Title: Sun Tzu The Art of War

The Art of War 

 
is an ancient Chinese
military treatise that is attributed to
Sūnzǐ, a high ranking military general andstrategist during the late Spring and Autumn period.
Composed of 13
chapters, each of which is devoted to one
aspect of warfare, it is said to be thedefinitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time,
and is still read for its
Military insights
1
Sun Tzu The Art of War

 Strategic Rules for

 Organizational Planning
 based on
 The Art of War for Managers
 Gerald A. Michaelson

2
Sun Tzu I. Laying Plans

 Sun Tzu
 Moral Influence
 Weather
 Terrain
 Command
 Doctrine

 Business
 Vision Mission
 Outside Influences
 Marketplace
 Leadership
 Core beliefs

3
Sun Tzu I. Laying Plans

 Compare Attributes
 Which side is managed by those who have
established meaningful objectives (with a high
moral value)?
 Which people have the most ability?
 Which side can take the best advantage of current
conditions?
 Which has the better discipline?
 Which side is stronger?
 Which side is better trained?
 Which side is better motivated?
4
Sun Tzu I. Laying Plans

 Look for Strategic turns

 Go beyond ordinary rules.
 Search for advantages.
 Find favorable conditions.
 Examine the situation thoroughly.
 Do the unexpected.
 Build your own strengths.
 Continuously analyze the strengths and weaknesses
of the opposition.

5
Sun Tzu II. Waging War

 Marshal Adequate Resources

 When resources are depleted and cannot be
replenished, the organization goes bankrupt.
 Make time your Ally
 Victory is the main objective.
 When the operation takes too long
 Resources may be depleted.
 Weapons are blunted.
 Morale is depressed.
 Your opponents will take advantage of your
distress.
 Those who do not understand the dangers do not
understand how to make advantageous use of
resources.
 Those who are adept do not require additional
resources.
 What is valued is a quick victory, not prolonged
operations.

6
Sun Tzu I. Laying Plans

 Everyone Must Profit From Victories

 When others go out of business, profit by
acquiring their physical and human resources.
 Win by acquiring competitors and making good use
of their people in the new organization
structure. This is called winning and becoming
stronger.
 Know Your Craft
 The objective is winning, not spending time. The
leaders who truly understand their business
control the battle and achieve victory.

7
Sun Tsu III. Attack by Stratagem

 Win Without Fighting

 Consider making opponents into allies.
 The best victories are those that can be won
without conflict
  First attach strategy this is the best
approach.
 Next, disrupt allies.
 If these do not work, consider fighting, but do
not attach strengths.
 Strength Against Weakness Always
 Beware of High-level Dumb
 Those who are not at the scene of action and do
not know what is going on should not give orders.
 Each business should be managed by those with
extensive experience in the business.
 Rules established at corporate headquarters
should not necessarily apply to every distant
operation.

8
Sun Tsu IV. Disposition of Military Strength

 Be Invincible
 What you do determines whether you are defeated.
 What your opponent does determines whether you
can win.
 Because you know how to win does not mean you
will win.
 Secure your defenses, however you must take
offense in order to win.
 When you have insufficient strength, you must
defend.
 When you have an overabundance of strength,
attack.
 Tactics used in the defense are different than
those used in the offense.

9
Sun Tsu IV. Disposition of Military Strength

 Attain Strategic Superiority

 The best strategy is to win without fighting.
This often requires looking beyond the obvious to
find the unusual.
 Achieving victory while avoiding conflict
requires skillful insight and forethought in
planning
 Your strategy must be so good that
 You cannot possibly be defeated
 It take advantage of every opportunity
 The winning leader understands the moral law and
strictly adheres to method and discipline

10
Sun Tsu IV. Disposition of Military Strength

 Use information to focus resources

 Understand your opponents position and strength.
 Consider where you have relative superiority.
 Plan to attain overwhelming superiority at a
decisive point.
 Build the force of momentum.
11
Sun Tsu V. Use of Energy

 Build a Sound organization Structure

 Control is a matter of organization and
communications.
 Use the same fundamental principles regardless of
size.
 Apply Extraordinary Force
 Keep your opponent confused concerning routes of
attack.
 Plan the impact of the very strong against the
very weak.
 Use the normal force to engage, the extraordinary
to win.
 The combination of the normal and the
extraordinary is an endless cycle of direct and
indirect engagements.

12
Sun Tsu V. Use of Energy

 Coordinate Momentum and Timing

 Your actions must have the energy of momentum and
take place at the most advantageous time.
 Whether there is order amidst apparent confusion
depends upon organization.
 When planning creates favorable circumstances,
you have the advantage of high morale.
 Whether you are weak or strong depends on all the
arrangement you have made.
 All of the strength will come from people alone
the leader must create the situation for victory.
 People must be selected for a task on the basis
of their ability not on nepotism or favoritism.
 The energy created is the combined energy of all
the people and all resources .

