AUTHOR: SUN TZU (ATTRIBUTED TO)
DATE: C. SIXTH–THIRD CENTURY BC
The Art of War is the earliest known treatise on military tactics, attributed to Sun Tzu (‘Master Sun’), who was traditionally thought to have lived in the sixth century during China’s Spring and Autumn Period (named after the Spring and Autumn Annals, a classic work documenting the period 722–481 BC). However, there are significant questions as to the author’s identity and many scholars consider the text was likely written at a later date. What is more certain is that The Art of War has been a vastly influential work in terms of martial strategy, both in Asia and, in more recent centuries, across the world. The first and perhaps greatest volume on military science, the many lessons it offers have been extrapolated for use in other disciplines too, from sport and business to personal development.
The work is divided into thirteen chapters, each focusing on a different skillset, for instance detailing approaches to terrain, espionage, planning an attack, starting a battle, moving troops and attacking with fire. According to Sima Qian’s first century BC Records of the Grand Historian, a work widely understood to be The Art of War was in circulation by around 500 BC and attributed to Sun Wu, a military theorist who apparently fled his own state of Qi in favour of the kingdom of Wu. Wu’s king, it was said, read Sun Wu’s work and admired it greatly, crediting it with training even the ‘dainty ladies’ of the court in the ways of war. The parallels between Sun Wu and Sun Tzu are obvious. However, there is little else in the historical record to support Sima Qian’s account, which has led some historians to speculate that the volume was actually written as late as the fourth century BC, perhaps by an author named Sun Bin, during the turbulent Warring States Period.
Many of the tactics described are simple and timeless. Yet for all that they might seem obvious, they are none the less powerful for that. Tried and tested over millennia, the genius of Sun Tzu (or whoever the author may be) is that he formally recognized their power so long ago. Underpinning the treatise are principles that may be paraphrased as: prepare properly and strike when you are strong and your enemy is weak. ‘There are five essentials for victory,’ the book states. ‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army has the same spirit regardless of rank. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.’
Numerous of The Art of War’s instructions and nuggets of advice have become accepted as fundamental tenets of the lexicon of war. Take, for example, the adage: ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’ Or the admonition not to rest on one’s laurels but always to be developing new approaches: ‘You do not win in battle the same way twice.’
BOWLED OVER
When it comes to American Football and the National Football League, there has never been a more celebrated coach than Bill Belichick, winner of six Super Bowls as head coach of the New England Patriots. His coaching philosophy, he has publicly stated, is based on The Art of War, and the Patriots’ locker-room is emblazoned with one of its quotations: ‘Every battle is won before it is fought.’ ‘You can go all the way back to a few hundred years BC, Sun Tzu, The Art of War,’ he has said. ‘Attack weaknesses, utilize strengths and figure out what the strengths are on your team. There are some things you have to protect. Find the weaknesses of your opponent, and attack.’
Another vital component of the underlying philosophy is that, ideally, war should be avoided. Conflict, the book says, should always be the last resort, turned to only when all diplomatic avenues have been exhausted. Then, it is the job of military leaders to plan and fight thoughtfully and strategically so as to minimize the damage caused and the resources exhausted. It is easy to see why such ideas still resonate so strongly today. ‘Troops that bring the enemy to heel without fighting at all – that is ideal,’ Sun Tzu urged.
If indeed the Wu king was won over by The Art of War, he was only the first of many. In 1080, when the book was already some fifteen hundred years old, the Song emperor Shenzong formally adopted it into the Chinese literary canon, naming it as one of the ‘Seven Military Classics’. To win promotion to certain imperial positions, it was required reading alongside the likes of the Analects of Confucius.
Nor was the fame of the book constrained to China. For example, in sixteenth-century Japan, Takeda Shingen, a leading feudal lord (daimyo) in the Kai Province (modern-day Yamanashi Prefecture), had an impeccable reputation as a military leader and garnered the nickname ‘The Tiger of Kai’. Known for ruthless efficiency in battle and a strategic approach to his rule off the battlefield, he was profoundly influenced by The Art of War. His battle standard was emblazoned with the phrase ‘Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan’. Translating as ‘Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain’, it derived from Sun Tzu’s concept: ‘Swift as the wind, Silent as a forest, Fierce as fire, Immovable as a mountain’. Into the twentieth century, diverse figures such as China’s Communist leader Mao Zedong, Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp and Norman Schwarzkopf, leader of the coalition forces during the 1991 Gulf War, were all students of the book. Mao is reported to have said: ‘We must not belittle the saying in the book of Sun Wu Tzu, the great military expert of ancient China.’ General Douglas MacArthur, the American Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers during the Second World War, also acknowledged that ‘I always kept a copy of The Art of War on my desk’, while Colin Powell – variously Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Advisor and the US’s first African-American Secretary of State – noted: ‘I have read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. He continues to influence both soldiers and politicians.’
Today, you are as likely to find a quotation from the work at the start of a business book or wellbeing guide as in a military treatise. It has regularly infiltrated the world of sport too, where high-stakes competition frequently has the air of war without the killing. In 2002, Luiz Felipe Scolari led the Brazilian national soccer team to victory in the World Cup and it was reported that he posted extracts from the book under his players’ doors during the night. In an article for the Irish Times in 2018, General David Petraeus, a noted US serviceman and later director of the CIA, put it succinctly: ‘Sun Tzu’s classic work is, in short, a fascinating mixture of the poetic and the pragmatic, and every bit as relevant now as when it was written.’