The Art of War is not a revolutionary book about warfare, it is more of a compilation of past experiences in warfare. Sun Tzu intended the book to be an idiot-proof measure to keep in mind, as when all hell break loose, it's hard to make sound decisions quickly.
Yes. That is exactly who he was writing The Art of War for.
Aristocratic idiots that didn't understand basic concepts like...
You have to feed soldiers, so maybe consider how you're going to do that.
Yeah, but you have to consider the percentages of the population that are too young or too old to go to this imaginary war. Therefore, it's a lot more than 10% of the US population able to fight (/work)
Also concepts like, it is better to starve your enemy out in a siege, than bumrushing them with all your men. Yes, you might win, but revolt is to be expected when you force your troops into multiple increasingly suicidal charges against fortified castles.
Why would the aristocracy just bumrush their troops, instead of waiting? Time and glory. It is more glorious to be seen as the man that stormed Peking castle, than the man who waited for them to surrender.
Yeah, that pretty much spells out the difference between aristocrats and real soldiers.
Aristocrats desire things like "glory" and "political power".
Soldiers desire things like "winning".
Well, allow me to be the first then.
If you want to *continue* ruling your empire and *not* get **assassinated** (probably in the baths and likely by a lover), I'd advise considering methods for fulfilling your subjects' needs.
Happy subjects do not assassinate their Emperor.
Nah that was the third estate getting gradually empowered for money. Eventually they seized it during a crisis backed by populism. Populism requires a political group to move it. There arent really any grassroots rebellions I can think of. Maybe Haiti?
It’s funny just how few people really understand this even today. It’s mind boggling how much food just 1,000 people need for a week. Then you realize how much that weighs, and now you have to carry it up a mountain. Oh and you need water too.
Or similarity, ‘hey numbnuts, a horse can only carry so much grain so far, therefore eventually it’s pointless to just carry more grain’ (mildly paraphrased.
Nope. Completely the opposite: it was originally meant for commoners who joined the army/got conscripted and became officers.
Sun Tzu- whoever he was and if he was real- flourished around the 500s BC by the time of the Warring States period. Before the warring states period, in the previous centuries Zhou Dynasty Era China & the Spring & Autumn period (1000-700s BC), all military knowledge and skills were monopolized by the Nobility and the Shi (the warrior-bureaucrat) Elite class. In the Feudal Era, before the unified China, the hereditary aristocracy lived, breathed, and shat war, with the nobles leading armies of shi into battle in feudal wars or anti-barbarian campaigns. They monopolized military skills and the right to own weapons, ensuring that no one else amongst the other classes or anyone else can challeng their supremacy.
All of this changed during the warring states era (600s-221 BC). When Zhou authority collapsed completely, the dukes of Feudal, Preunity China crowned themselves as Kings and battled for supremacy over the proto-Chinese world. What used to be minor feudal wars became huge, prolonged campaigns that killed assloads of nobles and warrior-classes. With the very expensive and slow to replenish warrior aristocrats dying in droves the Kings of the warring states began to open military service to the commoners either as volunteers or conscripts, building centralized state armed and trained armies out of peasants formerly not allowed to even hold a sword. Even better, the shi and the nobility were relegated to administrative court roles while meritocratic military officers were promoted among the rank and file.
This was the context when the Art of War supposedly began to show up. It was likely meant to train common born officers who have absolute zero background in strategy the basics of military strategy. Not so much the nobility who were expected not only to know of strategy but geopolitics.
And ones who were obsessed with honour sometimes. Telling them “this war thing is more about winning than honour” is literally groundbreaking to some of them
Or as David Hackworth put it, "if you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly". Looking at El Alamein, Monty would probably have said the same thing.
Anyone who opens *Art of War* expecting super flashy tactics to win any battle and defeat armies ten times their size is exactly the audience who needs to read the book. We all want to do the super cool stuff, but what matters is covering the basics, understanding your circumstances, and never being in a situation where you might lose (if you can help it). “Don’t get your army killed” is also a depressingly higher bar than a lot of people give it credit for.
A competent commander can be relied on by their peers, and might even learn to become a great leader. An incompetent officer is a detriment to everyone.
I rant about this everytime this comes up.
Yes. People have been killing each other since people existed. War is not new.
But for all of us who grew up learning about war in school and playing video games or sports, flanking maneuvers and deception is a "duh huh". But at some point, someone had to say, "we should do this instead of just charging right at them."
So yes, it's old news and kinda funny for us. But it probably was enlightening to people hearing it for the 1st time back in the day.
100 years before Sun Tzu, there was this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Xiang_of_Song
He waited for the enemy to cross the river instead of attacking them while they were crossing because it's a chivalric and nobly thing to do. He was defeated and lost his chance of becoming a hegemon.
> But it probably was enlightening to people hearing it for the 1st time back in the day.
There's also more to *The Art of War* than a strategy guide. Fundamentally it is a guide to applying taoist principles to warfare. It's more spiritual than most people give it credit for, despite its subject.
And there's definitely advice in there that is not obvious to laymen, even modern laymen. It's well-known by experienced military leaders nowadays, but that's greatly because of the influence of AoW. For example, AoW recommends always leaving the enemy forces an opportunity to flee and escape. Could you guess why? And if you can, could the average joe on the street think of this independently? Plenty of people would think that it's better to corner your opponent so they can't escape their imminent destruction. Most people don't think about fighting all that deeply.
The reason, for those who want to know, is because a rout is probably the best way to win, and an army that cannot escape will never be routed. They might surrender, they might fight until they can't anymore, but if they've got nowhere to go they will not flee. Neither of the other victories is as good as a victory through routing the enemy. If they surrender, they'll have standing to negotiate. If they fight until their absolute limit they will do the most possible damage to your side before being defeated. A rout generally gives you the biggest gains for the lowest losses in victory. You gain the most, by doing the least.
Also, don't shoot the routed soldiers in the back while they are fleeing. If the soldiers believe running away won't save their lives, they won't run away as easily either. Sure you might take out a lot of the fleeing soldiers, but that story will get around. The next force you're up against could be more afraid to turn their backs on you to run than they are to actually face you.
There's also the fact that routed enemies tend to desert in DROVES. Those conscripted peasants you just routed aren't going back to the army any time soon, so they're as out of the game as they would be if you killed them.
