Role Of Perception In War

Perception and War War is a difficult subject to think about. Images of it are hard to look at and described as gruesome or gory. It seems strange that disagreements between countries are solved by sending people from each state involved in the dispute to fight each other and “die for their country.” Huge amounts of money have been spent to find new and better ways to kill people – maybe a single person, as is often the aim of an unmanned drone strike, or a large number of people, with more deadly bombs. Yet, specifically because it claims so many lives and occupies such a large space in the public eye, war is vital to understand. The question then becomes, where to begin? As with most concepts, it would be best to start with a clear and concise …show more content…
More than the previous two points, methods are also constrained by the finite realities of a time and place. It is simple fact that the weapons used in the 21st century did not exist 100 years ago and thus could not be utilized. Even so, methods of warfare are determined by the perceptions of those making the decisions. It would seem logical to assert that the main goal of those participating in a war is to win. Thus, anything that would aid in the accomplishing of this goal would be perceived as advantageous. There are some principles that seem more widely-applicable than other aspects of warfare. Sun Tzu, a Chinese general thought to be alive during the Period of the Warring States, wrote down a number of these in a work known as The Art of War. Each maxim is designed to be taken by itself, though the work in its entirety reads as a sort of guidebook on how to win a war. One of the pieces of advice Sun Tzu gives is that the leader of an army must be knowledgeable – or, rather, not ignorant, as “there are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army” (256) and each involves being ignorant. Thus, a leader’s perceptions of the situation must line up with the realities in order for that individual to be successful. Again, this area of war can be more finite than abstract, but still dependent upon perception. Machemba, the chief of the Yao tribes of interior Africa, wrote a letter to the German commander who had requested his surrender. Writing out and delivering this response is a strategy of warfare in and of itself: an attempt to avoid fighting. Machemba knows that the Germans are defeating and taking the land of other tribal leaders. He also knows they want the land that is his. Unwilling to simply give it up, he can first try to avoid going to war over it,