13
Sun Tsu VI. Weakness and Strength

 Take the Initiative

 Those who take the field of battle first await
their enemy are at ease. Those who come later to
the scene and rush into the fight are weary.
 Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the
battlefield and are not brought there by their
opponent.
 Either offer some advantage to get the enemy to
your battlefield or do things to prevent the
enemy from coming.
 Plan Surprise
 Consider these actions to surprise and harass
your enemy
 When at ease, make your opponent weary.
 When well fed, starve your opponent.
 When at rest, make your opponent move.
 Appear where your opponent must hasten.
 Move swiftly where not expected.
14
Sun Tsu VI. Weakness and Strength

 Attack
 To take what you attack, attack the unprotected
 Against those skilled in attack, an enemy does
not know where to defend
 Those whose advance is irresistible plunge into
their enemys weak positions

 Defense
 To hold what you defend, defend a place that will
not be attacked
 Against the experts in defense, the enemy does
not know where to attack
 Those who in withdrawal cannot be pursued move so
swiftly they cannot be overtaken

15
Sun Tsu VI. Weakness and Strength

 Gain Relative Superiority

 If I am able to determine my enemys dispositions
while I conceal my own, then
 I can concentrate and my enemy must divide.
 I can use my strength to attack a fraction of my
enemys strength therefore I will be superior.
 The enemy must no know where I intend to give
battle
 If my opponent does not, he must prepare in many
places.
 If my opponent prepares in many places, those I
fight in any one place will be few.
 One who has few must prepare against the enemy
 One who has many makes the enemy prepare against
him

16
Sun Tsu VI. Weakness and Strength

 Seek knowledge
 Those who know where the battle will be fought
can marshal all of their resources to the right
place.
 If one knows neither where nor when the battle
will be fought, his forces will be unable to aid
each other.
 Victory can be created (Even if the enemy is
more numerous, we can prevent him from engaging).
 Determine the enemys plans and we know whether
our strategy will work.
 Stir the enemy up and determine his patterns.
 Probe to learn strengths and weaknesses.

17
Sun Tsu VI. Weakness and Strength
  Be flexible
 When you shape your opponent, do not let him
discern your shape.
 Strategies do not change with the times.
 Change strategies when they become too obvious
 Just as water rushes down and shapes its course
according to the ground, avoid strengths and
strike weaknesses work out victory in relation
to your foe.
 As water has no consistent form, there are no
consistent conditions.
 Because the situation is constantly changing, you
must continually modify your tactics.

18
Sun Tsu VII. Maneuvering

 Maneuver to gain the advantage

 Make the devious route the most direct.
 Turn misfortune into advantage.
 Use deception.
 Make changes to confuse the opponent.
 Achieve the critical mass
 Consider these issues carefully
 Know those with whom you enter into alliances.
 Know the situation and use the help of others who
have had the same experience.
 Gather all your resources and you will be too
late. Advance without enough resources and you
may lose all of them.
 Divide the profits of your venues.

19
Sun Tsu VII. Maneuvering

 Deceive your competitor

 The purpose of deception is not to keep your
opponent from arriving at the same objective
rather, the purpose is to make him arrive too
late to be of any harm.
 Gain the mental advantage
 Preserve your resources for the main effort.
 Do not fight battles you cannot win.
 Adapt quickly to changes in the circumstances.
 Do not do that which your opponent wishes you to
do if for no other reason than he wishes.
 Do not press a desperate opponent too hard.

20
Sun Tsu VIII. Variation of Tactics

 Consider tactical options

 Understand the mission, gather resources, and
concentrate the offensive
 Do not tarry where and advantage cannot be
gained.
 Form alliances when necessary.
  When limited options are available, resort to
strategy.
 Fight when there is no alternative.
 There are
 Business opportunities we should not follow.
 Competitors we should not attack.
 Accounts with whom we should not do business.
 Positions we cannot win.
 Instructions we should not follow.
 Advantages alone are not enough. Whether at the
advantage or disadvantage, always keep in mind
what should be done in the opposite state.
 To gain the advantage, consider what the opponent
would do to gain the advantage.
 Use attorneys and others to make trouble for your
opponent.

21
Sun Tsu VIII. Maneuvering

 Prepare adequate defenses

 Do not rely on the opponent not attacking, but
rather expect that he will and prepare
accordingly.
 Avoid the faults of leadership
 Bravery can lead to recklessness and destruction.
 Being overly cautious leads to cowardice and
default.
 Anger leads to temper with vulnerability to
insults.
 Worry leads to over solicitude and blunders.

22
Sun Tsu IX. On the March

 Occupy Strong natural positions

 Keep close to resources that fortify your
strengths.
 Position yourself so that your opponent has a
disadvantage.
 Try to keep your opponent from taking advantage
of natural strengths that may be available to
him.
 Always seek high ground
 Be concerned for the health of your people.
 Do not occupy imperiled positions let your
opponent do that.
 Fight downhill.

23
Sun Tsu IX. On the March

 Make an Estimate of the Situation

 Watch for signs that tell you what your
opponents doing.
 Study the actions and mood of your opponents
people.
  If your opponent is giving lavish incentives, he
is near the end of his resources.
 Treat every opponent as a threat be careful not
to underestimate.
 Discipline Can Build Allegiance
 Treat your people with harmony.
 Instill a sense of discipline.
 Trust and confidence must be muted otherwise,
it does not exist.

24
Sun Tsu X. Terrain

 Know your Battlefield

 Arrive early and get the best positions.
 In questionable markets, let your competitor
enter first to determine whether opportunity
exists.
 Develop strengths in narrow niche markets.
 Attach only those segments weakly defined.
 Vigorously defend profitable and unique markets.
 Discount markers can be difficult to serve.

