Plot Summary
Summary of the book The Art of War opens with a warning: war is extremely dangerous and must be studied carefully. Five major aspects influence the outcome of a war: the quality of the ruler, the weather, the terrain, military leadership, and the state of the army. Strategists must consider all of these elements while also deceiving the enemy about their own strengths and vulnerabilities.
War is expensive, and an army should not rely on its own country to feed it, especially during a long campaign, lest it bankrupt the state. Instead, it should forage on the food of the land it invades, seize weapons from the enemy and use them against them, and treat any prisoners well so that they may be persuaded to join the invaders.
Instead of engaging in direct combat, it is preferable to win by disrupting the enemy’s war plans or preventing its soldiers from massing. Direct warfare is a less desirable alternative, while a lengthy siege is the worst. Wise generals understand how to deploy their armies against inferior and superior forces, how to leverage officers’ personality traits, and how to encourage their troops. Good generals understand themselves, the enemy, and the situation.
A well-organized army positions itself to seem impregnable, yet its full power cannot be perceived. Smart commanders prepare meticulously, taking into account the weather, topography, and enemy unit disposition; they order an attack only when it is most effective, abruptly and with great force.
Attacks might be direct or indirect. Indirect sorties create uncertainty or, due to their apparent weakness, cause the opponent to overestimate the odds. While occupied, the opponent is caught off guard by an unexpected, powerful, direct attack on its forces elsewhere.
An army should arrive early, render itself invulnerable to attack, and then rest; when the enemy arrives, it should be fatigued and distracted. After then, the army must only assault the enemy’s weak places. If it encounters a large opposing formation, it should attack in unexpected locations, causing the enemy’s forces to divide and become disorganized.
Once on the move, an army should avoid long treks; nevertheless, if it maneuvers efficiently, it can force the opponent to take longer routes that exhaust it. To this purpose, native informants can assist leaders in better understanding topography and travel patterns. It is preferable to attack the opponent while they are sleepy than to strike in the morning when they are rested.
Perceptive generals capitalize on shifting events by discarding strategies that are no longer effective. They also check themselves for any signs of impatience, wrath, fear, pride, or worry.
An army should travel fast over tough terrain and camp in a valley with high, flat land regions, organizing things such that the adversary faces difficult terrain to the rear. The leader should keep an eye out and listen for telltale signals and sounds from the enemy camp, such as movement dust, discussions that indicate chaos, and evidence of thirst or hunger.
The general must examine six categories of ground terrain: ideal flat land, unpleasant difficult regions, locations with no advantage, cliffs for overhead attack, routes to barricade, and long distances to avoid. The other treacherous environment is inside the officers’ heads, where they must avoid the rocks and pitfalls of overconfidence, weakness, rage, lack of clarity, and lack of planning.
Nine scenarios can test an army’s resolve. When stationed in home territory or just inside the enemy’s boundaries, soldiers will consider returning to their families. Some frontiers split multiple countries at once; in these cases, the leader can scare those governments into forming alliances. Deep within enemy territory, the invaders will encounter severe scenarios that the general can use to motivate brave and energetic fighting.
A courageous leader can send flaming arrows into an enemy camp and kill its soldiers as they emerge. Fire can also be used to demolish food, weaponry, and supply lines. Beyond the use of fire, additional innovations may offer themselves, such as redirecting river waters to flood a foe’s camp, and smart leaders must seize these possibilities as they emerge.
No force should enter enemy territory without excellent intelligence obtained from spies and informants. Five types of spies can be used: local, culled from natives; inward, working within the opposing government; converted, or captured spies treated well; doomed, who are given false information and then betrayed into the enemy’s hands; and surviving spies, who go deep undercover and return with vital intelligence.
The Art of War, at 9,500 words, is brief, simple, and full of practical wisdom. The majority of the text is simple and easy to understand. The book is so concise that some of the phrases may appear arcane or cryptic. Certain paragraphs refer to historical events that are virtually obscure in the West, while others employ terminology in strange ways that require clarification. Scholars have meticulously examined the text and clarified nearly all of its passages, particularly those that may mislead the modern reader. This handbook represents such perspectives.
Chapters 1–3. Analysis
The Art of War is essentially divided into four sections: fundamental principles (Chapters 1-3), strategy and tactics (Chapters 4-8), battlefield conditions (Chapters 9-11), and specific techniques (Chapters 12-13).
