Paper Example on the Art of War by Sun Tzu: The United States Military History

Introduction

The Art of War is a book that contains the meditation on the rules of war that was first published in China. The author of the book is a Chinese military leader known as Sun Tzu. The Art of War provides basic guidelines on warfare and also provides advice to the military on ways to fight and the right time to fight. The book contains 13 chapters which illustrate the battle strategies such as how to use and respond to specific weapons. The chapters, additionally, provides suggestions on how to succeed the enemy without engaging in fights. This essay intends to discuss the military strategies according to Tzu and instances where the strategies apply in both the current and historical warfare. The strategies include laying plans, using spies, weak and strong points and attacking by stratagem.

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Laying plans is one of the strategies by Tzu. According to Tzu (2017), state benefits more from the art of war. There are different factors that military leaders need to take into account that identifies the regulations for the battlefield. The ethical regualations, heaven, earth, the leader in command, and the behavior are the aspects that military leaders need to consider before going to war. The moral law makes the fighters to be in a full agreement with their ruler such that they will always follow the leaders under any circumstances. Heavens signifies light and darkness cold and heat, times and seasons. Earth involves the distance, long or short, wide or narrow. The commander represents the moral excellence such as wisdom, courage and sincerely. These factors are essential to every military leader and as such the leader will be victorious if he understands these factors.

Attack by stratagem is also a strategy by Tzu. To fight and succeed in all the battles is not sovereign achievements; sovereign achievements include destroying the enemy's resistance without fighting. Destroying the enemy's plan and preventing the junction of the enemy forces is the best form of leadership (Tzu, 2017). It implies that before confronting the enemy's army on the battlefield, it is best to attack the enemy's strategy and isolating him from his allies. Military leaders need to know that the best way to succeed the enemy is not by fighting but by breaking the resistance of the enemy and attacking its strategies.

Identifying the weaknesses and strength of the enemy is very important in any kind of war. According to Tzu, the army that is fresh and ready to fight is the army that shows up first in the battlefield and awaits the other army while the army that arrives last will hasten and arrive exhausted. Therefore, the knowledgeable combat will enforce his intentions on the opponent and will not permit the opponent's intentions to be enforced on him. Leaders learn that a great soldier fights on his own terms. Also to be victorious in any kind of war one must have full knowledge of the weak and strong points of the enemy.

Another strategy by Tzu is the use of spies. Gaining more knowledge of the enemy's disposition can only be obtained from other men. It involves the use of different kinds of spies. The role of the spies is to collect information regarding the enemy. An example of a leader who used this strategy is Cromwell, the supreme leader of all the cavalry leaders. He had soldiers designated as scoutmaster whose responsibility was to gather all the inside information concerning the opponents. Through the information gathered by his scouts and spies, he was able to succeed in wars.

According to Tzu (2017), "attacking the enemy's strategy is the greatest importance in war". There are some examples of wars that used Tzu strategy of attacking the enemy's strategy, these wars include the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the other is from the war in Afghanistan. In Israel, the region is more or less on fire. The Arab spring has made thing more violent and chaotic. Recently, Yaakov Amidror, the Israel National Security Advisor commented that the problems seen in Israel are the collapsing of a historical system which is the idea of the national Arabic state. It implies that Israel will have a neighboring area that will be no man's land. On the contrary, Palestine groups are supporting a "boycott, divestment and sanctions" initiative which is gaining support. For this reason, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, considers this "delegitimization" movement as a strategic threat. Big organizations have cut ties with Israel including the $200 billion Dutch pension giant which has split from the five biggest banks in Israel. As Israel is walling off the region to stay secure, the Palestinians are taking advantage of Israel's mentality to further isolate Israel from the world.

The second instance where attacking the enemy's strategy is implemented, comes from Afghanistan, especially the "green on blue" attacks. Initially, the United States strategy was and also is to build a credible Afghan security force by embedding international trainers in Afghan units. To paralyze this strategy, the Taliban would send infiltrators into the recruit ranks to assassinate the trainers. These killing created psychological impact since the trainer would find it hard to do his or her job knowing that an infiltrator might end his or her life. Eventually, the training process slowed down, as the international community spends a lot of time vetting each recruit. At some point, the whole program was called a "halt." With minimal investments, through the green on blue attacks, the Taliban succeeded in attacking American and ISAF strategy in Afghanistan.

Conclusion

The art of war by Sun Tzu is an efficient book especially for military leaders and all kind of leaders at large. The book formulates the strategy of deception that is used with military leaders. The principles in the book include appropriate assessment and planning, waging wars, weaknesses and strengths, forces, strategic attack, attacking with fire and others. The strategy of deception draws its attention on the weaknesses and strength of the enemy. Leaders learn a lot through the knowledge and skills by Sun Tzu on how to overpower and defeat the enemy and the best principle to focus on is the strength and weakness of the enemy.

Work Cited

Tzu, Sun. THE ART OF WAR (Giles Translation). Musaicum Books, 2017.