in China as it affected capitalists, and the 1959 change in Cuba as it affected most people). As for adhering to
agreements, they also can’t be relied on because circumstances change in ways that can’t be anticipated so parties
that want the best outcomes have to be willing to change them in mutually acceptable ways. Ideally 1) good rules
and agreements and 2) the determinations and flexibilities to continuously have them exist so good relations that
result from them can exist. However, if these don’t exist, there is always the threat of mutually assured destruction
that can keep the peace. It is a powerful force for peace because self-survival is the basic need that is more
important than anything else.
These cases lead me to my next principle that is based on the realities of how humans interact.
Have power, respect power, and use power wisely, or leave rather than fight. Having power is good because
power will win out over agreements, rules, and laws all the time. That’s because, when push comes to shove, those
who have the power either to enforce their interpretation of the rules and laws or to overturn the rules and laws will
get what they want. The sequence of using power is as follows. When there are disagreements, the parties
disagreeing will first try to resolve them without going to rules/laws by trying to agree on what to do by
themselves. If that doesn’t work, they will try using the agreements/rules/laws that they agreed to abide by. If that
doesn’t work, those who want to get what they want more than they respect the rules will resort to using their
power. When one party resorts to using its power and the other side in the dispute isn’t sufficiently intimidated to
knuckle under, there will be a testing of relative power, typically in the form of a war. Using power wisely doesn’t
necessarily mean forcing others to give you what you want—i.e., bullying them. It includes recognizing that
generosity and trust are powerful forces for producing win-win relationships, which are fabulously more rewarding
than lose-lose relationships, though they’re not always attainable. When wars—civil or external—happen you will
have to decide whether you want to be in them or get out of them. When in doubt get out. You can always get back
in, but you might not be able to get out.
Let’s now look at how allies, enemies, and wars develop and are gotten past and how periods of peace and
prosperity develop, over and over again.
In studying a lot of history and personally experiencing a tiny sliver of it myself I have seen how the balance of
power dynamic drives virtually all struggles for power—e.g., office politics within organizations, local politics,
national politics in shaping the domestic order and international politics in shaping the world order. The balance of
power dynamic of forming allies and enemies and having wars transpires in a series of steps in which 1) those on
opposing sides form alliances so both sides have roughly equal amounts of power, 2) then the two sides struggle
with each other and eventually fight to clearly establish who the winners and losers are, 3) then those on the
winning side fight among themselves for control of the winning side until one wins and consolidates power, 4)
then with power clearly established and no one wanting to fight the clearly dominant power there is a period of
peace and prosperity, which typically produces greater wealth and power gaps until 5) wealth and power gaps
occur, the dominant power weakens, and for one reason or another there is a new wealth and power struggle that
leads to the process happening all over again. More precisely, the process unfolds as follows, though how exactly it
unfolds depends on the order and people at the time these stages unfold:
A) There will be the formation of alliances
When there isn’t roughly equal power (e.g., if in the US the Democrats have much more power than the
Republicans, or vice versa), the more powerful party will likely take advantage of and control the less powerful
party. To neutralize the stronger party, the weaker party naturally finds other parties to join them in opposing the
stronger party so they collectively can have the same or more power as the opposition. If the formerly weaker
party collectively gains more power than the formerly stronger party, the formerly stronger party will cut deals
with other parties to ally with them to eliminate the superiority of the opposition. As a result, allies that have very
different vested interests unite in opposing the common enemy—as the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is
my friend”—and this dynamic naturally leads to the different sides having roughly equal power. The fact that these
parties are bound together in the shared fight against the common enemy should not be misconstrued to mean that
they are aligned. For example, one could see this balance of power dynamic at work in the recent election. It is
why the Republican Party and the Democratic Party gained roughly equal numbers of supporters and became
roughly equally powerful in a fight against the other, while at the same time the differences within the parties are
so great that some segments want to destroy the other segments in order to gain control of their party. This
alliance- and enemy-forming dynamic happens at all different levels of relationships from the most important