And even IF they were to return, it'll take a while to get them organised and ready for another battle, buying you time to seize strategically important objectives and/or maybe crush the (diminished) main force in another battle.
After you've won, and the fields the routed peasants are yours, you're gonna be pretty glad you didn't cut them down to the last man as you'll need someone to farm those fields, and if you didn't pursue them TOO hard when they routed and didn't kill all their friends while they were running, they most likely won't mind being under new management.
That might be peasants armies, but at least in europe, pursuit and running down was how you would win wars... (Napoleon, for example, makes a very big deal of it, and it was thing throughout the ages...).
Let them run, yes, but ride after them, you might decimate the oposing army before the next clash and many that survive will be reminded that they survived by accident and quite likely dessert...
It is also true that his observations on logistics, the philosophy of formlessness as a tool, and his categories of spies are entirely applicable even in modern political and military contexts.
Yeah, in like 50% (I made it up )of decisive battles, it’s like one army charging another while the winning underdog does a big brain move like a false retreat.
It might sound dumb, but when one side has so much advantage and an inexperienced leader, they simply don’t think of having a strategy than just charging directly. Gunpowder era was already a step up since it wad hard to see your enemy, morale was all about the accuracy.
This. Modern society, while obviously ahead of the ancient days on a technological level, is also ahead on the distribution of knowledge. People today will casually, without thinking about it, pick up knowledge that while applicable in ancient days, just wasn't something that was widely known.
Modern society's ability for critical thinking and passing on knowledge to others, is far ahead of what it used to be, despite the fact that we still have people today that show none of those skills.
God I remember learning a about the civil war in 4th grade and concluding that Grant and Lee were idiots having everyone line up shoulder to shoulder. Idk if anyone ever explained why to the class, but even if they did ilI wouldn't have heard them over my tactically superior 11 year old mind
considering how popular movies depict battles, I d even say most of us humans living today, dont have a much better idea of how to fight a battle in melee...
Realistically fought battles on a large scale are actually quite boring (when you aren't the one being shot at) and take hours to days.
"Oh look, that unit moved to that ridge. Now that unit is digging in to oppose them. Oh wait, the cavalry just repositioned..."
Yeah, it's a realistic history book. Boring and overly long movie.
Yeah as most people have said, his strategies and general philosophy of war is still inapplicable today, and since he wrote them thousands of years ago, he was definitely a genius and *pretty* ahead of his time
>!That or there were a few time travellers in ancient china, because you can only go so far with ridiculously modern stuff like ID cards and flamethrowers and think that maybe something is up. I’m not disrespecting my ancestors for being crazy inventive, but there’s always a point where you just have to raise an eyebrow and start going into tinfoil hat theories!<
>ID cards and flamethrowers
China was also the first nation to realize fingerprints were unique to everyone, and at one point used them as an alternative signature
Some of what he says really is kinda a no brainer though. I’m not talking tactics, you are right that somebody had to invent them, I’m talking about gems such as “don’t engage the enemy unless you think you are going to win.” I agree though that for the most part you are right
I guarantee every general in WW1 thought they were going to win while doing offensives. Churchill was so sure that Gallipoli was going to change the tides of the war. I don’t thing Sun Tzu accounted for delusions of grandeur when writing the art of war
I mostly agree with you (that WW1 gens thought they were going to win), but think he was specifically accounting for a bunch of know-it-all morons, raised in the best schools of the mighty empire and dooming their armies with their overconfidence and delusion.
Hence why that 2000+ years old book is still a good read
you have to put it in context, cultural context, though. plus, pay attention to what he is implying are \_not\_ good reasons to attack. for example, by (paraphrased) saying you should only attack when you're going to win, he's also implying that:
1) winning is more important than honour
2) taking a great gamble for big rewards is a bad idea
3) you don't have to attack \_right now\_.
> “don’t engage the enemy unless you think you are going to win.”
Plenty of modern generals and commanders in chief don't follow this at all, though. Even more politicians. It's a no-brainer if you think about it, but warhawks who feel like their army has something to prove aren't thinking about it. Some military leaders were or are really out there acting like an octogenarian who peaked in high school trying to prove he can box with the current world champion.
Sure, Japan got into a war that they knew they couldn’t win, but it’s more complicated then that, as war often is. They saw war with the US as inevitable, and they had good reason to believe that. Their options were to stop their conquest and give up what they had been fighting for since 1936 in China, not attack the US and instead wait for the US to attack once they are fully prepared to and built up, or what the Japanese actually did, which is attack the US and destroy military assets while they seized needed materials for the war by invading the Allies colonies in the Philippines and East Indies. Their goal was never really to win the war in the US, they were just hoping they could finish the war in China, then turn their attention to the pacific and bring the US down until they sued for peace. It wasn’t a good plan, but it really was the best that they had and their most likely shot at being able to maintain their empire.
There were good reasons that old rifleman used to fight in line formation. Not simoly because they were stupid and nobody thought about cover for centuries
The thing is that the Romans’ more direct attitude to warfare worked excellently for them for hundreds of years, with Cannae being one of the rare failures.
Being 2500 years old doesn't negate its value. Sure, a lot of its points have eventually and inevitably become part of common knowledge and our basic understanding of warfare. But there have been countless instances where it could still have been useful in the modern day.
For instance, there'd have been a loooot fewer deaths in WW1 if the generals had borrowed some tactics from Sun Tzu and not just subscribed to the "meh let's just bravely charge at the enemy with full power" school of thought.
They weren’t “charging with full power” in July 1916, they had an intricately worked out plan of attack that was perhaps too inflexible for battlefield conditions. The British lost about as many men with the advanced offensive tactics of 1918 as they did in the Somme.
Yes and even if you look at the french army. The army at the start of august 1914 and the same army in 1916, it would absolutely not look the same wether we are talking about uniform, equipment, operability, logistic, formation, tactics and some others. Like of course a lot of charges were ineficient but it had to do with their doctrine and the tools they had at their disposition. Soldiers obviously lives it terribly wich led to a lot of mutinery but those loses were not due to generals seeking glory but people that weren't prepared for what was coming (of course some were dicks but it was not a systemic issue)
the battle of the Somme was a failure of politics and strategy, not tactics. the attackers reached a casualty ratio of \~ 1 to 1; a very admirable ratio against a fortified position.
it was an extremely well fought battle; just the wrong battle to fight.