The first section, Chapters 1-3, introduces the reader to Sun Tzu’s overall concepts for conducting war efficiently and successfully. These ideas provide the framework for strategic thinking. Sun Tzu’s main concern is that war is costly—in terms of lives, resources, and state security—and should thus be fought only after thorough planning. A costly, protracted, and poorly planned war can bankrupt a state and entice neighboring kingdoms to attack the weakened nation.
Sun Tzu focuses not just on precise strategic and tactical approaches, but also on the significance of introspection—not the navel-gazing sort, which he believes wastes time, but the type that uncovers human flaws that impede the best decision-making during war. Sun specifically criticizes impatience and irritation, and he instructs generals to fight rush and fury while exploiting those vulnerabilities if they appear among the enemy’s leaders.
Generals must also make effective use of their lieutenants, such as encouraging the bright ones to invent, the brave ones to demonstrate their worth in battle, and the greedy ones to seize enemy facilities. This counsel is repeated by the acts of Otto von Bismarck, the 19th-century German chancellor who famously classified soldiers as bright, hardworking, ignorant, and lazy. He warned against delegating authority to the stupidly diligent while praising the ingeniously indolent for their ability to develop elegant solutions to tough circumstances.
Sun Tzu wants kings to understand how expensive war can be, so he calculates the daily cost of an army of 100,000 at 1,000 ounces of silver. In recent years, a thousand ounces of silver has been valued approximately $20,000. This is a pitiful figure in comparison to modern industrial-nation living costs for 100,000 people, which average over $10 million per day, not including any weaponry they may require. As a result, the reader may conclude that Sun Tzu’s epoch was one of inexpensive war. Instead, silver was worth significantly more 2,500 years ago than it is today—possibly up to 1,000 times more. Even at today’s pricing, 1,000 ounces of gold would only cover approximately 10,000 men and weaponry. Thus, precious metals were very valuable in ancient times, and combat was extremely costly.
Warfare now is still costly: Extensive military actions involving the United States in recent decades have cost the country trillions of dollars, with many claiming that these spending have harmed the economy. A smaller nation engaged in a pitched fight with a neighbor can swiftly fall bankrupt, just as Chinese states did 2,500 years ago. Sun Tzu’s counsel on wartime expense management remains as relevant today as it was then.
Planning is among Sun Tzu’s top priorities. Strategy refers to overarching strategies of assault. Tactics are responses to specific scenarios during a combat. Chapter 3, “Attack by Stratagem,” highlights a specific form of tactic. Stratagems are strategic subgroups that prioritize deception and manipulation. Sun Tzu believes that defeating an adversary by interfering with its relationships or weakening it outside of the battlefield is far superior to attacking it head on. Thus, a peaceful plan is better to a military strategy. (Chapter 13 addresses the deployment of spies as a strategy).
Stratagems are not just used during times of calm. For example, when an army is twice the size of the opponent, dividing it in half allows you to lay a trap by launching a frontal assault with one half and then unexpectedly striking the enemy’s rear with the other half.
Sun Tzu’s strategy is based on three basic principles: meticulous planning, deception, and attacking the enemy’s weak points. These precepts will be discussed further in subsequent chapters.
Chapters 4–8 Analysis
Chapters 4-8 focus on tactics, whereas the first three chapters mostly address strategy. Tactics are the strategies employed during maneuvering and warfare; they must be adjusted as situations change.
Chapter 6 describes how to split an enemy’s army. During the Allied D-Day invasion of France in World War II, a similar strategy was employed. By appearing to plan landings in numerous locations along the coast, the Allies drove the Germans to divide their fortifications. The Allies then attempted a decoy landing at one location but came in force at another. Hitler and his staff were taken off guard. The Allies also violated the German signaling system, using it to transmit deceptive messages about their intentions.
Sun Tzu often emphasizes the significance of an unbreakable defense. It is impossible to move entire divisions with confidence if the move puts the rest of the force at risk. Napoleon, the famous military commander, was stymied when the prize he coveted, Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, was transformed into an impenetrable fortress. Before becoming the Duke of Wellington following his ultimate triumph over Napoleon, English military commander Arthur Wellesley built a vast, miles-long wall of earthworks and fortifications to prevent the French Army from approaching Lisbon. The Portuguese capital city, which was inaccessible by land and could only be resupplied by ship, remained isolated from the conflict. Meanwhile, as the Portuguese fled the French invasion, they torched their crops, leaving the attackers without food, forcing them to march for weeks across burned-out land while slowly starving. Wellesley’s men stood on the ramparts, watching as the French invading force ran out of supplies and abandoned Portugal.
