The Art of War

Laying Plans

War is a matter of life and death – for individuals and for entire states. This is why nothing should be left to chance. Rather, you should answer several questions: Do the people stand behind their ruler? Will the climate and terrain favor victory? Is the general wise, credible, brave and rigorous? Are troops and logistics well-organized and roles and responsibilities clearly defined? Did you use the art of deception on your opponent? The latter is particularly important: who is able should feign inability, who is nearby should pretend to be far away, and who is ready to fight should appear to be timid and cautious.

Waging War

Your goal must be swift victory. Unnecessarily prolonged warfare tires out your soldiers, exhausts all resources and fuels domestic unrest. A wise leader recruits troops but once. He brings along supplies from home but feeds his people on enemy territory. Food from the enemy is 20 times more valuable than provisions that your own population has to account for, and the enemy will be weakened by the looting. Courage should reap rewards: Therefore, who takes the first chariot in a fight receives a prize.

Attack by Stratagem

It is better to take a country intact than to destroy it. To capture an army in one piece is more advantageous than to annihilate it. A wise leader first tries to thwart the enemy’s plans, then to prevent the enemy’s forces from reuniting and only attacks the enemy’s army on the field after the first two attempts have failed. The worst policy, to be employed as a last resort, is the siege of walled cities.

“All warfare is based on deception.”

Your strategy in war depends on the size of your forces. If your troops exceed the enemy’s by ten to one, surround him; if your advantage is five to one, attack him; if you are twice as strong, divide his army in two; and if you are equally matched, go into battle. Should you be weaker, however, take a defensive position; and should you be greatly outnumbered, avoid the confrontation entirely. A successful general is always well-informed about the strengths and weaknesses of his own as well as the enemy’s forces, and his people are united by a common will and goal.

Tactical Dispositions

The able leader worries first about defense and only then about attack: After all, he has power over his own invincibility but not over the defeat of the enemy. He puts his army in such a position that it can’t be defeated, securing victory even before going into battle. Soldiers have to attack with a force that is like dammed-up water rushing down the abyss from great heights.

Energy

Your potential in battle is comparable to the five musical notes, primary colors and cardinal tastes: It is just as limitless in modulation, shading and variation as the possible interplay between unexpected and regular maneuvers. You build up capacity like you draw a crossbow – and use it like you pull the trigger. Even amid the chaos of battle, the general must pay attention to a tidy lineup. He baits the enemy by seeming to invite him into battle, in order to then ambush him with his own men, using their combined energy like logs or stones rolling down a steep slope.

Weak and Strong Points

The proficient general enters the battlefield calmly and waits for the enemy to arrive. He sets his opponent in motion by promising him a victory. But while his own men are well-rested, the enemy’s troops arrive on the battlefield overtired and famished, having to face the fight in a weakened state. Always keep the whereabouts and objectives of your own men hidden, in order to force the enemy to prepare for the unexpected. Ideally, this will make his troops disintegrate into many small units, which you can easily overpower with a closed unit.

“It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war [who] can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.”

A general using the art of disguise can claim victory with a troop that is outnumbered by the enemy. The ideal formation gives the impression of being formless. Compare it to water: Just as it adapts to the territory it invades, a constantly changing army adjusts fully to the enemy. It avoids heights and gravitates toward lows, pushing into empty instead of crowded spaces.

Maneuvering

The true art of war means recognizing winding paths as straight roads and turning an unfavorable starting point into your own advantage. The prospect of winning can entice your enemy to hasten on his way and march at different speeds, thus compromising the unity of his troops. Gongs, drums, banners, flags and torches maintain unity by focusing the eyes and ears of many men on a single goal.

“In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

A wise general attacks when his opponent’s morale has reached rock bottom, preferable at night when soldiers want nothing more than to return to camp. He thwarts their courage and energy by responding to every situation with the exact opposite: Disorder is countered by order and fatigue by vigor. The eight rules of a military operation include:

1. Don’t advance uphill against the enemy.
2. Never oppose him when he comes downhill.
3. Don’t pursue him when he pretends to take flight.
4. Avoid fighting elite troops.
5. Don’t swallow the enemy’s bait.
6. Don’t prevent an army from retreating.
7. When you have surrounded the enemy, leave an open escape route.
8. Don’t push a desperate foe too hard.

Variation in Tactics

In war, the sovereign entrusts his command to the general, so that the man on the field makes his own decisions by weighing the pros and cons of the current conditions in battle. Several rules apply: Avoid difficult and unsecured terrain. Meet with allies where your paths intersect. Seek a way out when your troops are surrounded. Face the battle when it’s a matter of life or death. Consider whether there is a point to attacking particular armies or countries and besieging certain towns. As a leader, avoid five great sins:

1. Recklessness – It leads to ruin.
2. Cowardice – It results in capture.
3. Unrestrained temper – It is easily provoked.
4. Exaggerated concern for honor – It attracts insults.
5. Excessive concern for your people – It leads to unnecessary scruples.

