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by chrisseaton 2450 days ago
> Sun's writings are not used as guidance for war

You're ignorant - they are used as guidance for war.

For just one example - British Army Doctrine Land Operations, the current core document for how the British think about fighting war on land, quotes Tzu:

> The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
1 comments
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2450 days ago
> The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

This illustrates my pointer perfectly. This quote is just a fancy way of saying "It's great if you can get what you want without fighting."

While true, pretty much every leader since the dawn of time has known that. Darius I, sent a mission to Sparta demanding earth and water for this very reason. The advice is nicely stated, but it isn't all that practically helpful.

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chrisseaton 2450 days ago
> This illustrates my pointer perfectly.

Well your point was that it wasn't used as guidance for war until we showed that it was...

> While true, pretty much every leader since the dawn of time has known that.

No I don't think they have. I think it has been constantly forgotten and rediscovered. Today when we talk about how to fight we might say this in terms of 'shatter the enemy's cohesion and will to fight' rather than fighting them directly. Get inside their OODA loop, match strength with weakness, in other words. It turns out people don't naturally do this! It has to be taught!

They forgot this, for example, during WW1 when they fought attrition warfare. They focused on meeting the enemy and having a fight, toe-to-toe, force against force. There's something about human nature that seems to always lead people toward this approach by default, and we have to constantly remind ourselves of advice, using for example Tzu, to avoid it and instead of looking to fight the enemy, to break the enemy's cohesion.

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