BOOK
REVIEW The relevance of Sun
Tzu The Art of War
translated by John Minford
Reviewed
by Dmitry Shlapentokh
The classics are
always worth reading. The Art of War by Sun
Tzu certainly falls in this category, and this is
apparently the reason it was republished recently
in English. Sun Tzu's treatise is regarded as a
classic of military science and seems to be
especially appropriate reading for the
English-speaking public at a
time
when the United States and its major European
ally, Britain, have engaged in wars or are in
preparation for new wars on many fronts. Indeed,
Sun Tzu has become quite a popular author and is
frequently quoted.
Therefore, it is not
accidental that when the general secretary of the
Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao, visited the
US, he gave the book to President George W Bush,
as a hint on how the United States should deal
with its numerous geopolitical
challenges. Yet one could doubt that Sun Tzu's
advice would be of use to a US administration,
regardless of who sits in the White House.
The message of the book is clear: war is
won not through strength but through skillful
manipulation - a victory of the writing brush and
brains over sword and strength. This vision of war
is related to another major point of the book, or
at least can be interpreted in this way: war is
not just the function of the military but is the
exercise of the entire societal body. And it is
here that the US military behemoth fails:
America's socio-economic fabric as a whole is not
designed to win the current wars, regardless of
what seems to be enormous and constantly
increasing investments in the country's military
machine.
Among Sun Tzu's profound ideas is
the assumption that war cannot be victorious
without a sense of solidarity between the elite
and those who fight. He made it clear that
generals and other officers should share the
hardships and dangers of campaigns. The fact that
officers lived like common soldiers would create
the sense of solidarity and comradely spirit
without which a war could not be won. In modern
times, the spirit of solidarity should have much
broader application, and soldiers should feel this
solidarity not only with the officers but with the
entire nation, which should share the hardships of
war and provide adequate rewards for those who
sacrifice themselves for the state.
The
opposite has happened at present in the US.
Soldiers, even those who risk their lives on the
battlefield, receive less for their years of
service than prosperous lawyers, managers or
bankers do in a few days. If a soldier is
disabled, the state tries to minimize the expenses
of his medical treatment, and his pension will
often be barely enough to pay for heating his
home. In fact, he may be thrown on the street like
any other "fellow American". (Throngs of homeless
ex-soldiers can be found in many US cities.) And
if he dies on the battlefield, his surviving
family not only will receive quite meager
remuneration by US standards but also will not
have health coverage.
It is clear that
this sort of arrangement, despite the profusion of
flag-waving and patriotic statements on
television, has bred a mercenary mentality where
the spirit of sacrifice, without which no war
could be won, especially a war that might last for
generations, is practically absent. One can wonder
why this could not be changed. Reading Sun Tzu
would provide the answer.
The inability to
make changes is certainly not a result of naivety
or because good advisers, with the Sun Tzu book in
their hands, are not around the president's court.
The army is an integral part of society as a
whole, and this is one of the basic premises of
Sun Tzu's holistic approach to society as a whole.
A profound change in the spirit of the armed
forces would require the same profound changes in
US society.
An army of well-paid and
well-cared-for troops whose attachment to the
cause transcends the limits of a mercenary
paycheck cannot be created by flag-waving
statements that "united we stand" and propaganda
shows where selected brave servicemen and -women
announce to TV viewers that they are thankful for
the honor given to them: to fight and, if need be,
die for the defense of liberty. The creation of
armies whose soldiers are ready for a war that
could last for generations requires a dramatic
increase in benefits and remuneration for those
who fight and for their immediate families.
This would require a massive
redistribution of wealth. It would mean the end of
the perks of various societal bodies irrespective
of whether they are supported by the left or the
right, and, of course, massive intervention by the
state in all aspects of life. This society, if it
were to emerge, would come to resemble Nazi
Germany, Soviet Russia or China - or at least the
Oriental monarchies such as the one in which Sun
Tzu lived.
Of course no arguments or even
problems most Americans would see as manageable
would be able to push the United States away from
the operational model by which it has lived
throughout most of its history. Change at the very
core of society would need not just tolerable
discomfort but massive and acute pain, which would
demonstrate the futility of all the old medicine.
Such an abrupt change in paradigms would
require a global crisis, which might not happen
because the collapse of the US economy and
geopolitical/military machine would not just be a
disaster for the US but might send tsunami-type
waves all over the globe. The majority of
America's global adversaries - China, for example
- would try their best to prevent US society,
including its socio-economic and even military
structure, from collapsing like the Twin Towers on
September 11, 2001.
Because of this, the
elite of US society would most likely operate more
or less in the same paradigmatic framework,
regardless of who occupies the White House. And
for this reason the behemoth of the US military
machine and society in general would be slowly
worn down, regardless of the future occupants of
White House and innumerable billions of dollars
invested in more and more expensive and exotic
military gadgets.
A geopolitical retreat,
manageable and gradual if possible - and this is a
desirable scenario for most of the rest of the
global community - would create a vacuum that
could well be at least partly filled by the
country from which Sun Tzu came - China.
The Art of War by Sun Tzu,
translated by John Minford. New York: Penguin,
2006, ISBN 0143037528. US$8.95, 101 pages.
Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is
associate professor of history at the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences, Indiana University
South Bend. He is author of East Against West:
The First Encounter - The Life of Themistocles,
2005.
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geopolitical
challenges. Yet one could doubt that Sun Tzu's
advice would be of use to a US administration,
regardless of who sits in the White House.
