Crossword Who Wrote the Supreme Art of War Is to Subdue the Enemy Without Fighting

For good generals practise not assault in open boxing where the danger is common, but exercise information technology always from a hidden position, so equally to kill or at to the lowest degree terrorize the enemy while their own men are unharmed every bit far equally possible.
—Vegetius, De Re Militari[i]

Colin Gray, the late doyen of strategy scholars, branded one of his maxims of state of war and strategy equally: "If Thucydides, Sun-tzu, and Clausewitz Did Not Say It, It Probably Is Non Worth Saying."[2] The credence of these three texts as a strategic canon, though, poses a claiming for the contemporary strategist. None of these works was originally written in English, and all of them were compiled in an age far removed from our own frames of reference. Thus, we must rely on others to accurately translate the words of the original text for u.s.a., and we meantime demand some insight into the historical context in which they were written to verify our interpretations of their pregnant. Only then can nosotros accurately gauge their modern relevance. For Clausewitz, nosotros are assisted greatly in this endeavor past his dogged determination to conspicuously define his terms. And, although Thucydides' Greek is renowned for its translation difficulties, his lengthy explanations of historical factors—including the documentation of contemporaneous speeches and debates—aids the student in wrestling with the varied meanings of the text.

Sunday Tzu's The Art of State of war presents a far more daunting obstacle. Its brevity, terse style, arcane language, and lack of historical tethers frustrate our efforts to gain articulate insight. Within the text, both individual characters and entire verses stubbornly defy any scholarly consensus. No 1 truly translates Sun Tzu; they only strive to translate him for the mod reader. Moreover, our full general lack of noesis almost the historical factors that shaped Sun Tzu's thinking hampers our ability to independently assess the various scholarly interpretations. At the war higher level, most approach Thucydides with at least a vague notion of the conflict between Athens and Sparta, and Clausewitz's Napoleonic era is far from alien. Conversely, very few will approach Sun Tzu with any comparable understanding of what drove the antagonism between usa of Wu and Yue—the original text's merely significant historical reference.

Sword of Goujian. Goujian was the king of the Kingdom of Yue (present-day northern Zhejiang) near the end of the Spring and Autumn menstruum. (Wikimedia)

These twin issues of ambiguous translation and lack of historical context combine to create an surround ripe for distortion. Nowhere is this trouble more than prevalent than in our amorphous belief that Lord's day Tzu emphasized non-violent competition through the iconic goal of winning without fighting. A close examination of the actual terminology used in The Fine art of War, coupled with an examination of the historical record supporting the text's meaning, suggests that while engaging in pitched battles was certainly discouraged, killing the enemy in gainsay was far from a disfavored practice.

Does Dominicus Tzu Truly Prioritize a Anemic Victory?

Statue of Dominicus Tzu in Yurihama, Tottori prefecture, Japan (Wikimedia)

Many today view winning without fighting every bit the cornerstone of Lord's day Tzu'south overall military machine philosophy. Michael Handel'due south Masters of War highlights its significance to his entire understanding of conflict: "Sun Tzu, who concentrates on the highest political and strategic levels and is interested in achieving a bloodless victory earlier the outbreak of war, assigns a higher priority on the use of not-military means."[3] Linking Sun Tzu with modern thinking, General David Petraeus adds: "For Sunday Tzu, and for any strategist, of course, the best strategy is the one that delivers victory without fighting."[4]

The source of this theory of strategic victory through not-violent measures is not in dispute. It derives from the translation of the second verse of the 3rd chapter in The Fine art of War: "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is non the elevation of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."[5] While this translation is not wrong per se, it fails to convey crucial differences betwixt ancient Chinese terminology and its modern variants. What is commonly rendered in English as "to subdue the enemy without fighting" is shown in its original Chinese script beneath, with a rough directly translation of each individual character:

Starting time, note the stated object of i's effort to subdue is non the enemy's state, leadership, general population, or even its army writ large, merely rather the individual soldiers that brand up its ranks. This implies that we might be overreaching in our assumption that Lord's day Tzu here is making a proposition of disharmonize avoidance at the level of grand strategy or even armed forces strategy, rather than simply a tactical ploy for advantage over an opposing strength one might soon expect to engage.

