Strategy and Location

Introduction

The world can be divided into two main blocks, Euroterritories (mainly Western Europe and the places they invaded, colonized, migrated, and settled like Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand – the conceptual West; and Eastern Europe), and Non-Euroterritories (most of the rest of the world – the conceptual Global South). I will be focusing mostly on Western Europe or the West and the Global South, in terms of development and power dynamics. Although some of the Global South are becoming major players in the world, most are still struggling (the conceptual South). I brought this up to talk about the differences in the world when it comes to strategy and its association with geography; why some groups seem to be better at strategy than others, as well as the reason behind these differences based on history, environment, and location.

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The Development Of Strategy Within The Two Blocks

The origin of strategy is war, which means the more one plays the game of war the better one becomes at developing strategy – understanding people and knowing what it takes to get the desired outcome. The act of war becomes a continuous improvement process and a forced act of getting better if you want to survive. For most people, the only time they strive for perfection is when they are doing something bad that they do not want to be caught, and most wars fit this description. Although wars were costly to both parties, they became the norm in Europe and the incentives to become good at war were great. Most of the Global South were not as invested in wars as Europe was and this affected their strategy development. The West used its war skills and strategy to control the Global South and the world we now know. The Global South did not have the same interest in Europe mainly due to its weather and the lack of attractive resources. Why would someone living in nice warm weather year-round and an abundance of different types of foods move to a place that is cold and unfriendly? Europe was protected from foreign invasion mainly because of this and may appeared inventive and adventurous because they have to. Maybe if the Global South had such weather and environmental conditions, they would most likely develop the same adventurous and strategic mindsets, as necessity breeds innovation and survival instinct kicks in to help. This was why when Europe was uncivilized and ruled by barbarians while Africa, Asia, and the Americas had well-formed civilizations, they found no need to colonize it. These factors protected Europe from foreign attacks minus the Huns, Magus, and Moors who came and ruled certain parts of Europe for some time.

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How The West Became Good At Strategy

Since primordial times, intelligence in the form of strategy is based on how to survive in your environment. It is not just the survival of the fittest but also the most agile or intelligent, because to be able to adapt, you need the intelligence to know when to act, and in harsher environments the more apparent this is. The harsher environment has made one group adopt the killing for bounties to survive as a norm. This has made them develop the skills needed to take and control others, and the more they do it, the better they become as refinement drives improvement. The lack of abundant natural resources in Europe has bred war-mentality for millennia and has driven their desire to conquer other places. This has helped Europeans to become strategic when dealing with other groups, hence their ability to invade and colonize other places successfully. It should not be too much of a surprise why the West were able to colonize most of the world, which had not mastered the act of war or found the need for it beyond petty local grievances and power (with some exceptions like the Mongols). The Global South have abundant natural resources that have made them nonchalant about strategic or long-term thinking. This lack of strategic thinking or strategizing when it comes to dealing with other groups was and is the cause of their plights. Although some groups in the Global South were also strategic, they were eventually defeated because the Europeans were better experienced in war and did not have the obligation to adhere to local customs. It seemed like the Europeans were playing chess, and the locals were playing dominos to their detriment and demise, as your outcome is based on your strategy execution.

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How Locations Shaped Strategy Development

Before the Renaissance era in Europe, other parts of the world were more civilized and richer in most endeavors and are still now in terms of natural resources. However, as the West realized they needed these natural resources to live a better and more luxurious life, they used the most important resource, their strategic mindset to control the Global South. During harsh winter seasons, Europeans used the time they spent inside to reflect and think, and that resulted in better planning and strategizing while the Global South were still playing in their summer weather. This has helped Europe to become good at war, strategy, and controlling others, and to the naivety of the natives of the Global South who did not protect and use their resources well but took them for granted. In earlier times, Southern Europe was more developed and civilized than the North because if they did not, they would be overrun by their Northerners who were crude. This shows you can also use the nicer weather to your advantage if you invest in structured thinking or if there is an understood incentive to do so. Vikings were seen as warriors in the past as their environment was cruder and they had to go south to Middle Europe to take needed provisions to survive their harsh winters, as Southern Europe also took and learned from North Africa. Environment is not the only determinant of strategy but it plays a major role as even places that were innovative in the Global South fell to Europeans’ conquest. It is said that West(ern) civilization started in Ancient Greece, but where did the Greeks learn it from? Greek civilization came from their south, North Africa, it came mostly from Kemet (now called Egypt). The father of medicine, Hippocrates, also learned his trade from the god of medicine, Imhotep from Kemet; as did Socrates. The Global South had great inventors and thinkers but their environment, record-keeping, and knowledge strategy did not help them to spread their knowledge, thoughts, and methods among the people. Compared to Europe which had a more survival incentive to do so, and started prioritizing mass written tradition instead of mute oral tradition. Strategy is how you use your resources to manipulate the environment to get the best outcome among other alternatives. The mistake the South made and still make is thinking because they have natural resources, they do not need to develop the strategic mindset to guide and optimize its use. They forget the most important thing about having something is the way you use it and not just having it. This lack of strategic thinking continues to expose the South, mainly Africa to domination by the West and others; you still see evidence today in their governance and the predatory trade agreements and other bilateral and multilateral agreements they blindly sign at their great disadvantage.