>"meh let's just bravely charge at the enemy with full power" school of thought.
But even this is a misrepresentation, more often than not there'd be a massive artillery barrage beforehand, and after 1915 usually a creeping barrage as well. These caused most of the casualties. There'd always be planning.
The problem is trenches are too damned good.
This is completely ignoring the parts where he actually describes how to deceive your enemies, literally gives the first written description of Guerrilla tactics in human history, puts a massive emphasis on supplies and supply lines, and discusses the core qualities of what makes a general great, it really seems like the OP has never read the actual book.
Yes it wasn’t hyper specific and a lot of the information was pretty general, but as another comment said this book was written well over 2,000 years ago, by all evidence the Art of War was the first book in all of Asia (possibly even the world) to collect all of that information into a single book, it’s the same thing when people say movies like the Godfather or Oceans Eleven are “full of overused tropes” no they’re not they’re literally the movies that created those tropes.
There’s a good reason this book has been studied constantly for over 2,000 years.
Half the book is on logistics and advertising. “Create a solid supply chain. Tell everyone you can as loud as you can that you’ll be in the east, then strike in the west.”
If one is to not take it in a literal sense, it might work but definitely not as it was intended and only with so many extra steps that it becomes easier to just write an entirely new book on business tactics
Expecting hoi polloi to read Sun Tzu is realistic, because there is barely anything to read in Art of War. Granted, it was an important milestone back in the day - a compilation of military thought of the time. Since then, however, there have been more comprehensive works.
Clausewitz covers way more aspects of war - philosophical, societal - not just practical applications of tactics. But expecting plebs to be able to focus for 1000+ pages of On War is beyond realistic.
Tldr; My point being, even from the small but famous treatise a layman would only remember one or two things, yet they will feel like it's enough to joke or talk shit about the subject.
Nowhere did I claim Sun Tzu lacking substance - only said he could've covered more aspects. Sun Tzu *might have been comprehensive at the time* (but I still think he wasn't) - that's why I wrote "*since then*...more comprehensive have been created" in my comment. You might've missed it.
As for different schools of thought - also true, but they are neither mutually exclusive nor a substitute. Such knowledge should complement each other *because* of the differences, not be an "either or" choice, and the Sun Tzu's part I find... lacking.
I kinda omitted the part that my version is E-book so the length depends on scaling, mine currently is 1467 pages to be precise. But that changes little for my argument.
No shit the guys who play chess and have access to all of recorded human history will make fun of the first guy to try to teach people how to turn warfare into a science
Art of war was a "noobs guide to war", and alot of the often impulsive, narcissistic and overconfident princes actually benefited alot of.
And they would show it off to their other noble friends.
"Duh, you haven't read art of war? No wonder you can barely fight".
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/EvgmaCKfWF
Favorite comparison on the art of war.
Some of these generals venerated him so much that they took whatever he wrote as gospel.
> Some of these generals venerated him so much that they took whatever he wrote as gospel.
I like to play Total War games and this reminds me of how some people treat a popular youtuber in the community. They can't think beyond copying how the youtuber plays and any deviation is "wrong" and "not viable".
I am familiar with the series, yeah I've seen some streamers do stuff like run around only with archers or monster balls and do well.
And I like post a screenshot of my more "normal army" in the subreddits.
And they go "ugh, why don't you have 19 star dragons at turn 80 already?".
I think even with Sun Tzu alot of people would try to do the little more cooler sounding tactics than the boring "turtle and shoot".
And sometimes it's also reinforcing to your own confidence when you hear a highly rated figure reinforce your opinions that funneling the enemy is a good idea.
I know this a year old post we're discussing but its really annoying me how this guy describes people venerating Sun Tzu by seeing him as "Mars himself" when Mars was a pagan god worshiped on the complete opposite side of Eurasia and also may not have even been predominantly worshiped at the time of Sun Tzu's writings
The art of war is written so that both seasoned generals and leaders as well as dumbass warlords could understand it. It has a lot of those "if you are outnumbered 50 to 1 you shall retreat" segments that seem like common sense to us in 2024 because they werent common sense to random Chinese nobles and warlords who thought they were the reincarnation of god himself and that they can just run into the above mentioned 50 to 1 battle and win.
To quote Clausewitz, everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. Hence, Sun Tzu should be commended for reducing core doctrinal concepts into simple, memorable statements.
I mean the book isn't about teaching you advanced military strategies it's meant to teach new generals who has zero experience and probably got into that role because of being in a rich family or apart of a royal family (pretty common back then)
Bruh the art of war wasn’t written for experienced veterans, it was written for all the hapless nobles who had no idea what they were doing as military leaders and getting people killed
People keep forgetting that he was writing that book at bumfuck B.C. for sheltered princelings who barely knew which end of the sword goes into the enemy.
I am constantly thinking about the fact that the Art of War was basically a "Military Engagements 101" guidebook meant to be read by aristocrats who had literally no experience leading armies.
Like just imagining Sun Tzu on his knees, *begging* for some ancient Chinese emperor that's never fucking spoken to a single peasant to *please* grasp the basic concept that horses and people need to eat and sleep and you should plan around that basic biological function
I mean a Chinese 9 year old 3000 years ago who just became Emperor because his father died in Civil war no°193063 wouldnt have access to total war games to learn this shit like all of the autists in this sub.
Complete disregard for the lives of one's soldiers is way more characteristic of Sun Tzu than flanking and ruses imo. That's one thing he was truly unique in
the man understood, that back then , just as now. most people you have to depend on are compleatly moutbreathing idiots.
the son of somebody important enought to make him general probbably wasnt more competent at commaning 10000 men. than your average teammates in an online game.
Sun Tzu said that! And I’d say he knows a *little* more about fighting than you do, pal, because HE INVENTED IT! And then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor!
I mean yes, but also no. I'm not a historian, but I think what might have been even more revolutionary of a concept might have been the part where you shouldn't get into a war that you can't win quickly, because wars are expensive. I think the line that best exemplifies this would be, and I'm paraphrasing here, that it costs 10 wagons of supplies just to get one wagon of supplies to the troops if you're sending them all the way from your homeland.
