A strategic trainer in our SeminarsOnStrategy.com network DavidR, asks:

Does President Bush have the right strategy for dealing with the mother of the fallen soldier outside his ranch in Texas?

Conflict is the failure of strategy. Good strategy creates positions that are difficult to attack and are easy to advance. People who do not understand strategy are those who want to fight and beat their enemies. The conflict mindset is expensive in a number of ways. The most devastating is how it undermines your position rather than building it up.

Strategy teaches you to look constantly for deception. What is visible is never as dangerous as what is hidden. For example, tyranny has killing millions of more people through starvation than through war. Starvation is the preferred method of tyrants maintaining their power because it is inexpensive and, just as importantly, because it can be hidden or disguised as something else rather than the abuse of power.

In thinking about this earlier post on philosophy being the core of every strategy position, it occurs to me that the sudden popularity of conspiracy theories in literature (first, the Da Vinci Code and now, The Traveler - no links provided because I hate conspiracy theories) may well arise because people are looking for meaning in the world in the absence of religious faith. The general line of thinking is that, if God doesn't control the world, someone must, therefore there must be shadowy groups operating in the background.

Lately I have been corresponding with a reader who thinks that the Muslim birthrate is the real issue in the War on Terror because of Europe's declining birthrate. I don't agree because Muslims will be welcome immigrants only as long as they don't support terror. Europe will find willing workers from Asia, especially India, and Latin America and stop Muslim immigration if they perceive Muslims as a threat.