25
Sun Tsu X. Terrain

 Obey the laws of leadership

 If the leader attacks strength, he will loose.
 When instructions are clear, everyone will act in
confidence if unclear, every action will be
disorganized.
 When leaders are unable to accurately estimate
the overall situation, the result will be
bankruptcy.

26
Sun Tsu X. Terrain

 Fight Only the Battles you can Win

 Use the strength of natural positions.
 Know how to estimate the strength of your
opponents.
 Be shrewd in calculating dangers and
difficulties.
 It is not enough to know what you should do. You
must also put into practice what you know.
 Do not act on your own self-interest, but rather
in the best interests of your people and
organization.
 Retreat from bad situations.

27
Sun Tsu X. Terrain

 Know Yourself Know Your Opponent

  Knowing yourself is not enough you must also
know where your opponent is strong and where he
is weak.
 Your chances of victory are greatly enhanced when
you attack weaknesses and avoid strengths.

28
Sun Tsu XI. Nine Varieties of Ground

 Choose a Favorable Battleground

 Each opportunity must consider the situation
 Do not fight internally.
 Do not attack or defend where you cannot have the
advantage.
 When you can neither advance or retreat,
concentrate on protecting yourself.
 When progress is difficult, keep on the
offensive.
 When outnumbered, resort to strategy.
 Fight courageously when desperate.

29
Sun Tsu XI. Nine Varieties of Ground

 Shape Your Opponents Strategy

 Do what you can lawfully do to disrupt your
opponents internal communications, cooperation,
morale and cohesion.
 Advance when you can gain an advantage stay
where you are when no advantage can be gained.
 Seize the initiative so you can keep your
opponent on the defensive.
 Speed is essential. Move rapidly and miss no
opportunity.

30
Sun Tsu XI. Nine Varieties of Ground

 Make Victory the Only Option

 The more successful you are, the greater will be
the morale and the more certain will be your
future success.
 Devise winning plans and actively solicit new
resources.
 Make certain the consequences of failure of the
organization are understood.
 Fighting for survival assures unity and develops
its own strength.
 The skillful tactician accepts the attack in one
area and strikes back in another.

31
Sun Tsu XI. Nine Varieties of Ground

 Plan Coordinated Efforts

 Foster actions that encourage internal
cooperation.
  Do not rely on the physical to win victory comes
only from a tenacious team united in purpose.
 Set high standards for performance.
 Utilize the strengths of natural positions.

32
Sun Tsu XI. Nine Varieties of Ground

 Press the Attack

 Keep people united.
 Manage calmly.
 Be just and maintain order.
 Understand there are things not to say publically
because this would aid the opponent.
 Keep the opponent confused.
 Make sure that everyone is motivated to succeed
and avoid failure.
 Learn Winning Ways
 The leader is knowledgeable and concerning
 The plan of allies and competitors.
 The fields of conflict.
 People who can win.
 Always shape your strategy to the situation.

33
Sun Tsu XII. Attack By Fire

 Be Disruptive and Intrusive

 Use the most decisive weapons available to
attack.
 Disrupt your opponent and intrude into that
direction.
 Be an entrepreneur in developing your offensive.
 Consolidate Your Gains
 Reinforce successful efforts and exploit
opportunities that arise.
 Encourage and reward the spirit of enterprise.
 Lay plans carefully and take action.
 Exercise Constraint
 Attack only when you see an advantage.
 Do not expend energy simply to gratify your own
interests.
 Do not attack to satisfy your own anger.
 Losses cannot be recovered.
 Be prudent and do not take rash actions.

34
Sun Tsu XIII. Employment of Secret Agents

 Invest in Intelligence Resources

 A major effort requires major resources. Expect
opposition from those who are burdened by this.
 Do not ignore the rewards and honors that will
help motivate people. Small sums can bring big
results.
 Allocate the resources necessary to gain the
information you will need.
  The cost of unnecessarily prolonged operations
will be much greater than the cost of information
that will help to win quickly.

35
Sun Tsu XIII. Employment of Secret Agents

 Establish an Active Intelligence System

 Good information is critical to success. This
information must come from those who know the
situation.
 Beware of those who can only give opinions. The
baseless information will mislead.
 Develop a network that can provide information.
 Send out people whose only purpose ids to gather
information.
 Invite in all who can be a source of information.
 Look for those special people who may have the
most information about the situation.
 Get all the information that can be lawfully
gleaned from people whom you interview and from
those you then employ.

36
Sun Tsu XIII. Employment of Secret Agents

 Practice Counterintelligence
 Do not do things that can give information to
your opponent.
 Beware the visitor who gratuitously gives you
information concerning your opponent. He may
also be providing information about you to the
other side.

