Stray Cat Strut - Volume Eight - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen - 

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“Alright, sit down,” Professor Rogers said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. Over the last few minutes, while we were doing jumping jacks at one end of the room, the teacher’s assistants were moving the mats off the floor where the seats were. Now the desks had unfolded and were back in their neat little rows.

I flopped down onto mine and let out a long breath. My heart was still pumping fast, and I could feel the wet slickness of sweat sticking to my back. The shitty gym shirt I had didn’t breathe well.

“Class will end in an hour. We’re going to alternate, going forwards, between long class-sessions where we focus on theory and discussions, and physical education at the end, and longer physical education sessions followed by theory,” the professor said. “Historically, this has worked relatively well. Even if you feel physically exhausted, that shouldn’t stop your minds from working, and the physical training post-lesson sometimes gives you time to think and meditate on what you just learned.”

I nodded. Yeah, I could get that. Not super fond of the idea of spending so much learning time as a sweaty mess, but I got it.

“Good, now that we’re all on the same page, let’s continue our discussion from last time. We talked about Sun Tsu, a strategist and military theorist of ancient China. Today we’re going to cover someone a little younger. Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clauswitz. Everyone who studies military history usually refers to him as Clausewitz alone.”

The professor turned to one of his TAs and gestured to them. They returned a moment later with a small fold-out seat that he sat on backwards. 

“Clausewitz was a Prussian general and theorist whose work can honestly be said to have shaped modern warfare. He fought in the Napoleonic wars, a time much like the present where new technologies were changing the fundamental ways that wars were fought. He was a successful general, but more importantly, he wrote about his observations in a book whose name roughly translates to ‘On War’ or ‘About War.’”

Rogers rubbed at the bridge of his nose. I wondered if he had notes written on his augs or something so that we couldn’t see, or if he was pulling all of this from thin air.

“Clausewitz’s work is... honestly, kind of shit,” Rogers said. “It’s unfinished, filled with contradictory statements, and some of his observations are clearly biased. I’d still suggest reading his work, but do so with an annotated edition that includes the relevant historical context. Or at least watch a few docs on Prussian and the Napoleonic period. Anyway...”

He waves his hand through the air dismissively.

“The point is, Clauswitz wasn’t a perfect man, or a perfect theorist, but his work and observations on the facts of warfare serve as a good stepping stone for a modern understanding of warfare. War, in his view, isn’t a predictable science, but an uncontrolled and dynamic force shaped by humans. That means emotions come into play as much as technology and geography.”

I nodded along. Ancient dude wasn’t perfect. Got it.

“His ideas still influence modern military doctrine, corporate security, and most forms of asymmetric warfare. Interestingly, his ideas on warfare often fall flat in the face of the Antithesis. There’s a lot of what he said that can be applied to keeping humanity ready and willing to fight, but at the same time, the Antithesis don’t care for the psychology of warfare in a way that matters.”

The professor blinked a couple of times, and the screen behind him lit up. There was a picture of some guy on it. Or a picture of a painting of some guy. I had to assume that was Clausewitz himself.

“One of his main emphasis was that war isn’t just a matter of strenght, but one of perception. If your enemy is underestimating you, or you mislead them about your capabilities, then their strategy is compromised. This is especially true today where a lot of war is fought digitally between corporations. The battlefield is stockholder loyalty and public perception as opposed to geographic lines and ideological differences.”

He blinked, and the screen shifted to show two very generic corporate icons. 

“Let’s use an example here. Corp A and Corp B here are vying for dominance in a specific field. They both have manufacturing set up for something that’s vaguely valuable. Say... they make body kits for modern hovercars. It’s lucrative enough as a business that both corporations are valued in the low billions. Corp A wants to push a new kind of design onto the market, something big and flashy.”

Another click, and there was a picture of a boxy car, then it turned into something... still kind of boxy. Professor Rogers wasn’t a designer, I figured.

“There are several ways that Corp A can succeed with a new product, but given that they’re in an ecosystem with competition, then need to work around the competition. Clausewitz’ principles of warfare suggest that all-out physical violence should only be employed later, once subterfuge and other methods have failed. Corp A could try to launch a campaign to discredit Corp B. They could bribe members of Corp B to introduce a higher number of failures in their product. They could drop false information that leads to Corp B suspecting a product launch before its actual date, forcing them to move faster and make more mistakes. The goal is to fight with information control first. Avoid gunfights, avoid assassinations, because once you’ve started down that path, then you can’t walk it back.”

Rogers licked his lips.

“The real lesson, however, is that warfare, whether corporate or national, is fought against people. The enemy isn’t just a faceless entity, but is composed of hundreds of individuals with their own fears and morals and feelings. There are actions you can take to influence these people directly or indirectly that can lead to an eventual victory without violence, or that can give you an advantage when violence does occur.”

Rogers blinked and the screen changed again, this time showing a political sort in front of a crowd, behind him was a group of suits and assistants.

“In January 2035 this man, Maxime Mythe, was one of the leading politicians of a French political party with a middle-right leaning. His party was gaining popularity in several polls and he was in line to become an influential politician. His slate was clean. No cheating on his spouse, no diddling kids, no bribes. He was an asshole, because he was a politician, but a clean one.”

The image zoomed in on one of the randos behind the Maxime guy.

“This is his press secretary. A young man whose slate wasn’t nearly as clean. At the time, Maxime was fighting against bio-modifications in his country, wanting to make them illegal and increase enforcement against the use of cyberization. Solace Biotech, a now defunct company, decided to fight against Maxime, but their head of cybersecurity very specifically targeted his press secretary. He was blackmailed into revealing several sensitive documents, including several which were falsified. It didn’t matter that they were fake, the public outrage was enough that by the time investigations were complete, the laws that Maxime wanted to put into place were never going to see the light of day, and his political career was shot.”

I rubbed at my face. I hadn’t heard of this thing, but... yeah, that sounded plausible. I’d seen plenty of political shit go down on my personal media feed that looked a lot like this. 

So how much of what I’d seen throughout my life was someone fucking with someone else like this? 

Lucy would love this shit.

Rogers went on for a while, going back to some ancient history with Clausewitz and then comparing some of that guy’s stuff to Sun Tsu and how they differed in some ways and overlapped in others. 

Soon enough, though, the class was over. Five minutes before it was meant to, even.

“Alright, I’ll see you all in two days,” Rogers said. “You’re off early because you need to shower. The stink of you lot is driving me insane. We’re starting the next class five minutes early to make up for it.”

I peeled myself off the seat, then sighed as a smiling Olivia frumped her way over. “Did you enjoy the class?” she asked. “CIAL’s lessons are specially designed to help students take in as much information as possible in as short a time! Even our physical education is designed to maximize learning efforts!”

“Yeah, it was fine,” I said. “I’mma head out. I think there’s a shower in my mech. No offence, but I’m not big on public showers where a bunch of dudes have their dicks out. So, uh, you have fun with that.”

I needed to get clean, and maybe zone out for a while.

***