Category: Review

There is no mystery here, the title of the chapter is actually what it is about. Some translations call it Army on the March or something of the like. At least in my translation, I would say that it is a little more than marching but what to do on the encountered terrain is included. At least this chapter is not a complete mystery.

Once again, I would say that the advice is pretty common sense (at least I thing so). It is such things like, if you are in swamp do whatever you can to get out of the swamp or try to pick the higher ground for encampment. It also offers some intuitive advice like if you end up fighting in a swamp, move to end it quickly or get out of the swamp. Or in other words ‘don’t get bogged down’ do what you can to stay in strategic advantage.

There is also some tactical tips in this chapter. Some examples include frothy stream water means that it is raining upstream. Certain dust cloud formations indicate chariot direction and army composition. I would say that this kind of advice is not terribly practical at this point in history. We don’t have too many chariot armies to deal with. It is possible that tanks make different clouds than trucks, I just don’t know. Reading Sun Tzu, I can only comment on what is written.

It doesn’t mean that this line of thinking is totally devoid of value, we just have sift through the non-applicable to the applicable. For instance when I am in the woods, it is often the case that when we humans (me) blunder into the area, animals are disturbed. As long as you sit very still, things will start coming back to normal (before blundering in the woods). I take from it that humans interact with the environment. Knowing the impact of our interaction gives us a strategic advantage over those that do not.

Since playing army and tactics are not super relevant to most of us, there is probably something else that we can get out of this chapter. It reminds me of a saying that is common in self defense circles. ‘Don’t go to stupid places with stupid people and do stupid things’. What that means is that if we knew the future, smart people would not get into trouble.

Said another way, if you knew that going to a certain location was going to get you mugged, a smart person wouldn’t go. We can have all the bravado about concealed carry and BS but wouldn’t it just be better to not be there in the first place? I think so. So, if you are getting the sense that a situation might be trouble, this is your first indication to avoid it. Speaking of which, I would avoid downtown of major cities just after the election Tuesday night.

Using an example from the recent news, Kyle Whittingham. He went to a riot with a rifle under the auspices of protecting a friend’s property. Stuff went sideways and fortunately for him, he got out unharmed physically. But, it sure doesn’t mean that he didn’t have consequences. After having to stand trial and being exonerated, he is now somewhat of a social pariah. When you have to stand and fight, I get it. But that is going to stupid places. I suspect that he wishes he would have just stayed home.

What I think Sun Tzu is saying is that he willingly went into the swamp. Then a fight started. Whittingham fortunately followed Sun Tzu’s advice and got out of the swamp quickly, hence he is still with us. March through the swamp as fast as possible, if absolutely necessary.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to say that it is refreshing to not have to read a lot of other’s interpretations to understand what is the point of the chapter. That is giving me flashbacks to Dante. It is just that I am not versed in eastern philosophy so I don’t recognize what is happening even when it is hitting me in the face. Machismo of the past might call my advice cowardly. But, you never know who is bringing a gun to a fist fight. There is a pretty good chance that I will.

As luck would have it this week, I was listening to a podcast called The Essential Framework to Understanding the Art of War. After listening to it, then reading the transcripts I am sure that I didn’t get a lot out of it. I would say that there are two sort of contradictory things. One is that you cant just read a little bit and get the whole concept. On the other hand, while reading pick one thing that resonates and pursue it (kind of what I tend to do).

To begin to understand it, we really need to have a grasp of the Chinese philosophy and its foundations (see Chapter One). Really though, I should be talking about Chapter eight, not some podcast. I just thought that maybe this tip might be helpful if you are struggling through this like I am.

I feel like it is a little disingenuous to take a two page chapter and copy a two lists out of it, so I wont. But, I do have to talk about them. The first list is the nine items that a leader must act upon (or potentially change). This is the namesake of the chapter. The second list are five items that can cause a leader to fail. It could also be construed as weaknesses or vulnerabilities of a leader.

An excerpt from list one

1. There are roads that are not followed
2. There are armies that are not attacked
3. There are fortified cities that are not assaulted
4. There are commands from the ruler that are not accepted.

You would think that as book smart as the US military is, they would have read and studied Sun Tzu. That being said, the first problem is accepting all commands from the ruler. As a result, they will go down any road, attack any army and siege any fortress.

I wholeheartedly believe that the US military is the best trained, the best equipped and willing to do anything. We can subjugate any population as long as we are actively involved. The problem being is that I don’t believe that our moral values permit this type of ‘victory’. We want to go in, kick butt and then have them thank us for the pleasure.