 2,500 Years Old, Still Young

 "The Chinese classics were written in a very general universal style.  They were meant to be
templates for life experiences – templates to be used by anyone, at any time, in any situation. 
The written language of China lends itself well to this phenomenon.  Each character, or
ideogram, is a multidimensional picture of an idea. Each can be looked at from a number of
angles and experienced in a variety of ways.  This mutable quality in the written language
somehow triggers responses that feel personal and timely."1
 The Sun Tzu's The Art of War' is one of the world's best books on strategy and competition. It
was written in app. 500 B.C. and established itself as the leading treatise on confronting and
defeating opponents through superior strategy. For over twenty-five hundred years, it helped
its readers find → Competitive Advantage   using the secrets of Sun Tzu. Its competitive
methods work extremely well. 'The Art of War', the first of the military classic, offers a distinct
philosophy on how to discover the path to success. This philosophy works in any competitive
environment where people find themselves contesting with one another for a specific goal.
 It is a work of subtlety and paradox that shows how to succeed effortlessly in rising to life's
challenges.  Sun Tzu believed that victory is won long before the confrontation and insisted that
 a skilled warrior can observe, calculate and outwit the adversary without ever engaging in
battle.
 "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war,
while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
 "To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To
subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
 "What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in
winning with ease."
 "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious."
 Today, many leading business schools around the world teach their students how to create a
competitive advantage by applying the methods of Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu's The Art of War provided
a strong basis for the Positioning School of strategic management. This school was the
dominant view of strategy formulation in the 1980's.

 → Competitive Strategies: 2 Types

 "The difference between a warrior and an ordinary person is that
the warrior sees everything as a challenge
while an ordinary person sees everything as a blessing or a curse."  ~ Carlos Castaneda

 Excerpts from "The Art of War"

 Going to War
 You can fight a war for a long time or you can make your nation strong. You can't do both.
 Doing the right things at the start of war is like approaching a woman. Your enemy's men must
open the door. After that, you should act like a streaking rabbit. The enemy will be unable to
catch you.

 → Creating Sustainable Profits:  9 Questions To Answer

 Planning
 Your will find a place where you can win. Don't pass it by.
 If the enemy has a strong position, entice him away from it... >>>
 Planning an Attack
 → Surprise To Win: 3 Strategies 
 The best policy is to attack while the enemy is still planning.
 The next best is to disrupt alliances.
 The next best is to attack the opposing army.
 The worst is to attack the enemy's cities.

 → Jack Welch's 5 Strategic Questions

  
        
 Weakness and Strength
 When you form your strategy, know the strengths and weaknesses of your plan.
 When you execute, know how to manage both action and inaction.
 When you take a position, know the deadly and the winning grounds.
 When you battle, know when you have too many of too few men.

 → 3 Strategies  of  Market Leaders  

 Adaptability
 Do not trust that the enemy isn't coming. Trust on your readiness to meet him.
 Do not trust that the enemy won't attack. Rely only on your ability to pick a place that the
enemy can't attack.
 You can deter your potential enemy by using his weaknesses against him.
 You can keep your enemy's army busy by giving it work to do.
 You can rush your enemy by offering him an advantageous position.
 Field Position
 Know your enemy and know yourself – your victory will be painless.
 Know the weather and the field – your victory will be complete.

 → Blue Ocean  vs. Red Ocean Strategy

 Be the first to seize intersecting ground, that is ground which lies the intersections of borders or
intersections of main thoroughfares of commerce and travel. Your occupation of it gives you
access to all who border it and all who would covet it. On intersecting ground, if you establish
alliances you are safe, if you lose alliances you are in peril.
 You don't know the local mountains, forests, hills and marshes? Then you cannot march the
army. You don't have local guides? You won't get any of the benefits of the terrain.
 We cannot enter into informed alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our
neighbors and the plans of our adversaries. When entering enemy territory, in order to lead
your army, you must know the face of the country – its mountains and forests, its pitfalls and
precipices, its marshes and swamps. Without local guides, you are unable to turn to your
account the natural advantages to be obtained from the land. Without local guides, your
enemy employs the land as a weapon against you.
 The relative size of your force as against that of your adversary is by itself of no consequence.
What controls is the relative size of your force at the point where you join in battle. You can
strike with the few and be many if you strike your adversary in his gaps. Seek out places where
the defense is not strict, the place not tightly guarded, the generals weak, the troops disorderly,
the supplies are scarce and the forces are isolated.
  
  

  
 Armed Conflict
  Seeking armed conflict can be disastrous. Because of this, a detour can be the shortest path.
Because of this, problems can become opportunities. Use an indirect route as your highway.
Use the search for advantage to guide you. You must know the detour that most directly
accomplishes your plan.
 Do not let any of your potential enemies know of what you are planning.
 Still, you must not hesitate to form alliances.
 You must know the lay of the land. You must know where the obstructions are. You must know
where the marshes are. If you don't, you cannot move the army.
 So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. Water shapes its
course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his
victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
 You must use local guides. If you don't, you can't take advantage of the terrain.
 You make war using a deceptive position. If you use deception, then you can move. Using
deception, you can upset the enemy and change the situation.
 You must move as quickly as the wind.
 You must rise like the forest.
 You must invade and plunder like fire.
 You must stay as motionless as a mountain.
 You must be as mysterious as the fog.
 You must strike like sounding thunder.
 Knowledge
 What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve
things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.
 Speed
 The value of time, that is of being a little ahead of your opponent, often provides greater
advantage than superior numbers or greater resources.
 The essential factor of military success is speed, that is taking advantage of others'
unpreparedness or lack of foresight, their failure to catch up, going by routes they do not
expect, attacking where they are not on guard. This you cannot accomplish with hesitation.

 Taking Action
 Thus, though I have heard of successful military operations that were clumsy but swift,
cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War (c. 500-300 B.C.)