From a contemporary Western perspective, though, interpreting not boxing (不戰) as without fighting is a perfectly logical translation choice. If you aren't battling, you aren't fighting, and if you aren't fighting, you most probable aren't warring in a traditional sense. But did the ancient Chinese concord this aforementioned perspective of their own written linguistic communication? Does not battle truly equal non fighting at the strategic level in the context of Chinese warfare during this menses? I can debate that information technology does not, and the term not boxing fails to convey a concurrent meaning of non-kinetic methods to subdue the enemy'due south forces prior to conflict commencing. Sun Tzu is non seeking abstention of fighting in toto; he is simply looking to avert being forced into fighting a pitched battle.

Defining the Terms: What Did Boxing Mean In Sun Tzu's Era?

Since aboriginal Chinese writing lacked a precise character to limited state of war or fighting equally an abstract concept, we demand to carefully parse the exact terminology used in each state of affairs.[vi] To get a sense of what the term boxing meant in Sun Tzu's time, other contemporaneous texts from that era must exist analyzed. One of the virtually revealing sources is the Zuozhuan, the oldest historical narrative of the Spring and Autumn era (722 - 468 BCE). In 519 BCE, the state of Wu invaded the edge region of its more than powerful neighbor, Chu. Chu responded by dispatching its own army along with an alliance of three vassal states to miscarry the intruders. 1 of the Wu commanders recommended kickoff attacking the weaker brotherhood partners:

Chu can be defeated. If we divide our army and get-go attack Hu, Shen, and Chen, they are sure to abscond first. When these three domains have been defeated, the armies of the princes will exist shaken in their purpose. When the princes are divided and hell-raising, Chu is sure to turn in wholesale flight.[7]

Wu follows this communication, defeats the three vassal armies in combat, and causes Chu to flee before their own army even attempts to appoint the Wu force. The Zuozhuan, however, emphasizes the official courtroom record will deny labelling this activity as a boxing: "The text does not speak of 'doing battle' [戰] considering Chu had not nevertheless ready its formation [陳]."[8]

This noticeably diverges from our modernistic understanding of the term battle, in which we brand no noun distinction between whether or not both sides established formations before the fighting starts. Conversely, a symbiotic human relationship between the terms battle (戰) and formation (陳) is well documented in military writings from Sun Tzu'southward period. In an earlier exegetical passage, the Zuozhuan reiterates: "In all cases concerning troops, if the enemy was not nevertheless in proper germination [陳], the text says that 'such and such troops were defeated.' When all were in proper germination, the text says, 'did battle' [戰]."[9] The signal is that in ancient Chinese writing, battle did not necessarily convey a meaning of generic fighting, but instead represented a specific subset of fighting—that in which both sides were afforded the opportunity to organize their ranks earlier kinetic operations commenced.

The Wuzi—another military text idea to be written by a famous general of this era, Wu Qi, and later codified forth with The Fine art of War into the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China—describes the relationship between formation and battle through a description of the "iv discords" of military operations:

If in that location is discord in the state, then you cannot deploy the army;
If there is discord in the army, then you lot cannot organize your formations [陳];
If there is discord in your formations, then yous cannot bring together battle [戰];
If there is discord in battle, so yous cannot attain victory.[10]

Establishing formations, though, was hardly a prerequisite necessary to fight and impale the enemy. In a later verse the Wuzi notes that if the enemy'south "formations [陳] are not notwithstanding settled...assail them without any doubts."[eleven] What the Zuozhuan and Wuzi both point to is a narrow definition of  doing battle, composed of iii sequential steps that must be completed before one tin can formally classify a armed services action equally a battle:

• Pace 1: Deploy the army

• Step ii: Form orderly ranks (陳)

• Step 3: Appoint the enemy (戰)

Simply if each side has an opportunity to form orderly ranks tin one country that a battle has technically occurred. The ample catalogue of war machine actions documented in the Zuozhuan supports this restrictive definition. Of the 584 examples of inter-state conflict recorded in the text, only 31 are classified as battles (戰). The vast majority of military actions, despite besides involving soldiers slaughtering other soldiers in armed gainsay, are alternatively categorized as: attacks (伐), surprise attacks (擊), invasions (侵), sieges (圍), annihilations (滅), annexations (取), forced entries (入), or defeats (敗). The historical record implies that Sun Tzu's military predecessors also appeared to disfavor pitched battles, preferring alternate methods of fighting instead.