Natural Resources And Strategy Development

Groups that seem strategic-minded are usually those lacking natural resources or used to lack them, as the lack of them forces you to think creatively. Having abundant natural resources can become a curse if you lack a strategic mindset or fail to develop one to manage its optimal use, as having these resources can cause intellectual slothism. Small countries like England, France, and Spain were able to colonize most of the world because of the strategy developed through wars. It does not mean you can only be strategic if you have a warlike mentality or lack natural resources. However, they play a major role in programming the way you see the world and how to control things to your benefit; utility is the purpose of skills acquisition. The South with all its natural resources is less developed, and the West with fewer natural resources is more developed due to strategy. The South mistakenly allow others to take their resources without thinking about its long-term effects and the weak mindset development it propagates with the aftermath of atrophy; if you do not use it, you lose it. The South mainly focused on immediate gain or gratification which is miniature compared to what they could have gained if they started to think strategically in the long term and work on optimizing their environment. The West used whatever they could to get what they wanted and slavery was one of the tools. Slavery was not seen the same in most parts of the world as the West began to see it later in Africa, skin complexion. Slavery has been usually practiced based on war captives and debt-own throughout history until the Arabs started this crude form of discrimination and Europeans later commercialized it. However, without the support of the locals (although some of them resisted) it would not have been a successful slave trade, so who is to blame, the ones who came and robbed the house or the one who opened the door and showed the robbers where the treasures are? As all blaming is foolishness, you have to learn from your mistakes and their causes to prevent future occurrences, and not be naive about robbers to help you become strategic.

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Effects Of Lack Of Strategy In The South And The Focus On Fairness

The lack of strategy has vastly affected the South because they have not developed the strategic mindset needed to navigate the world and different groups. The reason why the Euroterritories seem strategic, resourceful, entitled to rule others, and sometimes come across as ruthless is due to their history and the skills they have developed along the way. To them, other groups are na?ve and do not appreciate what they have, and even if they do appreciate it, they find ways to take it from them. This is even evident today when you look at the countries where natural resources are being exploited, it is mostly done by or with someone having a European background who has managed to corrupt the locals with meager rewards because the locals lack a strategic mindset and long-term thinking. However, this is not only a European thing as some non-Europeans have also done it to a lesser degree; showing a lack of strategy has devastating effects. It also shows having resources is potential wealth, using them wisely is the real wealth, thus kinetic. In order words, wealth is not in the possession of resources, but your ability to use the resources wisely. If the South are incapable of making good use of what they have, is it bad for others to take it and put it to good use? Those who disagree will evoke the notion of fairness and doing the right thing; forgetting these values are defined differently by different groups hence the need to learn how to protect what you have. Pointing to the exploitation by the West in the places they colonized and their current neo-colonialism is like wishing the world was different, instead of accepting the objective reality and taking the necessary steps to thrive. Do not assume everyone weighs the same values as you; take a lesson from the Melos during the Peloponnesian War. You have to accept people as who they are but place them where they belong instead of wishing they were different. Acceptance of this truth will help the South become strategic in its dealings with others instead of the continuous false expectations they have. If you are in a losing situation, you must ask how you got to the predicament and what needs to be done differently to turn things around instead of doing the same things and expecting different results. This assessment is critical for the South to become strategic and prevent the wasting of time and energy on hopes and wishes.

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What The South Need To Stop, Change, And Start Doing

