The Art of War

The Art of War (Chinese: 孫子兵法; pinyin: Sūn Zǐ Bīng Fǎ) is a Chinese military treatise that was written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time.

The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is the first and one of the most successful works on strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, and beyond. Sun Tzu was the first to recognize the importance of positioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors in that environment. He taught that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a competitive environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.

The book was first translated into the French language in 1782 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and had possibly influenced Napoleon,^[1] and even the planning of Operation Desert Storm.^[2][3] Leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap, and General Douglas MacArthur have claimed to have drawn inspiration from the work.

The Art of War has also been applied to business and managerial strategies.^[4][5]

The 13 chapters

The Art of War is divided into 13 chapters (or P'ien), and the collection is referred to as being one Ch'üan ("whole" or alternatively "chronicle"). As different translations have used differing titles for each chapter, a selection appears below. Lionel Giles' 1910 translation is considered the standard reference, but the other titles are, given the nature of translation, equally valid.

Chapter summary

1. Laying Plans explores the five key elements that define competitive position (mission, climate, ground, leadership, and methods) and how to evaluate your competitive strengths against your competition.
2. Waging War explains how to understand the economic nature of competition and how success requires making the winning play, which in turn, requires limiting the cost of competition and conflict.
3. Attack by Stratagem defines the source of strength as unity, not size, and the five ingredients that you need to succeed in any competitive situation.
4. Tactical Dispositions explains the importance of defending existing positions until you can advance them and how you must recognize opportunities, not try to create them.
5. Energy explains the use of creativity and timing in building your competitive momentum.
6. Weak Points & Strong explains how your opportunities come from the openings in the environment caused by the relative weakness of your competitors in a given area.
7. Maneuvering explains the dangers of direct conflict and how to win those confrontations when they are forced upon you.
8. Variation in Tactics focuses on the need for flexibility in your responses. It explains how to respond to shifting circumstances successfully.
9. The Army on the March describes the different situations in which you find yourselves as you move into new competitive arenas and how to respond to them. Much of it focuses on evaluating the intentions of others.
10. Terrain looks at the three general areas of resistance (distance, dangers, and barriers) and the six types of ground positions that arise from them. Each of these six field positions offer certain advantages and disadvantages.
11. The Nine Situations describe nine common situations (or stages) in a competitive campaign, from scattering to deadly, and the specific focus you need to successfully navigate each of them.
12. The Attack by Fire explains the use of weapons generally and the use of the environment as a weapon specifically. It examines the five targets for attack, the five types of environmental attack, and the appropriate responses to such attack.
13. The Use of Spies focuses on the importance of developing good information sources, specifically the five types of sources and how to manage them.

Annotations

A portion of the Art of War in Tangut script.

Before the bamboo scroll version was discovered by archaeologists in April 1972, the most cited version of The Art of War was the Annotation of Sun Tzu's Strategies by Cao Cao, the founder of the Kingdom of Wei. In the preface, he wrote that previous annotations were not focused on the essential ideas. Other annotations cited in official history books include Shen You (176-204)'s Sun Tzu's Military Strategy, Jia Xu's Copy of Sun Tzu's Military Strategy, Cao Cao and Wang Ling's Sun Tzu's Military Strategy.

The Book of Sui documented seven books named after Sun Tzu. An annotation by Du Mu also includes Cao Cao's annotation. Li Jing's The Art of War is said to be a revision of Sun Tzu's strategies. Annotations by Cao Cao, Du Mu and Li Quan were translated into the Tangut language before 1040 AD. A book named Ten Schools of The Art of War Annotations was published before 1161 AD.

After the movable type printer was invented, The Art of War (with Cao Cao's annotations) was published as a military text book, known as Seven Military Classics with six other strategy books.

As a required reading military textbook since the Song Dynasty, Seven Military Classics (武經七書，武经七书) has many annotations. More than 30 differently annotated versions of this book exist today.

Vernacular Chinese became increasingly popular in the late 1920s. Annotations in Vernacular Chinese began to appear after this time. Some of these works were translated from other languages, such as Japanese.

