THE ART OF WAR by S.T. | Chapter 6 : Weaknesses and Strengths

Summary: Sun Tzu judges a successful general according to his ability to create a situation in which the enemy is forced to engage. This is accomplished by a carrot-and-stick approach in which the enemy is enticed by the illusion of easy success, or pushed into a position from which it can neither adequately defend itself nor completely escape. If forcing the enemy into a trap, Sun Tzu emphasizes that the best way to do this is to leave open what looks like an escape route but is actually a controlled route by which prisoners (and provisions) can be captured. Most significantly, as Sun Tzu points out, the first army to arrive at the field of battle has the advantage of time to rest, and to fully assess the best positions for their battalions. A general who keeps his opponent in the dark about the details of his plans can cause the opponent to attempt to strengthen one area at the cost of leaving another vulnerable. One way to guarantee success is to have the enemy attempt to fortify in every direction because in so doing, its resources will be spread so thin that no single position would be strong enough to withstand an attack. Commentator Tu Mu gives an example of how commander Chu-ko Liang left a small force to defend a city, but the attacking general Ssu-ma I was given misleading signs that the defenders were planning an ambush. Assuming the defenders were stronger than he had believed at first, the attacking general fled with his troops into the mountains, only to learn later he had been tricked into calling off a potentially successful attack on the city. According to Tu Yu, a wise general places separate units of his army at varying distances from the appointed battlefield and orders them to march at different times so they will all arrive together "like people coming to a city market." So, as Sun Tzu has said in the previous chapter, while signs and signals to one's own forces must be clear and well understood, those which the enemy is able to read and interpret must lead to false conclusions so that the enemy will act on them, thus compromising its own forces. A general can capitalize on his opponent's weaknesses, while correspondingly making the best use of his own strengths by constantly changing tactics to fit the conditions of the battle. Sun Tzu concludes the chapter by stating that change is inevitable and that no condition in nature is "always predominant." #art #war #victory #suntzu #meditation #books #learning #teacher #history #king #emotional #motivation #inspiration #leadership #leadership #speech #ambition #tactics #wisdom #reading #life #death #planing #moral #heaven #earth #commander #discipline #method #general #stoicism #military #army #warriors #legend #howto #influencer