Until the South realize that trust is earned and not given based on emotions or intentions, they will keep being played and used by anyone who says the right words to excite their emotions. Part of being strategic is about controlling your emotions and using calculated logic. The South need to stop wasting time blaming others for their plights and diagnosing the wrong issues by addressing surface things instead of the main rudimentary issues. They also need to stop accepting bad help and foreign aid and donations (in the current forms) which psychologically kills their creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills. These bad benevolences have made the South worse off by sewing the seed of dependency and falsely seem to solve some of their short-term challenges but create bigger long-term issues. They need to stop seeking approval and acceptance from others in whatever they do and focus on doing what is in their self-interest in the long term. The culture of the society also needs to be looked at and reformed to produce leaders who want to serve (instead of to be served) and with the right attributes for transformative development. The inferiority complex (mental slavery) the South subconsciously developed (which is more damaging than physical bondage) needs to be eradicated through conscious re-education. Also, the South have a carefree syndrome to their approach towards things they do, which needs to change. They take most things for granted and are too casual in dealing with the serious issues they face. Without the seriousness needed in dealing with issues and life, you are just playing the game of life at a rudimentary and suboptimal level, while others are sophisticated and masters at it. This shows in the disparity between the level the South is playing and that of the West, which means the former are most likely to lose even before they start. The reason why most kingdoms are taken by force and violence is because that is how you learn to appreciate and protect them. It is a slave mindset to be sitting and waiting for someone to come and save you as most of the South have done and continue to do indirectly hence, it is easy to have only 16 masters controlling 237 slaves. The South need to put more resources into the right type of learning, the 4As – assessing, analyzing, acquiring, and applying. They need to invest in research and development, play the long game, know that not every good thing is good for them, and be able to say “no” to things that do not benefit them, especially psychologically. The use of one’s mind is the greatest resource to have and the reason the South, rich in natural resources but poor in mindset are poor. The South seem to be only taking a few linear steps forward in a world that requires exponential development by not having a well-thought-out plan, short-term focused on immediate gratification, overreliance on systems that are not designed for them to win, and having and promoting the lowest form of leadership – positional leadership (mainly in Africa). The South need to plan not only for good times but also for the bad times and understand not everyone wants you to succeed especially if your chaos and stupidity benefit them. These are the types of insight the South need to develop to become kinetic in strategy. They need to act like they do not have abundant natural resources or someone will be coming to save them, to force them to start to think more strategically. This will help them become innovative and make better use of the mental resources needed to maximize what they have instead of selling their future at today’s bargain price. The South need to grow up and become adults in dealing with their challenges and stop acting like children, although having the muscles and heights of adults, lack the mindset, and thus still need to be taken care of and told what to do.

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What It Takes To Make A Strategy Work

Strategy started from war but has touched all areas of our lives and interactions, critically commerce and international relations. The question of why the South are not as developed as the West boils down to the way they view the world and their strategy (or lack thereof). For this to change, the ingredients the South need are self-accountability, strategic mindset, local teamwork, pursuit of excellence, and visionary, transformational, and patriotic leadership. Although there is an element of planning in strategy, it comes down to agility, adaptation, and optimal resource utilization. Strategy and tactics go hand-in-hand to bring a vision to reality. If you have a good strategy but bad tactics, it remains just a dream; if you have a bad strategy but good tactics, it becomes a waste of time. The South need to know their strengths, assets, and how to optimize their use as a competitive advantage – the knowledge strategy. They need to put the right people in the right places and analyze the past to learn from both the good and the bad because that is what it takes to become good at strategy and start playing chess (instead of dominos). To get better results, they also need to analyze their current landscape and make the necessary adjustments to gain a competitive edge. Fairness is not in most people when it comes to power, particularly in the West, and as such, their actions are designed to make them win or seem like the leader even if they did not originate something; take Christianity for example. With all these, you cannot blame the West as it is a waste of time and foolishness but observe and learn; they have made good use of what they have (mindset) and what they do not have (others’ natural resources). The South seems to be too focused on fairness and hope, instead of mastering strategy and doing what it takes to win the game being played. This mindset switch of optimizing what you have instead of wishing for things you do not have is key to becoming strategic and making strategy work for you.

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Conclusion

First comes having a strategy before anything else like championing morality, and not the other way around. For a strategy to work in locations that did not have a history of being strategic in their dealings, they have to become observant and learn – know thyself, observe the world and nature of the people you deal with, and come up with a novelty plan based on your strength to properly position and protect yourself from attacks. Just because you have or gain something does not mean you can keep it, like most of the Global South who gained their independence but have become pseudo-independence. Strategy has to be based on the reality of plausibility and not on the utopia of possibility, and once you realize this, a strategic mind is born. The main things holding the South back are their lack of critical thinking, leadership development, and long-term dynamic planning, being reactive instead of proactive, high-degree of selfishness, outsourcing of thinking, blaming others, and the focus on the past. As much as it is good to look at the past to learn from it, the main work is now and how you are preparing today to take advantage of tomorrow to come. The past cannot be physically changed and it becomes a waste of today’s time that is needed to prepare for tomorrow, and it should not be used to blame or wishful thinking. Play the game to the best of your ability and do not focus on what you do not have but make optimal use of what you have. In war, it is usually not the one with the most or best weapons that wins, but the one who knows themselves and their foes, and plays to one’s strength. Assess your current inventory of resources both tangible and intangible, mark the state you are in now, and design the state you want to be in the future with roadmaps to help you get there. Be agile and know there will be opposing forces and distractions along the way but stay focused, and prevent early wins from making you comfortable and complacent. Do not blindly entertain anyone who comes acting like a friend to prevent falling for a Trojan horse. Focus on reaching your vision by optimizing what you have, to develop a well-thought-out plan, the right strategy thus knowledge strategy, and the fuel for this strategic journey is disciplined execution.