Like Strategy? Read Sun Tzu's Art of War

[MullinsR]

I figured since this is a strategy board, why not discuss about some stuff to ease the mind of the impatience. I read the regular Sun Tzu's Art of War and fully enjoyed it. Then, I went to the same book store and they have different Books using Sun Tzu's Theories/Tactics/Doctrines. Like For Buisness,Etc.

But more interesting was the Sun Tzu and the Art of Modern Warfare, using Sun Tzu's Tactics in Modernized Armys. The book is a must read, enjoyed it more than the original.

Yes I know this doesnt relate to SC2 but I just had to change the sheets.

[MullinsR]

Ah, you guys are dull. Read books

[Lars]

Maybe we've already read it.

[MullinsR]

Haha,

Well, did the ones who read it enjoy it? Agree with his thoughts?

[Lars]

Sure.

But some of them aren't real relevant anymore. And sea power is almost totally left out, which is a major shortcoming for insight on running a campaign today. Not really Tzu's fault there though.

[MullinsR]

Yeah, its a great book for land tactics (duh) but yeah, im sure sea tactics someone could think up.

[santabear]

It's a great book. The principles in this book can be applied to any form of warfare--land, air, sea. They've been applied to sports, investing and business, too.

Sun Tzu's key principles are: "All warfare is based on deception," and "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

(i.e. Maneuver warfare as the highest form of military art).

[SeaMonkey]

I always felt the bottom line was "the opportunity of positioning", or the manipulation of your opponent's thought.

[Desert Dave]

Ah, you guys are dull. Read books

Yep, MullinsR,

Dull it too often be.

Here,

An offering from WB Yeats'

"The Phases of the Moon"

______________________________________

A rat or water-hen

Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream,

We are on the bridge; that shadow

Is the Tower,

And the light provides

That he is reading still.

He has found,

After the manner of his kind,

Mere images; chosen this place to live in

Because, it may be, of the candle-light

From the far tower

Where Milton's Platonist

Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince:

The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved,

An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil;

And now he seeks in book or manuscript

What he shall never find.

_____________________________________________

What worked then, or once,

Might work now, though,

I doubt it.

Insurmountable?

Problem being... few are the number

Will throw over what's old,

And deliberately change

The usual way of seeing.

Must be done, I aver; else

That distant rumble you hear?

'Tis the thunder of entropy

And devolution;

Assembling now, the hordes of devouring

Rat warriors,

Strutting to a feudal trumpet,

Disdaining fair thought, or fear,

Indolently arriving, oh yes,

As though ordained

Since first inception,

This wasting earth... ah, coming

Ever near.

Time for the uknown book,

Passed from one to the next, direct,

Soul to mind to innermost-ear.

Words become... magic transcription.

[MullinsR]

Nice one!

[jon_j_rambo]

This a discussion at Mar's Hill before Paul got there? The "Unknown"?

[santabear]

Hi SeaMonkey,

As I see it, we're saying the same thing.

Opportunity of positioning = maneuver (which is the way to subdue without fighting--force a withdrawal)

Manipulation of opponent's thought = deception

SB

[JerseyJohn]

The Roman general/later emperor, Tiberius Caesar, probably never read the book -- it would be interesting to find out that it somehow made it's way to the Mediteranean, but I do doubt it. Anyway, Tiberius regularly employed the same strategy that Sun Tzu's book favors. He'd avoid major battles against the German tribes by going on preemptive sorties, destroying crops before they could be harvested, scattering large tribes before they could combine with others, that sort of thing. His form of warfare effectively kept the Germans east of the Roman Rhine provinces for a decade or so. Unfortunately his reputation has been forever tarnished by his actions as a decadent emperor living at Capri. Naturally, we've got to take the word of his enemies on that, but he had so many of them that it seems reliable to do so. In any case, he was a very good general of the same school with Sun Tsu -- or whoever it was that wrote the book bearing that name.

[Desert Dave]

Apparently it is the determination

Of Homo Sapiens,

To win as militia, gain

Advantage, succeed, or progress,

As the one alone, or, emerged

In some diminishing mass,

Employing whatever devise

They might take delight,

Practised might, sleight,

Or simple solace from.

Perhaps?

Another way to see,

And hear:

_____________________________________________

Nature can never be completely described,

For such a description of Nature

Would have to duplicate Nature.

No name can fully express what it represents.

It is Nature itself,

And not any part

(...or name or description)

Abstracted from Nature,

Which is the ultimate source

Of all that happens,

All that comes and goes,

Begins and ends,

Is and is not.

But to describe Nature as

"The ultimate source of all"

Is still only a description,

And such a description

Is not Nature itself.

Yet since, in order to speak of it,

We must use words,

We shall have to describe it

As - "the ultimate source of all."

If Nature is inexpressible,

He who desires to know Nature

As it is in itself,

Will not try to express it in words.

To try to express the inexpressible

Leads one to make distinctions

Which are... unreal.

___________________________________

-- Lao Tzu

"Tao Teh King"

________________________

Interesting history JJ,

Enjoyed it.

Ah, pardon, here I go again... LOL,

Averse to conflict as

Qualified concept?

And yet!

Just now... testing, playing

A modern day war-game.

[ April 01, 2006, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

[John C]

I read it. In fact, most of us old enough to have seen the movie WallStreet will have read it. But, truth be told, I find Machiavelli's The Prince to be far more thought provoking.

[MullinsR]

AH! I only skimmed the prince, for I think I got the picture down\ the idea.

[Bill101]

I've read a cartoon version of the Art of War and enjoyed it, but my special favourite is Clausewitz's On War. Obviously both are of use in improving your military strategies and tactics, but Clausewitz's book has had a very strong and positive impact on my gameplay.

I would heartily recommend it to everyone with an interest in military affairs.

Some of the modern books on Manouevre Warfare are also pretty useful. For sea warfare there is Mahan's The Influence of Seapower Upon History and Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. I don't know if there are more modern works covering 20th century naval strategies, but I'd be surprised if the principles have changed much from when these authors wrote.

[Desert Dave]

All the books in all the libraries

Of the whole world,

Cannot save this unique "trepid experiment"

From entropy, and extinction.

Fear not those amassed armies or even

Incestuous cells of "terrorists"

(... who are differently denoted

depending on - where you live

and what material goods or idealogies

you have come to believe, or

were covertly, or rabidly, convinced!

need... safe-keeping)

Rather,

The coming of the mighty

"Fast - faster! mutating

Dis-eases."

What good war-books, then?

Perhaps one day,

A sudden surge of "collective enlightenment?"

Since,

Contained within EACH cell of each

Of our earth-bound Soma Soul,

Is the explanation for EVERY single thing

That has happened,

Is occurring now,

And,

Yes, I believe it so,

What WILL happen... next, and next.

Access that,

And you will have an uncommon

Answer.

From one, to the next, to the last.

Like magic.

No words (... of war, of peace) necessary.

We... will... just... know

What is - now, immediately,

Required and,

IMHO, 'at ain't no old,

Or somehow?

Told & re-told as superior? LOL,

Method of temporal conquest.

Of... anything.

Greeks & Romans & Turks & Feudal Lords,

And Mongols & Vandals & Teutons,

ALL imagined their OWN dynasties

Would last into distant millenia,

If not - a gladly! smiling Eternity.

LOL.

And so,

Everyone gets their turn,

Everyone meets that same

Indifferent fate.

No exceptions.

Look... far inside.

Make no assumptions.

Who? Can catch a secret glimpse

Of the whole world, entirely,

Completely, within?

[SeaMonkey]

Perhaps a survivor DD....the survivor.

After the perils and pestilence have run amok,

maybe those that bathe in the "Light" will have the answer, a glimpse.......maybe not!

Is the secret for many....or for only one?

And for those that know.....then what?

Is the enlightenment attainment of the final goal, or is the infinitude of the quest for the goal that yields the enlightenment.

If it is the first, ..... I repeat....then what?

If it is the second.....well does that define the spirit as a perpetual being, existing in the infinity?

[John C]

Military books are nice, but experience is by far the best teacher. Nothing shows what works or does not work as well as putting it to the test. Unfortunately, so much of the experience we gain these days comes with AI as the opponent and may actually be counter-productive, teaching that bad strategy is effective and fooling many into thinking that they are better than they actually are.

[santabear]

it would be interesting to find out that it somehow made it's way to the Mediteranean, but I do doubt it

John, Sun Tzu's book probably made it to the Med. in some form with Marco Polo--of course that's about 1K years after Rome...

And Genghis Khan brought some pretty convincing live-action demonstrations of those principles throughout the area...

[_onepercent]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

This a discussion at Mar's Hill before Paul got there? The "Unknown"?

Actually, this is where you should pop in and say the Art of War is an outdated and inadequate book by now, because americans didn't excist then, and do now!

In fact, if you disagree, you'll get jon_j_rambo and chuck norris after you, and that can't be good. So y'all better agree now, ya hear!

Chuck Norris once defeated an entire arab nation, alone, but that barely compares to what jon_j_rambo did. Sssssshhhh, don't tell anyone, but they didn't really nuke Nagasaki....they just dropped jon_j_rambo out of a plane and as he shouted HAYAH!!!! he punched the ground! BOOM! Then he quoted the bible.

Legendary!

Yeh, I'm incredibly bored waiting on SC2. I'll check back in another year or so. Till then.

[MullinsR]

^^^^^^^^^^^

...........

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

[JerseyJohn]

Thank you, DD,

Glad you enjoyed it.

Santabear,

Interesting topic we've wandered into. Yes -- it is something to consider that Ghengis Khan employed so many of Sun Tsu's principles. I don't know if he was aware of the text either, that would have been at least 1,200 years after they were written and, while it's true he must have Chinese advisers and used Chinese troops (principally pikemen) as an adjunct to his forces, I'm not sure that the Great Khan and his generals didn't thoroughly understand that kind of warfare to begin with. I think that would have been their naturally form of fighting and, if they learned of the texts, they'd have shrugged and said, "Well, of course!"

It's very hard for us to know what books would have been in the Great Library of Alexandria. There are numerous allusions to vast histories, for example, and not a trace remains. Also, a great many very prolific ancient authors who are well listed in the surviving indexes but we've only got random scraps representing their work.

Additionally, by the time Augustus Caesar was running things, an Egyptian merchant fleet was sailing regularly in the Indian Ocean bringing silks and other goods to the Mediteranean from China. This is remembered now as a huge drain on the empire as it mainly paid in gold instead of trading in it's own goods (which apparently the Chinese didn't want). I think it's very conceivable that even after the Great Library burned down there would have been translations of Chinese literature circulating in the empire.

The translations themselves might very well have been lost during the dark ages. If those texts on military theory existed, Tiberius is exactly the sort of person who would have been reading them.

Bill101

Mahan's book is a great work, of course. That was realized almost as soon as he'd written it. Historically it's greatest impact was probably in encouraging the fledgling united Germany to pursue a path of naval power -- probably not it's wisest decision for numerous reasons.

Additionally, there are the books of British theorists such as Fuller and Hart that seem to have become less popular today than they were thirty and forty years ago.

Liddel-Hart lost some credance because he predicted in 1939-40 that the Maginot Line would be instrumental in staving off a German invasion of France. But all things considered, it was a good prediction. He had no way of foreseeing that the French would practically put a welcome mat on the Ardennes Forest.

JohnC.

In line with what you were saying about experience and theory,

General Fuller, the true founder of the Blitzkreig school, not only in theory but as an actual field commander in WWI, also lost a lot of credibility through his personal confrontations with the British Army heirarchy (causing him to retire prematurely) and also by being an enthusiastic fascist. He once ran for Parliament on the fascist ticket.

Though Hart later got Guderian, after the Second World War, to say in his memoirs that much of his tank doctrine was based on his writins, it was a baldfaced lie. Fuller, if anyone, served as his inspiration. Actually, Hart helped Guderian when his life was in ruins, so it's possible he made those statements on his own, out of personal gratitude.

There are many good books of a similar vein to have come out of WWII, one of my favorites is Lost Victories, by FM Erich von Manstein. I've always felt it gives a great insight into many of the major campaigns of the war and also into the basic idea of Blitzkreig as explained by one of it's masters.

The two books by Heinz Guderian, Achtung Panzer! and I think the second is titled Panzer General (?) also provide good insights. Guderian wrote the first work during the mid and late 1930s. It started out as a study of the German cavalry tactics in Belgium, 1914 and wound up as one of the earliest and best works on armored warfare. Interestingly, it reflects more the early WWII German doctrine of comparatively light but fast armored formations working ahead of the infantry than the lumbering sledgehammer tank tactics in use by the time of Kursk, mid-1943. Patton's push armored spearhead advances in France in 1944 was very much in the spirit of Guderian's principles.

The second book is also very interesting but, unfortunately, it's been so long since I've read the thing that it's too hazy for me to comment on here. At the time it seemed more like a straight historical treatment of WWII in Europe, at least Guderian's role in it, which in itself makes it a valuable volume.

[ April 05, 2006, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Desert Dave]

Thank you, DD,

Glad you enjoyed it.

Yer Welcome B-R,

And the above (... provided no one gets in

ahead of me) prolific and informative post

Is just ONE of the many reasons

I had requested you make more

Frequent happenstance appearances,

As you used to do, and!

Throw in that OT stuff too!

Keeps things loose, not so

Much like a wing nut

Has been screwed down too tight

On the cock-eyed bolt,

Stripping the threads,

So to speak. :cool: