If you live long enough, you will likely come to a realization – life is full of conflict.
It does not matter how hard you try to avoid it, at one point or another you will meet conflict.
Conflict comes in many forms, which means your enemies will come in many forms.
But one thing is for certain, you will not be able to deal with conflict and bad situations unless you identify who your enemies are.
People rarely attack openly, meaning you will need to be able to spot signs of hostility and only then will you be able to pinpoint who your enemies are.
At first, you may find this unusual – “Declare war on your enemies? How childish! How barbaric!”
But to react in such a way would be to misunderstand the utility of having an enemy.
Having people to stand and react against, having people to loathe; they can be a source of energy, a way for you to forge an identity and path for yourself.
With some enemies, there is no compromising.
Unless you stand against them and fight them, they will only victimize you and trample all over you.
Nor do all enemies have to be a person, some enemies are within you.
After all, aren’t there things we all dislike about ourselves – laziness, a lack of confidence, a lack of direction, etc?
And often, the enemies within are the hardest to overcome.
Xenophon’s Wisdom
In the spring of 401 B.C., Xenophon received an invitation from a friend who was recruiting Greek mercenaries on behalf of Cyrus, brother of the Persian king Artaxerxes.
This was surprising since the Greeks and the Persians were meant to be rivals, especially after the Persians attacked Greece 80 years earlier.
But the Greeks were good fighters, and often offered their services to the highest bidder.
Cyrus was gathering an army in the context of putting down rebellions in Persia.
Interestingly, Xenophon was not actually a soldier – he lived a coddled life, spending his time talking philosophy and living off inheritance.
However, he wanted adventure, he wanted to learn about war, see Persia, and perhaps write a book when it was all over.
And so, he would be joining not as a mercenary, but as a historian and philosopher
By the time the Greeks had set out for Persia, a good 10,000 of them had been recruited from across Greece, and just like Xenophon, they were motivated by the promise of adventure and money.
But it soon transpired once they had met up with Cyrus that their new leader was not interested in quelling the rebellions, instead his true purpose was to march against his brother and make himself the new king.
The two armies met near Babylon, where Cyrus was quickly defeated and killed.
And suddenly, the Greeks found themselves in a precarious position – what was the victorious Artaxerxes going to do with them?
Luckily for them, Artaxerxes assured them that had no issue with them. He gave them provisions and sent an envoy to escort them home.
But no sooner had they begun the 1,500-mile journey home did they realize their supplies were dwindling, along with the fact that the route they were taking was highly problematic – could these Persians be trusted?
When the matter was raised, the Persians were sympathetic and asked Greek leader Clearchus to come to a neutral place with his senior officers to voice their concerns.
Treacherously, the Persians surrounded the defenseless officers and beheaded them all.
However, a single officer managed to escape and told the horrific story to his fellow soldiers.
And just like that, the Greeks despaired and lost all hope of survival. Some drank their sorrows away, and others considered fleeing for their lives.
That night Xenophon had an ominous dream and woke up suddenly in a cold sweat.
He realized that death staring the Greeks in the face, and instead of fighting for their lives, they were despairing.
The problem was not a lack of numbers, a lack of good leaders, or a lack of supplies.
The problem was their mindset.
They were fighting not for a purpose or cause, but for money – and so they had become lost.
They had forgotten they were supposed to be Greeks, the same Greeks famed across the ancient world for their fighting.
But here they were, unable to tell friend from foe.
The only barrier between them and home, Xenophon realized, was their state of mind.
If they could only concentrate on their enemies, they would be able to turn their fortunes around.
If they focused on the Persians’ treachery and became angry, they would turn from aimless mercenaries, and become fighters with clarity and direction.
So, he decided to wake them up, in order to illuminate their way.
Soon he had gathered the leaders and stated his plan – they would declare the Persians their enemies, and there was to be no bargaining or debating with them.
And they would waste no more energy on arguing, and instead devote their all against the Persians.
They would emulate their ancestors who 80 years earlier had defeated Persians.
They would burn their wagons, live off the land, and move fast.
Nor would they at any point lay down their arms and forget the danger around them.
Should anyone from their ranks try to confuse them with slick talk of appeasement, they would drive him away and declare him a coward.
They were to be consumed only by one idea – to get home alive
After hearing him out, his fellow officers understood that Xenophon was right, and agreed.
