I’ve always wondered how the builders of the Great Wall used more than stone to calm the mind of an attacker. They raised the wall to the sky, making a visual threat, and arranged watchtowers to give the illusion of constant vigilance, so that an invader’s sense of possibility dwindled even before a sword was drawn. It’s a quiet psychological siege—one that turns the landscape into a memory of futility. What it shows is that strategic thinking has long valued perception as much as force, and that across ages, architects and generals have used the mind as much as the body to secure an empire.

Yes, I do think the idea lives on. Even today a wall or a fence can be designed to look impenetrable, with sensors and cameras that create the feeling of constant surveillance. The sight of a high‑tech radar dome or a barbed‑wire grid at dusk can make a potential intruder doubt whether a breach is even possible. And in the military world, the concept of “false fronts” or dummy installations is still used to mislead an enemy’s perception of strength. So the psychological edge is still very much a part of strategic design, just expressed with newer tools.