Overview of Sun Tzu's Art of War
Sun Tzu's The Art of War is one of the most widely studied works in human history, but mastering its principles from just reading it is like mastering geometry by simply reading Euclid. It teaches a philosophy that could be described as "winning without conflict." Its philosophy has several aspects:
- Understanding strategic positions,
- Collecting competitive information and recognizing opportunities,
- Automatically selecting moves that minimize losses and avoid dangerous situations,
- Instantly recognizing the specifics of situations and the responses they require,
- Getting the most out of each move and securing advantages
The work is organized into thirteen chapters. Written in an almost mathematical style, the book starts with the most general concepts and works toward most specific and detailed ideas. Though the ancient Chinese in which the work is written is a conceptual language, in which each character has a broad range of meaning, Sun Tzu treats language scientifically, defining most of his key terms through the course of the work. However, much of the work demands a great deal of understanding of the ancient Chinese science, especially the six philosophical school's that were important during his era (the Yinyang, the Taoist, the Mohist, the Fatalist, the Legalist, and the Confucian). Much of the work also adapts many of its ideas and relationships to the Five Element Theory, where Sun Tzu replaces the Classical Chinese Elements with his own five elements: philosophy (mission), heaven (climate), earth (ground), command (leadership), and methods (procedures). Many of the relationships among these concepts were organized according to the various graphical forms of graphing the five elements, including the Bagua, the cycle of creation, and the star of destruction.
Summary of Chapters
In thirteen chapters, Sun Tzu defines a sophisticated science in a deliberative manner. The book itself is written in a highly condensed form, where each stanza plays a key role in the development of its ideas. Each chapter builds on concepts laid out in earlier chapters.
Chapter 1, "Planning," explores the five key elements that define competitive position (mission, climate, ground, leadership, and methods) and how to evaluate your competitive strengths against those of your competition. This discussion ends with the idea that information in a competitive environment is limited and that perceptions are often very different from reality. This difference between objective and subjective information is one of the principle leverage points for the working of his strategic system.
Chapter 2, "Going to War," defines the economic nature of competition. It explains how success requires making winning pay, which in turn requires limiting the cost of competition and conflict. This chapter is critical to understanding why Sun Tzu teaches "winning without conflict." By definition, conflict is expensive. Beating opponents and winning battles may satisfy the ego, but Sun Tzu considers that goal a foolish one.
Chapter 3, "Planning the Attack" defines the nature of strength. It is important to understand that by "attack," Sun Tzu means specifically the idea of moving into a new territory, not necessarily battle or conflict. Conceptually, you must expand or advance your existing position in order to survive. While defense is less expensive than advance over the short term, change undermines existing positions, so if they are not advanced, they must fail.
Chapter 4, "Positioning," explains how you must use competitive positions. Your abilities to defend yourself and to advance are both based on your current position. To get where you want to go, you must start from where you are. You do not create the openings or opportunities that you need to advance because the environment is too large and complex to control. Instead, you must learn how to recognize opportunities created by changes in the environment.
Chapter 5, "Force," explores the energy that drives all human endeavors: imagination. One of the reasons competitive environments are chaotic is that creativity makes prediction impossible. The human imagination is infinite. Its infinite capacity makes the possibilities of human wealth and progress infinite as well. However, this creativity must be tied solidly to reality. Creativity doesn't work alone. It must be paired with proven methods, that is, existing knowledge, to be effective. Together, they create what Sun Tzu called force or momentum.
Chapter 6, "Weakness and Strength," examines the "circulatory system" of competitive environments, the underlying mechanism of change. As water flows downstream, there is a natural balance of the forces in nature. Voids are filled. Excesses are emptied. Sun Tzu uses this process to explain the deeper nature of opportunity. The multitude of characteristics in the environment can be reduced to emptiness and fullness. Most importantly, human needs are all forms of emptiness, and human produce is all forms of fullness. Using opportunities is largely positioning yourself in the environment to tap into the flow between them.
Chapter 7, "Armed Conflict," explains the dangers of direct conflict. Fighting people over resources is tempting if you don't understand the true nature of opportunity and creativity. However, athough conflict is best avoided, it cannot always be avoided. In those situations, you must understand how you can tip the balance in your favor in any confrontation.
Chapter 8, "Adapting to the Situation," focuses on the need to adapt to the conditions that you encounter. This chapter serves as the introduction to the next three long chapters. These chapters give a number of specific responses to specific situations. This chapter presents the idea that every situation is unique but that it combines familiar elements. While we must be creative and flexible, we must also work within the rules of "standard responses" and not react out of ignorance.
