The Art of War

I know last week I said that that would be my last blog post, but I was wrong. I apologize. This final blog post is about the book I read over the past couple of weeks. The book I read was the Art of War by Sun Tzu, which was quite interesting. This book is mainly about how to win wars or the process to winning wars in a quick and effective manner. The book begins with laying out plans. This mainly refers to one particular force. Sun Tzu outlines what a good general should have planned for his forces and how to lead them based on Moral Law. Moral Law is the men of the army’s respect for their leaders and each other, and belief in their leaders. time.

Next, he mainly focuses on the economic standpoint of war. First of all, war is expensive for everyone. So, if someone strikes their enemy when their enemy’s economy is in a downturn, the attacker will be at an advantage. Another aspect Sun Tzu emphasizes is how victory is always the main goal without a lengthy campaign because with a lengthy campaign you always lose a significant amount of money.

In the middle of the book, his ideas focused on strategies and tactics, including what to do when preparing for war like calculating chances of victory. Another strategy he discusses is attacking places that are undefended and defend places that cannot be attacked to increase your chances of victory. Another idea he mentions is that everyone can see the tactics but no one can see the strategy since the tactics are the way you are set up beforehand and the strategy is what actions follow after. The terrain is also a key aspect to winning wars and can affect how you position your troops and the strategies you use with them to defend themselves. The final takeaway message is the role of information and how to obtain that information. Sun Tzu states that spies and spying on your enemy is a very valuable asset to achieving your goal of winning the war.

I believe the central argument of this book is a proposal for a proper and effective method to win wars. I agree that this is one of the best if not the best strategies to winning wars in general, no matter what the dispute is about. These strategies have been used in the past and are still relevant today. Every general will have their own variation of this set of strategies or will follow these set of strategies but in a much looser regimen. Since these strategies can be used more like guidelines, that is why they have been used so much in the past to now.

I would recommend this book to others because it was quite interesting and intricate. I liked seeing the viewpoints of what strategies ancient generals fought with, compared to fighting with modern technology. I believe the strategies still hold true to this day making it valuable for everyone to read.