The two most common traditional Chinese versions of the Art of War, (the Complete Specialist Focus and Military Bible versions) were the sources for early translation into English and other languages. It was not until the 1970s that these works were compiled with more recent archeological discoveries into a single more complete version in Taipei. The resulting work is known as the Complete Version of Sun Tzu's Art of War for the National Defense Research Investigation Office has been the source for more recent and complete translations.

Quotations

Verses from the book occur in modern daily Chinese idioms and phrases, such as the last verse of Chapter 3:

故曰：知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。(故曰：知彼知己，百战不殆；不知彼而知己，一胜一负；不知彼，不知己，每战必殆。)

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

This has been more tersely interpreted and condensed into the modern proverb:

知己知彼 百戰不殆 （知彼知己，百战不殆）

If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can come out of hundreds of battles without danger.

Many people interpret this sentence as 'If you know both sides, you will win a hundred times in one hundred battles. (知己知彼 百戰百勝)'. This translation is incorrect. The word '殆' in Chinese means 'danger'. '百' in this sentence is better interpreted as 'numerous' rather than 'hundred'.

Furthermore, knowing both sides doesn't guarantee winning. '知己知彼 百戰百勝' ('If you know both sides, you will win a hundred times in one hundred battles') is untrue since in the beginning paragraph of chapter four, Sun Tzu wrote 'Hence, we can well predict who would win but there is no strategy guaranteeing winning (故曰: 勝可知，而不可為。)'. The reason of the uncertainty is quite simple. How about dealing with the opponent who knows both sides better than you do?

Similar verses have also been borrowed -- in a manner construing skillfulness as victory "without fighting" -- for example:

是故百戰百勝，非善之善者也；不戰而屈人之兵，善之善者也。

Therefore one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful.

And, the most famous quotation (chapter 1, paragraph 18):

兵不厭詐。

All warfare is based on deception.

or, alternatively:

Never will those who wage war tire of deception.

Military applications

In many East Asian countries, The Art of War was part of the syllabus for potential candidates of military service examinations. Various translations are available.

During the Sengoku era in Japan, a daimyo named Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) is said to have become almost invincible in all battles without relying on guns, because he studied The Art of War.^[6] The book even gave him the inspiration for his famous battle standard "Fūrinkazan" (Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain), meaning fast as the wind, silent as a forest, ferocious as fire and immovable as a mountain.^[7]

The translator Samuel B. Griffith offers a chapter on "Sun Tzu and Mao Tse-Tung" where The Art of War is cited as influencing Mao's On Guerilla Warfare, On the Protracted War, and Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War and includes Mao's quote: "We must not belittle the saying in the book of Sun Wu Tzu, the great military expert of ancient China, 'Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a thousand battles without disaster.'"^[8]

During the Vietnam War, some Vietcong officers studied The Art of War, and reportedly could recite entire passages from memory.

The Department of the Army in the United States, through its Command and General Staff College, has directed all units to maintain libraries within their respective headquarters for the continuing education of personnel in the art of war. The Art of War is specifically mentioned by name as an example of works to be maintained at each individual unit, and staff duty officers are obliged to prepare short papers for presentation to other officers on their readings.^[9]

The Art of War is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (formerly known as the Commandant's Reading List).^[10]

Applicability outside the military

Since at least the 1980s, The Art of War has been applied to fields well outside the military. Much of the text is about how to fight wars without actually having to do battle: it gives tips on how to outsmart one's opponent so that physical battle is not necessary. As such, it has found application as a training guide for many competitive endeavors that do not involve actual combat.

The book has gained popularity in corporate culture; there have been a variety of business books written applying its lessons to "office politics" and corporate strategy.^[11][12][13] Many Japanese companies make the book required reading for their key executives.^[14] The book is also popular among Western business management, who have turned to it for inspiration and advice on how to succeed in competitive business situations.

