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A Sense of the Enemy: The High Stakes History of Reading Your Rival's Mind
More than two thousand years ago the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu advised us to know our enemies. The question has always been how. In A Sense of the Enemy , the historian Zachary Shore demonstrates that leaders can best understand an opponent not simply from his pattern of past behavior, but from his behavior at pattern breaks. Meaningful pattern breaks occur during dramatic deviations from the routine, when the enemy imposes costs upon himself. It's at these unexpected moments, Shore explains, that successful leaders can learn what makes their rivals truly tick.
Shore presents a uniquely revealing history of twentieth-century conflict. With vivid, suspenseful prose, he takes us into the minds of statesmen, to see how they in turn tried to enter the minds of others. In the process, he shows how this type of mind-reading, which he calls "strategic empathy," shaped matters of war and peace. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, was an excellent strategic empath. In the wake of a British massacre of unarmed Indian civilians, how did Gandhi know that nonviolence could ever be effective? And what of Gustav Stresemann, the 21-year-old Wunderkind Ph.D., who rose from lobbyist for chocolate makers to Chancellor of Germany. How did he manage to resurrect his nation to great power status after its humiliating loss in World War One? And then there is Le Duan, the shadowy Marxist manipulator who was actually running North Vietnam during the 1960s, as opposed to Ho Chi Minh. How did this rigid ideologue so skillfully discern America's underlying constraints? And,
armed with this awareness, how did he construct a grand strategy to defeat the United States? One key to all these leaders' triumphs came from the enemy's behavior at pattern breaks.
Drawing on research from the cognitive sciences, and tapping multilingual, multinational sources, Shore has crafted an innovative history of the last century's most pivotal moments, when lives and nations were on the line. Through this curious study of strategic empathy, we gain surprising insights into how great leaders think.
Shore presents a uniquely revealing history of twentieth-century conflict. With vivid, suspenseful prose, he takes us into the minds of statesmen, to see how they in turn tried to enter the minds of others. In the process, he shows how this type of mind-reading, which he calls "strategic empathy," shaped matters of war and peace. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, was an excellent strategic empath. In the wake of a British massacre of unarmed Indian civilians, how did Gandhi know that nonviolence could ever be effective? And what of Gustav Stresemann, the 21-year-old Wunderkind Ph.D., who rose from lobbyist for chocolate makers to Chancellor of Germany. How did he manage to resurrect his nation to great power status after its humiliating loss in World War One? And then there is Le Duan, the shadowy Marxist manipulator who was actually running North Vietnam during the 1960s, as opposed to Ho Chi Minh. How did this rigid ideologue so skillfully discern America's underlying constraints? And,
armed with this awareness, how did he construct a grand strategy to defeat the United States? One key to all these leaders' triumphs came from the enemy's behavior at pattern breaks.
Drawing on research from the cognitive sciences, and tapping multilingual, multinational sources, Shore has crafted an innovative history of the last century's most pivotal moments, when lives and nations were on the line. Through this curious study of strategic empathy, we gain surprising insights into how great leaders think.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
11 people are currently reading
250 people want to read
About the author
Zachary Shore
7 books16 followersZachary Shore is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He previously served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State through an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also worked as a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, DC.
Shore earned his doctorate in modern European history from St. Antony's College, Oxford, and has lived for more than six years in Europe, traveling for extended periods across the continent, including Germany, Russia, and the Balkans. His academic honors include winning Harvard's Derek Bok Teaching Award, Oxford's St. Antony's Book Prize, a Dupont Fellowship, an Idea Prize from Germany's Kõrber Foundation, and research grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Daimler-Chrysler Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain. He has appeared on National Public Radio, Dialogue, and other media outlets.
Shore’s articles and editorials on foreign policy have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Haaretz, The National Interest, Orbis, The Journal of Contemporary History, and Intelligence and National Security. His books have been reviewed and profiled in Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Washington Monthly, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Republic On-line.