Chapter 9, "Armed March," describes the different situations in which you find yourselves as you move into new competitive arenas. It is the first of the three most detailed chapters. It explains both what those situations mean and how you should respond to them. Much of it focuses on evaluating the intentions of others.
Chapter 10, "Field Position," examines the three general areas of resistance (distance, dangers, and barriers) and the a six types of field positions that arise from them. This is again a long, detailed chapter filled with specific responses that must be learned. Each of the six field positions that it discusses offers certain advantages and disadvantages, both in terms of defending and advancing future positions.
Chapter 11, "Nine Terrains," describes nine common situations (or stages) in a competitive campaign and the recognition and response required in each. This is the last and the longest of the detailed chapters. These nine situations can be generally grouped into early, middle, and late-stage conditions, and they range from scattering to deadly. In each of these situations, there is one and only one appropriate response.
Chapter 12, "Attacking With Fire," discusses environmental attacks and responses. As the most deadly form of destruction in Sun Tzu's era, fire attacks are the framework for discussing both using and surviving moves aimed at the destruction of an opponent. The chapter does this systematically, examining the five targets for attack, the five types of environmental attacks, and the appropriate responses to such attacks. However, it ends with a warning about the emotional use of weapons. While competition can go this direction, it shouldn't.
Chapter 13, "Using Spies," focuses on the most important topic of all: information gathering. It specifically discusses the value and methods of developing good information sources, specifically the five types of sources you need and the way you must manage them. In this final chapter, Sun Tzu makes it clear that all wars are, at their heart, information wars.
The text is written in a circle. The last chapter on gathering information feeds directly back into the first chapter on analyzing information.
History of the Text
Sun Tzu's work has been around for 2,500 years, but Sun Tzu's text has had a complicated history in China. A complete Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s.
A Jesuit missionary, Father Amiot, first brought a version of The Art of War to the West in 1782. This first translation, which became associated with Napoleon's success, redefined our ideas of military strategy.
The English translation of Sun Tzu has progressed dramatically over the years. The first English translations were based on fragmentary and often contradictory Chinese sources. Today's modern English translations offer the complete Art of War, and one, The Art of War plus the Ancient Chinese Revealed, is the only award-winning translation and the only translation used as a guide for translations into other languages, including Asian languages.
History of Chinese Text
Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. During most of the past two thousand years, the common people in China were forbidden to read Sun Tzu's text. However, the text was preserved by China's nobility for over 2,500 years. Unfortunately, it was preserved in a variety of forms. A "complete" Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s. Before that, there were a number of conflicting, fragmentary versions in different parts of China, passed down through 125 generations of duplication.
The Chinese preserved the text of The Art of War, known in Chinese as Bing-fa, even through the famous book-burning by the first Emperor of Chi around 200 BC. The text was treasured and passed down by the Empire’s various rulers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two main textual traditions in circulation, known as the 
(Complete Specialist Focus) and 
(Military Bible) versions. There were also perhaps a dozen minor versions and both derived and unrelated works also entitled Bing-fa. Of course, every group considered (and still considers) its version the only accurate one.
(Complete Specialist Focus) and (Military Bible) versions. There were also perhaps a dozen minor versions and both derived and unrelated works also entitled Bing-fa. Of course, every group considered (and still considers) its version the only accurate one. 
In the twentieth century, sections of the work have been found in a number of archeological digs uncovering the tombs of the ancient rulers of China. These finds have verified the historical existence of the text and the historical accuracy of various sections. New finds are still being made. The first complete, consistent Chinese version was created in Taipei in the 1970s. It was titled 
"The Complete Version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War." It was created by the National Defense Research Investigation Office, which was a branch of Taiwan's defense department. This version compared the main textual traditions to each other and to archeological finds and compiled the most complete version possible.
"The Complete Version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War." It was created by the National Defense Research Investigation Office, which was a branch of Taiwan's defense department. This version compared the main textual traditions to each other and to archeological finds and compiled the most complete version possible. This work was completed in Taiwan rather than mainland China for a number of reasons. Mainland China was still in the throws of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, which actively suppressed the study of traditional works such as Sun Tzu. The mainland had also moved to a reformed character set, while Taiwan still used the traditional character set in which the text was written. Only today is the study of Sun Tzu in mainland China growing, interestingly enough, through the translation of Sun Tzu into contemporary Chinese.