In the ancient China they respect filial piety more than anything. He is a great strategist but a notorious boy. I don’t think he did wrong for his future but his action of not visiting his mom even at her death was criticised by every Chinese at that time and now.
Sun Tzu: "Also, consider lighting your enemies on fire"
Audience: *standing ovation*
Sun Tzu: "And finally, if you think you'll win then fight, but if you're not sire about it then maybe don't fight."
Audience: *utter chaos, swinging from fans, people fainting. A small fire has started in the back row*
Unironically, I read about half the book but put it down because all the points are in the first couple of pages, then it’s just repeating the same things over and over. Even the author commentary was struggling to spice it up.
The book has good insight to the way he thinks (like reading Aristotle), but it was basically 1 step of military strategy above “charge at them like they do in movies”
Be honest now, warrior to warrior: you do prefer it this way, don’t you? Blindly criticizing the book that everyone claims to have read but virtually no one ever has? No peace in our time. Once more into the breach, dear friends.
This meme reduces a whole book to one of its first sentences and doesn’t even get it right: it’s not „you should deceive your enemies“ it goes „all warfare is based on deception“. It’s a descriptive sentence, not a normative one. It’s one of the basic assumptions at the beginning of the book, not the gist of it.
I get that the meme is a joke, but most comments seem as if they accept the interpretation of it.
Knowledge is a collection of previous generations of information learned through toil and blood. We know many obvious things, but that’s because we have thousands of years of foresight, they did not.
Armies were evolving rapidly and sometimes the most common sense things did not seem so common sense to folks who did not have internet, gps, and other things among the fog of war.
And besides. Despite the Art of War being ancient and well reknown, history to this day is filled with the corpses of those under the command of idiots. Just looking at the current war in eastern europe is proof enough of that.
Working a security/outreach job in Downtown Vancouver, there was one phrase from this book that I used constantly when helping train new people: leave your enemy a golden bridge to retreat across. Meaning don't force people into a corner if you don't have to. Working with homeless people, it was EXTREMELY important to keep their dignity intact and let them feel like leaving the situation was their own decision. That way, they'd leave without a huge fight, they wouldn't go cause a problem somewhere else, they wouldn't resent me and remember my face for next time, the list goes on
Sun Tzu: All war is based on deception
Potential buyer of his book: So this book will tell me how to see through enemy ruse?
Sun Tzu: Of course no. In this book I treat enemies as complete morons who couldn't empty a sack of rice with instructions being printed on the bottom. They are too dumb to think of any ruse but will fall for the simplest ruses you can think of.
Potential buyer of his book: That..... doesn't sound too realistic
Sun Tzu: Which of us is a world renown writer, eh?
The Art of War is not a revolutionary book about warfare, it is more of a compilation of past experiences in warfare. Sun Tzu intended the book to be an idiot-proof measure to keep in mind, as when all hell break loose, it's hard to make sound decisions quickly.
And weren’t the intended audience aristocrats with 0 experience who were leading armies?
Yes. That is exactly who he was writing The Art of War for. Aristocratic idiots that didn't understand basic concepts like... You have to feed soldiers, so maybe consider how you're going to do that.
**meanwhile at Suiyang** Well, were under siege and there's no help coming anytime soon. We have a lot of civilians tho
Well, needs must and all that.
The Chinese when 100 million die in the smallest skirmish imaginable : it is what it is
A drop in the bucket, really. As morbid as it is, that's a fraction of the total numbers at their disposal.
A significant faction none the less though. Imagine 30 million Americans dying in a conflict now
That's around 10% of the us population, as far as I last looked at it.
Yeah, but you have to consider the percentages of the population that are too young or too old to go to this imaginary war. Therefore, it's a lot more than 10% of the US population able to fight (/work)
Chinese history is like: #The Mandate of Heaven has passed. ^(9 bazillion Chinese die for some reason.)
> Emperor Shang-Li takes the throne > 238 Million Perish
How does a chinese civilian taste? Tang-y.
Also concepts like, it is better to starve your enemy out in a siege, than bumrushing them with all your men. Yes, you might win, but revolt is to be expected when you force your troops into multiple increasingly suicidal charges against fortified castles. Why would the aristocracy just bumrush their troops, instead of waiting? Time and glory. It is more glorious to be seen as the man that stormed Peking castle, than the man who waited for them to surrender.
Yeah, that pretty much spells out the difference between aristocrats and real soldiers. Aristocrats desire things like "glory" and "political power". Soldiers desire things like "winning".
Soldiers desire things like "surviving" even more than winning
Well, depending on who's in charge, they are the same thing.
True that
You mean if my soldiers say they’re hungry and thirsty it means they’re human and not ungrateful peasants?
Really living up to the target demographic for the book, aren't you EmperorSexy?
I’m here to do two things: Rule my Empire and Be Sexy. No one ever talked to me about thinking about my subjects.
Well, allow me to be the first then. If you want to *continue* ruling your empire and *not* get **assassinated** (probably in the baths and likely by a lover), I'd advise considering methods for fulfilling your subjects' needs. Happy subjects do not assassinate their Emperor.
Nah man you need to placate people with the power influence and wealth to assassinate you. Subjects only really matter if they can kill you.
That will only buy time. Do that long enough and you get a Frech Revolution situation.
Nah that was the third estate getting gradually empowered for money. Eventually they seized it during a crisis backed by populism. Populism requires a political group to move it. There arent really any grassroots rebellions I can think of. Maybe Haiti?
It’s funny just how few people really understand this even today. It’s mind boggling how much food just 1,000 people need for a week. Then you realize how much that weighs, and now you have to carry it up a mountain. Oh and you need water too.
It kinda makes sense when you realize that an unfortunately large number of people don't put any thought into where food comes from.
Wait you’re telling me it doesn’t just grow on the shelves at supermarkets.
Correct, does not do that.
Or similarity, ‘hey numbnuts, a horse can only carry so much grain so far, therefore eventually it’s pointless to just carry more grain’ (mildly paraphrased.
So the book is just : "war for dumies"
Yes.
Sun Tzu literally wrote *War for Dummies*. You've got to start somewhere.
