Malcolm Red

Conflict is too costly to lead to success. While good strategy can help succeeding in conflict, the best strategy is always avoiding it. No matter what its outcome, competitive success is judged by its rewards and the costs of conflict always decrease those rewards. Over time, conflict has a low-probability of leading toward any type of success.

Definition: Conflict has a very specific definition in the science of strategy. The term “conflict” describes all situations where the primarily goal is to damage the opponent. Conflict is not merely the lack of cooperation. Conflict means seeking confrontations that are meant to damage, as in a war of attrition. While all competitive acts, even those that are primarily creative, can destroy opposing positions as a byproduct, conflict is purposeful destructive action for its own safe.

Since competition is a comparison of alternative positions, conflict can seem to make sense in contest for rewards. Our positions seems comparatively better if our opponent’s position damaged. However, ranking alone doesn’t define competition. Any comprehensive definition of competition must factor in the rewards gained. The reality is that we are rewarded for being cooperative much more frequently that we are rewarded for being belligerent.

Economics: The logical argument against conflict is economic rather than moral. If we try to damage others, they will try to damage us. It doesn’t matter how the rewards are defined: physical, emotional or social. If the battle is one of attrition, costs must be extracted from both parties. This exchange is always costly to both parties.

Though we cannot know the costs or benefits of any strategic move in advance, but we can know that any move that brings us into conflict with others will be more costly than any move that avoids conflict. Since the goal of strategy is not merely to win a victory but to make victory pay, conflict is conceptually counterproductive. In a war of attrition, both parties lose more often than not.

Goal Oriented: The logic of conflict is myopic. It focuses on an opponent instead of a mission. As two parties try to damage each other, the positions of both decline. If we are artificially forced to choose between them, as we are in a single political election, for example, one party can “win” through conflict, but over time, these victories are Pyrrhic. In judging such conflict, most people eventually decide for “a plague on both their houses.” In real life, a smart boss is more likely to fire rivals who work on damaging each other’s careers. Just because some games can designed as a war of attrition like chess, this doesn’t mean that the lessons from such games can be applied more generally to good strategy.

The impulse to fight, like the impulse to run away, is instinctual and reflexive. Sun Tzu taught that anger, hate, and demonizing our enemies are all strategic traps. These mindsets weaken positions rather than strengthening them.

Enmity: Understood correctly, the heart of any competition is always dueling philosophies. Positioning is a battle to win supporters and discourage opponents. When we demonize opponents, we undermine our chances of success by attracting supporters are looking for someone to hate rather than a goal to support. The character of these supporters will lead us inevitably in costly conflict. Positions built on philosophies of enmity inherently weak. Positions built on mutual rewards are inherently strong. Groups bound together by mutual enemies are, to quote Shakespeare, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” and have been shown throughout history to fall apart once the enemy is defeated.

Establishing winning positions isn’t based on fighting others but in finding common ground with them. Strategy is based on positioning, which requires us to see how others think and feel. This requires seeing the world from the perspective of others, empathizing with them.