The Art of War has also been the subject of various law books^[15][16] and legal articles on the trial process, including negotiation tactics^[17][18] and trial strategy.^{[19][20][21] [22][23][24]}

It has also crept its way into sport: Australian cricket coach John Buchanan handed out excerpts from the book to his players before a match against England in 2001, and the book is allegedly a favorite of University of South Carolina football head coach Steve Spurrier.

Soccer coach Luiz Felipe Scolari uses the book to plot his Soccer strategy. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup he gave each of his players copies. In the recent 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany he used the book to plan his team's win against England.^[25]

It had been reported that the Aryan Brotherhood let their new recruits read and study The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings before they made them new members.

On the popular reality television show Survivor: China, participants were given copies as a source of strategy and advice.

It has found use in political campaigning as well; Republican election strategist Lee Atwater claimed he travelled everywhere with it.^[26]

Some have also interpreted The Art of War as providing methods for developing social strategies, such as social relationships, maintaining romantic relationships, and seduction. The book stresses subtlety and always making it appear like one is trying to achieve something other than one's actual intention.

The use of individual quotations from the book as a source of fortune cookie-like proverbs and not seeing the general coherence of the text has been criticized by many scholars of Chinese history.

The book has also gained influence among players of strategy games, including TCGs, collectible miniatures games, and real-time strategy games.

Related material

Sun Tzu is attributed with having a grandson Sun Bin who wrote another treatise on military strategy often called "The Lost Art of War" or "The Art of Warfare". Sun Bin or Sun Pin as he is sometimes called is also known as Sun Tzu II. The following are some published texts in this area:

• Sun Tzu II translated by Thomas Cleary (1996). The Lost Art of War. Harper Collins Publisher (Under HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-251361-3. This book by Thomas Cleary is a translation of the sequel to Sun Tzu's classic strategic manual.

• Sun Pin translated by Ralph D. Sawyer (1995). Military Methods of the Art of War. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-7607-0650-6. This book by Ralph Sawyer is a translation of work written by the purported great-grandson of Sun Tzu in the 4th Century.

• Mastering the Art of War - Memoirs and notes by famous Chinese military strategists Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji. This book details Zhuge and Liu's personal opinions and comments regarding Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Translated by Thomas Cleary.

Sources and translations

Running Press Miniature Edition of the 1994 Ralph D. Sawyer translation, printed in 2003