Credit to Nicholas Morrow, Johns Hopkins University SAIS
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is perhaps the oldest and one of the most widely
read classics of military strategy. Published in ancient China an estimated
2,500 years ago, it has remained “the most important military treatise in
Asia” according to the historian and translator Ralph D. Sawyer.[1] This
classic of Eastern thought draws from Taoist philosophy and addresses the
conduct of war and competition between states with poeticism unlike any
classic of Western military theory. Thought to be the transcriptions of a
general’s advice to his king, The Art of War emphasizes the use of the
unorthodox and deception to overcome adversaries without jeopardizing the
dynasty’s existence during a period of increase lethality of warfare. Since its
ancient origins, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has become one of the most
influential documents on statesmanship and military strategy and is a classic
in the East and West.

Origins of The Art of War

Reading The Art of War today poses unique difficulties because it is as much
a historical artifact as it is a modern strategic guideline. Originally written in
ancient Chinese, the translation of The Art of War is a source of inquiry and
debate for scholars. Since 1905 when British Royal Field Artillery Captain
E.F. Calthrop made the first English translation while a student in Japan,
successive English translations have increasingly sought to add greater
historical and philosophical context. The Art of War was widely read in Asia—
making its way to Japan around A.D. 516 via Korea.[2] Then in 1772 it was
translated from Chinese to a European language (French) for the first time
by the French Jesuit, Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, who came across the text in
Beijing. The Art of War did not gain its popularity in Western Europe though
until Lionel Giles’ 1910 translation.
Today, there are dozens of translations. The most popular include General
Samuel B. Griffith’s classic 1963 edition published by Oxford University Press
and Ralph D. Sawyer’s 1994 edition renowned for his research of Sun Tzu’s
historical context. The number of translations can bewilder just about any
reader and the cause of their differences represent a unique challenge.
Arthur Waldron addresses the importance of debating the value of each
translations’ contributions to the study of Sun Tzu in a Naval War College
Review article of J.H. Huang’s 1993 translation. Waldron notes that,
translation, “is more than a matter of philological or semantic quibbling. It
brings us to one of the fundamental questions about Chinese ‘strategic
culture.’”[3] The matter of which translation to read is therefore not a simple
question. This article will reference the Griffith translation when citing
from The Art of War but will list other translations that have contributed to
an understanding of Chinese strategic culture in the bibliography with the
objective being to encourage readers to review multiple translations.
Yet another source of difficulty for understanding Sun Tzu’s original intent is
his yet undetermined identity and time in which he lived. There are three
major views explaining the historic origin of The Art of War largely based on
an interpretation of internal evidence and anachronisms found in the text,
according to Ralph D. Sawyer.[4] The first is the traditionalist view that The
Art of War was written c. 512 B.C. by the historical Sun Wu, active in the
last years of the Spring and Autumn period (c. 722-481 B.C.). Second,
scholars that include Samuel Griffith place The Art of War at the middle-to-
late Warring States period (c. 481-221 B.C.), just after the Spring and
Autumn period.[5] The transition from the Spring and Autumn period to the
Warring States period is characterized by the change in warfare from a ritual
engaged in for honor to one of China’s most chaotic periods of conflict
among declining hegemons in which “war was no longer a regulated
pastime, but the ultimate instrument of statecraft,” according to Griffith.
[6] Finally a third school claims on the basis of interpretations of the bamboo
slips discovered at Yin-ch’ueh-shan in A.D. 1972 that The Art of War was
published in the last half of the fifth century B.C.[7] Further, scholars
speculate as to whether the author of The Art of War is a General from these
time periods or the work is a compilation produced by his acolytes. As
controversial as these questions are among historians, the circumstances of
Sun Tzu’s chronology are addressed to the extent generally necessary for
appreciating the originality of Sun Tzu’s concepts by the extensive
introductions and appendices of the most popular translations.
While one does not have to be a Sinologist or scholar of Eastern philosophy
to appreciate The Art of War, a basic contextual understanding of the time in
which Sun Tzu lived is beneficial for understanding his intent. Regardless of
the view on when The Art of War was written, the late Spring and Autumn
period or early Warring States period, Sun Tzu lived in a time of great
transition in China.  The translators of the two most popular editions of The
Art of War agree on this. In The Tao of Deception, Ralph D. Sawyer writes
that The Art of War was, “composed against a backdrop of multiparty,
internecine strife.”[8] Similarly, Samuel Griffith (who places The Art of War’s
origins in the period of c. 400-320 B.C.[9]) writes that, “war had become
more ferocious” and, “when Sun Tzu appeared on the scene, the feudal
structure, in the ultimate stages of disintegration, was being replaced by an
entirely different type of society.”[10] As a sort of modern day National
Security Advisor, Sun Tzu (which translates as Master Sun) would have been
trusted to advance his king’s goals without risking the existence of his
regime among a violent, multi-state system. Today, strategists benefit from
the basic agreement among scholars that The Art of War is the product of a
respected ancient Chinese military advisor during a time of intense
competition between multi-polar warring states that endangered their own
existence through conflict.
The Art of War is sometimes called the ‘thirteen chapters’ because it
comprises thirteen major sections. Its structure and format are unique from
that of any Western classic. The chapters are presumably the transcribed
aphorisms of Sun Tzu to his king or acolytes. In terse and enigmatic quips,
