Sun Tzu: The Art Of War
Sun Tzu: an introduction Battles, wars, and conflicts have characterized world’s history since the dawn of time. Through wars and battles, history has been written and rewritten. War and conflicts range from the earliest ones in ancient Mesopotamia to modern conflicts. The most prolonged conflict in modern times is between the Israelites and the Arab nations. Wars have altered and shaped the world. The wars of Rome, Wars of the Roses, American Civil War, World War I, and the Battle of Stoke Field among others are in the record books as the key world events that have become the history. This paper analyzes the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu, the author’s life, his ideas and works. Furthermore, it will seek to review his contributions and their …show more content…
His works and ideas are immense as they formed the basis of military strategy not only in the ancient periods but also in modern warfare. His book The Art of War consists of 13 chapters, each dealing with different but related strategies for winning a war. The given book is one of the oldest treatises based on military strategy, appearing to be the first attempt of writing on planning and subsequent execution of military procedures on rational basis (Pars, 2013).
According to Pars (2013), Tzu employs a wide range of tactics and ideas in military undertakings. They include aspects such as surprise, alliance disruption, divide and conquer, use of spies, attack by fire, tactic variation, energy, as well as laying plans, which considerably help to wage war. All these are Tzu’s strategies that military commanders have to master in wars and conflicts (Pars,
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Some lessons can be learned from his 2300-year-old writings in a different way. For instance, Sun Tzu’s piece offers valuable insights for the management of modern businesses (Chow, 1994). His writings are relevant to strategic thinking and business dealings. They contain the foundations upon which all modern military strategies are centered.
His advice on the use of spies can be applied in modern day businesses in terms of industrial espionage. After all, the latter is a common practice in the business world today as there exist a number of ‘above the board’ practices of gathering information in regards to the competitive nature of the environment (Ellis, 2013). Through his works, the author advises flexibility and shaping as a need to cope with change. He likens military tactics to flowing water. Sun posits that in the same way flowing water tends to avoid heights and only concentrates on the low lands, the army should also avoid strong enemy points and attack the weakest areas. Similarly, companies should learn to adapt flexibility in order to counter the changing and competitive situations at hand (Chow,
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