The Army on the March

When in the mountains, you should pass through the valleys and put up camp in high places facing south, and never fight an army positioned above you. Avoid fighting on or near rivers, and don’t spend any more time than necessary in salt flats and wetlands. The same is true for all rough terrain including depressions, confined places, pits, quagmires and crevasses: Get away from them fast, and then keep your distance. When the enemy’s troops approach such a terrain, wait, see and attack as soon it is at their back.

“Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.”

Beware all densely overgrown areas, because this is where spies and men lurk in ambush. When trees rustle, birds rise and startled beasts take flight; expect a sudden attack. You can even tell by the way the sand moves how the enemy is advancing. Learn how to interpret even the slightest signs: Enemy soldiers leaning on their weapons are hungry. Birds gathering at one spot means that it’s safe. An inordinate amount of rewards and punishment means that the enemy is in dire straights. A good general wins his soldiers’ respect and attachment before punishing them, yet he will also enforce punishments when they have become attached to him. Without submission, soldiers are useless.

Terrain

Adapt your tactics to six kinds of terrain:

1. “Accessible ground” – Occupy the raised and sunny spots before the enemy, thus fighting from a vantage point.
2. “Entangling ground” – Only press ahead and attack when the enemy is unprepared. Otherwise, if you fail to defeat him, you will be unable to retreat.
3. “Temporizing ground” – Don’t make the first move. Instead bait the enemy into coming out, and then deliver your attack from a vantage point.
4. “Narrow passes” – If you get to them first, you should strongly garrison them and wait for the enemy. If he gets there first, don’t pursue him.
5. “Precipitous heights” – Occupy the highest grounds if you get to them first. Retreat and entice the enemy away if he has pre-empted you.
6. “Positions at a great distance from the enemy” – In this case, it is hard to provoke a battle. So a confrontation wouldn’t be advantageous for you.

The Nine Situations

On your own territory, your army finds it easy to disperse, so avoid a fight. When you have just penetrated into hostile territory, retreat is easy, so don’t stop for long. Where the ground offers advantages to both sides, don’t attack. Open ground allows easy maneuver, so don’t linger. Borderlands and crossroads are ideal for joining with allies, so occupy them quickly. If deep in hostile territory, you are on serious ground that is hard to resupply, so plunder. Mountain forests, passes, gorges and marshes are difficult grounds. Get away from them as quickly as possible. When trapped on desperate grounds where retreat is difficult or impossible, fight unconditionally.

“Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks [and] numerical strength from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.” ”

If you, the general, want your men to do their best, put them in a hopeless situation. Don’t reveal the true nature of your plans; leave officers and soldiers in the dark. Drive them like a shepherd drives a flock of sheep, and use the advantages of terrain by employing local guides familiar with it. Lead your army as if it were a single man, surprising your soldiers with unexpected rewards and unorthodox orders.

The Attack by Fire

Dry and windy weather are ideal for using fire to attack people, supplies, armaments, stores and supply lines. Always lay the fire with your back turned to the wind. Never lose sight of your strategic objective: procuring a sustained advantage for your realm. Rage and revenge are no reason to wage war.

The Use of Spies

It is only human to use spies in order to gather prior knowledge about your opponent. After all, wars devour huge amounts of resources and greatly hurt the economy. The state therefore saves a lot money when it gets its hands on important information by awarding titles, salaries and rewards. You can recruit local spies among the enemy from ordinary people or insider spies from within the civil service. Using converted spies means getting a hold of your enemy’s spies and employing them in your service. By sending a doomed spy to your opponent with erroneous information, you seal that person’s death warrant – because as soon as the truth is revealed, the enemy will kill the lying messenger.

“Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.”

Finally, the surviving spy returns to his sender with the desired information. The converted spy is critical to your entire information-gathering operation: He allows for the useful employment of local and insider spies, and that’s why he should reap the greatest rewards. No one deserves greater merit in his striving for a state’s welfare than a successful spy. If an informer is revealed, however, he and everyone privy to the operation must be put to death immediately.

Structure and Style

The Art of War booklet, with a little less than 6,000 Chinese characters in the original version, is divided into 13 chapters, a structure put in place several hundred years after the book was written. This is why the text seems like a colorful patchwork quilt that a number of different weavers and tailors assembled at various times. A thin narrative strand holds formulaic sayings and principles together, some passages repeat themselves at different spots, and sometimes the common thread gets lost entirely. Yet within each of the patches you find that a perfectly logical case is made: When there is X, then follow Y. The message is that military victory follows ironclad laws. Presumably most of the guiding principles of war were passed on orally for decades before someone wrote them down; many feature figurative language and illustrative comparisons. For instance, the impact of an army is likened to “a grindstone dashed against an egg [which] is effected by the science of weak points and strong.”