the thirteen chapters span topics from statecraft to the methods for
marching an army. Their breadth, from the grand strategic to tactical, in
such a short text, lends them to expansive interpretations that pose a
challenge for most Western readers seeking to understand Sun Tzu’s original
intent. Also, as with any disputed translation, the titles of the thirteen
chapters vary from translation to translation, further opening the text up to
interpretation. Griffith and Sawyer interpret The Art of War’s structure and
evident attention to every facet of war to show Sun Tzu’s recognition of
warfare’s increase capacity for the destruction of the state. Such a rational
and wide scope on all aspects of warfare and statecraft would not be
necessary in earlier times when war did not endanger the existence of the
state. Sun Tzu’s recognition of the changing consequences of war is evident
in the first chapter, Estimates, which begins, “war is a matter of vital
importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or
ruin.”[11] The Art of War presents a doctrine that emerges as the result of
the intense competition for the state’s survival and emphasizes the use of
unorthodox warfare, known as ch’i, in relation to cheng, or the orthodox
style of direct warfare commonly associated with Western strategy.
Major Themes: Realpolitik and Deception
Sun Tzu’s emphasis on the unorthodox (also known as the indirect
approach) introduces an element of psychology in warfare that
distinguishes The Art of War from most other military classics. Henry
Kissinger, likened Chinese statesmanship’s, “tendency to view the entire
strategic landscape as part of a single whole” to Sun Tzu’s recognition that,
“everything is relevant and connected.”[12] Approaching The Art of War with
Kissinger’s framework in mind helps explain the larger meaning of Sun Tzu’s
chapters on minor topics—weather, terrain, spies, logistics, and morale—
which independently mean little. Establishing their connected and shifting
relative importance to one another is Sun Tzu’s most important insight,
according to Kissinger. Once the interconnectedness of everything in warfare
is established, success depends on the accuracy of the strategist’s calculus
weighing each component’s relative importance and war becomes an effort
to deceive your enemies into arriving at incorrect solutions—not just a battle
of the wills as depicted by some interpretations of the Western way of
war. The Art of War’s thirteen chapters present a guideline for deceiving an
opponent in warfare on the basis of Sun Tzu’s insight—that warfare depends
on rationality.
The main characteristics of The Art of War that make it a foundational text
of realpolitik are the analytical nature and rational self-control with which
Sun Tzu advises the employment of military power. “His entire approach to
employing the army is thoroughly analytical, mandating careful planning and
the formulation of an overall strategy before commencing the campaign,”
writes Ralph D. Sawyer.[13] Sun Tzu’s measured plan for warfare extends to
control over emotions that he states can cloud rationality to the detriment of
the commander. Sawyer explains, “haste, fear of being labeled a coward,
and personal emotions such as anger and hatred should never be permitted
to adversely influence state and command decisionmaking.”[14] In contrast,
the expectation for emotion in warfare from the classic Western military
strategist, Carl von Clausewitz’s, paradoxical trinity is that emotion is ever
present in conflict and is neither inherently positive nor negative.[15]
The Art of War focuses on disrupting an enemy’s ability for rational behavior
using manipulation in order to create the conditions for an easy victory and
the minimal use of military force to achieve national ends. Sun Tzu’s
attention to influencing his enemy’s decisions is foundational to his method
of warfare. “What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is
the emphasis on the psychological elements over the purely military,” wrote
Henry Kissinger in On China. [16] The means by which Sun Tzu advises this
are, “deception, the creation of false appearances to mystify and delude the
enemy, the indirect approach, ready adaptability to the enemy situation,
flexible and coordinated manoeuver of separate combat elements, and
speedy concentration against points of weakness,” according to Samuel
Griffith.[17] These themes are discussed in chapters that detail tactics and
operations—the route of the army’s march, the formation of archers, the
collection of intelligence. Each, though, are done in a manner in which to
deceive and gain a psychological advantage over the opponent.
The dual theme of deception and espionage is prevalent throughout The Art
of War. On one side, "all warfare is based on deception," said Sun Tzu in the
first chapter, Estimates.[18] The assumption is that warfare is a constant
appraisal of your enemy and success comes from capitalizing on your
enemy’s incorrect estimates. “Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity;
when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away;
when far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign
disorder and strike him,” continues Sun Tzu.[19] A key component of an
estimate is the collecting of information to inform decisions. Along these
lines, Sun Tzu devotes an entire chapter to espionage. Sun Tzu describes
five types of agents used to both deceive an enemy and collect accurate
information in order to overcome your adversary’s efforts to deceive you.
Their purpose is to provide “foreknowledge,” information about an
adversary’s plans in advance, and to conduct disinformation campaigns
behind enemy lines—operations very similar to today’s intelligence collection
and covert action operations. Sun Tzu calls these agents: “native, inside,
doubled, expendable, and living.”[20] Each type of agent has a separate
purpose and would be employed independently to vary the sources of
collection and confirm information. His advice for using espionage to a
commander’s advantage is one of the earliest and most sophisticated
treatments of the subject and shows the importance of information and
rational decision making for Sun Tzu.
The unorthodox is second major theme of The Art of War. Sun Tzu is
recognized as the progenitor of what is called ch’i, herein, and known
respectively as the indirect approach or unorthodox method by Samuel
