Sarah Paine

For instance, in the Iraq war, Americans thought that the Republican guard was gonna be really tough.

And it turns out it wasn't so tough.

But then there was this post-conventional phase, insurgency that went on and on and on that surprised Americans.

Well, the problem isn't actually a new one.

In World War II, Americans were terribly surprised by the thing that Japanese did, starting with Pearl Harbor, right?

That was a surprise.

But also it was the entire way the Japanese fought the war, the way they fought to the last man, the suicides, the brutality.

not only to the POWs, civilians, but into their own wounded.

And the question is, is there any way to anticipate in advance how other people are gonna behave?

Is there any way to get a sense of the other side, of the tennis court net?

Now here are the two gurus of warfare.

One is Sun Tzu for Asia, and the other one, Clausewitz, is the big guru of warfare in the West.

And both of them would say, hey, you wanna understand the other side, you gotta make a net assessment.

What's that?

You would look at political, military, geographic, economic factors, the strengths and weaknesses of all sides to get a sense of things.

And today I'm gonna make a case for culture.

You need to look at that as well.

And it's often said that mirror imaging is not what you're supposed to do.

What's mirror imaging?

It's we get into a situation and then I decide what I think you're going to do based on what I would do.