art of war

art of war

The Art of War: Strategies for Success in Conflict and Competition

1. Introduction to Sun Tzu and The Art of War

Sun Tzu lived in a time similar to the “warring states” period of the Greek city-states, as depicted by Thucydides or the Old Testament. It was a time of small wars and competition between compact and often belligerent states. With much of the literature on war that has been written since Sun Tzu, both Eastern and Western, there is thus great reliance on an understanding of the context of his teaching. Background information is useful and has not been repeated here. However, the original context in which Sun Tzu wrote may have even less relevance to the original meaning of his teaching than to that of his contemporary Western philosophy. Our focus is not historical interpretation but situates Sun Tzu’s teaching in the context of the processes of interpretation and decision making with which we have immediate concern.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has been a vastly influential treatise on military strategy in the East and, of more recent vintage, has become increasingly influential in the West. Over the years, there have been countless translations of Sun Tzu’s classic, as well as evaluations of his philosophy. Yet, new strategies for success are more often recycled aphorisms misattributed to Sun Tzu or someone else. This paper uses Sun Tzu’s own words to interpret his philosophy for the reader. In particular, it interprets his message in its original application: that of leading a military force to victory in battle. It then extrapolates the meaning to the processes that we use to interpret data and make decisions, albeit in a less dramatic fashion than a general on the battlefield.

2. Key Principles and Strategies in The Art of War

From this, the author dives into The Nine Principles of Strategy, that is, the pillars of The Art of War. These are The Principle of the Objective, The Principle of the Offensive, The Principle of Mass, The Principle of Economy of Force, The Principle of Maneuver, The Principle of Unity of Command, The Principle of Simplicity, The Principle of Surprise, and The Principle of Security. Next, he presents The Nine Types of Ground, which examine the effects of the terrain on the course of military operations. Then, he follows with some period commentaries and illustrations relevant to the above strategies and types of ground.

From the introduction, this study guide covers the key concepts, principles, and strategies that emerge from The Art of War. These historical insights on warfare, as well as on management and leadership, are still very useful for doing business today. Military strategy is a branch of the ancient art of sophisticated detachment, but many long for what they see as primitive emotions or quixotisms, with quite questionable theoretical explanations. The Art of War presents strategy as an art that seeks the right use of the primordial forces of politics and force by rational means. Strategy, then, is guided by ideology in terms of needs, goals, and unmanifested potential. Strategy grows out of the Soviet climate, which puts in contradiction inexorable spontaneous complacency and idealistic vituperations of voluntarism or doctrinarianism. So strategy lives in an organic flow born of the intangibility of the ethical concepts in the flow of facts, when projecting wills and aspirations into the realm of the real.

3. Application of The Art of War in Modern Contexts

During the past few decades, Sunzi’s manual on the art of war has been making spectacular inroads into Western politician, executive, and military circles. Why this explosion of interest? Why now? An answer is not very difficult to seek. In difficult times like these, we look for answers and, recognizing that the old scholars of war, centuries ago, were not so very unlike ourselves, we look also to the war manuals of antiquity. For their wisdom is the wisdom of the human heart and of the human spirit. And this too is why The Art of War is not a dated text but, indeed, is a relevant tool for a troubled age, for our age, and not for China alone but also for the West. The art is different, the world is different, but the unfailing foundation of power and victory remains the correct understanding of oneself and one’s situation and the wise inculcation of self-discipline and skillfulness.

Recently, we have witnessed an expansion of Sunzi mania into new and, in several respects, unexpected areas. Management gurus, marketing executives, financial consultants, and other advocates of free-market capitalism also have begun to look to Sunzi for ideas and inspiration. The military thinker has entered the boardroom and the well-worn pages of the Daoist classic have become the source of power and profit, of competitive edge and commercial victory.

4. Case Studies and Examples of The Art of War in Action

It is clear from the beginning of the series that the hospital puts up with Dr. House because of the results. It is not clear how or why he gets the results. As the series continues, new details emerge that might also contribute to his results. Still, the main actions revolve around the same goals and approach. Dr. House is famous for his ability to diagnose patients. He does this by observing their symptoms and looking for connections to diagnose their underlying problems. One of his main strategies is removing people, usually care-giving types, from his vicinity. Then, he manipulates them to monitor their responses, looking for “tells” (unconscious indications) in their behavior.

One of the clearest cases of The Art of War in television is Dr. House. Dr. House luxuriates in knowledge, takes pleasure in it, unlike many real-world examples. As a result, he is able to take in information about his patients faster than the people around him can. He sees patterns and connections to events at a remote site. He also has no ethical problem with using his knowledge to manipulate the people around him. He hires a diagnostic team, but he doesn’t listen to most of what they say. They generate a stream of ideas, and he listens to some of them. When he feels the need, he delegates some of his diagnostic responsibility to test some of his ideas. He takes responsibility for those test results.

5. Conclusion: Lessons Learned and Future Implications

An art of strategy is being developed, an evolving, coherent collection of principles and wisdom directly adaptable to strategic and tactical situations. Researchers now have a working, evolving, predictive theory to guide them, enabled by a theory-embedded design framework providing immediate and longer-term insights for the development of decision aids. Conflict strategy, one of the oldest topics in formal thought, has at last found a worthy modern sibling, which has been accorded its proper broader and deeper foundation. This is the first proven, general theory of conflict strategy. The analysis method produced the first step toward a new, generally applicable theory of such a strategy, and its supporting definition from first principles of the intimate link between evaluation and strategy. The fact that virtually all conflict and competition interactions are in fact classes of struggle interactions, in that parties do indeed share a coherent, tangible common goal but structure the interaction so that means to that end are more scarce or difficult to obtain, suggests that research pursuing a common thread might be of enduring interest and value. It is worthy of further pursuit.

As individuals, we strive for finite goals, compete and strategize in relationships and careers, striving for success. Competitive goal-striving underlies the wisdom of the success literature and is implicit in business, military, and sporting metaphors used in self-help literature. However, there is little coherent, cohesive, enduring advice about strategies effective for success in the numerous struggle interaction situations confronting us each year. Despite our desperate need for it, is there such a thing as perennially useful advice for success in conflict and competition? Not much has been written by present and past strategists on this topic. However, the number of sources is relatively small and the messages simple enough to make us suspect unifying truths about struggle interaction underlie earlier and newer works.