As I look around today at our state of politics and social unrest, it reminds me of some of the lessons I learned studying and conducting unconventional warfare. One lesson that sticks in my mind comes from a quote from Sun Tzu, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” This concept stuck with me while fighting insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines and other places around the world. `

Since 9/11, the military has largely been fighting an unconventional asymmetrical war against our enemies, which are small groups of people fighting against us and our modern weapons and technology. In an all-out war, these enemies would not stand a chance, but in today’s political and social climate, they have become effective with our limited tolerance to destroy them using our full combat power.

I have to look at our domestic situation through the eyes of unconventional warfare and how easily it seems we are falling for our enemies’ attack. In some sense, we are in an ambush. In military terms, when you are in a well-planned ambush, the first contact is generally the decoy, not the real attack; it’s designed to occupy your attention while the enemy then leads you to a place to their advantage, which we call the kill zone.

Imagine our whole political and social environment as one big ambush from our enemies and the weapons they are using are social media to drive our collective attention to the decoy. In order to be as fast as social media, the mainstream media have to hastily act on current events, which in term drives our elected officials to focus on this decoy as well; it’s a chain reaction that further polarizes our country.


The most effective aspect of the psychological and information operations used against us is that it’s not propaganda shoved down our throats, it’s information that we voluntarily consume by clicking “like” and “share” on social media; the more we like, the more we get and the further entrenched in our beliefs we get.

Let’s take the issue of Black Lives Matter and view it through this lens. Now, statistically, we all know (or do we?) that police officers shooting unarmed innocent black people isn’t at all an epidemic, it’s actually extremely rare.

Now the view that this is common has been perpetuated to the point that the president of the United States spends his attention on NFL football players taking a knee in protest. Even the vice president went to a game and walked out on the president’s orders after players took a knee. The issue of the Confederate statues seems to have just sparked up from nowhere … or did it? Who made these sparks and who fueled them?

I believe all these events, and more, are reconnaissance missions of our enemies such as Russia, China, Iran, etc. to watch our reaction as a nation and create civil unrest. Russia can probably guess within 95 percent accuracy how President Donald Trump will react to an event. But in the long run, it’s more important to learn how America will react in order to control our dialogue and divide and lead us to the actual kill zone, which could be social, economic or political failure or anything else to weaken us.


We are so polarized as a nation and we have to ask ourselves why. This country is more fair and equal than it has every been, so why are we so angrily polarized now? We all know that divide and conquer is a technique of warfare and we definitely fit into that category. We are fighting the decoy. I don’t know where the actual kill zone is or what’s coming next, but I hope we can agree that we are under attack.

I have no doubt that enemies of our state are building algorithms at this moment to target potential candidates who are susceptible to being radicalized in many different areas. The more we click, the more they know about us and know how to target the right people and bombard them with information to fuel their radicalization and hatred.

Napoleon said “never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake” and we are making a mistake by digging a deep fighting position in our polarized viewpoints, but we can interrupt that. We are the United States of America, and stronger when we can come together and solve problems. So the next time you click “like” or “share” on social media, think about how that information got in front of you that you are happily consuming, then think about it through the eyes of our enemies. Don’t let the decoy push you into the kill zone of a polarized society and into believing false narratives.

Hiner, a San Diego resident, retired in 2012 as a Navy SEAL officer. He is an author, leadership consultant and corporate speaker who focuses on veterans and military issues. Website: edhiner.com.