Reflections on the saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

War, politics, sports, and the simple computer game, what do they all have in common?
They all involve, “sides” that are at warring relations with each other. Even the common
friendship has to face this dilemma and paradox, if not enigma. It is in fact, a natural part of life
to have enemies as well as friends. It is a problem that humanity has had to face for a very long
time. What would you rather have: Prosperity or Power, Security or Stability, Freedom or
Fascism? All of these depend on the other as well. When we are happy, we seldom think much
about the times when we were sad and miserable.
In war, and politics, even in day to day relationships, we all want to know what other
people think about us. We want to be able to prepare ourselves for the worst, and arm for the
best. We all want to know, be ready, and take charge. This phrase, “keep your friends close and
your enemies closer” is true because our enemies may know more about us and our faults and
our achievements more than we can know from our friends. We have intelligence agencies and
spies because we need to be prepared and not be surprised when we are under attack or under
stress. We have hackers so that we may know how they operate, and ultimately, defeat them in
their own front by using what they use against us.
In our society, the struggle between power and prosperity requires an intimate
understanding of how the human mind operates on a collective scale and also on the individual
level. The struggle for power depends on whether or not you are prospering. In order to prosper,
one must have stability and security. This depends on how a state is built. Does the state practice
freedom or fascism? Is it a collective or an individual based system? Is it based on truth and not
lies? How is the state organized on an economic level? Ultimately, this age old wisdom is all
about self-reflecting and self-actualization. Your enemies exist as a reflection of your own inner
weakness and strengths. We are more concerned about our enemies because they pose a more
immediate threat to us than our friends. We can learn far more from our mistakes and errors than
our immediate allies and friends tell us, because our enemy knows us as well as we know them.
After all, “know thyself and know thy enemy’ as Sun Tzu stated in his famous book, “The Art of
War” can be read as both a psychological and social manual on the conduct of war on the
microcosm and macrocosm scale. Even as individual human beings, we must be aware that we
are at the same time, part of a cohesive whole known as Civilization.
Wars illustrate the practice of, “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer” by the
use of intelligence, surprise attacks, and espionage and conspiracy. After all, secrecy and
subliminal propaganda of all kinds are necessary for a successful military operation. It is
absolutely essential that friends and enemies are blurred because at any time, in the struggle for
military supremacy, there can be traitors. After all, war does not occur in a vacuum, much like
how a relationship between individuals does not occur in an isolated environment. War is
influenced by politics, by technology, by military skill and training, as well as society as a whole.
Even religion and ideology plays a vital role in the uses and developments of wars throughout
history. I recommend reading Carroll Quigley’s Weapons Systems and Political Stability: A
History. There are many factors and variables involved in this struggle of emotional and
psychological instincts. We keep an eye on our enemies so that we can have an idea of what to
expect and how to better ourselves. Our enemies’ shows us our true faces, and our friends help
improve that which needs much, “renovation.”
Enemies and friends are not really that distinguishable in the real world since at any time,
when a contract, whether stated or unstated is broken, relations can change in an instance. A high
level of trust is required for the sake of human sanity and cooperation. Trust is not something
that can easily earned for some people because of…past regressions, but this is a normal aspect
of any human relationship. Countries and governments is a larger reflection of the human psyche
as Plato has stated in his famous Republic.
Friends and enemies has always existed, and always will. It is a natural part of the human
psyche to engage in competition, wars, and challenges, because if it did not, it would never be
able to improve and sustain itself. After all, early man depended on more cooperation because of
its inferior weapons systems, but gradually, through the development of more complex systems
of government, control of weapons, finance, ideology, and technology, philosophy and science,
the concept of keeping your enemies closer is truer than ever before. As the world is getting
closer to thermonuclear warfare due to the instability in the Middle East and the formation of
AFRICOM by the United States, there is no doubt that China and Russia are feeling insecure
since both nations are relatively weak militarily to the United States.
On a personal level, as the geopolitical and global political crises of wars and global
financial crisis deepens, people would find it necessary to depend on and count on each other. We
would need to let go of our differences, and cooperate or risk losing everything we have worked
so hard for to build. Trust and respect would become greater psychological issues as people lose
jobs, and the powers that be continue their same policies of global hegemony. We, the people of
this planet, need to realize that we are not really each other`s enemies, because as civilians, we
all have the common interests of peace, prosperity, and partnership. As humans, we all wish for
the best of ourselves and the major reasons why we hate each other or dislike each other so much
is because of our psychological instability. Our enemies are a reflection that disease known as
hatred and war.
There is a chance for us, as a species to learn to slowly trust each other again, and gain the
power to take back the world from our true enemies: ourselves and our own power of
manipulation and deceit. Know yourself. That is why you have enemies.