ABSTRACT
The war/peace cycle tantalizes both mind and heart, in perpetual, oscillating recurrence. If war in its traditional sense of mutual human butchering has been described as chaotic, so have other types of disorder, such as plagues. The potentially war-festering "situation" is like the stem of a weed whose roots rest in the soil of history: to be eradicated, it must be extracted in its totality, lest it be simply dried to extinction. Once the starting point has been determined, at least preliminarily, Sun Tzu tells us that the assessment or estimate of any situation of impending crisis includes five elements: "the first of these factors is moral influence; the second, weather; the third, terrain, the fourth, command; and the fifth, doctrine. The geographical realities—including weather and natural resources, arable land, potable water, and access to navigation—must be assessed so as to have adequate information about one's own and others' strengths and weaknesses.