The next day, the Persians sent another envoy to liaise between the Greeks and the king.
But, following Xenophon’s counsel, the Greeks rudely sent him back.
The Greeks had decided their fighting would do the talking for them – they elected new leaders and began the long trek home.
Soon they learned to adapt to the terrain, to avoid battle, and to move at night.
They successfully eluded the Persian army, and, although it took several years, they made it home alive.
Why did it work?
Life is a constant struggle, but it is how you deal with those struggles that define you.
These struggles may come in many forms, it may be a bad situation, a bad relationship, or bad friends.
But the obstacle here is not others, but yourself.
If you lose your sense of direction, you will be overwhelmed and unable to tell friends from foe.
This is because everything is down to your frame of mind.
A shift in perspective can change a situation that seems dangerous or hopeless, into one of opportunities to change things for the better.
A shift in perspective can change an army of confused mercenaries into one of motivated and determined fighters.
Even as children we learn to develop an identity by differentiating ourselves, even to the point of pushing them away, rejecting and rebelling.
The more we define who we do not want to be, the more concrete our sense of identity, purpose, and direction becomes.
That is why it’s important to define the enemy who your enemy is.
Without that sense of enemy, you are as lost, as susceptible to being duped by treachery, as hesitant to act in fatal moments as the Greeks were
Zone into an enemy.
It may be someone who blocks and sabotages you, or it may be a group.
Perhaps it is a value or an abstraction like materialism or crude vanity.
Whatever it is, give yourself an enemy to fight against, and your many roads will turn into one.
Only once your purpose is defined, you will truly be able to say who is friend and who is foe, and which sort of compromise is actually in your interest.
The Underdog Who Became Prime Minister
By the early 1970s, British politics had settled into a comfortable, established pattern.
The Labour Party would win one election, then the next would be won by the Conservatives.
The parties had become virtually the same, and it was all very civilized and cordial.
But when they lost in the 1974 election, some from amongst the Conservatives had had enough.
Wanting to shake things up, they proposed a certain Margaret Thatcher as leader of the party.
The party was divided that year, a division which she used to take control of the party.
Immediately one thing was clear, she was a woman in a man’s world, she was middle class in a party traditionally dominated by aristocrats.
Until then, she was not really a player within the party, instead, she belonged to the right fringes of the party.
From the onset, she was very different to those who had come before her.
Her style was striking – rather than being smooth and conciliatory, she attacked relentlessly and directly.
She clearly had a taste for battle.
And whilst most saw her win as a fluke, she did nothing to help change their minds.
In her first few years, she criticized a system that she accused of strangling all entrepreneurial initiative, a system which had led to the decline of the British economy.
She railed against the Soviets, during a time of détente.
And during the Winter of Discontent, when excessive striking brought the country to a screeching halt, she declared war on the prime minister and linked the cause of the public sector strikes to his party.
She was bold, decisive, and good for making the news – but not for winning elections.
You had to be gentle with voters, pat them, reassure them, and not frighten them – or so went the conventional wisdom.
In 1979 Labour called an election.
She took the opportunity to strike at the prime minister, to strike against socialism, and positioned herself and her party as the last chance for Britain to modernize.
Thatcher soon got under the PM’s skin, he struck back saying she was a mere woman, saying she would send the economy into shock.
And it did seem to work, she scared off many voters, and her popularity plunged lower than his.
At the same time, her rhetoric and his response divided the two parties and clearly showed their sharp differences.
Dividing the public into left and right, she dived into the breach, sucking the attention of the undecided in the middle.
This won her the election.
But having won now, this was the time for her to moderate her rhetoric, right?
No.
In fact, she enacted budget cuts that went deeper than she originally proposed.
This led the economy to go into shock, and unemployment soured.
Many in her own party resented her and questioned her abilities publicly.
But instead of bringing them closer (they were the most respected members of the party), she attacked them and labeled them the ‘wets’, and purged them from her cabinet.
Her list of enemies grew, and her poll numbers slipped.
There was no way she would win the next election at this rate.
It was at this desperate juncture in 1982 that the Argentinian junta, needing something to distract the public from their domestic woes, invaded the Falklands
The Falklands were a series of remote, barren islands to which Argentina had a historic claim, and they were certain the British would abandon them.