Given this view of ancient Chinese warfare and the language information technology employed, it becomes easier to envision a more than limited interpretation of what Sun Tzu sought to achieve through his often-quoted poesy. When Sun Tzu recommends that 1 strive to subdue the enemy without doing battle (不戰), he is not advocating non-kinetic measures undertaken prior to reaching the first step (deploy the army), such as diplomatic or psychological operations to convince the enemy to forgo resistance and immediately submit to its political will. This is a thoroughly mod interpretation of battle abstention.[12]

Instead, Sun Tzu assumes that both sides have already gone to war and deployed their forces, but that one side should leverage the seam betwixt steps one and two, and therefore launch an assault prior to the enemy having time to organize its ranks in preparation to receive the blow. If 1 side denies the other an opportunity to mount an effective tactical defense, military victory will be much easier to achieve. What Sun Tzu is trying to avoid, if at all possible, is being forced into fighting a gear up slice battle in which he might have an equal to or greater than risk of losing.

The logic backside the conventional interpretation of "winning without fighting" is further eroded later in the third chapter, where Sun Tzu discusses force ratios and argues that when one is v times the enemy'due south strength, assault. If winning without fighting is the preferred option, why wouldn't a five-fold numerical reward permit i to accomplish submission without e'er resorting to an assail? Furthermore, Sun Tzu concludes the affiliate with his famous aphorism that if one knows oneself and the enemy, "in a hundred battles [戰] you volition never be in peril."[13] If conflict avoidance is the strategic priority, why wouldn't this data authority permit one to profitably avert engaging in battles altogether? Sun Tzu is certainly not hesitant about engaging in warfare when he possesses a clearly superior reward; what he is doing is rejecting the traditional ideal of offer the enemy a off-white fight.

Does Historical Evidence Back up This Interpretation of Battle?

The Zuozhuan provides several illuminating examples of this traditional view of boxing, too equally the skeptical stance taken by astute military practitioners eager to upend the deference given to this increasingly risky norm. In 638 BCE the Duke of Song went to war with the state of Chu, deployed his army, and and then organized its ranks on a river depository financial institution to await the advancing Chu forces:

The men of Song had already formed their ranks, merely the men of Chu had non yet finished crossing the river. The supervisor of the military [Ziyu] said, "They are numerous, and we are few. Allow us attack them earlier they have completed the crossing." The duke said, "That won't do." When the Chu ground forces had completed the crossing but had non yet formed their ranks, the supervisor of the armed forces again notified him. Merely the knuckles said, "That will not do." Just after the Chu ground forces was properly marshaled [陳] did he attack them. The Song troops were completely defeated.[14]

Following Song'due south defeat, Ziyu excoriates the Duke for his failure to attack the Chu army while disarrayed and criticizes him for his inability to "understand warfare."[15] Just a decade afterward, Chu found himself once again in a like situation. At state of war against the state of Jin, information technology marched its regular army to the edge of another river where the enemy forces awaited on the opposite bank. After a protracted delay, a representative of the Jin side approached with a proposal to suspension the stalemate:

I have heard: "In ritual matters one does non avoid enemies." If yous want to join in battle [戰], then I will retreat one day's march. You cross the river and array your troops in formations [陳]. Then whether you delay or brand haste to fight is entirely upwardly to yous. If you do not do this, so testify the same liberality to me. To wear out our troops by keeping them in the field for a long time and to waste resources does not profit anyone.[16]

The Chu commander, perhaps recalling the naïve chivalry of the onetime Duke of Song, suggests crossing immediately. His military counselor, though, suspects Jin will not honor its pledge and will attack them every bit they ford. He convinces the Chu commander to accept the offer to retreat one solar day's march beginning and thereby compel the Jin army to come to their side of the river. Although the Chu army temporarily withdraws, the Jin commander simply declares that Chu has abandoned its try, proclaims victory, and marches his ground forces dwelling house.[17] The Chu commander also returns home and is executed by his king for his failure to engage the enemy force.

