HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex
HCO POLICY LETTER OF 16 FEBRUARY 1969
ISSUE II
REISSUED 24 SEPTEMBER 1987
(Reissued with updated distribution.)
Limited
Distribution:
IMEC
OSA NW
LRH PRs
Confidential
BATTLE TACTICS
(This is a defense paper on
material developed after 18
years of ceaseless attack by a foreign enemy. Nothing in
this paper advocates physical violence or invites the physical
destruction of persons.)
In these days of "cold
war" when actual warfare is
impossible due to atomic weapons, the warfare is waged in the
press and public in the form of ideas.
If you uniformly apply the
tactics and strategy of battle
to the rows we get into, press or legal or public confrontation,
you will win.
The enemy uses "
groups" and meetings of groups like one
would use squads.
If we and they are considered
as two hostile and opposing
nations at war, then a huge array of tactics and strategy
become visible.
One parallels in the field
of thought what is used and
done in the field of battle in other ages.
You don't have to know too
much about the tactics and
strategy of warfare to apply this but it helps.
The end product of war,
according to Clausewitz, the
authority on it, is (condensed) "to bring about a more amenable
frame of mind on the part of the enemy."
But there are also wars of
attrition. We are engaged
in one where total destruction of us has been the enemy's aim
for, at this writing, 19 years. This is barbarian warfare,
thus the enemy must have had very positive fears and terrors
about us. Since he fought for total attrition. In this case
it is not safe to hope for any half-way win.
We must ourselves
fight on the basis of total attrition of the enemy. So
never get reasonable about him. Just go all the way in and
obliterate him.
It is bad warfare to
fight battles on your own terrain,
in your own subject area. It is not good to fight in the
territory of allies. Fight battles wherever possible only on
enemy terrain, in and about his subject and his people, not
ours. You can gauge your relative success by this. When
all your battles are fought on his terrain, you are winning.
A good general expends the
maximum of enemy troops and
the minimum of his own. He makes the war costly to the
enemy, not to himself.
Copyright (c) 1969 by
L. Ron Hubbard.
All Rights Reserved.
HCO PL 16.2.69 II
Reiss. 24.9.87 |
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One cuts off enemy communications, funds, connections.
He deprives the enemy of political advantages, connections
and power. He takes over enemy territory. He raids and
harasses. All on a thought plane - press, public opinion,
governments, etc.
Seeing it as a battle, one
can apply battle tactics to
thought actions.
Intelligence identifies
targets and finds out enemy
plans and purposes, enemy connections, dispositions, etc.
It is fatal to attack a wrong enemy. But it
is good tactics
to make the enemy attack wrong targets or persons himself.
Good intelligence pinpoints
who when where what.
Good PRO plans an action and
operations fights the battle.
Legal is a slow if often
final battle arena. It eventually
comes down to legal in the end. If intelligence and PRO have
done well, then legal gets an easy win.
You can win a battle even
without legal and by PRO alone.
You intend to win it without legal wherever possible.
The prize is "public opinion" where press is
concerned.
The only safe public opinion to head for is they love us and
are in a frenzy of hate against the enemy. This means standard
wartime propaganda is what one is doing, complete with atrocity,
war crimes trials, the lot. Know the mores of your public
opinion, what they hate. That's the enemy. What they love.
That's you.
You preserve the image or increase it of your own troops
and degrade the image of the enemy to beast level.
Always be ready to parley
but watch for tricks. Don't
give the enemy breathing space.
Capture and use his comm
lines. A press magnate on your
side is a big win.
You have in one of these
publicity wars all the factors
of modern wars complete with artillery, cavalry, infantry.
For example at this writing,
all fighting has been on our
terrain; they knew our generals we didn't know theirs; they
had all the press, funds, government control. We are reversing
this. We are fighting now on their ground. But we have a
long way to go.
We will make it all the way
providing we look on this in
terms of active battle and not as a "if we are saintly good we
will win." The people who win wars have a saintly image but
they win the war by clever and forceful use of the rules of
tactics, strategy and battle.
Wars are composed of many
battles.
Never treat a war like a skirmish. Treat all skirmishes
like wars.
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HCO PL 16.2.69 II
Reiss. 24.9.87
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The cold war is a war. The
West is losing it because it
is fighting by other rules than the rules of war. We mustn't
lose it.
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L. RON HUBBARD
Founder
Adopted as official
Church policy by
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL
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LRH:CSI:jk.ja