• Sun Tzu translated by Lionel Giles, edited by James H. Ford (2005). The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Special Edition. El Paso Norte Press. ISBN 0-9760726-9-6. 
• Sun Tzu translated by Dr Han Hiong Tan (2001). Sun Zi's The Art of War. H H Tan Medical P/L. ISBN 0-9580067-0-9. 
• Sun Tzu translated by Filiquarian Publishing (2006). The Art of War. Filiquarian Publishing. ISBN 1-59986-977-2. 
• Sun Tzu translated by the Denma translation group (2001). The Art of War: the Denma translation. Shambhala Classics. ISBN 1-57062-904-8. 
• Sun Tzu translated by Lionel Giles (2002). The Art of War. Deodand Publishing. ISBN 0-9578868-7-X.  Text link (reprint; Giles translated the book in 1910). The translation by Giles is one of the most widely used today. Giles provided the first "good" translation of The Art of War, as well as providing the first translation by a serious linguist.
• Sun-Tzu translated by Roger Ames (1993). The Art of Warfare. Random House. ISBN 0-345-36239-X. , includes the Yin-ch'ueh-shan (Silver Sparrow Mountain) texts
• Sun Tzu edited by James Clavell (1983). The Art of War. Delacorte Press. ISBN 0-385-29216-3.  This edition was published as a tie-in with Clavell's Asian Saga; it is essentially a re-working of the Lionel Giles translation.
• Sun Tzu translated by Ralph D. Sawyer (1994). The Art of War. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 1-56619-297-8.  This translation tries to put The Art of War in its original context as a work of military strategy. It also includes a lengthy introduction and translations of some of the "bamboo strips" recovered from the shrine.
• Sun Tzu translated by John Minford (2002). The Art of War. Viking. ISBN 0-670-03156-9.  This translation contains two parts. The first part is a completely unadorned, raw version of the core text. The second part is that same text with Chinese commentators as well as others.
• Sun Tzu translated by Yuan Shibing (1987). Sun Tzu's Art of War: The Modern Chinese Interpretation. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.. ISBN 0-8069-6638-6. This book is written by General Tao Hanzhang, a senior officer in the People's Liberation Army. He is a senior advisor at the Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies.
• Sun Tzu translated by Thomas Cleary (1991). The Art Of War. Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0-87773-537-9. 
• Sun Tzu translated by J.H. Huang (1993). The Art of War: The New Translation. Quill William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-12400-3. This text is not a new interpretation of same texts that other editions are based on. Mr. Huang writes a new text based on manuscripts recently discovered in Linyi, China that predates all previous texts by as much as 1000 years.
• Sun Tzu translated by Samuel B. Griffith (1963). The Art of War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-501476-6. This book is written by Samuel B. Griffith, Brigadier General (retired), U.S. Marine Corps., with a foreword by Sir B. H. Liddell Hart. "Wu Ch'i's Art of War" in six chapters is appended.
• Sun Tzu translated by Donald G. Krause (1995). The Art of War For Executives. Berkely Publishing Group (Under Perigee Books. ISBN 0-399-51902-5. This book written by Donald Krause is interpreted for today's business reader.
• Sun Tzu translated by Ralph D. Sawyer (1995). 100 Lessons In The Art of War. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-7607-0998-X. This book by Ralph Sawyer is a culmination on various Chinese strategic texts.
• Sun Tzu translated by Stephen F. Kaufman (1996). The Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 0-8048-3080-0.  Aimed mainly (but not exclusively) at the martial artist, Kaufman's rendition of Sun Tzu's work was written from the perspective of a Hanshi ("teacher of teachers").
• The Art of Strategy. translated by R. L. Wing. Seattle, Washington: Main Street Books. 1988-05. ISBN 0-385-23784-7. 
• The Art of War plus The Ancient Chinese Revealed. translated by Gary Gagliardi (1st hardcover ed., second printing ed.). hillsborough, Washington: Clearbridge Publishing. 2003-01-14. ISBN 1-929194-42-0.  Winner of a 2003 Independent Publishers Book Award for Multicultural Nonfiction.[5]
• Sun Tzu translated by Prof. Chow-Hou WEE (2003). Sun Zi Art of War: An Illustrated Translation with Asian Perspectives and Insights. Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd. ISBN 0-13-100137-X. 
• Sun Tzu translated by Paul Brennan (2007). The Art of War for Martial Artists. Odos Books. 2007. ISBN 978-1-60402-416-6
• Sun Tzu translated by Victor H. Mair (2007). The Art of War: Sun Zi's Military Methods. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13382-1
• Sun Tzu translated and annotated by Thomas Huynh and the Editors of Sonshi.com (2008). The Art of War: Spirituality for Conflict. Skylight Paths Publishing. ISBN 978-1-594-73244-7

See also

• Sun Tzu
• The Seven Military Classics
• List of military writers
• Thirty-Six Stratagems, another Chinese strategy book
• Philosophy of war
• On War
• The 33 Strategies of War
• The 48 Laws of Power
• The Book of Five Rings

Notes

External links

• The Art of War translated by Lionel Giles (1910) at Project Gutenberg
• The Art of War free mp3 audio download from ThoughtAudio.com
• Art of War - English translation with embedded audio.
• About Sun Tzu and the Art of War, in Chinese and English
• Sun Tzu Said English translation with cross-referenced index, reader comments, online book reader
• Sun Tzu The Art of War Translation by Sonshi with many readers' interpretations
• Sun Tzu the Art of War text (with recorded Mandarin speech), Denma translation
• Sun Tzu and Hollywood on how the appearance of the book in movies influenced the number of books sold
• The Art of War for Martial Artists an interpretation by Paul Brennan in English and Chinese.