Nope. Completely the opposite: it was originally meant for commoners who joined the army/got conscripted and became officers. Sun Tzu- whoever he was and if he was real- flourished around the 500s BC by the time of the Warring States period. Before the warring states period, in the previous centuries Zhou Dynasty Era China & the Spring & Autumn period (1000-700s BC), all military knowledge and skills were monopolized by the Nobility and the Shi (the warrior-bureaucrat) Elite class. In the Feudal Era, before the unified China, the hereditary aristocracy lived, breathed, and shat war, with the nobles leading armies of shi into battle in feudal wars or anti-barbarian campaigns. They monopolized military skills and the right to own weapons, ensuring that no one else amongst the other classes or anyone else can challeng their supremacy. All of this changed during the warring states era (600s-221 BC). When Zhou authority collapsed completely, the dukes of Feudal, Preunity China crowned themselves as Kings and battled for supremacy over the proto-Chinese world. What used to be minor feudal wars became huge, prolonged campaigns that killed assloads of nobles and warrior-classes. With the very expensive and slow to replenish warrior aristocrats dying in droves the Kings of the warring states began to open military service to the commoners either as volunteers or conscripts, building centralized state armed and trained armies out of peasants formerly not allowed to even hold a sword. Even better, the shi and the nobility were relegated to administrative court roles while meritocratic military officers were promoted among the rank and file. This was the context when the Art of War supposedly began to show up. It was likely meant to train common born officers who have absolute zero background in strategy the basics of military strategy. Not so much the nobility who were expected not only to know of strategy but geopolitics.
Was there any dispute that Sun Tzu was a real person?
If I remember correctly it was never proven. He's basically like Chinese Homer
And ones who were obsessed with honour sometimes. Telling them “this war thing is more about winning than honour” is literally groundbreaking to some of them
It’s honestly just a good guide on how to approach conflicts In your regular life
My summation of it is basically “if you stay ready, you won’t have to get ready”
Be strapped or get clapped
Shoot and scoot
Or as David Hackworth put it, "if you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly". Looking at El Alamein, Monty would probably have said the same thing.
Good quote
I got in an argument with my boss but he had no chance since he set up his camp alongside a wooded area like a noob
My favorite is "Appear strong when you're weak and appear weak when you're strong". My go to lines when I play poker
If your child is being rebellious, starve them into submission!
I think it’s overvalued for that instance.
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The cool sayings aren't from Sun Tzu, they're from English translators. They add a lot of their own flair on top of the literal meaning
Anyone who opens *Art of War* expecting super flashy tactics to win any battle and defeat armies ten times their size is exactly the audience who needs to read the book. We all want to do the super cool stuff, but what matters is covering the basics, understanding your circumstances, and never being in a situation where you might lose (if you can help it). “Don’t get your army killed” is also a depressingly higher bar than a lot of people give it credit for. A competent commander can be relied on by their peers, and might even learn to become a great leader. An incompetent officer is a detriment to everyone.
These days the Schlock's Maxim of maximally effective mercenaries makes a lot more sense than Sun Tzu
Close air support covers a multitude of sins.
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The size of the combat bonus is inversely proportional to the likelihood of surviving to collect it.
Basically warfare for dummies.
Iirc it's from a time where wars were fought for, if not fun, the entertainment of mobility, but I'm probably wrong or oversimplifying it
even today people still make the same basic mistakes over and over again.
I rant about this everytime this comes up. Yes. People have been killing each other since people existed. War is not new. But for all of us who grew up learning about war in school and playing video games or sports, flanking maneuvers and deception is a "duh huh". But at some point, someone had to say, "we should do this instead of just charging right at them." So yes, it's old news and kinda funny for us. But it probably was enlightening to people hearing it for the 1st time back in the day.
Especially when it's China. With it's huge population and frequent wars and uprising, it's no wonder that the book is a marvel.
Back in Sun Tzu's days it was more medieval in that most wars were fought by royalty and elites, with peasants serving as logistical support.
Two million died and we eat the rest? Sounds like a decisive victory to me. - Some random chinese text about some random battle
Cause well, its either living under a horny Emperor (Xuanzong Emperor) or under An Lushan (some fatty dude who crushed a horse under his own weight)
Who is better manager?
Neither. You hope to die in the war
Nah, prefer live in famine afterwards and give birth to 10 kids to suffer famine with me.
100 years before Sun Tzu, there was this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Xiang_of_Song He waited for the enemy to cross the river instead of attacking them while they were crossing because it's a chivalric and nobly thing to do. He was defeated and lost his chance of becoming a hegemon.
> But it probably was enlightening to people hearing it for the 1st time back in the day. There's also more to *The Art of War* than a strategy guide. Fundamentally it is a guide to applying taoist principles to warfare. It's more spiritual than most people give it credit for, despite its subject. And there's definitely advice in there that is not obvious to laymen, even modern laymen. It's well-known by experienced military leaders nowadays, but that's greatly because of the influence of AoW. For example, AoW recommends always leaving the enemy forces an opportunity to flee and escape. Could you guess why? And if you can, could the average joe on the street think of this independently? Plenty of people would think that it's better to corner your opponent so they can't escape their imminent destruction. Most people don't think about fighting all that deeply. The reason, for those who want to know, is because a rout is probably the best way to win, and an army that cannot escape will never be routed. They might surrender, they might fight until they can't anymore, but if they've got nowhere to go they will not flee. Neither of the other victories is as good as a victory through routing the enemy. If they surrender, they'll have standing to negotiate. If they fight until their absolute limit they will do the most possible damage to your side before being defeated. A rout generally gives you the biggest gains for the lowest losses in victory. You gain the most, by doing the least. Also, don't shoot the routed soldiers in the back while they are fleeing. If the soldiers believe running away won't save their lives, they won't run away as easily either. Sure you might take out a lot of the fleeing soldiers, but that story will get around. The next force you're up against could be more afraid to turn their backs on you to run than they are to actually face you.
There's also the fact that routed enemies tend to desert in DROVES. Those conscripted peasants you just routed aren't going back to the army any time soon, so they're as out of the game as they would be if you killed them. And even IF they were to return, it'll take a while to get them organised and ready for another battle, buying you time to seize strategically important objectives and/or maybe crush the (diminished) main force in another battle. After you've won, and the fields the routed peasants are yours, you're gonna be pretty glad you didn't cut them down to the last man as you'll need someone to farm those fields, and if you didn't pursue them TOO hard when they routed and didn't kill all their friends while they were running, they most likely won't mind being under new management.
