| |
Sun Tzu: The real father of 'shock and
awe'
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - While the US-led war on Iraq may not
yet have succeeded in its stated aim of "liberating"
Iraq and destroying its weapons of mass destruction, it
may have succeeded in breathing new life into the
writings of an ancient Asian mind - the Chinese military
philosopher Sun Tzu.
This week served up the
latest about the Chinese thinker and general from the
5th century BC, who wrote the oldest military treatise
on war, The Art of War; using knowledge he
learned from fighting during China's Age of the Warring
States.
Sun's work on war has punctuated the
debate under way since it emerged that Washington's
initial battle plans - given the name "shock and awe" -
had not produced the desired results.
A
commentary in Monday's Asahi Shimbun, a daily newspaper
in Japan, is typical of those that acknowledge there is
a Chinese link in Washington's armor.
"The
'shock and awe' operation, a massive barrage of
bombardment launched at the beginning of the war on
Iraq, is said to have been derived from Sun Tzu's
military strategy," states the commentary, titled "The
misapplication of Sun Tzu's strategy".
"This
strategy is meant to achieve submission by causing the
enemy psychological shock and awe before battle is even
joined," it adds. But despite the "massive barrage of
bombardments", the US plan "seems to have fallen far
short of a successful application of what Sun Tzu
recommended as the best war strategy".
The stiff
resistance mounted by Iraqi soldiers in the key towns
along the road to Baghdad reflects this reality.
Furthermore, the US forces have suffered early
casualties, with more than 30 deaths and seven prisoners
of war, according to media reports.
Yet Sun
enthusiasts disagree. They argue that the obstacles
US-led troops have run into - from the failure of
forcing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime to
collapse after a steady barrage of missiles and bombs,
to the stiff resistance mounted by Iraqi troops - do not
mean that Sun's strategy has failed.
"Much has
yet to be seen before making any conclusions," writes an
analyst for Sonshi.com, a website dedicated to Sun's
The Art of War.
"Based on what we have
seen, and despite criticism so far, [US military
planners] are applying Sun Tzu's principles surprisingly
well, adds the analyst, who did not want to be
identified. "There is little doubt the Iraqi forces are
overwhelmed at this point. It is just a matter of time
before things start to collapse."
That is also
the hope of the man who conceived the term "shock and
awe" - Harlan Ullman, a US military expert. In 1996,
Ullman co-authored a book, Shock and Awe: Achieving
Rapid Dominance, for which Sun had been an
intellectual source.
Since late January, the
"shock and awe" theory has been gaining currency in the
US media in relation to the war on Iraq. Ullman was
quoted as saying that the level of force through air
strikes would be devastating as to destroy the Iraqi
military's psychological will to fight.
According to available reports, the "shock and
awe" campaign demanded that by the end of the first two
days, close to 800 Tomahawk cruise missiles would have
hit the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
A ground war was
to be avoided by using this tactic.
On Saturday,
Ullman told Canada's National Post newspaper that the
previously untested "shock and awe" military strategy
was "being inaugurated in Iraq in its most extreme form,
at a level of intimidation on par with the 1945 nuclear
attack on Japan" - also carried out by the United
States.
An account of the "shock and awe"
strategy on the US Department of Defense website
amplifies how much it has been influenced by Sun's
thinking. "Sun was well aware of the crucial importance
of achieving 'shock and awe' prior to, during, and in
ending battle," it states.
In fact, words used
by US military officials to describe the nature of the
massive aerial attack on Iraq in the first days - such
as "decapitation" - can be traced to their attempt to
use Sun's strategy. He called for "instant decapitation
of military or societal target to achieve shock and
awe", the Defense Department document states.
It
draws upon one story to describe how Sun applied such
force to achieve his end. In this case, the victims were
two concubines in the court of Ho Lu, the king of Wu.
They were beheaded to stamp out any resistance and to
achieve conformity from the remaining concubines.
"The objectives of this example are to achieve
shock and awe and hence compliance through very
selective, utterly brutal and ruthless, and rapid
application of force to intimidate," the document adds.
"Decapitation is merely one instrument."
The
analyst at Sonshi.com sees other elements of Sun's
The Art of War in the current US-led push into
Iraq. Sun's concept of "shock and awe" can be found in
Washington's effort to triumph over the Iraqi regime
with minimal confrontation.
But then again, Sun
Tzu's military advice has been invoked in many battles
before, from thousands of years ago.
China's
first emperor, the samurai generals who united Japan,
and Mao Zedong also used Sun Tzu's strategies. The US
military also invoked some of his principles in the 1991
Gulf War, and more recently, books and theories have
been written about how Sun Tzu's thinking can be used by
the United States in its "war on terrorism" after
September 11, 2001.
"I am not surprised that Sun
Tzu's works have influenced the thinking in the US,"
says Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's
Defence Weekly. "It is quite common."
(Inter
Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
