Author: bhayes952

If you were reading along with me, then you as well have now read another ‘classic’. This is definitely the first time for me reading the Art of War. I have heard a whole lot of references to the book over the years. Now I can contribute my own opinion on it is worth to the average person.

I am kind of a funny guy. I have extreme reverence for some old things. Architecture is an example of that. But when it comes to books and media, it turns out that I am a skeptic.

Throughout my academic life, I can remember reading things like The Iliad, Shakespeare and Moby Dick. I would say that they have an important role in literature because of their existence. As far as being great works, that is definitely debatable in my opinion. Each surviving work provided a framework and story lines to supplement new work.

Sticking closer to the subject, I see Art of War as a similar comparison. If you were studying military history then this is a very important work. It has shaped military tactics and thoughts for thousands of years. But, aside from that I really don’t see a lot of value to the non-military, non-historian, modern man.

I read that there have been attempts to turn the study of Art of War into some sort of business philosophy. I fail to see the connection unless you are going to make metaphors for terrain and feudal leadership to other situations. Certain authors like Ayn Rand and George Orwell clearly are using innuendo to make a point. I really don’t believe that Sun Tzu was using military terms for guiding the modern business man, especially because this incarnation did not really exist.

Was the book worth reading? From a standpoint of checking a classic off of the list, yes. From the standpoint of getting a lot of insight from the book, no. This book is for military historians and the Sinophile. It doesn’t hurt to read these short chapters and try to rationalize what is written as a thought exercise. I wouldn’t expect it to change your life in any meaningful way however.

I know that when I started this, I talked about how this was a book of several. I heard a conflicting version that Art of War was an amalgamation of different authors. This was pieced together from oral legend and ancient text fragments. Sawyer goes through a lot of effort to justify credit of Sun Tzu to the work. You can make similar claims about the Bible whereas the difference is the application. It is the subject and not the author that makes the book valuable.

End Your Programming Routine: I was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast and I heard this statement “negative people are perceived as smarter”. I don’t think of myself as negative. But, if you are skeptical and open minded then you are much more likely to keep searching for the truth. Whereas if you just accept something at face value then you are susceptible to any rumor that you run across. Read Art of War and decide for yourself. You got my opinion.

We have reached the end of another classic tome. You will get my full opinion on the overall book next week. If you have been following along, then you probably can guess where I am going to go with this. But for now, we have one more chapter to get through.

I get the sense that what Sun Tzu is implying is that the use of spies will help shorten the war. But it is the beginning of the chapter that caught my eye. Continuous fighting is extremely costly. First and foremost, it effects the men that are fighting. That is obvious. But, then it effects the families and the economy and the morale and the country overall.

Let us just look at things for a minute. Who benefits from twenty years of war? Was it the soldiers? No. Was it the families? No. Was it society? No. So I ask again, who benefits from the twenty years of war in Afghanistan? Was it freedom? No, we have less than ever. Was it the Afghans/Iraqis? No, they are right back where they started.

Remember when I talked about right for the wrong reasons? Here we are. This is not hindsight. It was less than four years ago that the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the writing was on the wall years before that. Sun Tzu wants spies to shorten war. For some reason, others do not want the war to end.

Who might that be? If it is not good for the people or society then who could possibly want it to continue? The only answer is the people that profit from war. That would be first and foremost the military industrial complex enabled and sustained by politicians. Such an insidious relationship where they wrap themselves in an American flag. They are there for the soldier and freedom.

The politicians use their Newspeak to point fingers at the other political side and the fictitious enemy. You know that it cannot be true when all the news stories cover children following soldiers around asking for candy and the people are so warm and welcoming. The perception given is that people are liberated and happy when inexplicitly the war continues.

There is certainly a time to fight. The very best reason is when you are invaded and you definitely don’t want it. So Poland in 1939 is a pretty good reason. Sometimes getting provoked is a pretty good reason. But like I was taught in Sunday school, do unto others that you would have done onto you. Or how about grade school? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

What amazes me is the approval rating of congress has been perennially less than 30%. And yet the re-election rate of incumbents is over 80% for all positions (house and senate). So let us say that I disapprove of the job the senate has done but yet I have sent my same senator for six straight terms. Is it always someone else’s fault? Logic would have to say no. Maybe, just maybe I shouldn’t keep re-electing the problem.

Unfortunately, when military actions are taken without a declaration of war, the system is broken. And when the system is broken, nothing can be trusted. You cant actually expect someone to change a system when all involved ignore the rules.

I am not going argue that intelligence is key to making the best decisions. It is really hard to say that Sun Tzu includes that vast topic under the umbrella of spies or not. It doesn’t really seem written that way. So again, if we stay myopically under spies, I cant think of relevance in the civilian world.

End Your Programming Routine: I should talk that that I am advocating for power to the people. I don’t even believe that we can vote our way out of this. At the same time, I cannot agree with Sun Tzu more that war is costly. It is why it should not be entered lightly and should end as quickly as possible. We absolutely get caught up in taking sides on a conflict where we are always the losers.

This is chapter twelve and after today, one more to go. If you wanted to learn how to attack with fire, today is your day. This chapter is all about when and how to do so. Once again, good leaders will use this tactic prudently and appropriately.

To tell you the truth, I cannot think of anything relevant about the philosophy of attacking with fire outside of a military realm. I remember in the early 1990s the movie Backdraft when sometimes fighting a fire requires setting another fire to deplete the oxygen out of the main fire. So, I guess there is a counter tactic to using fire as a weapon. But that is not what this chapter is about.

If we look at fire as a weapon and its effective use requires specific tactics then maybe we can look at things in a different light. Said more generally, use certain techniques to get the results you want with a particular tool or weapon. OK, what does that really mean.

I remember that as a kid, I used to love to go to the used bookstore. It was one of the few places that my mom would let us spend money and sometimes she would pay for books too. Sometimes I would go to the military non-fiction section. I was looking for encyclopedia like references of equipment and other things to dream about being deadly awesome.

I remember one time I found the Army Survival Guide. I read that thing cover to cover. I learned that I could take a parachute and make a shelter as well as weave twigs together to make a fish trap. There was lots of information about snares and traps included.

Around the same time, I was taking the Wilderness Survival merit badge in Boy Scouts. I built a survival kit and spent the night in a shelter that I built in the woods. I thought that I knew a whole lot about wilderness survival. But, the truth is I had a lot of resources for a short duration (overnight) and a lot of useless knowledge.

The army survival guide was helpful from a stimulant standpoint. But, lets be honest I wont have a parachute with me. This was long before shows like Dual Survival came along. Have you seen how effective their traps and snares are? These are essentially professional survivalists barely surviving. Clearly, man evolved from living entirely off of the land so I know that it is possible but there is a huge disconnect from that civilization to ours.

My whole point of this is that it is helpful to have a reference as a starting point. That is The Art of War or FM 21-76 Army Survival Guide. But practice and living it are the only way to become proficient. We can read all we want about the best fire to beat our enemies but it oversimplifies things tremendously. Good luck starting a fire outside today in my neck of the woods, we have the bomb cyclone going on.

End Your Programming Routine: Each week I am trying to find a way to say the same thing over and over again. The right tactics used properly will yield better results. As I stated in the beginning, I honestly don’t know what the value of this chapter is. I could think of some things that I want to burn down, but that is not really appropriate. Why don’t we leave it at that.