Shore earned his doctorate in modern European history from St. Antony's College, Oxford, and has lived for more than six years in Europe, traveling for extended periods across the continent, including Germany, Russia, and the Balkans. His academic honors include winning Harvard's Derek Bok Teaching Award, Oxford's St. Antony's Book Prize, a Dupont Fellowship, an Idea Prize from Germany's Kõrber Foundation, and research grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Daimler-Chrysler Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain. He has appeared on National Public Radio, Dialogue, and other media outlets.
Shore’s articles and editorials on foreign policy have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Haaretz, The National Interest, Orbis, The Journal of Contemporary History, and Intelligence and National Security. His books have been reviewed and profiled in Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Washington Monthly, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Republic On-line.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 15, 2020
This is one of those books that essentially dresses up common sense in fanciful language, though admittedly the author does it with sufficient style (and sufficiently interesting case studies) that the text remains worth reading.
Essentially a look at 'strategic empathy', a buzzword that encapsulates what Sun Tzu famously put in the Art of War as "knowing the enemy", the book provides us with some useful argumentative handles - "simulators" vs "mentalisers" and "pattern breaks" vs "continuities" - to help us understand historical attempts at strategic empathy and how we might employ these skills as well.
Strengths include: a great range of historical examples, covering everything from Stalin and Roosevelt's varying degrees of success at understanding Hitler and Le Duan's considerations of American motives to Gandhi's manipulation of nonviolent Britain and Cun Ming's masterful outwitting of a cautious Sima Yi; fascinating explorations of pivotal yet not world-shattering events that Shore characterises as "pattern breaks" - a speech given by Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann exposing Weimar Germany's covert dealings with Soviet Russia and the Night of the Long Knives and Night of Broken Glass that sometimes become reduced to mere footnotes of the Nazi regime in the shadow of the massive destruction of the Holocaust; and a genuinely convincing argument against the rise of data forecasts and predictive behavioural algorithms that promise a new method in international relations by indicting it as merely a machine-operated confirmation of the atrociously flawed "continuity heuristic" that Shore successfully shows has served only to bring about failure in strategic reading.
There are weaknesses too, and one of them, unfortunately, weakens the entire argument of the book. Essentially, Shore makes two arguments, one in greater detail: the macro-argument is that there is value to strategic analysis and thinking by making an attempt to understand the enemy, or "mentalising", as opposed to merely imposing our own value systems and models upon the opponent, or "simulating"; the more specific assertion is that even in a world of data-driven analysis and digital forecasting, there remains in value in deeply considered analysis because it is more important than ever, in a complex international environment, to substitute our "continuity heuristic" for strategic empathy and the analysis of pattern breaks.
But this argument is deeply problematic - by their very nature, pattern breaks are not easily classifiable; they do not form a neat group of repeating events. Sure, the successful leaders may have been those who responded effectively to the pattern breaks he identifies, but this is something that - as is often the case with overly idealistic historical analysis - can only be recognised in retrospect. What are the pattern breaks of today? Was Russia's invasion of Georgia a pattern break? What about Obama's failure to respond to Assad's use of chemical weapons? Trump's election? Brexit? The mass incarceration of Saudi royals in the Ritz in Riyadh? Worse, pattern breaks are often only a useful and realistic occurrence in countries with relatively stable, lengthy periods of rule; in today's multi-party electoral democracies, how does one tell when a change in behaviour represents merely a symbolic change in leadership or a genuine change in a country's mindset?
Thus, an insightful (and certainly interesting - I adored the two chapters on Gustav Stresemann!) but not always convincing book.
Essentially a look at 'strategic empathy', a buzzword that encapsulates what Sun Tzu famously put in the Art of War as "knowing the enemy", the book provides us with some useful argumentative handles - "simulators" vs "mentalisers" and "pattern breaks" vs "continuities" - to help us understand historical attempts at strategic empathy and how we might employ these skills as well.
Strengths include: a great range of historical examples, covering everything from Stalin and Roosevelt's varying degrees of success at understanding Hitler and Le Duan's considerations of American motives to Gandhi's manipulation of nonviolent Britain and Cun Ming's masterful outwitting of a cautious Sima Yi; fascinating explorations of pivotal yet not world-shattering events that Shore characterises as "pattern breaks" - a speech given by Social Democratic Party leader Philipp Scheidemann exposing Weimar Germany's covert dealings with Soviet Russia and the Night of the Long Knives and Night of Broken Glass that sometimes become reduced to mere footnotes of the Nazi regime in the shadow of the massive destruction of the Holocaust; and a genuinely convincing argument against the rise of data forecasts and predictive behavioural algorithms that promise a new method in international relations by indicting it as merely a machine-operated confirmation of the atrociously flawed "continuity heuristic" that Shore successfully shows has served only to bring about failure in strategic reading.