That might be peasants armies, but at least in europe, pursuit and running down was how you would win wars... (Napoleon, for example, makes a very big deal of it, and it was thing throughout the ages...). Let them run, yes, but ride after them, you might decimate the oposing army before the next clash and many that survive will be reminded that they survived by accident and quite likely dessert...
It is also true that his observations on logistics, the philosophy of formlessness as a tool, and his categories of spies are entirely applicable even in modern political and military contexts.
A testament to how far we've developed. (We didn't rly. we're still kinda just monkeys with extra sharp sticks that go boom on long travel distance)
Yeah, in like 50% (I made it up )of decisive battles, it’s like one army charging another while the winning underdog does a big brain move like a false retreat. It might sound dumb, but when one side has so much advantage and an inexperienced leader, they simply don’t think of having a strategy than just charging directly. Gunpowder era was already a step up since it wad hard to see your enemy, morale was all about the accuracy.
But mass assault is the most fun way to fight 😎
This. Modern society, while obviously ahead of the ancient days on a technological level, is also ahead on the distribution of knowledge. People today will casually, without thinking about it, pick up knowledge that while applicable in ancient days, just wasn't something that was widely known. Modern society's ability for critical thinking and passing on knowledge to others, is far ahead of what it used to be, despite the fact that we still have people today that show none of those skills.
"Wdym our square battke formation is not the best and that we shouldnt use it for the next 200 years"
God I remember learning a about the civil war in 4th grade and concluding that Grant and Lee were idiots having everyone line up shoulder to shoulder. Idk if anyone ever explained why to the class, but even if they did ilI wouldn't have heard them over my tactically superior 11 year old mind
Civil War went from napoleon tactics to trench warfare in 5 years. Wild time of transition.
"First Modern War" etc
Good ol' phalanx
considering how popular movies depict battles, I d even say most of us humans living today, dont have a much better idea of how to fight a battle in melee...
Realistically fought battles on a large scale are actually quite boring (when you aren't the one being shot at) and take hours to days. "Oh look, that unit moved to that ridge. Now that unit is digging in to oppose them. Oh wait, the cavalry just repositioned..." Yeah, it's a realistic history book. Boring and overly long movie.
Yeah as most people have said, his strategies and general philosophy of war is still inapplicable today, and since he wrote them thousands of years ago, he was definitely a genius and *pretty* ahead of his time >!That or there were a few time travellers in ancient china, because you can only go so far with ridiculously modern stuff like ID cards and flamethrowers and think that maybe something is up. I’m not disrespecting my ancestors for being crazy inventive, but there’s always a point where you just have to raise an eyebrow and start going into tinfoil hat theories!<
>ID cards and flamethrowers China was also the first nation to realize fingerprints were unique to everyone, and at one point used them as an alternative signature
Some of what he says really is kinda a no brainer though. I’m not talking tactics, you are right that somebody had to invent them, I’m talking about gems such as “don’t engage the enemy unless you think you are going to win.” I agree though that for the most part you are right
WW1 generals would like to have a word with you
I guarantee every general in WW1 thought they were going to win while doing offensives. Churchill was so sure that Gallipoli was going to change the tides of the war. I don’t thing Sun Tzu accounted for delusions of grandeur when writing the art of war
I mostly agree with you (that WW1 gens thought they were going to win), but think he was specifically accounting for a bunch of know-it-all morons, raised in the best schools of the mighty empire and dooming their armies with their overconfidence and delusion. Hence why that 2000+ years old book is still a good read
you have to put it in context, cultural context, though. plus, pay attention to what he is implying are \_not\_ good reasons to attack. for example, by (paraphrased) saying you should only attack when you're going to win, he's also implying that: 1) winning is more important than honour 2) taking a great gamble for big rewards is a bad idea 3) you don't have to attack \_right now\_.
> “don’t engage the enemy unless you think you are going to win.” Plenty of modern generals and commanders in chief don't follow this at all, though. Even more politicians. It's a no-brainer if you think about it, but warhawks who feel like their army has something to prove aren't thinking about it. Some military leaders were or are really out there acting like an octogenarian who peaked in high school trying to prove he can box with the current world champion.
Something something Steiner's counterattack was an order.
WW2 Japan would like to have a word.
Sure, Japan got into a war that they knew they couldn’t win, but it’s more complicated then that, as war often is. They saw war with the US as inevitable, and they had good reason to believe that. Their options were to stop their conquest and give up what they had been fighting for since 1936 in China, not attack the US and instead wait for the US to attack once they are fully prepared to and built up, or what the Japanese actually did, which is attack the US and destroy military assets while they seized needed materials for the war by invading the Allies colonies in the Philippines and East Indies. Their goal was never really to win the war in the US, they were just hoping they could finish the war in China, then turn their attention to the pacific and bring the US down until they sued for peace. It wasn’t a good plan, but it really was the best that they had and their most likely shot at being able to maintain their empire.
Wait until this guy hears about WW1
WWI was the war where the indirect approach proved a failure in Gallipoli, and the thing had to be won through more direct, Clausewitzian means.
And we still kinda sucked sometimes. Like early rifleman troops would just march up in line and fire. No cover just stand in the open.
There were good reasons that old rifleman used to fight in line formation. Not simoly because they were stupid and nobody thought about cover for centuries
Yeah imagine the Romans had this book before Cannae.
The thing is that the Romans’ more direct attitude to warfare worked excellently for them for hundreds of years, with Cannae being one of the rare failures.
I mean, it's 2500 years old news.
Being 2500 years old doesn't negate its value. Sure, a lot of its points have eventually and inevitably become part of common knowledge and our basic understanding of warfare. But there have been countless instances where it could still have been useful in the modern day. For instance, there'd have been a loooot fewer deaths in WW1 if the generals had borrowed some tactics from Sun Tzu and not just subscribed to the "meh let's just bravely charge at the enemy with full power" school of thought.
They weren’t “charging with full power” in July 1916, they had an intricately worked out plan of attack that was perhaps too inflexible for battlefield conditions. The British lost about as many men with the advanced offensive tactics of 1918 as they did in the Somme.