Based on the archaeological sources we have today, we are reasonably certain of the historical accuracy of this compiled version that is the basis of what most people use today. There is a high probability that most of it is the original work of the first Master Sun, Sun Wu. The same cannot be said about many related works on strategy, attributed to other Chinese scholars, including possibly Sun Wu's descendant, Sun Ping. For these other works, there are fewer traditional sources, questionable histories, and virtually no archaeological sources. While some of these other works may well be historical frauds, virtually all scholars agree on the historicity of Sun Tzu's work, if not the man himself.
First Western Translation
A Jesuit missionary, Father Amiot, first brought The Art of War to the West, translating it into French in 1782. Unfortunately, this translation started the tradition of mistranslating Sun Tzu's work, starting with the title, The Art of War (Art de la guerre). This title, copied the title of a popular work by Machiavelli, but it didn't reflect Sun Tzu's Bing-fa, which would be better translated as "Competitive Methods."
Soon after its publication in France, it was discovered by a minor French military officer. After studying it, this officer rose to the head of the revolutionary French army in a surprising series of victories. The legend is that Napoleon used the work as the key to his victories in conquering all of Europe. It is said that he carried the little work with him everywhere but kept its contents secret (which would be very much in keeping with Sun Tzu's theories). However, Napoleon must have started believing his own reviews instead of sticking with his study of Sun Tzu. His defeat at Waterloo was clearly a case of fighting on a battleground that the enemy, Wellington, knew best. Wellington’s trick at Waterloo was hiding his forces by having them lie down in the slight hollows of this hilly land. This is exactly the type of tactic Sun Tzu warns against in his discussion of terrain tactics.
English Translations
The public domain versions of Sun Tzu's The Art of War that are available today are all based upon the early translations by Calthrop (1905) and Giles (1910). Another popular work by Samuel Griffith on The Art of War was published in 1963. Written prior to the Chinese compilations of Sun Tzu in the 1970s, all of these works were based on fragmentary and often contradictory Chinese sources.
The Art of War became more popular in the 1980s, when it began to make its way into popular culture. This inspired the popular writers, Clavell and Cleary, to release their own versions of the work, which remain popular today. Unfortunately, these works were based either on earlier English translations or the older incomplete sources, rather than the more complete versions of the Chinese that were now available in China.
However, the compilation the various Chinese traditional versions into a complete text that was done in Taiwan during the seventies didn't show up show up in English until the late nineties, first by Roger Ames and later by myself. My work, The Art of War plus the Ancient Chinese Revealed, remains the only award-winning translation and the only translation that is updated regularly based on the study of the work around the world. Because of its side-by-side format, showing the original Chinese characters individually translated into English across from its English sentence version, this work is used as a base for translations into other languages, including Asian languages.
Problems in Understanding
In The Art of War, the problems in understanding the work start with the fact that Sun Tzu's work is written more like a scientific treatise than "how-to" book.
A how-to book is designed to help the reader understand the material, but in a scientific work—modern or ancient—you have to read every word and every sentence carefully to learn the terminology. You can open a "how-to" book to any chapter and understand most of it without studying the preceding chapters carefully. But science and math start with developing precise language. If you skip even a few paragraphs defining their concepts, you get completely lost. With ancient science, you have the additional barrier of having to understand the underlying scientific methods and models of the period.Specialized Language
Because we translate Sun Tzu into normal English, readers think they understand what is being said even when they don't. For example, in Sun Tzu's writing, the differences between "fight," "conflict," "battle," and "attack" are as great as the differences between "rational numbers," "irrational numbers," "real numbers," and "imaginary numbers" in mathematics. We can understand what the words "rational" "irrational," "real," and "imaginary" mean but have no idea about how those terms define different types of numbers. The same is true in Sun Tzu's work. You may know what "fight," "conflict," "battle," and "attack" mean normally, but unless you understand the very specific ways these terms and a hundred others are used in The Art of War, you cannot appreciate what he is saying in any specific section.
When you start reading the Art of War, you may notice how much of the work is spent simply defining terms. This process begins on the first page and continues on almost every page. As we read, we cannot keep track of this multitude of definitions. As one definition follows another, the important details of their critical elements are easy to overlook.
Though Sun Tzu carefully defines his terms from the very first page, when translated into normal English, the result appears to be normal nonfiction. When we read "fight," "conflict," "battle," and "attack" we assume we know what is being said. We quickly forget (and often do not even notice) Sun Tzu's very specific definitions. Since "fight," "conflict," "attack," and "battle" mean very similar things in English, we miss most of the specific points that Sun Tzu is making.
