Ahoy, Mr Beaver, what white teeth you have! Who are we, provincial swamp folk, to criticise the inventors of toothpaste adverts who spend their whole lives in some Manhattan cage and pop over to Miami or Acapulco in their spare time to catch their breath? Their department head has seen a beaver in person once, in an illustration in a book about Native Americans, and is therefore an expert on the subject. As for the rest of the department staff, they belong to the generation that has never read a book and, like all normal people, derive their knowledge from modern, comprehensive and objective sources—namely, TV commercials, CNN news and Hollywood films.

The fact that here in Latvia we have no escape from these rodent-builder-flooders and that thousands of people know that beaver teeth are yellower than those of a century-old tobacco smoker—well, what does that matter? The whole world is convinced that beaver teeth are the gold standard of whiteness, and those who don't know it yet or, heaven forbid, think otherwise—it’s fine, it’s fine. Watch "Ahoy, Mr Beaver!" another sixteen thousand times, and you'll start thinking normally, correctly. Globally, if you like.

This is hardly anything new. Facts have never played the leading role in public perception; what is decisive is opinion. If the opinion is that witches spoil the moon and must be burned at the stake to save society, then that is what must happen. If the opinion is that Rubiks is a real scoundrel, then he must sit in prison, even if no proven facts about his misdeeds reach the courtroom—and they don't need to, either. We all know anyway, don't we.

A certain amount of inconvenience does arise, however, when we find ourselves not on the side expressing the opinion, but on the receiving end. For example, like a few years ago with those unfortunate legionnaires of ours and their march to the Freedom Monument. We know that this SS is a different SS, not the bad one, but a different sort, but CNN does not know, and does not want to know. To them, and thus to the whole so-called civilised world, the SS are rampaging in the centre of the Latvian capital. It makes for an awkward situation. But facts don't count if CNN has an opinion. On this or any other matter. Ahoy.

If I had to submit candidates for a global "Ahoy!" competition for the greatest discrepancy between opinion and fact, I would suggest three books and their authors. Very famous authors, very important books. Super-topical. With, in my opinion, an extraordinary similarity in the fact that at any café table in Old Riga, you will find three people who have an opinion on the aggressiveness of Islam, the wickedness of Machiavellism, and the thesis supporting German militarism that war is the continuation of politics, but not one who has actually read the Quran, Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince", or Carl von Clausewitz's "On War" themselves.

Since 11 September, the opinion in the world about the aggressiveness of Muhammad's teachings and the evil of Islam has become a more intense obsession in Americanised minds than the belief in witches in the Middle Ages. Therefore, I warmly recommend both determined warriors and sincere pacifists to read the 60th Surah of the Quran, where specific instructions can be found on how a true believer should treat non-believers, depending on whether or not they have driven the true believers from their homes due to religious war.

But for those who, since Soviet times, have been brainwashed about the lack of rights for women in the Islamic world and have not changed their minds even now, when it is possible to understand first-hand in which of these societies that lack of rights truly exists, I recommend starting with the 4th Surah.

Machiavelli's "The Prince", due to its concreteness and clarity of expression, could even be published as a high-school textbook, but the way to achieve 100% readership would be to officially ban it. Pope Clement VII excommunicated it 450 years ago. And since then, regarding Machiavelli and Machiavellism, mostly only opinion has been important, not his own views, writings, and practical work in the Republic of Florence. Ahoy, Mr Machiavelli, what an incarnation of Satan you are. I once spent time searching the text for the vaunted diabolical quote about the end justifying the means, and, of course, I didn't find one.

I personally have found "The Prince" useful not so much as a canon of political science, but as a practical public relations textbook—for example, Chapter 9 (on constitutional states) and Chapter 19 (on the need to avoid contempt and hatred), which justify why and how a ruler must gain the support of the people. In today's pre-NATO situation, it will also be interesting to compare how far our state's mighty armed forces and their wise political leadership have progressed with Machiavelli's idea of a militia (see Chapter 14).

With the third of the works mentioned—a universally recognised canon in the theory of military strategy—I have the same relationship as most people: even though I haven't read it, I still want to note that Clausewitz etc., etc.