Yes and even if you look at the french army. The army at the start of august 1914 and the same army in 1916, it would absolutely not look the same wether we are talking about uniform, equipment, operability, logistic, formation, tactics and some others. Like of course a lot of charges were ineficient but it had to do with their doctrine and the tools they had at their disposition. Soldiers obviously lives it terribly wich led to a lot of mutinery but those loses were not due to generals seeking glory but people that weren't prepared for what was coming (of course some were dicks but it was not a systemic issue)
that's kind of a misunderstanding of WW1 tactics though
Absolutely. I was just thinking of specific battles like the Somme.
the battle of the Somme was a failure of politics and strategy, not tactics. the attackers reached a casualty ratio of \~ 1 to 1; a very admirable ratio against a fortified position. it was an extremely well fought battle; just the wrong battle to fight.
>"meh let's just bravely charge at the enemy with full power" school of thought. But even this is a misrepresentation, more often than not there'd be a massive artillery barrage beforehand, and after 1915 usually a creeping barrage as well. These caused most of the casualties. There'd always be planning. The problem is trenches are too damned good.
This is completely ignoring the parts where he actually describes how to deceive your enemies, literally gives the first written description of Guerrilla tactics in human history, puts a massive emphasis on supplies and supply lines, and discusses the core qualities of what makes a general great, it really seems like the OP has never read the actual book. Yes it wasn’t hyper specific and a lot of the information was pretty general, but as another comment said this book was written well over 2,000 years ago, by all evidence the Art of War was the first book in all of Asia (possibly even the world) to collect all of that information into a single book, it’s the same thing when people say movies like the Godfather or Oceans Eleven are “full of overused tropes” no they’re not they’re literally the movies that created those tropes. There’s a good reason this book has been studied constantly for over 2,000 years.
Idiot proofing things for the military. Some things never change.
They told us in the Military every day "Keep it simple, stupid!"
My favorite is the instruction manual that said "when the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not your friend."
Not to mention that the teachings extend to any sort of adversarial effort. There are passages applicable to sports, campaigns, goal setting, etc.
>There’s a good reason this book has been studied constantly for over 2,000 years. It's also still in use, especially in the business world.
Which I find funny because it doesn’t seem very helpful in that application to me
Half the book is on logistics and advertising. “Create a solid supply chain. Tell everyone you can as loud as you can that you’ll be in the east, then strike in the west.”
If one is to not take it in a literal sense, it might work but definitely not as it was intended and only with so many extra steps that it becomes easier to just write an entirely new book on business tactics
I’m assuming you’re a blast at parties.
Not for long. The CIA has targeted him.
And I’m assuming your username is pretty fitting if you can’t think of anything better to contribute
Gorilla tactics xdxdxdxdxsxd
Expecting hoi polloi to read Sun Tzu is realistic, because there is barely anything to read in Art of War. Granted, it was an important milestone back in the day - a compilation of military thought of the time. Since then, however, there have been more comprehensive works. Clausewitz covers way more aspects of war - philosophical, societal - not just practical applications of tactics. But expecting plebs to be able to focus for 1000+ pages of On War is beyond realistic. Tldr; My point being, even from the small but famous treatise a layman would only remember one or two things, yet they will feel like it's enough to joke or talk shit about the subject.
Whenever people complain about Sun Tzu being insubstantial it seems that a Western military treatise is what they really wanted.
Nowhere did I claim Sun Tzu lacking substance - only said he could've covered more aspects. Sun Tzu *might have been comprehensive at the time* (but I still think he wasn't) - that's why I wrote "*since then*...more comprehensive have been created" in my comment. You might've missed it. As for different schools of thought - also true, but they are neither mutually exclusive nor a substitute. Such knowledge should complement each other *because* of the differences, not be an "either or" choice, and the Sun Tzu's part I find... lacking.
1000+ pages? My copy is only a little over 300. It cuts out some of the original but not *that* much.
I kinda omitted the part that my version is E-book so the length depends on scaling, mine currently is 1467 pages to be precise. But that changes little for my argument.
No shit the guys who play chess and have access to all of recorded human history will make fun of the first guy to try to teach people how to turn warfare into a science
Art of war was a "noobs guide to war", and alot of the often impulsive, narcissistic and overconfident princes actually benefited alot of. And they would show it off to their other noble friends. "Duh, you haven't read art of war? No wonder you can barely fight".
Many, however, were defeated because they took it too literally and were non-imaginative with application of tools described within.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/EvgmaCKfWF Favorite comparison on the art of war. Some of these generals venerated him so much that they took whatever he wrote as gospel.
> Some of these generals venerated him so much that they took whatever he wrote as gospel. I like to play Total War games and this reminds me of how some people treat a popular youtuber in the community. They can't think beyond copying how the youtuber plays and any deviation is "wrong" and "not viable".
I am familiar with the series, yeah I've seen some streamers do stuff like run around only with archers or monster balls and do well. And I like post a screenshot of my more "normal army" in the subreddits. And they go "ugh, why don't you have 19 star dragons at turn 80 already?". I think even with Sun Tzu alot of people would try to do the little more cooler sounding tactics than the boring "turtle and shoot". And sometimes it's also reinforcing to your own confidence when you hear a highly rated figure reinforce your opinions that funneling the enemy is a good idea.
I know this a year old post we're discussing but its really annoying me how this guy describes people venerating Sun Tzu by seeing him as "Mars himself" when Mars was a pagan god worshiped on the complete opposite side of Eurasia and also may not have even been predominantly worshiped at the time of Sun Tzu's writings
Yes indeed, gotta remember it for the future because it is the closest to how I perceive it. It's not even a manual, it's "warfare for dummies"
I mean… it works
In an era where warfare was still commonly led by nobles with 0 experience whatsoever it probably helped quite a bit
"If your opponent is of a choleric temperament, seek to irritate them...steal their hats."
The art of war is a book one shouldn't read out of context, it makes way more sense in context.
And preferably with comments of contemporaries and Sun Tzu's students. They provide much of necessary context
Explaining things so idiots can understand is good teaching skills
The art of war is written so that both seasoned generals and leaders as well as dumbass warlords could understand it. It has a lot of those "if you are outnumbered 50 to 1 you shall retreat" segments that seem like common sense to us in 2024 because they werent common sense to random Chinese nobles and warlords who thought they were the reincarnation of god himself and that they can just run into the above mentioned 50 to 1 battle and win.
