Machiavelli is famous for instructing “You ought never to suffer your designs to be crossed in order to avoid war, since war is not so to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage”.
Sefer Mishlei teaches otherwise! So, don’t be Neoconned. Machiavelli is taken out of context. This is explained well by someone on Quora.
Here’s an excerpt:
That quote, from his book The Prince, is part of a 5-point lesson on how to hold power as a foreign head of state in a newly conquered land:
- Defend and protect your minor but powerful supporters, they put you there and they can remove you
- Keep down major powers within your realm
- Don’t allow other foreign powers any foothold. (They will naturally draw from you ambitious people and malcontents.)
- Colonize your weakly-held areas with people from the strong, because displacing a few locals is better than letting them organize against you. (This is hideous and unnecessary. Marketing and education have a similar effect, as the Romans and Alexander had shown. But of course in many ways Machiavelli lacked subtlety. Niccolò Machiavelli)
- Fight as soon as you see it’s necessary because time helps your enemy as much as yourself
He goes on to illustrate with a series of events that went like this:
Louis XII of France is invited by Italians in one city state to help them against the Church and Spain, in exchange for which he leverages their power and ends up with 2/3rds of Italy. Then he makes mistakes. He makes a deal with the Church to the detriment of his original noble Lombardy supporters. Later – nominally to avoid war – he makes a deal with the Spanish king and has to give up a good chunk of the country.
Find the rest here.