Yet Jin'due south subsequent refusal to cross the river themselves later on Chu withdrew first suggests that the military advisor most likely fabricated a shrewd decision not to trust Jin'south forbearance. But eight years later, Jin debated whether to appoint in pitched battle with an budgeted army from Qin. The Jin commander, Zhao Dun, explained his decision to launch a surprise attack instead:

"'To preempt the enemy is to rob him of his will' is skillful military strategy. 'To pursue the enemy as if one were chasing men in flight' is expert war machine leadership." They [Jin] instructed the soldiers, sharpened their weapons, fed the horses, and ate in abundance. Forming the ranks of the troops in secret, they prepare out at nighttime [and] defeated the Qin troops.[18]

The traditional pillars of ritualized and honor-spring modes of combat were rapidly eroding during this era.[19] This breakup of martial norms ushered in centuries of internecine warfare that paused merely temporarily with the Qin state's cruel military annihilation of all potential contenders by 221 BCE.

Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period (Absolute Chine)

Information technology is under these circumstances that Sun Tzu eventually nerveless the thoughts later compiled into The Art of State of war. Most likely, the concept of not battling never reflected a complex matrix of grand strategies, diplomatic negotiations, economical statecraft, and long-term psychological operations designed to hogtie the enemy'southward submission prior to hostilities being declared. Instead, information technology was an operational or tactical ruse, conducted after a decision to fight was already made, and designed to violently strike at the enemy's armed forces while they were still in their most vulnerable and unprepared state.

Conclusion

Based on this analysis, a more than appropriate translation of the second poetry of the third chapter is:

Achieving victory in every [pitched] battle is not the height of excellence. Routing the enemy'south soldiers [earlier they have an opportunity to grade orderly ranks] is the acme of excellence.

This puts Lord's day Tzu's thinking in agreement with the quaternary/5th century Roman military writer Vegetius, who argued that while engaging in pitched boxing was potentially decisive, the risk of suffering catastrophic defeat necessitated acute commanders to also consider less direct methods of attack.[xx] This is merely one more reason to abandon the pop but erroneous notion that Dominicus Tzu represents a uniquely Chinese view of warfare, one which was left unexamined by armed services practitioners in the W.

This suggested revision might even help shed light on gimmicky military analyses. Sunday Tzu devotees seeking to explain contempo Chinese military actions such every bit its invasions of Tibet and Korea in 1950, the First and Second Taiwan Crises (1954-58), the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the Soviet border clashes of 1969, the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, or its crushing of peaceful protestors in 1989, struggle to contrive the tortured logic necessary to square these conspicuously offensive attacks with the supposed cultural preference of winning without fighting.[21] This proposed estimation provides a more straightforward justification. In each of these cases, People's republic of china only chose to attack an opponent that had not yet formed its ranks in defense prior to the first of kinetic operations. Odds are that in its next war machine conflict, China volition once more seek to follow this venerable blueprint. For those tasked with safeguarding their nation confronting any potential adversary, one slice of Sun Tzu'southward unambiguous advice remains but as relevant today equally it was millennia agone: "Do not depend on the enemy not coming; depend rather on being gear up for him."[22]

John F. Sullivan is a sometime U.Due south. Army China Foreign Area Officer. He is currently a JD candidate at the Academy of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law.

Have a response or an idea for your own article? Follow the logo below, and yous likewise can contribute to The Bridge:

Relish what you lot just read? Please help spread the give-and-take to new readers by sharing it on social media.

Header Image: "The 4 Seasons," a 15th-century paw curlicue with a horizontal length of almost 36 anxiety, past an unidentified artist (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Notes:

[i] Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari: Paradigm of Military Science, trans. N.P. Milner (Liverpool: Liverpool Academy Press, 2001), 83-4. Vegetius was a Roman writer living in the late 4th to early on 5th century CE.

[2] Colin S. Grey, Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007), 58. Grayness afterwards acknowledged that while this sentiment is somewhat hyperbolic, these texts continue to correspond a useful distillation of traditional  strategic thought.