As the work goes on, Sun Tzu uses his specialized vocabulary to express very sophisticated ideas. Most of these ideas cannot be easily expressed without that vocabulary. However, since readers do not master the fine distinctions of that vocabulary, they cannot understand the more detailed points that are being made.
Lack of Explanation, Illustrations, and Examples
Sun Tzu didn't write a textbook for modern audiences. In modern textbooks, the authors include examples, illustrations, exercises, and practice drills to help students master the ideas. Sun Tzu's work lacks all these features.
Illustrations demonstrating the connections among these ideas would be very helpful, and, surprisingly enough, his work does include descriptions of such illustrations, but they are written in the scientific tradition of his era. Modern readers have no idea how this culture mapped ideas, so we cannot make the connections that readers in his era did naturally.
If Sun Tzu had written in modern times, he would have explained these ideas in more detail. He would have included examples, exercises, and practice drills to clarify his concepts.
Unfortunately, in his era, people learned from living masters, not from books. On a practical level, writing and duplicating books was too expensive and time-consuming to include a wealth of examples or details. The onus was placed on the reader to study the work rather than on the writer to explain every idea in detail. There is a 2,500-year gap between Sun Tzu's expectations and readers' expectations today.
Sun Tzu's Chinese Scientific Tradition
When Sun Tzu's system is explained in modern terms, it makes logical sense, but you cannot understand the original text without understanding its underlying cultural context.
There were six schools of thought during Sun Tzu's era: the Yinyang, Confucian, Mohist, Legalist, Fatalist, and Taoist schools. Sun Tzu's work was written in the context of all this work. Yin Yang and Complementary Opposites
Historically, the conceptual base for Sun Tzu's The Art of War is the ancient Chinese concept of "yin and yang." We refer to this idea in classical strategy as "complementary opposites" to avoid the many conflicting cultural meanings of yinyang and because Sun Tzu didn't use that terminology himself. Since Sun Tzu's system deals specifically with competing forces, it is easy to see why opposition is so important, but it goes deeper than that.
Three basic themes underlie this concept. First, it is the fabric of all existence, as mind/body, matter/energy, space/time, and similar dichotomies. Second, it is the pattern of change, the balancing waxing and waning of all things. Finally, it is the constant, dynamic balance of all things, where excesses naturally correct themselves. The earliest Chinese characters for yin and yang are found on “oracle bones” in the fourteenth century BC. In these inscriptions, they were descriptions of the climate, sunlight during the day (yang), and a lack of sunlight at night (yin). Later these ideas became associated with the division between the sun and moon, and heaven (light) and earth (dark). Over time, they began include the movement of force (chi or qi) between opposites and the physical forms of complementary opposites in nature, such as men and women.
During Sun Tzu's era, the fifth and sixth century BC, the Yinyang School of philosophy was one of the six primary schools mentioned by the historian Sima Qian. It included a number of associated sciences, such as astronomy, numbers, fortune telling, and, most importantly, wuxing, the “five phases” based on the five elements, and zhuguai,the Bagua. All these ideas can be traced back to the I Ching, the source work of Chinese culture. tortoise-shell divination that became associated with
The Zuo Zhuan (Chinese: 左傳) is the earliest Chinese work of narrative history, covering the period from the eighth to fifth centuries BC, as a commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals, which is the period in which Sun Tzu lived. It defines the yin and yang as the first two of six heavenly forces:
There are six heavenly influences [qi] which descend and produce the five tastes, go forth in the five colors, and are verified in the five notes; but when they are in excess, they produce the six diseases. Those six influences are denominated the yin, the yang, wind, rain, obscurity, and brightness. In their separation, they form the four seasons; in their order, they form the five (elementary) terms. When any of them is in excess, they ensure calamity. An excess of the yin leads to diseases of cold; of the yang, to diseases of heat. (Legge 1994: 580)
Anyone familiar with Sun Tzu's text will note the many parallels here with his work. There is also a very similar pattern of numeric associations. Most of these many numeric patterns in Sun Tzu have complementary opposites embedded within them. The five key factors or elements are two sets of complementary opposites around a core; the six field positions are two extremes in three dimensions; and so on. This concept is critical in understanding Sun Tzu's work.
Sun Tzu taught that the natural balance in competition is maintained by these underlying opposing forces that create stable systems. We succeed in competition by leveraging these forces rather than fighting them.
