“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” — James Allen

“As fighting in Iraq intensifies, President Bush delivered his supplemental war budget to Congress. The money will cover 30 days of fighting, then we’ll be sent one war every other month until we cancel our subscription.” — Craig Kilborn

Napoleon warned that you must not engage with the same enemy too many times, lest he learn your approach and adapt to you successfully. He should know; this happened to him. By 1812, at the time of his Russian campaign, his enemies were beginning to grasp the secrets to dealing with the Corsican upstart. Europe never liked the Emperor, its leaders believing he usurped the true nobility’s position unjustly and unlawfully. Napoleon tried to cover himself with status and significance, to no avail. The French adored him, but the other nations of the Continent gave him the cold shoulder, particularly England.

As the Napoleonic wars wore on, military experts studied Napoleon’s battles to determine how and why he won them. Wellington concluded that Napoleon’s presence at a battlefield was worth an extra 40,000 men, since he was a “force multiplier” in one person. But gradually they wore him down. Each successive alliance, some Prussian, some Austrian, some Russian — all with England’s malign hand behind them — savvied little clues into the Corsican man-god’s methods. They began to adopt his tactics and win the battles. By the Battle of Waterloo, he was finished. His exile on 2 successive islands was the price he paid for not finishing off his opponents before they could adapt to him. In their own armies’ training manuals, they kept the lessons they learned from Napoleon. He was a good teacher for all of Europe — and West Point in the United States would go on to emphasize Napoleon’s lessons.

The spread of the European people from beyond their shores meant that many cultures were surprised for the first time by the white man’s efficiency and killing expertise. In India, European-trained native armies performed better than purely indigenous armies, leading to a desire for European training. Everywhere the European man went, he was treated as a respect-worthy enemy and emulated when possible. The natives were learning to adopt the enemy’s tactics.

In Japan, the modern Japanese after the great opening-up of their society by the Americans copied large swaths of Western culture. The Japanese based their army on Germany’s army and their navy on England’s navy. The Japanese have traditionally been copiers of other, superior cultures, historically the Chinese behemoth on the mainland, but the islands put their own particular spin on those techniques. With the Zero aircraft and their expanded navy, Japan had a formidable network of military possessions in place to challenge the white enemy.

Pearl Harbor would be a testing ground of the synthesis of Western know-how and Japanese spirit. The Japanese under Mitsuo Fuchida assaulted this American bastion in the Pacific. There was hesitation among the Japanese over the rash move. The naive believed a successful sneak attack would knock America out of the war. Those who understood the American spirit better thought otherwise.

During the Pacific War against Japan, the Americans quickly adapted to the kamikaze fighters and other unique nuisances thrown up by the Nihonjin (Japanese). They adapted to the enemy’s tactics, with great fanfare. The Americans also adapted to the German style of Blitzkrieg, or “lightning war.” The world’s most adaptable people, the Americans have always taken from other cultures whatever would benefit them the most, easily rejecting the dross.

While they held off the Japanese in the Pacific, the USA started the bulk of the war in Europe, thinking to knock Germany out first. The Russians engaged in the majority of the fighting in the beginning, with Marshal Zhukov adopting German blitzkrieg tactics to his T-34 Russian-built tanks. The war was a time of rapid learning. There was no one Napoleon-figure in World War 2 who stood above the ranks of war fighters, but there were a number of competent generals, each learning from the other. Most of the German generals were excellent, Monty was okay in England, Eisenhower was good. Zhukov was good. All were learning and preparing to fight.

Today’s war fighters study past battles, including ancient ones, in an effort to master the strategies and tactics of a wide range of cultures and threatening situations. In military academies around the world, the Western Way of War is taught. When learned poorly, as the Iraqis did with their imported war materiel, the locals suffered defeat and abject humiliation. When learned well, as the Americans after the debacle of Vietnam did, the Western Way of War served the interests well.