Warfare has a way of sabotaging an army’s best prepared intentions. This is why Sun Tzu frequently reminds the reader that improvisation and adaptation are the trademarks of excellent military leadership.
US General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the coalition that forcibly expelled Iraqi invaders from Kuwait in 1991—a fight known for its speed and efficiency—understood the volatile nature of war and how it may force unexpected modifications on even the most meticulously planned strategies. He commented:
Analysts write about war as if it were a ballet, with everyone performing a scripted piece once the orchestra starts playing. It’s choreographed, but as the orchestra starts playing, some son of a bitch jumps out of the orchestra pit with a bayonet and begins chasing you around the stage. And the choreography goes out the window (Arkin, William M. “Will ‘Shock and Awe’ Be Sufficient?” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2003 (http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-16-op-arkin16-story.html).
Schwarzkopf echoes Sun Tzu’s advice in a darkly comic tone. Once the planning is complete and the first bullets are fired, the most crucial task is to adapt quickly and intelligently to unexpected developments on the battlefield—changes that will undoubtedly throw monkey wrenches into the most perfectly tuned war machinery.
Weaponry has advanced significantly over the years, but many contend that the fundamentals of combat have remained unchanged since Sun Tzu’s time.
Chapters 9–11 Analysis
These three chapters cover issues that arise when a force moves overland or maneuvers in the field. The emphasis is on how to exploit terrain and leverage such circumstances to keep troops ordered and motivated.
Sun Tzu’s instruction may appear enigmatic at first, but with some contemplation, the message becomes clear. For example, the goal of waiting for an enemy army to be halfway through a river crossing is to catch it while much of its force is stranded in the water, much of the rest is waiting to cross, and those divisions who have already crossed are wet, weaker, isolated from their cohorts, and vulnerable to attack.
The first half of Chapter 10 is on topography and how to use it, while the second half is about blunders that lead to disasters. The chapter’s “terrain” thus relates not just to geographical conditions, but also to the landscapes within the minds of leaders and warriors, who are admonished not to be overly eager, angry, or indecisive.
Chapter 11 is the book’s longest chapter, delving deeper into topographical details and how they effect an army’s battle mood. Much of the debate is around “contentious ground,” or locations of critical strategic importance. For example, a pass that governs access to important land must be managed. When a company of Spartans met a massive invading army from Persia, they battled in a narrow coastal pass called Thermopylae, which the Spartans were able to blockade long enough for nearby city-states to strengthen their fortifications. The Spartans died, but the Persians were delayed, and their invasion was eventually unsuccessful.
That Spartan gallantry, remembered to this day by proud Greeks, exemplifies Sun Tzu’s adage that forces with no way out will fight fiercely because death is a foregone consequence and no longer figures into their tactics.
In general, any terrain that causes an army to march in single file—for example, a tiny pass or a trail across a steep mountain—endangers the entire army since the enemy can kill the men one by one.
These are the types of conditions that military officials should think about when planning an invasion. Paying insufficient attention to such details may come back to haunt them.
Chapters 12–13 Analysis
The latter two chapters address various strategies, such as using fire and employing spies.
Sun Tzu is continuously encouraging innovation and capitalizing on possibilities. His primary example is the innovative employment of fire to harass and harm enemy forces. One of the most notable examples of this style of thinking occurred at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. When confronted with a sustained attack by a Confederate detachment advancing on his Union position at Little Round Top Hill—and knowing that his men had run out of ammunition—Colonel Joshua Chamberlain made a daring tactical decision: He ordered the troops to fix bayonets and charge downhill at the attackers, yelling and shouting. The ploy worked: Southern attackers frightened and fled. The hill was saved, and the South could not use it to fire down on Union troops. The next day, Southern soldiers launched a last-ditch uphill attack against Northern riflemen and cannon, which failed miserably. Since then, the South has never truly threatened the North. Thus, it may be argued that the fate of nations was determined by a single improvised technique used during a single skirmish in a critical war.
(The tale of the skirmish is chronicled in the novel The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, which has a study guide accessible on SuperSummary.com.)
The final chapter is about spycraft, and the book ends suddenly. Scholars believe The Art of War was expanded in the decades that followed its initial publication; the final five chapters repeat some of the advice from earlier portions, and the last two chapters resemble appendices in some aspects. As a result, the structure of the book may include its history.
There is no debate about The Art of War’s long-term usefulness. Its early chapters provide powerful general principles that are simple to understand and astounding in their simplicity, while the latter portions elaborate on and supplement the earlier concepts.