There are weaknesses too, and one of them, unfortunately, weakens the entire argument of the book. Essentially, Shore makes two arguments, one in greater detail: the macro-argument is that there is value to strategic analysis and thinking by making an attempt to understand the enemy, or "mentalising", as opposed to merely imposing our own value systems and models upon the opponent, or "simulating"; the more specific assertion is that even in a world of data-driven analysis and digital forecasting, there remains in value in deeply considered analysis because it is more important than ever, in a complex international environment, to substitute our "continuity heuristic" for strategic empathy and the analysis of pattern breaks.
But this argument is deeply problematic - by their very nature, pattern breaks are not easily classifiable; they do not form a neat group of repeating events. Sure, the successful leaders may have been those who responded effectively to the pattern breaks he identifies, but this is something that - as is often the case with overly idealistic historical analysis - can only be recognised in retrospect. What are the pattern breaks of today? Was Russia's invasion of Georgia a pattern break? What about Obama's failure to respond to Assad's use of chemical weapons? Trump's election? Brexit? The mass incarceration of Saudi royals in the Ritz in Riyadh? Worse, pattern breaks are often only a useful and realistic occurrence in countries with relatively stable, lengthy periods of rule; in today's multi-party electoral democracies, how does one tell when a change in behaviour represents merely a symbolic change in leadership or a genuine change in a country's mindset?
Thus, an insightful (and certainly interesting - I adored the two chapters on Gustav Stresemann!) but not always convincing book.
April 3, 2016
I am not sure that anticipating someone's feelings and thoughts for the purpose of gaming them merits even a qualified use of the word "empathy," but let it be. This book is full of historical examples of higher-order mind-reading: This government thought that the other government thought that... Sadly, I don't have the mind for it. I barely know what I am thinking most days. My EQ is not high enough to evaluate these complex scenarios, but my impression of this book is that it is solidly researched and carefully argued.
January 11, 2015
Very good book on an important topic. Shore at his best in discussing Hitler, Stalin, and World War II -- subjects of previous studies on his part. Also strong is his chapter on Gustav Stresemann, the enigmatic German leader in the 1920s who may or may not have been able to preserve the Weimar Republic -- but surely would have benefited from Fitbit.
July 3, 2024
I liked the idea of this book, but I felt it was an overdone attempt at branding a new term … and something that should have been done via academic journal publications. It blends IR theory with heuristics, and for those familiar with Danny Kahneman’s and Amos Tversky’s work on heuristics, this book doesn’t offer much that’s new. Additionally, the case study discussion-to-application transitions seem forced at times. Lastly, the prose was a bit frustrating for me … a lot of “pre-narration” to get to the actual content.
That said, the author does write well, and the concept of “strategic empathy” is an interesting interpretation of Sun Tzu’s maxim to “know the enemy”.
That said, the author does write well, and the concept of “strategic empathy” is an interesting interpretation of Sun Tzu’s maxim to “know the enemy”.
June 7, 2020
The author goes through several examples from history. From Gandhi to the Vietnam war. Certain parts can be boring because the author delve into the political administration. The good thing about this book is, it gives practical applications on hope to read your opponents.
August 13, 2014
A Sense of the Enemy combines psychological thought, emotional intelligence, pop science, and history to explain key turning points in history. It is Zachary Shore’s intention that emotional intelligence and strategic empathy are key traits in war and politics. One could also turn this book into a business science book the way authors have done with The Art of War. Emotional Intelligence is a key feature of good leadership and Shore does demonstrate how those with strong traits succeeded and those with weak traits failed. The problem with this technique is an over attribution to mostly minor occurrences. While it is important to have strategic empathy when dealing with an opponent, it is never the full story when dealing with historic changes.
