As recently as the 1970s, only China specialists knew of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in the West. Sun and his book were ignored entirely in the 1975 edition of World Book Encyclopedia. But since then, The Art of War has been embraced by athletes and businessmen along with intended users in the military as a trove of succinct Oriental wisdom, applicable to a society where winning is everything and playing the game for any other purpose is written off as wasted motion.
The History Channel documentary “Art of War” (out on DVD) calls Sun Tzu “the Nostradamus of warfare.” It’s a silly assertion. The Chinese aphorist wasn’t predicting the future but composing an elegantly reasoned set of strategic maxims. To relate Sun to the History Channel audience, the documentary successfully demonstrates how his ideas have played out in recent conflicts such as the D-Day invasion and the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Consciously or not, Gen. Eisenhower adhered to Sun’s insistence on clear lines of command and the value of deception in planning the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
But in Vietnam, Eisenhower’s successors ignored at their peril Sun’s primary rule, “Know your enemy, know yourself.” By contrast, North Vietnam’ Gen. Giap seems to have been a student of The Art of War and obeyed the maxim, “Avoid what is strong, attack what is weak.” Little wonder The Art of War was subsequently added to the West Point curriculum. Alas, many politicians have continued to ignore Sun’s advice that subduing the enemy without fighting is preferable to winning by force.