Obviously, you can tell from my tone that there is more to this than what I am saying. I agree with Sun Tzu that some wars are not winnable. This is the very reason that Israel is going to spend all this blood and treasure to be in the same position when it is finally over that it is when it starts. I am not being over dramatic about my hope that this battle will be over and the world is still intact.

Vietnam, the Middle East, Afghanistan these are all unwinnable because when the people don’t want intervention, it is futile. We just cant seem to understand that. I completely get the desire for vengeance for 9/11 but twenty years of war for what? The official statistics are 2448 US casualties from 2001 to 2021 to their 243,000. But, what the conflict did to the ones that came home. I personally have observed more than one veteran that took their own lives as a result. I kind of think this is a nod to Sun Tzu and his teachings. Some battles should not be fought.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not a pacifist nor am I a conscientious objector. I am fully in agreement with defending life, liberty and property. This is where I differ philosophically from our current view of freedom. You don’t find threats to that in Afghanistan or Vietnam. All you really find is a war machine, death and destruction of both guilty and innocent parties. Don’t we believe in letting ten guilty people go at the expense of convicting one innocent person?

This is week eight of the reading of the Art of War. I have to admit that this book is so short that I have read ahead a bunch and then forgot anything that I read. I then have to go back and re-read the chapter so that I have any semblance of something to write about. Fortunately at only two pages, I can even reread a couple of times a night.

I hate to admit this but I can reread these chapters and not get that much from it. I have already talked in the past weeks about Yin and Yang and eastern philosophy and this week is really no different. Most of what each one of these points are contains a strong undercurrent of Yin and Yang.

The following are the major points in this chapter.

• Make the best of a bad opportunity
• Balance the drive to attack with the fatigue of battle
• The mind and mindset is as important as the physical in battle
• Do not over extend your forces in exuberance

Once again, there is also a strong implication on the importance of leadership. Realize that this chapter opens up with the general getting orders from the ruler. That means that the general has a degree of latitude to operate but the objective is set.

I was listening to an interview this week with the daughter of Steven Covey (author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”). After that, my mind wandered how these popular thought leaders were influenced or directed to their ideas. It kind of strikes me that many ‘celebrity’ authors were highly motivated by people that I have never heard from or about.

This then me to think about who we consider ‘leaders’ today. I am primarily speaking about politicians now. They are nothing like Sun Tsu or Steven Covey. By that I mean there is no Yin and Yang and very little wisdom that come from our politicians. I have to categorically say that is because politicians are not actually leaders. I think that they are more aptly named actors or maybe control freaks.

We want to believe that there is self reflection and accountability but being a not-leader shouldn’t surprise us that there is not. If you are not a leader you don’t have to do those things to get re-elected. Leaders move a group of people from one position to another. This could be physical or ethereal.

In my observation, leaders are people that apply or document good advice and tactics regardless of the source. The reason that I know people are influenced by people I have never heard of is that Covey credits these people in his work. Unless an actor is receiving an award, how often are they crediting others for the influence or beliefs? Based on what I have seen, never.

Our ‘leaders’ are sending troops to the middle east as I write. Can someone please explain to me why this is in the best interest of the United States of America? I can no longer buy into the 1960s domino theory anymore. If I had to speculate, it is that unnamed individuals are influencing foreign policy for personal or financial gain. Politicians use mask of freedom to start another war. Are you enjoying the show?

End Your Programming Routine: It is the generals who will be tasked with operating within Sun Tsu’s guidelines in the middle east. Our leaders are actually the rulers, get that paradigm straight. If we did a better job of adequately overlaying descriptions should wake us up to what is actually happening. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to vote our way out of this. But, I do think that we have a better chance of doing less harm and getting what we want when we are aware of the actors versus the leaders.

Technically, this is week seven in the review of this book and it would be considered chapter six. Translation variation makes it a little difficult to search by the title of the chapter. So, it is more fruitful to search for ‘Chapter Six’ rather than ‘Vacuity and Substance’. That is a tip that I have learned throughout this process if you want to do more supplemental research.

If you are a fan of Yin/Yang then you will love this chapter. Pretty much all of the points discussed contain this sort of context. In general terms the concepts are strong versus weak, first versus second, win versus lose, whole versus divided, offensive versus defensive, you get the point.

