a note that I want to thank all those who wished me Happy Birthday and that comment regularly on my leadership blog. I’ve found my website a place where I can focus many of my ideas and try out a few for input. To all my readers, thank-you!
Wow, thanks Gen. Satterfield, I think I speak for others when I say we do appreciate you working through your ideas. Being a Flag Officer and a successful man, we want to learn as much as possible to be better leaders and better people. 😊
Gen. Satterfield, we missed you recently but we are grateful you are back.
Yep, we all are appreciative. Why? Because this leadership website is a great learning tool and Gen. Satterfield is all about learning tools. See his series on the leadership toolbox. What do you have in your toolbox?
Right, Jeff. We’re all part of a team. Be a cheerleader for your team (Gen. Satterfield quote).
This article is chock full of wise ideas. Read it carefully. Here is one that I liked most:
“Combined with fear and the lack of moral courage, failure to know your enemy will lead to the expansion of evil.”
—- and this one, ” An enemy is destroyed through strength and courage, never through acquiescence or appeasement.” 👍
You fellows jumped right onto the main points that Gen. Satterfield has been making for a long time. Thanks for highlighting them. I for one am appreciative that I can read this website in a couple of minutes and post a short post and get good feedback on ideas. Great place to see what others are thinking.
Great wisdom here: Sun Tzu wrote more than two millennia ago, “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” He is saying to put yourself in the position of your enemy so that you can understand and predict his actions.
This is why I’m a regular reader of this leadership blog by Gen. Satterfield. On an off-topic line, I’m preparing for Memorial Day 2022. Do the same. Be sure to be thankful of those who died in service to America. Memorial Day is not a holiday for fun and games but a time to remember.
Gen. Satterfield, happy birthday, belatedly. Somehow I missed it. I’m sure you appreciated the gift of a trip to see the Biblical story of David at Sight & Sound. Now you’re back into writing for us and I’m thankful for it. Keep up the great work you are doing.
Know your enemy. Yes, a well-known piece of advice that we ignore at our own peril. I believe it was Sun Tzu who wrote this a couple thousand years ago. His writing shows us (fortunately not lost) that there is a common theme in human existence. Gen. Satterfield write often about it and reinforces what we already know (at least what most normal people know).
Common sense is no longer common sense anymore. Now “woke” ideology, aka PC culture, or neo-Marxism, is the wave of the future. I sure hope not.
Got that right DPG and Erleldech. ✔
Gen. Satterfield has written on this idea several times.
Click this link to read about them.
https://www.theleadermaker.com/?s=common+sense
Excellent article, Gen. Satterfield and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Yes, and just another reason to be a regular reader of this leadership blog. Great wisdom can be found here. Hey Gen. Satterfield, what’s next? I continue to be a huge fan. ❤
Nailed it.