Interpretation

• Many people have mistaken Sun Tzu for a pacifist. Sun Tzu saw war as an intellectual challenge, always favoring tactical considerations over the desire for vengeance and plunder. Yet he wrote an unscrupulous guide on how to win a war using a minimum of resources, which has little to do with pacifism.

• Pragmatism trumps morals: Sun Tzu advocated avoiding long wars of attrition, treating prisoners of war kindly, using all the tricks of the book in espionage, leading your own army with a heavy hand and deceiving the enemy as well as your own subordinates. His advice is based on a rational trade-off between benefits and harms. The only thing that counts is to gain power – leaving no room whatsoever for moral considerations, knightly virtues, retribution or atonement.

• The work follows a Taoist world view. It calls for adapting to the natural course of events. Like yin and yang, seemingly opposite forces may actually be complementary and interrelated with each other: There’s no fullness without emptiness, no order without disorder and no life without death.

• The laws of physics apply to military strategy: Just like water shuns heights and strives toward lows, armies should evade fullness and thrust into emptiness. Catchy allegories of this sort have inspired Sun Tzu’s modern-age disciples to derive success strategies for nearly all walks of life, whether in business, on the golf course or in the battle of the sexes.

• He who knows himself and the enemy has victory in the bag: Sun Tzu reduces success and failure to predictable and easily digestible formulas. Leadership thus becomes a game of chess. Yet how predictable is a human being? What do you do when the chess pieces start flying aimlessly off the board? Modern behavioral sciences raise considerable doubts that this almost 2,500-year-old military pamphlet is really as timeless and universally valid as some people suggest.

Bourgeois Revolution in China

In China, the so-called Spring and Autumn period (circa 722–476 BC) launched a time of economic and political upheaval, which significantly gained momentum in the Warring States period (476–221 BC). The catalyst for those changes were technological innovations in agriculture and craftsmanship: Iron tools, artificial irrigation systems and the ox-drawn plow increased productivity. The Chinese were using effective plowshares as early as in the third century BC – the same types that weren’t known in Europe until the late Middle Ages. Land ownership was privatized, which led to a thriving class of rich farmers, craftsmen and merchants living independently of the nobility cloistered in big walled cities. Philosophy and sciences were flourishing, too. Confucius (551–479 BC) formulated his ideas on human order and harmony, Sun Tzu (circa 534–453 BC) dedicated himself to the art of warfare, and Laozi is believed to have founded Taoism – the teaching of the Right Way – around the same time. With the power of the Zhou dynasty waning, the feudal lords appointed themselves kings and began to fight for hegemony in China. The larger and more powerful states annexed smaller ones, until – from more than 100 small statelets – seven powerful principalities emerged. Now, for the first time ever, the peasants in the rapidly increasing infantries were crucial for success, replacing the noble drivers of chariots in importance. Moreover, a meritocratic system began to assert itself: The ranks of civil servants and officers were no longer inherited, but rather awarded on the basis of merit and performance. Eventually, the unification of China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC ended a tumultuous period in Chinese history.

Development

The Art of War probably had several authors who contributed to the work in the fourth and third century BC. The oldest elements consist of military slogans and aphorisms that Sun Tzu transcribed from the vernacular. The dialogue parts point to the style most common during the times of Confucius – and other fragments to the waning of the Warring States period. They all raise one and the same question: what to do when time-honored truths, one after the other, get obliterated and the world seems to sink into war and chaos? In the so-called Hundred Schools of Thought era, numerous scholars worked on new values and social orders. Many of them doubted the merits of war. Philosophers like Confucius, his most important successor Mencius (also Mengzi) (circa 370–290 BC) and the pacifist Mozi (circa 470–391 BC) strove to stress the importance of civil matters over military ones. While wars kept increasing in numbers – and military methods and equipment became ever more sophisticated – the battling rulers looked for ways to rationalize, legalize and professionalize the art of war. Sun Tzu and his acolytes provided the template for this quest, presenting a rational, rule-based system to a society that, deep down, continued to be obsessed with frightening demons and eerie spirits.

Reviews and Legacy

The Art of War is the oldest and most famous piece of military writing in the world. Its success story is unparalleled: In China, Sun Tzu is thought to be the only great thinker of his time who survived the turbulent millennia nearly unscathed. China’s 20th-century leader Mao Zedong, for example, vilified Confucianism as feudal and reactionary, yet was an ardent fan of Sun Tzu. During the Chinese Civil War, he is said to have sent his aides into enemy territory only to find him a copy of the booklet. In more recent times, Chinese rulers like to bring their ancient strategist into play in their effort to brand themselves as peace-loving soft powers. In 2006, then Chinese president Hu Jintao handed a silk copy to his US counterpart George W. Bush – which many interpreted as a not-too-subtle dig at Bush’s failed military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.