[iii] Michael I. Handel, Masters of State of war: Classical Strategic Idea, (London: Routledge, 2007), 62 (emphasis in original).

[4] David H. Petraeus, "Foreword" to Dominicus Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Peter Harris (New York: Lowest's Library, 2018), vii.

[v] Sun Tzu, The Art of State of war, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford: Oxford Academy Press, 1963), 77.

[6] My appreciation to Hein Drop for raising this betoken in an earlier typhoon.

[seven] Zuozhuan: Commentary on the "Jump and Autumn Register," trans. Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li and David Schaberg (Seattle: University of Washington Printing, 2016), 1621.

[viii] Ibid, (Lord Xi, Yr 22), 1623.

[nine] Ibid, (Lord Zhuang, Year 11), 165.

[10] Author's translation. The original Chinese text reads: 有四不和：不和於國，不可以出軍；不和於軍，不可以出陳；不和於陳，不可以進戰；不和於戰，不可以決勝。

[11] Wu Qi, "Wu-Tzu" in The 7 Armed forces Classics of Ancient China, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 212.

[12] For example, Michael Handel simply infers a wide range of non-vehement methods Sun Tzu supposedly prefers even though he cannot provide supporting passages from the original text: "Lord's day Tzu devotes considerable attending to concerns that precede state of war, discussing in detail the advantages of various diplomatic strategies. For him, affairs is the best means of attaining his ideal of victory without bloodshed. When advising that the enemy'due south plans should be attacked at their inception, Sun Tzu is presumably referring to diplomatic and political bargaining, negotiations, and deception, although he offers no further caption." Masters of War, 33. For an alternate interpretation of what Lord's day Tzu meant by "the enemy'southward plans should exist attacked at their inception," run across "Who Was Sun Tzu'southward Napoleon?"

[thirteen] Sun Tzu, 84.

[14] Zuozhuan, (Lord Xi, Year 22), 357.

[15] Ibid, 359.

[16] Ibid, (Lord Eleven, Year 33), 455.

[17] Although one could debate that in this example Jin actually achieved the goal of "subduing the enemy without battle," the historical record shows that information technology only provided a temporary respite. Jin and Chu would engage in nearly continuous warfare over the next two centuries. The strain of this abiding fighting along with internal unrest would crusade Jin to suspension-up into separate entities in 453 BCE. The partition of Jin would be the catalyst for the transition into the Warring States era (403 - 221 BCE).

[18] Ibid, (Lord Wen, Year 7), 501.

[19] The translators of the Zuozhuan aptly summarize the zeitgeist of the final few decades of the era as documented in the text: "The Leap and Autumn era draws to a close in gathering gloom and exercises of petty Realpolitik. The old powers of ritual propriety are little more than a memory. Warfare dominates the narrative. Succession crises and rebellions divide domains against themselves and depict neighboring domains into protracted proxy wars. Rulers and principal noblemen are murdered or driven into exile. 2 ancient domains are destroyed. Wu completes its swift ascension to power and promptly falls. Confucius dies, the Annals stop, and Zuozhuan carries on for several years more, following a few tales of internecine strife to their dismal conclusions. The few men who win glory in these years earn it for acts of military machine bravery or diplomatic savvy, deeds that often prove futile." Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, 1827.

[twenty] Vegetius, 83. Encounter also the quote highlighted in the epigram, above.

[21] Chinese People'due south Liberation Army Colonel Liu Mingfu sums up the fanciful idea, also prevalent in official Chinese government rhetoric, that the Chinese people possess a cultural aversion to aggressive actions: "But in the thousands of years of Mainland china'southward history, it'due south hard to observe even ane case of China attacking a country or people without existence attacked first." Liu Mingfu, The Mainland china Dream: Neat Power Thinking & Strategic Posture in the Post American Era (New York: CN Times Books, Inc., 2015), 98.

[22] Sun Tzu, Dominicus Tzu: The Art of Warfare, trans. Roger T. Ames, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), 136.

howelltherks.blogspot.com

Source: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2020/6/15/sun-tzus-fighting-words

Share this post