Understanding “Threatening on the East to actually attack on the West”.

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

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#Diversionary tactic, #dương Đông kích Tây,

Understanding “Threatening on the East to actually attack on the West”.

Wars are not always won by battle strength alone. Each combatant often try to trick its opponents into being least ready for the battles. The often used trick is “Threatening on the East to actually attack on the West”.

1. The method.

Suppose that the army of a country C wants to defeat the army of another country A.

It may pretend to prepare for an attack on country A in a theater in the East. The highly visible preparation makes country A feel uneasy and it may react by sending its best units to that theater and constructing defensive structures there.

As country A gets busy preparing for the theater on the East, the army of country C is quietly moved to another theater on the West then carry out fierce attacks there. The attacks are usually successful as A has no time to transfer its units to the West and is also economically worn out with building defensive line on the East.

2. Example applications of the doctrine.

This is a list of deceptive operations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_deception_operations). The most well known operation is Bodyguard started in 1943. The objective of this plan was to lead the Germans to believe that the invasion of north-west Europe would come later than was planned and to expect attacks elsewhere, including the Pas de Calais, the Balkans, southern France, Norway and Soviet attacks in Bulgaria and northern Norway. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard)

The Maginot Line is a line of of defense built by France in the 1930s to deter threatening invasion by Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line) but Germany had eventualy attacked at another point.

Military exercises by a country C near to the border of its opponent A is a threat to the latter. If A does not respond, it may get defeated by a surprise unprovoked decisive attack from C. On the other hand, if it transfers its force to that border, it becomes vulnerable to attack on the opposite extremity of its territory.

3. Analogous non-battle-field applications.

A country C possessing some promising war technology may deliberately appear to be investing in another less promising technology. This force it opponent A into investing in that other technology. Country C then quietly divest from that technology and invest in the winning technology and make it its sole possession. This makes country A technologically inferior to country C.

4. Examples of the doctrine in non-battle-field applications.

US pretending to invest in Star wars technology had made USSR invested in that technology to the point of bankruptcy. The real US military investment is in earth bound technology.