Maybe this chapter would be more insightful if we put ourselves back 2500 years ago? A lot of what was discussed seemed fairly common knowledge today when it comes to tactics. For instance, going on offense causes the opponent to devote resources to defense. When you are focused on defense, then it is not possible to execute your own offensive strategy. Hence, it is better to be on the offense rather than the defense.

An army that can split the opponents has a strength advantage. This is because it is easier to execute power when it is concentrated. This is a pretty common realization in business. When you try to do too many things, you may dilute efforts to the very most important efforts.

The most important concept I zeroed in on this chapter was at the end. To paraphrase, it basically says that there are no guarantees in victory. Or said another way, unpredictable things can always happen. By proxy, the best plans should be somewhat fluid or able to adapt if and or when the terrain is different than planned.

I think a very good example is the tragedy with Hurricane Helene. Some people left Florida to avoid the hurricane. On the surface, it seems like a very smart idea. However, spending the week in Ashville turned out to be a fatal error. As someone that lived hundreds of miles from the South Carolina coast, I would not have figured that to be a risk. But as Sun Tzu points out, things that you cant control sometimes happen.

Ninety nine times out of 100, going to Ashville would be a win win. Escape danger and have a nice vacation. This just happened to be the unforeseeable scenario. What if I have spent my whole life saving for retirement and I get killed in a car accident at 65? Would that have been a waste? I would say that there are some times that you just cannot plan for and those are the things that you cannot worry about.

However, if you are planning your whole working for life to retire and you lose your job at 63, that is a plan that needs to have some overlay flexibility. People that take reasonable risk mitigation into account in their plans are the smart ‘generals’. I honestly didn’t think that Tzu was encouraging planning for the car wreck but it is always illustrative to go to the extreme to drive the point home.

End Your Programming Routine: It is hard for me to say that Sun Tzu has caused this philosophy to be common place or that he was simply the first to document the obvious. Regardless, it is probably good to refresh on the fundamentals because it is really common for organizations to get lost in the tress. Sometimes it happens when you just try to do one more thing and pretty soon you are doing ten mediocre tasks rather that one strong one. For that reason, it is helpful to stand back and check yourself once and a while. That is a better strategy for flexibility and flexibility is the key to more victories.

I read a bunch of these chapters in a row when my son was at a doctor’s appointment. A few weeks later I re-read this chapter again and last night I re-read it again. This particular chapter is more abstract then the ones I have reviewed thus far. Truth be told, I didn’t get much out of it by reading multiple times. I was hoping that if I kept banging my head and then letting it rattle around for a while it would come to me.

As a result, I went to the internet to get a hint. It is like those 3D pictures that you stare and stare until you see it. I guess that I would say that I see it, but it is not direct. This chapter is about leadership and it uses some very some very aloof analogies to make the point.

Part of the reason that it is so abstract is because this chapter is riddled with eastern philosophy. I am no expert in that, in fact I can barely recognize it. The two strongest ones were Yin and Yang (I recognized that one) and the order of fives. I had no idea that the Chinese thought that there were five notes, five colors and five flavors (that seems familiar). While I am familiar about some of those ideas, mastering the practice is a life long endeavor.

With that in mind, I am not sure exactly how the technique of go hard/go soft is actually a successful military tactic. I suppose that I could take it as far as tactics are situational. That seems intuitive at least. But, since this chapter is about leadership, I have heard it say that the best leaders know how to motivate people by a mixture of toughness and softness. I won’t say it is common sense because I have come across a lot of bad leaders but at least it feels right.

Without reading the cliff notes, I picked the last section as what I thought was the most impactful section of this chapter. The text talks about logs and rocks as sort of moving as a result of natural consequences. It is the leader that positions the logs and rocks to roll down the hill and stay stationary on a flat surface. Or said another way, the leader is the one to own the battle’s win or loss results. That is something I can get behind.

Many times I think that leaders get too much credit without enough blame. Let us think about the President for a moment. Whether we will have one or the other as president, it generally won’t change the temperature in my pool so to speak. When the economy was on fire in the late 1990s, Clinton didn’t do that. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time. W Bush didn’t cause the financial crisis of 2008, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, he didn’t do himself any favors by continuing to support money printing under the federal reserve. He also got lucky that financial takeovers stopped the economy from totally failing. But to actions that he did personally as president had little to do with the overall outcome. What I am trying say is that leaders enable the conditions for success or failure. Depending on whether they guess right or not has potential outcomes.