In this moment of peril for Britain she did not hesitate, she quickly sent a naval task force to confront the invaders.
Unsurprisingly, the opposition attacked her for entering a pointless and costly war.
Even her own party was terrified of the consequences of the operation failing.
But the public saw her in a new light, they viewed her as noble, and courageous.
Compared to the weak, dithering men around her who only cared about their paychecks, she was strong, and confident.
Not only did she win back islands, but she also parlayed it into two consecutive election wins in which she decimated the opposition.
Margaret Thatcher, the Outsider
You see, the first instinct of outsiders who wish to gain power is to become insiders.
And this makes sense, if you want to be the one who wields power, shouldn’t we also copy those who wield power?
But this comes with the risk of losing your identity, what makes you different, and those qualities that make you stand out.
Had Thatcher done this she would simply have become like the men around her; she would have been no different from them, and eventually, she would have been replaced by another one of them.
Instead, she chose to remain an outsider.
In fact, she took every opportunity to make the situation seem as though she was a single woman against an army of men.
At every step of the way, she would mark out her opponents – the socialists, the ‘wets’, the Argentinians.
She used these enemies to define her image and chose not to care about popular figures which are superficial and fickle.
Whilst pundits obsessed over her popularity figures, she understood that in the mind of a voter, a dominating personality had more pull than likability.
There are always going to be those who hate you, so let them hate you – you can’t please everyone.
In fact, they can still be of use to you – those enemies you choose to stand sharply against will help forge a base that will never desert you.
Don’t join the center where everyone is, there is no way to fight in a crowd.
Polarize people – drive some of them away and create a space for battle.
And yes, getting along with people certainly is important, but conciliation and the path of least resistance can not only be to your detriment, but it can also make you forget who you are.
Don’t fear having enemies, without enemies there is no battle, and without battle, there is no victory to be won.
Don’t be seduced by the need to be liked, it is better to be respected, even feared sometimes.
Such will bring a more lasting victory.
Flush Out Your Enemy
We live in a time where people are rarely hostile.
The world has certainly become more competitive, yet outward hostility is now frowned upon more so than ever.
Instead, people have learned to become more crafty, and more subtle in their enmity.
Some even use friendship to mask aggression, whilst others will offer an alliance that benefits you in no way.
People will seem supportive but simply want to advance their interests at your expense.
And some have mastered moral warfare – they will play victim, and make you feel guilty.
Therefore, your first task as a strategist is to widen your definition of what an enemy is.
An enemy is not simply those who the media want you to hate, like the Russians, the Chinese, or the Muslims.
No, anyone who thwarts you and works against you, even in subtle ways, should be considered an enemy.
Before the word enemy was politicized, it simply meant anyone who was not your friend, anyone who did not have your interests in mind.
Nor do you have to destroy an enemy.
Sometimes neglect and indifference are better than aggression.
Other times, maybe even consider making them a real friend.
But at the very least you should mark them out; by doing so you will suddenly have room to maneuver, and you’ll now have more options before you.
But at no point should you be the naïve victim of their attacks.
And although people are usually good at hiding hostility, they may still give off signals.
We’re talking about that gut instinct you may have that something is off about a person.
This is what happened between Chairman Mao Zedong and one of his closest friends and advisors, Lin Biao.
In the late 60s and early 70s he had become unusually fervent in his praise, which meant to Mao he might be plotting against him.
The fact that he was always praising him wasn’t unusual – that’s what everyone did.
The problem was that he had turned up the dial for seemingly no particular reason.
And it turned out that Mao was indeed right, Lin was busily plotting against him.
The point is you should always be on the lookout.
This doesn’t mean you should always be suspicious but be ready to notice a change in the emotional temperature.
Trust your gut instincts – if you sense something wrong, it probably is.
It may be benign but be on guard in the meantime.
Other times, the best way to get people to reveal themselves is to provoke tension.
This was the method favored by Hollywood producer Harry Cohn.
He would often deliberately take an offensive or extreme position in an argument which got directors and writers to drop their usual caution and show their real beliefs.
The principle behind this is that people are more honest when they are emotional.
Usually, an enemy might be slippery and vague, they will only pretend to be friendly instead of actually committing to something.
By using a sharply worded question or an opinion designed to offend, you will get them to react and take a side.
