Use Espionage to Destroy ISIS

By William A. Levinson

Sun Tzu’s Art of War admonished more than 2500 years ago, “Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.” In other words, noting that it probably costs our armed forces millions of dollars to kill one enemy (the figure was purportedly $200,000 during the Vietnam War), six-figure outlays for collaborators and spies are dirt cheap.

Utopia and a World without ISIS

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia described very explicitly how a government can destroy a corruptible enemy organization.

“As soon as they declare war, [the Utopians] take care to have a great many schedules,that are sealed with their common seal, affixed in the most conspicuous places of their enemies’ country. This is carried secretly, and done in many places all at once. In these they promise great rewards to such as shall kill the prince, and lesser in proportion to such as shall kill any other persons who are those on whom, next to the prince himself, they cast the chief balance of the war. And they double the sum to him that, instead of killing the person so marked out, shall take him alive, and put him in their hands. They offer not only indemnity, but rewards, to such of the persons themselves that are so marked, if they will act against their countrymen. By this means those that are named in their schedules become not only distrustful of their fellow-citizens, but are jealous of one another, and are much distracted by fear and danger; for it has often fallen out that many of them, and even the prince himself, have been betrayed, by those in whom they have trusted most; for the rewards that the Utopians offer are so immeasurably great, that there is no sort of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them.”

Read the Remainder at American Thinker