You can bet that if we see a President Harris, that administration will be open to communing with socialists. You can also bet that if we see a President Trump, that administration will be open with Oligarchs. Both will be dreaming about a Fascist future. Because that is our destiny, it will likely be so. Tell me, what would I credit either with? Certainly not a better future based on American ideals. But they won’t do it by themselves, the constituents, the appointees and the people working the system will be the ones doing the work. Only the accountability goes to the leader.

End Your Programming Routine: In the end, I agree that leaders should be accountable. I also agree that there are many things that can be done to influence the results. But ultimately, leaders design the boat, they don’t make it sail. If their design for a sail boat contains no sail, then obviously that is going to fail. Putting the proper boat in the water isn’t going to guarantee that it sails either. There are factors like having wind that we just cannot control.

I think that I read this chapter at least five times. One, it is very short at two pages and two, I was really trying to get the significance of this chapter. I have to say that I very well may need to reach as whatever was conveyed was very subtle. I feel like this chapter is grabbing at things already mentioned.

The list below are the key things that I took out of this chapter.

• first make yourself unconquerable, then you can conquer.
• If you can defend yourself then you can be victorious.
• first measurement, second estimation, third calculation, fourth weighing, fifth victory.

At first read, I thought the last bullet was the significant one. It is intended to be a progression. Measure what you can, then estimate the totality from the measurement, then calculate what that means in terms of strength, weigh your odds against your estimation and then you will be victorious. I was thinking about how I would write about this and the significance and I decided to read again.

I think bullets one and two are variations on each other. With more thought, I think that this is the significant message of the chapter. I am going to explain what I mean using an analogy that is not military related.

There is a lot of things that I am not. I am not a military man and I am also not a football man. That being said, I have watched the game for most of my life. So, while I don’t have first hand knowledge, I have heard many times how coaches hate the procedural penalties. Those would be offsides, false start, improper lineup and those sorts of things.

To the layman, it would seem like five yards is no big deal most of the the time. You don’t lose the down and it is half of the more severe penalties like 10 yards for holding. I feel that way anyway. But these are what the announcers always pronounce as adding up to beating yourself. Using Sun Tsu’s philosophy, you are much more likely to win if you don’t beat yourself.

I could be wrong, but I believe that Sun Tsu speaks in generalities. He has to be because using football again some teams still consistently win despite having too many penalties. The fact remains that when you look at the perennial champions they often rank in the lowest tiers for penalties. So, while it is not a guarantee that you will lose, the data says that it is statistically more likely. I have to believe that the same is true with war.

End Your Programming Routine: Whether it is playing football or investing for retirement, we cannot expect to consistently do well if we continue to beat ourselves. It may seem like common sense, at least it does to me but that may not have been the case 3000 years ago. We are fortunate to have most of the tools and information readily available so there really is no excuse to beat yourself in what you are pursuing.

I am just guessing that part of the continuity of the book is lost in translation. This chapter is kind of disjointed as a collection tidbits about strategy. I am not saying that it is not valuable, it is just hard to get in the flow of things when it is just a collection of facts. I have taken the luxury of summarizing all of what I consider the important things below.

The following are the things that I gleaned from this chapter.

• It is better to save the capitol. Saving the army is better than destroying the army. Subjugation is the superior strategy.
• The order of strategy should be as the following. Attack the plans, then the allies, then the army, then finally the fortifications.
• Recommendations for troop strength.
  • 10x surround them
  • 5x attack them
  • 2X split your army
  • 1x hold the line.
• Leadership principles
  • Those who know when to fight will win.
  • Those who know how to employ appropriate sized forces will win.
  • Leaders who have aligned their ranks will win
  • The prepared will be victorious
  • Leaders that are not interfered with by politicians will win.

I have never been a general nor even in the army. So, what I read seems reasonable. It also seems to be colloquial wisdom: if your troops are aligned, if you know when to attack, if you are prepared, it goes on and on as you can read then your chances of winning are better.

How is this helpful to something other than military operations? Or said another way, how can we use this as wisdom for business or life? If I use the thinnest of attempts to make this relevant to something other than the context I could probably come up with some similar allegories. Something like storm/norm/perform.

I think that successful sports teams align up and down the divisions. I observe that the most consistent high school teams have funnels up to their programs. They run the similar play books so that they are already into the system by the time that they get there. This is an example of aligning up and down the ranks.