In my own defence, I can say that the work "On War" is both large in volume and quite heterogeneous. In fact, what is divided into eight books is a collection of drafts; in the author's opinion, only one of the books was finished, but modern commentators consider three to be "nearly" finished—the first, second and eighth. The three books dedicated to tactical issues are outdated. Furthermore, the German original is allegedly in complex language and very difficult to read, while translations have a politically engaged slant. Therefore, with especially wicked pleasure, I found a website on the internet dedicated to proving that one of the best-known modern military historians, Sir John Keegan, hasn't read Clausewitz from cover to cover himself, and also muddles his biographical data.

But for an understanding of the current situation, interpretation is precisely what is most important, because in all American military academies, it is not the text of Clausewitz that is taught, but handbooks based upon it.

According to this perception, which is completely accepted throughout the American military elite and down the ladder from the Pentagon, the basis of military strategy is the use of force as a means of implementing state policy. In Clausewitz's theory, an essential place is occupied by the concept of the "trinity": the people, the army and the state. For the first, the nature of war is important (because the goal of a military conflict is the destruction or neutralisation of the opponent's forces, and therefore it is inevitably linked to death and destruction), for the second—military tactics, for the third—intent and goal.

11 September has forced a fundamental rethink of the applicability of Clausewitzian strategy. Because the American military leadership had to painfully encounter a radically different perception of war. The military machine, which is trained to defend specific strategic objects and attack military targets, was effectively shut down.

According to Clausewitz, the destruction of the opponent's forces or the liquidation of their combat capability are equivalent; moreover, he even rates the weakening of the opponent's will higher than destruction. Unambiguous military superiority (or a guaranteed destructive retaliatory strike, as during the Cold War) serves as a factor of deterrence.

Much has been written about the culture shock caused by the strikes on New York and Washington. After all, the targets of the attack were primarily symbolic, so one had to start thinking about war as a postmodern phenomenon. There has been much discussion about asymmetric warfare, namely that an opponent with incomparably fewer resources can inflict massive damage. But that, too, in my opinion, is only a quantitative, not a qualitative parameter, because the signs of asymmetric warfare were also present in the activities of the Russian partisans against Napoleon in 1812, which Clausewitz knew well.

In my opinion, something else is more significant—the classic Clausewitzian strategy is no longer applicable in a military conflict between a state and terrorism.

The opponents do not operate within the framework of the Clausewitzian trinity—they do not have their own people and they are not linked to any specific ethnic group or state; their operations are not based in any specific territory (even if "al-Qaeda" in Arabic means "the base"), and they do not have a specific fixed political goal as we understand it. The 11 September attack was primarily aimed at inflicting maximum damage on the hated citadel of the non-Islamic world.

And most importantly—the opponent's forces fundamentally ignore the threats arising from the destruction of their live forces because every individual warrior does not fear death, but heads towards it with joy.

And so we arrive at the conclusion: terrorism in the name of fundamentalism is essentially an idea, and it can only be defeated by another idea.

But in the meantime, CNN is brainwashing us with the necessity of urgently going to war in Iraq, as if these things were linked. If we look at this from the point of view of the previous considerations, then both the recent war in Afghanistan and the one expected in Iraq are actually winnable from the point of view of the old doctrine, because it is a confrontation using the Clausewitzian trinity: both the Taliban and Hussein have a people, an army and a state, with specific territory and institutions, and whatever sort of villain Saddam may be, he is certainly not a suicide bomber. Therefore, American military men can safely plan this operation using tested and well-trained methods.

Ahoy, gentlemen, to Baghdad, to Baghdad, down with Hussein. Like Schweik suffering from lumbago, in a wheelchair pushed by Mrs Müller, brandishing his crutches and shouting—to Belgrade, to Belgrade, down with the Serbs! We, this time, are being pushed by a pair of ladies, with Ģirts Valdis muttering his usual tidly-bums.

But if it is true that one of the three most influential books is no longer valid in practice, then the matter will not end with Belgrade or Baghdad. Although there is no evil without some good: I will be able to leave that Clausewitz unread with a clear conscience. And let our beavers remain in their place in peace, as is usual for us. Ahoy!
Article first published in 2003 in the magazine "Rīgas Laiks"