Intelligence

Disciplines > Warfare > Principles > Intelligence

Principle | Effect | Usage | Example | Analogy | See also

Principle

The side that knows most wins.

Effect

Intelligence about your opponents strategy, plans, weaponry, positions, troop movements and so on lets you make effective tactical and strategic decisions and avoid fatal decisions.

Managing intelligence includes the supply of disinformation to the other side in order to trick them into making the wrong decisions.

Usage

Military Intelligence (despite sometimes being parodied as an oxymoron) is a critical principle. Wartime decisions play with the lives of thousands of soldiers and eventually millions of citizens and the fate of nations. The truth of the facts and observations on which decisions are identified and made thus has a highly significant effect.

Example

In the second world war enormous efforts went into gathering information through spies across Europe, local resistance movements, intercepted messages, aerial photography and so on. This activity, coupled with clever disinformation tactics and massive public encouragement to protect information ('Walls have ears!'), probably led directly to the final outcome.

Analogy

Before negotiations and arguments begin, do your homework about the other person, what motivates them, what they might want and how they might react to your arguments.
In the discussions, test your understanding and update it with your discoveries about them.

See also