That isn’t exactly the best storming example. In those cases you are either agreeing to the terms or you are not participating. But, the fact remains that the coaches are getting players to buy into the system or executing a principle of Sun Tsu. They are vertically integrating the entire age range of a sport to be the most successful at the highest level.

Its hard to rationalize a military concept in a non-military setting. For instance, playing a potentially deadly maneuvers, attacking strategy rather than risking life and limb seems like a better way to run an army. Only risk physical injury when it is necessary. That being said, we do have examples sometimes you do have to fight to win.

Going back to the US Civil War, the Army of the Potomac went through general after general. McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade were all not prepared to engage in battle preferring to march and posture. The Confederate generals were not only successful but also employing Sun Tsu’s tactics of cutting off supply lines and knowing when to fight.

End Your Programming Routine: Getting back in the swing of things, much of this was written weeks ago. I may have lost a little bit of luster as a result, but I don’t want to write ten pages on something that is only three pages long, especially when my work is not really militarily oriented. I think that we can leave it where it is. Do the right tactical things and it will increase your likelihood of winning.

If you are reading along with me, by now you probably see why this book is held in high regard. There is so much wisdom packed in each chapter that we probably have heard but didn’t know the source. I am finding that myself.

While this chapter is titled Waging War, I found it to be more about logistics and overall objective rather than super secret tactics. Our politicians may be clever, but they are definitely not students of Sun Tsu. As a result, most recent conflicts have ground into failure (by my judgement).

Sun Tsu says that what motivates people to fight is anger, but what keeps them going is the spoils of war. We probably have heard ‘Gung Ho’ stories. In the days post 9/11 there were lots of them. Does Rusty Tillman ring a bell? Tillman was a young NFL safety that felt the call to his country immediately after 9/11. He gave up the money, the glamor as well as likely his childhood dream to be killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

My own grandfather told me that he volunteered for the Army in 1941 because he wanted to kill Germans. Granted most Americans were more mad at the Japanese, I suspect that his first generation French motivation had to be with the takeover of his family homeland. Anger is what drove enlistment.

Spoils are more complicated today than standard practice during Sun Tsu’s era. Even as late as Korea, GIs were sent home with their service weapons. Not just that, but they also brought home anything that was collected during the tour of duty. This was not just firearms but swords, jewelry, flags, uniform pieces and pretty much anything that could be carried. While I don’t think those things were a motivation to keep fighting, it was certainly a nod to military, victory tradition.

There are all kinds of variables here but a soldier wasn’t a soldier wasn’t a soldier. The lowest group were conscripts or militia members. They were called into service on an as needed basis. The leaders tended to be the rich folk of society. They certainly took advantage of war to enrich themselves. If there was a regular army, they tended to be a hodgepodge of things like criminals and misfits. In that case, being a soldier sure beat the alternatives.

The key of this chapter is not what motivates but if you will win. “No army will win a prolonged conflict.” This is the principle that proves our politicians have not read The Art of War. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq sum up the last sixty years of US military action. These are all conflicts greater than ten years in duration and all losses in my opinion.

If you remember the mid-2000s, the question was asked, and asked and asked ‘What is the exit strategy’? Silence. We got into this war because of anger and we killed a lot of ’em. But good news for the Taliban, we left a lot of good weapons and equipment for them. So much so, they have donated some to Hamas to use in Gaza.

I go back to the self-realization in my podcast earlier this week. We act like we are surprised that militant Islam hates us. After we have spent the last sixty years meddling somewhere that we don’t belong or understand, we created generational hatred. We duped them into the petro dollar and keep getting involved in something that is not our concern every chance it warrants. We are the problem here, period. I digress from the Art of War.

If we evaluate the other side in what we call conflicts, it is pretty easy to see the perspective difference. It wasn’t a war to the Vietnamese (or take your pick), it was life. The fighting will end when I am dead or they are gone. Until such a time, this is how I live. There is no option to withdraw or leave. Long wars require long supply chains and tricks for morale since there is no opportunity to enrich the soldiers. Anger toward the enemy fades fast when you cant leave your post. It soon becomes anger at the controller rather than the ‘enemy’.

End Your Programming Routine: I love the idea of my country but I hate what it has become. Freedom takes maturity and that is in short supply when you can take at every opportunity. This is the reason we don’t have short wars. It doesn’t benefit the oligarchical pocketbook. That would be the ones that own the politicians and by proxy the politics.