Griffith and Ralph D. Sawyer. Ch’i is an ancient Taoist philosophical concept
with an almost mystical role in ancient Chinese history. Sawyer
defines ch’i as, “the unusual, unexpected, marvelous, strange, heterodox,
and sometimes eccentric.”[21] The pairing of these two methods, by using
for example, a direct, frontal assault to distract the enemy from the indirect,
flanking maneuver is done to keep your opponent off balance. “He who
knows the art of the direct and the indirect approach will be victorious. Such
is the art of maneuvering,” Sun Tzu is quoted saying in The Art of War.
[22] Executing ch’i is the ultimate reason for the deception, espionage, and
manipulation Sun Tzu advises and it is done by manipulating an enemy for
the purpose of surprising and exploiting a confused enemy force. Sun Tzu
describes how to achieve this in his chapter on manoeuver, “march by an
indirect route and divert the enemy by enticing him with a bait. So doing,
you may set out after he does and arrive before him. One able to do this
understands the strategy of the direct and the indirect.”[23] Such operations
achieve the goal of tiring your enemy and forcing them to fight on ground
that is to your advantage. Here, in Sun Tzu’s example of ch’i, he explains
the purpose of deception.
The challenge of command is another major theme of The Art of War. Sun
Tzu lived during a time of heightened stakes in warfare that necessitated the
professionalization of the military and its leadership. Effective management
of the army came to be a focal point of Sun Tzu’s advice. “The critical
element is spirit, technically known as ch’i—the essential, vital energy of
life,” writes Sawyer.[24] (The Romanized spelling and pronunciation of this
word is the same as the unorthodox/indirect approach but has a different
meaning.) This spirit will enable the troops to fight harder and depends on
materiel provisions as well as the leadership’s clarity of purpose. Command
was a combination of fear and respect. “If a general indulges his troops but
is unable to employ them; if he loves them but cannot enforce his
commands; if the troops are disorderly and he is unable to control them,
they may be compared to spoiled children, and are useless,” The Art of
War quotes Sun Tzu saying.[25] This warning and Sun Tzu’s theory of
command relates to an anecdote from his biography in the histories of Ssu-
ma Ch'ien. It is written there that when Sun Tzu came to the attention of
King of Wu, Sun Tzu said he could train the king’s concubines to fight. He
then called out the concubines and trained them by executing the leaders
when the group did not obey his orders.[26] This story intimates the culture
of command Sun Tzu established during a time when warfare called for swift
victories delivered by fearless soldiers and a leader that emphasized the
psychology of warfare. 
Influence: Historical and Modern
The Art of War is the most widely known of China’s military classics and has
had formative significance for both ancient and modern China’s statecraft
and military strategy. The idea that China, or any other country, has a
common understanding of strategy based on its collective historical
experience is known as ‘strategic culture.’ Originally introduced with
reference to the Soviet Union’s nuclear strategy by Jack L. Snyder in a 1977
RAND report titled, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited
Nuclear Operations, Snyder defined strategic culture as, “the sum total of
ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior
that members of a national strategic community have acquired through
instruction or imitation and share with each other with regard to nuclear
strategy.”[27] Since, the concept of strategic culture has been applied to
China’s strategic literature. Strategic culture is more broadly understood to
be, “a historically imposed inertia on choice that makes strategy less
responsive to specific contingencies,” according to Alastair Iain Johnston.
[28] As a part of the canon of China’s strategic literature, The Art of War is
indisputably a part of China’s strategic culture and understanding this
ancient classic’s meaning has gained new importance for students of China’s
modern military modernization who believe that culture has an influence
over military operations.[29]
At the foundation of Chinese strategic culture is the collection of what are
often referred to as China’s seven military classics. Originally published over
a time period of an estimated 1,500 years, these classics are comprised of:
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Wu Qi’s Art of War,[30] T’ai Kong's Six Secret
Teachings, The Methods of the Ssu-ma, Wei Liaozi, Three Strategies of
Huang Shih-kung, and Questions and Replies between Tang Taizong and Li
Weigong. Together, they constitute the basis for the study of the historic
origins of Chinese strategic culture. The seven military classics are
recognized by China’s premier defense university, the Academy of Military
Sciences, as central to the identity of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Thomas G. Mahnken notes in a Lowy Institute for International Policy report
he authored titled, Secrecy and Stratagem: Understanding Chinese Strategic
Culture, that, “most Chinese military leaders believe that ancient Chinese
values and warfighting principles remain relevant today... PLA military
handbooks routinely refer to battles fought 4,000 years ago as object
lessons, and PLA leaders seek guidance from 2,500-year-old writings for
modern operations. Indeed, even today, Chinese officers freely distribute
translations of the Chinese military classics to their hosts.”[31] As Mahnken
shows here, the enduring lessons of China’s seven military classics are still
recognized by not only Western academics, but the PLA’s own scholars of
China’s strategic culture.
The Art of War is the most recognized, if not the most significant contributor,
to China’s strategic culture of the seven military classics. The predominance
of Sun Tzu’s concepts is attributed by scholars to the founder of the People’s
Republic of China, Mao Tse-tung’s adoption of The Art of War’s concepts in
his military writings. Even though there are parallels between The Art of
War and Mao’s revolutionary writings, Johnston and Sawyer have both
sought to add historical context to China’s strategic culture, however. Griffith
alludes to a false tendency to assume that because The Art of War appears