Shore has several examples: Gandhi and the British Empire, the rise of German power after World War I, Stalin’s failure to predict a Nazi invasion, Roosevelt’s read of Hitler, and the Vietnamese view of the United States during the war. Shore is looking for pattern breaks in the opponent’s behavior. These are events in which the “enemy” breaks from an established pattern of behavior. It is in these decisions true intentions can be determined. Gandhi realizing that the British did not support the massacre at Amritsar allowed him to exploit the atrocity to unite India against the British. German diplomats are secretly building weapons with the Soviets in violation of the World War I Treaty of Versailles. Will the Germans cave to Soviet threats to expose their actions or will the Germans discover that the Soviets and even Britain and France have more to lose in that declaration than Germany? The realization that they could do nothing to stop them is a critical point in the rise of German power pre-World War II. Stalin’s failure to read Hitler and his intention to invade the Soviet Union cost millions of lives. His failure to understand his opponent via strategic empathy is to blame. The Vietnamese understood that a protracted war with the United States would result in their withdrawal from the conflict. The key break was the reaction to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Americans wanted war, but not all out war. This key distinction solidified a strategy for the Vietnamese to expel the American forces.
The general problem I have with the book is that while Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Empathy are critical traits for success, the author needs to decide which way he is going with the work. If it is just a historical exercise, the aspect of Strategic Empathy is such a small one that one would be foolish to attribute a turning point in history to it. A massacre would certainly turn the tide against those committing the atrocity. The weak state of Europe after World War I and German humiliation thereafter is enough to set the stage for another World War. The Vietnamese had been fighting for decades to kick out invaders and that determination hardens over time. This work is not a psychological work either via Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow even though he does reference the work several times. The book is not a business book to help those deal with business rivals either. It’s disappointing in this way as I enjoyed the historical aspects and conclusions, but they were too insignificant to suggest a major cause of action.
Shore has several examples: Gandhi and the British Empire, the rise of German power after World War I, Stalin’s failure to predict a Nazi invasion, Roosevelt’s read of Hitler, and the Vietnamese view of the United States during the war. Shore is looking for pattern breaks in the opponent’s behavior. These are events in which the “enemy” breaks from an established pattern of behavior. It is in these decisions true intentions can be determined. Gandhi realizing that the British did not support the massacre at Amritsar allowed him to exploit the atrocity to unite India against the British. German diplomats are secretly building weapons with the Soviets in violation of the World War I Treaty of Versailles. Will the Germans cave to Soviet threats to expose their actions or will the Germans discover that the Soviets and even Britain and France have more to lose in that declaration than Germany? The realization that they could do nothing to stop them is a critical point in the rise of German power pre-World War II. Stalin’s failure to read Hitler and his intention to invade the Soviet Union cost millions of lives. His failure to understand his opponent via strategic empathy is to blame. The Vietnamese understood that a protracted war with the United States would result in their withdrawal from the conflict. The key break was the reaction to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Americans wanted war, but not all out war. This key distinction solidified a strategy for the Vietnamese to expel the American forces.
The general problem I have with the book is that while Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Empathy are critical traits for success, the author needs to decide which way he is going with the work. If it is just a historical exercise, the aspect of Strategic Empathy is such a small one that one would be foolish to attribute a turning point in history to it. A massacre would certainly turn the tide against those committing the atrocity. The weak state of Europe after World War I and German humiliation thereafter is enough to set the stage for another World War. The Vietnamese had been fighting for decades to kick out invaders and that determination hardens over time. This work is not a psychological work either via Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow even though he does reference the work several times. The book is not a business book to help those deal with business rivals either. It’s disappointing in this way as I enjoyed the historical aspects and conclusions, but they were too insignificant to suggest a major cause of action.
January 20, 2016
Very interesting inquiry into how to use "pattern breaks" to develop your "strategic empathy," that is, to better understand and predict how an opponent in war, politics, or business will act or react.
Want to read
April 26, 2015tuebl
April 29, 2017
The issue of the book is judging what various world leaders / dictators / tin pot tyrants will do when it comes to the crunch. Delves into some historical figures, some rather vague, who have been very influential in their geographic area, and investigates their succesful strategies.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews