What Sun Tzu got WRONG?

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#1

A rather interesting question I ran across: What did Sun Tzu get wrong?

People like to claim that the Art of War can be applied to practically anything: from running a business, to teaching a class, to raising a family. Even in warfare, the Art of War is still applied to forms of combat that Sun Tzu couldn’t have known would exist (like air combat and submarines). Yet some have argued, that the reason why Sun Tzu is so flexible, is because it’s written in “vague aphorisms” – see Nostradamus and/or various religious texts about the End of the World for example.

Even this being so: there has to be flaws in Sun Tzu teachings – nothing is perfect after all. Hence the question. What in the Art of War has been proven wrong or inferior?

Thinking it over, two things I considered…

Proposed Flaw: Sun Tzu always assumed you’d be facing an enemy that had a “goal” you could deny or seize from them. His teaching always pointed towards achieving a victory. The Art of War seems rather limited, against an enemy who’s willing to destroy themselves to destroy you… or against an enemy who simply seeks absolute destruction of everything (i.e. Mutually Assured Destruction). Worst case scenario: facing against an enemy who seeks nothing more than eternally perpetuating a war for the sake of war itself.

Proposed Inferiority: Sun Tzu underlying teaching is to either start a war with a plan of victory before the war begins, or have a contingency to victory when forced into a conflict. Where Sun Tzu is very quiet on, is the factor of being the defeated. Sun Tzu is all about avoiding defeat. Enter the concept of no matter how much the victor wins, he can never end the war on a positive result. Defeat never achieves victory, because victory was impossible to begin with. The modern War on Terrorism for example… or the Vietnam War (the US won all major conflicts and certainly killed more of the enemy; still lost the entire thing). Both ironically are the same cause: ideology.

#2

That is still a weakness. They do not desire to win any war (because then it would be over), but merely to prolong it. Once you realize this, then … well, there’ no mincing words: You deny them this objective by killing them all. If you do not, then even if you win in the short term, you never win in the long term because they will always be back. So you put them all to the sword.

That said, I haven’t actually read Sun Tzu ¬¨_¬¨ so I can’t say whether this would fit into Art of War.

#3

Sun Tzu is pretty much blank on the concepts of genocide and MAD warfare. Simply exterminating every trace of your enemy - obliterating every last man, woman, child, house, tree, and farm to the last trace - was something he either didn’t envision; or considered too terrible an act to even consider. Sun Tzu still believed in “battlefield honor” and “establishing harmony” with All Under Heaven.

Now Machiavelli on the other hand…

#4

Hey now, Machiavelli wasn’t as bad as people make him out to be. He never says leaders should be cold, heartless bastards. He simply points out that because an ideal ruler wouldn’t really last very long, it’s best for a ruler to be a practical.

Also, in regards to Sun Tzu. I first read the Art of War after I’d been in the military for a couple years and I was sorely disappointed. I had hoped to gain some sort of extra insight into military/political matters, but it all seemed to be too obvious to me. I’d say the focus on generalities is actually the works greatest weakness. I wouldn’t say he got things wrong, because he never went into a subject far enough to actually BE wrong on anything. Also, even if your enemy is suicidal and wants nothing but more war or annihilation, they still have a goal that can be denied them, even if you must use extreme methods to deny it.

#5

Today’s reality diverges from the one faced by Sun Tzu. In today’s world, if you are considerably stronger economically, then the most the other side can do is to pull off some surprises and fancy footwork here and there and give you some bloody nose … but only for a while. Also, unlike in pre-modern times, with industrialization, wars are no longer seasonal affairs; only political exhaustion or production breakdown will stop wars. Increasingly, there are no clear-cut victories; you fight for a while until you get sick and tired of quagmires (which has happened in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, then it appears that this indecisive pattern will extend into Iraq and Afghanistan now). Less about resorting to violence to impose political outcome; more about demonstrating your military power.

#6