By Selwyn Duke
A major reason the D-Day invasion of Normandy succeeded is that, by cleverly getting the Germans to accept misinformation, the Allies fooled them into sending resources to unnecessary areas. This is common in warfare. Lacking accurate knowledge can cause you to commit troops to fronts where there’s no danger at all while leaving places where you’ll be attacked vulnerable.
So it is in political and cultural wars, too — except that it’s even worse in a way. For it’s not just that people can’t possibly know what policies and politicians to support if they get misinformation about those policies and politicians. It’s that with actual warfare, the adversary’s failure to appear causes you to eventually realize your error. But you can expend resources fighting an imaginary enemy in political and cultural wars almost indefinitely — as long as deception is maintained.
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