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.

     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.

      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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