Beat the grass to startle the snakes as the Chinese would say.
Other times a less direct approach might be more helpful.
Take Hernan Cortes, for example, who took with him a band of adventurers with a dubious sense of loyalty to Mexico in 1519.
But how did he take care of the disloyal from amongst them?
Well, firstly, whenever they did something suspicious, he would never react or accuse them or retaliate.
So, thinking him weak or on their side, they would take it a step further and do something that was more obviously treacherous.
And when they showed a clear sign of treachery to Cortes and the others which marked them out as traitors, he would isolate them and destroy them.
Use his method.
When a friend or a follower of yours is subtly hostile, or something is odd, suppress your initial urge to react.
Don’t accuse, don’t ask questions, don’t even say no.
Pretend to go along and pretend to turn a blind eye.
This way, you’ll be able to see whether it was a mere one-off that can be forgiven, or if they will take it a step further.
When you have your evidence, only then should you attack.
Often an enemy can be hard to pinpoint and large – like an organization or person behind a complex web.
The trick here is to take aim at one part of a group, a leader, a spokesman, or someone part of the inner circle.
This is a method Saul Alinsky used in his campaign to desegregate Chicago public schools during the 1960s.
He would purposefully attack the superintendent of a school, knowing full well that this man would shift the blame upwards.
By repeatedly attacking, he would publicize his struggle, and the man wouldn’t be able to hide.
Sooner or later, those above him would come to his aid, and expose themselves in the process.
Don’t take aim at a vague or abstract enemy.
Make it man-to-man, have a clear picture of who you are going to attack – personalize the fight.
The only way to deal with an enemy is to confront that enemy, to comprehend that enemy.
That way you can strike at the enemy, or simply dodge the danger they pose.
Look a negative dynamic in the face – don’t repress your anger, don’t avoid the person threatening you, and definitely don’t appease them.
You see, avoiding conflict becomes a habit, a bad habit which only causes more problems in the future.
Don’t feel guilty either – it’s not your fault you have enemies.
Nor should you just be the victim, don’t internalize a bad situation and blame yourself either; rather, externalize it and face your enemy head-on.
Such is the best course of action.
The Utility of an Enemy
Enemies can motivate you and help you focus on your beliefs.
Let’s take the example of Salvador Dali.
Dali from early on hated certain values and beliefs such as conformity and romanticism.
So, he would then find an enemy who embodied these traits, make them his enemy, and vent on them.
This was because having enemies to rebel against gave Dali a sense of confidence and inspiration.
Enemies can also serve as the standard by which you measure yourself.
In Japan, the samurai would challenge others who were their betters to gauge their own excellence.
In boxing, it took a Joe Frazier to make Mohammed Ali truly great.
Better to lose to a worthy foe, you see, than to defeat a harmless opponent.
This will help gain respect, and experience, which will help in the next fight.
Without such enemies, you may lose your sense of reality, and direction, and even fall prey to your own arrogance.
This is what happened to Julius Caesar when he defeated Pompey.
From when they first met, Caesar had already marked out Pompey as his enemy.
And even when early on Pompey would reach height after height in his quest for glory, Caesar would always try to improve his position in relation to Pompey.
So as Pompey rose, Caesar would also rise as well.
But once war broke out between them, Caesar defeated Pompey.
Ironically, this was what caused Caesar’s.
Because he had defeated his archenemy, there were no others who could challenge him.
And he knew this – to the extent he eventually thought himself to be a god.
And we all know how that ended for him.
Clearly, your enemies force a sense of realism and humility upon you.
The Pitfalls
Be careful to keep your search for enemies under control.
What you want is clarity, not paranoia.
Too much suspicion drives family and friends away and has caused the downfall of many tyrants.
Keep your suspicions to yourself, if you are wrong, no one will know.
And don’t polarize to the extent you cannot back off.
Even Margaret Thatcher eventually lost control of her party due to this same problem.
Instead, you should be more like former US president Franklin Delano who was much more skillful in his enmity.
He would seek to draw a line between him and his enemies, and when that line was made clear enough, he would back off.
This made him look like a man of peace who only sometimes went to war, even though this was not entirely true.
But such is the height of wisdom.
Footnotes & Further Reading
Greene, Robert. The 33 Strategies of War. Millionaire Mindset Publishing, 2017.