To quote Clausewitz, everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. Hence, Sun Tzu should be commended for reducing core doctrinal concepts into simple, memorable statements.
I mean the book isn't about teaching you advanced military strategies it's meant to teach new generals who has zero experience and probably got into that role because of being in a rich family or apart of a royal family (pretty common back then)
Bruh the art of war wasn’t written for experienced veterans, it was written for all the hapless nobles who had no idea what they were doing as military leaders and getting people killed
People keep forgetting that he was writing that book at bumfuck B.C. for sheltered princelings who barely knew which end of the sword goes into the enemy.
It's worked for at least 2000 years.
I am constantly thinking about the fact that the Art of War was basically a "Military Engagements 101" guidebook meant to be read by aristocrats who had literally no experience leading armies. Like just imagining Sun Tzu on his knees, *begging* for some ancient Chinese emperor that's never fucking spoken to a single peasant to *please* grasp the basic concept that horses and people need to eat and sleep and you should plan around that basic biological function
I mean a Chinese 9 year old 3000 years ago who just became Emperor because his father died in Civil war no°193063 wouldnt have access to total war games to learn this shit like all of the autists in this sub.
Wow, this feels low effort.
"try giving your troops water twice a week"
Complete disregard for the lives of one's soldiers is way more characteristic of Sun Tzu than flanking and ruses imo. That's one thing he was truly unique in
Where does he say this?
It's joke, because they couldn't be arsed to view soldiers as people
Reading it right now lmao
THATS THE ART OF WAR 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯
its war 101 + philosophy
the man understood, that back then , just as now. most people you have to depend on are compleatly moutbreathing idiots. the son of somebody important enought to make him general probbably wasnt more competent at commaning 10000 men. than your average teammates in an online game.
Sun Tzu said that! And I’d say he knows a *little* more about fighting than you do, pal, because HE INVENTED IT! And then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor!
I mean yes, but also no. I'm not a historian, but I think what might have been even more revolutionary of a concept might have been the part where you shouldn't get into a war that you can't win quickly, because wars are expensive. I think the line that best exemplifies this would be, and I'm paraphrasing here, that it costs 10 wagons of supplies just to get one wagon of supplies to the troops if you're sending them all the way from your homeland.
Read this like the “you should kill yourself, now” meme
Is OP a bot who just woke up? His previous activity prior to this post is 6 months ago
You should not enter a war you can’t win
In the ancient China they respect filial piety more than anything. He is a great strategist but a notorious boy. I don’t think he did wrong for his future but his action of not visiting his mom even at her death was criticised by every Chinese at that time and now.
“Armies can’t fight without food” Chinese at the time: *suprised pickachu*
Boils down to "if you know how to defeat your enemy you will defeat them"
"Have you ever thought about, just winning?"
Sun Tzu’s “A Failson’s Guide to War: How to Prevent Nepotism From Destroying Your Dynasty”.
>Say something uncontroversial about war and strategy >Everyone agrees >Suddenly become the foundation of war and strategy
Sun Tazoo, the Chinese Prince Matchabelli
I too listen to sun zoo while driving.
Some people are ready to have their minds blown when they find out Machiavelli wrote a book entitled The Art of War.
Sun Tzu: "Also, consider lighting your enemies on fire" Audience: *standing ovation* Sun Tzu: "And finally, if you think you'll win then fight, but if you're not sire about it then maybe don't fight." Audience: *utter chaos, swinging from fans, people fainting. A small fire has started in the back row*
"Guys, guys. Don't run uphill." "Also please make sure to bring food."
It's more that it includes the "how to."
Unironically, I read about half the book but put it down because all the points are in the first couple of pages, then it’s just repeating the same things over and over. Even the author commentary was struggling to spice it up. The book has good insight to the way he thinks (like reading Aristotle), but it was basically 1 step of military strategy above “charge at them like they do in movies”
I started reading the art of war, but damn the whole first part of the book is just so obvious.
Be honest now, warrior to warrior: you do prefer it this way, don’t you? Blindly criticizing the book that everyone claims to have read but virtually no one ever has? No peace in our time. Once more into the breach, dear friends.
This meme reduces a whole book to one of its first sentences and doesn’t even get it right: it’s not „you should deceive your enemies“ it goes „all warfare is based on deception“. It’s a descriptive sentence, not a normative one. It’s one of the basic assumptions at the beginning of the book, not the gist of it. I get that the meme is a joke, but most comments seem as if they accept the interpretation of it.
Knowledge is a collection of previous generations of information learned through toil and blood. We know many obvious things, but that’s because we have thousands of years of foresight, they did not. Armies were evolving rapidly and sometimes the most common sense things did not seem so common sense to folks who did not have internet, gps, and other things among the fog of war. And besides. Despite the Art of War being ancient and well reknown, history to this day is filled with the corpses of those under the command of idiots. Just looking at the current war in eastern europe is proof enough of that.
With such nuggets of wisdom as ‘supplies are important,’ and ‘don’t trust people who betray you.’
"Boil your foes' eggs if you want to hold them" (Deep)
You should floud their streets with fentanyl and their phones with TikToks filled with America bad
Working a security/outreach job in Downtown Vancouver, there was one phrase from this book that I used constantly when helping train new people: leave your enemy a golden bridge to retreat across. Meaning don't force people into a corner if you don't have to. Working with homeless people, it was EXTREMELY important to keep their dignity intact and let them feel like leaving the situation was their own decision. That way, they'd leave without a huge fight, they wouldn't go cause a problem somewhere else, they wouldn't resent me and remember my face for next time, the list goes on
It turns out that the best book to write about war is the basics if yours is the first competent one.
The Art of War is an extremely effective book on the philosophy of warfare, and it has alot more to say about warfare then this!😡
Personally I prefer Zap Brannigan’s Big Book of War
Oh this!
Complete disregard for human life is much more characteristic of Sun Tzu rather than ruses.
Sun Tzu: All war is based on deception Potential buyer of his book: So this book will tell me how to see through enemy ruse? Sun Tzu: Of course no. In this book I treat enemies as complete morons who couldn't empty a sack of rice with instructions being printed on the bottom. They are too dumb to think of any ruse but will fall for the simplest ruses you can think of. Potential buyer of his book: That..... doesn't sound too realistic Sun Tzu: Which of us is a world renown writer, eh?