to have influenced Maoism, that Chinese strategic culture is a monolithic
continuation from ancient times until today. In fact, Taoist philosophy, and
with it Sun Tzu and The Art of War, fell out of the favor during Confucianism
and this classic was lost until its ‘rediscovery’ by Mao Tse-Tung during the
war against China’s nationalists in the 1930s. Alastair Iain Johnston further
challenges what he writes is, “the tendency of the literature is to focus
almost exclusively on Sun Zi (an alternate spelling for Sun Tzu), compare
him with Mao, and assume that an unbroken strategic-cultural chain links
the two.”[32] Again, it would appear, that both Sawyer and Johnston are
urging readers to be aware of historical context while still recognizing Sun
Tzu’s role in influencing the ethos of the modern day People’s Republic of
China.
Western culture, with its foundation in Greek and Roman conceptions of
morality, is often stereotyped as rejecting the style of unorthodox warfare
Sun Tzu recommends. The deception it requires is viewed as cowardly and
belittles the pride exuded by direct, kinetic-intense conflict. This traditional
view of the Western way of war, though popular, again does not present a
monolith of Western strategic culture, either. Ralph D. Sawyer points out
Maurice’s Strategikon (c. B.C. 600) as an example of a Western text that
advises how to deceive your enemy. Machiavelli, as well, is known for
advocating “ruthless prosecution of warfare and esteeming the use of
deception in The Discourses and The Prince,” writes Sawyer.[33] The debate
over the morality that surrounds these classics emphasizes the West’s
disdain for the techniques of deception they advocate, however. So, while
deception has always been a part of the Western way of warfare, long before
Sun Tzu’s influence was felt, it has a legacy few Western strategists accept.
One of the central disagreements between those that accept deception and
those that do not is over whether or not to accept Sun Tzu’s main
assumption that success in warfare depends on rationality. Assuming that
war can be rationalized through planning differs with Western expectations
for warfare found in Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity in which war has
“dominant tendencies” to include, “violence, hatred, and enmity” that,
“always make war.”[34] Having acknowledged the inconsistency of this
oversimplified comparison above, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz represent differing
basic assumptions with respect to their expectations for warfare and the
humility of strategizing.
Today we can trace the reverberations of Sun Tzu’s concepts to the modern
fields of intelligence analysis, net assessment, decision-making theory, and
‘soft’ national power. Recognizing the concepts of The Art of War in the
Western practice of these disciplines can improve our practical
understanding of Sun Tzu’s enigmatic writing. As an example, Sun Tzu might
say these fields all seek to, “know the enemy and know yourself,” so that,
“in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.”[35] This aphorism remains
true in modern warfare; at some level, these disciplines all seek to
understand the strategic culture of an adversary. For some of these
disciplines, the advent of “disruptive technologies, such as the gift of flight,
eventually forced a reevaluation of theory and led to a rediscovery of sixth-
century B.C. theory attributed to Sun Tzu,” writes Mark Blomme.[36] He
continues, “modern theorists like Julian Corbett, John Boyd, John Warden,
and Shimon Naveh extended Sun Tzu’s concepts, perhaps unwittingly, such
that Sun Tzu’s theory continues to resonate within the twenty-first-century
American theory of warfare.”[37] By looking at the influence of Sun Tzu’s
concepts upon these disciplines we can also begin to see how Western
culture has addressed Sun Tzu’s concepts in its own, independent terms
rather than in the framework of a competition between realpolitik and
Greco-Roman heritage.
Among those in Western culture that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has had long-
lasting influence is the field of espionage and intelligence. The creation of the
Central Intelligence Agency established a new era of intelligence for which
Sun Tzu’s emphasis on knowing the enemy became a raison d'etre. Allen
Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953-1961,
compared the pragmatism of Sun Tzu’s emphasis on what Sun Tzu calls
“foreknowledge” and intelligence gathering to early attempts at gaining
advance warning from oracles and astrologers in the first chapter of his
book, The Craft of Intelligence. “But in the craft of intelligence the East was
ahead of the West in 400 B.C. Rejecting the oracles and the seers, who may
well have played an important role in still epochs of Chinese history, Sun Tzu
takes a more practical view,” wrote Dulles. [38] He continues, “To Sun Tzu
belongs the credit not only for this remarkable analysis of the ways of
espionage but also for the first written recommendations regarding an
organized intelligence service… He comments on counterintelligence, on
psychological warfare, on deception, on security, on fabricators, in short, on
the whole craft of intelligence.”[39] Dulles’ regard for Sun Tzu, whose
analytical approach to war and treatment of covert action, is reflected in the
guiding principles of what has now become the U.S. intelligence community.
Conclusion
As the most recognized of China’s military classics and the earliest
proponent of the unorthodox in military strategy, The Art of War is a classic
in the East and West. This ancient document with convoluted origins and
enigmatic advice has become a guide for modern strategists seeking an
unorthodox approach to the existential consequences of conflict today. Sun
Tzu’s increase lethality of warfare harbored the risk of existential threat to
the state only more present today given the mechanization of warfare and
advent of nuclear weapons. B.H. Liddell Hart, a modern proponent of the
unorthodox, assures readers that Sun Tzu remains relevant today even
given advances in warfare’s mechanization and the collapse of countries
witnessed during his lifetime in the world wars. He extolls The Art of War as,
“the best short introduction to the study of warfare, and no less valuable for
constant reference in extending study of the subject.”[40] Written over
2,500 years ago, The Art of War provides a unique insight into war today.