Learning from Sun Tzu

Military Review,  May-June, 2003  by Douglas M. McCready

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At Khe Sanh, U.S. forces were decoyed to a border region in terrain only slightly better than at Dien Bien Phu while the Viet Cong mounted a major offensive in the urban areas. American forces held at Khe Sanh, and American and South Vietnamese forces won militarily in the cities; however, the surprise Viet Cong attack had a psychological effect on the U.S. population similar to that of Dien Bien Phu on the French electorate. The United States won the battles, but it lost the war because it did not realize it was not fighting the same war as its adversary. Sun Tzu warns that when we know ourselves but not our enemy, our chance of victory is only about half.

This different understanding of the nature of war characterizes the approach toward warfare that many of the United States' potential opponents have. This approach emphasizes stratagem and maneuver over firepower and seeks to set the terms of conflict even before the opponent is aware conflict exists. More important, this approach recognizes that the decisive battlefield is rarely the one on which troops are deployed. Instead, the battlefield lies in the political will of the opponent, the hearts and minds of its citizens.

Unconventional Warfare

So it is important not only for U.S. generals to understand Sun Tzu's approach to warfare, it is important for their civilian masters, who make the strategic decisions, to understand because their thinking is a key target of the enemy. Changing how we think will not be easy, as it goes against the groin of what has been called the American way of war.

Much of what Sun Tzu teaches falls in the category of what Americans call unconventional warfare. Historically, this has been consigned to a supporting role to the main, conventional effort. While it is true that Sun Tzu's approach is unconventional, he does discuss how large, regular armies should operate against opponents. Conventional warriors can learn from Sun Tzu as readily as can guerillas. Conventional and unconventional are in the eye of the beholder, and no one should assume his definitions are normative.

Sun Tzu says defeating the enemy without battle requires greater skill than winning on the battlefield. In saying this, he is stressing maneuver over firepower--that maneuver might involve politics and diplomacy or combat formations. Yet, while Sun Tzu prefers that the military leader defeat his opponent without having to resort to combat, he recognizes this is frequently impossible.

Sun Tzu develops in two ways his idea of victory without combat. The first is to so order the political and diplomatic context that one's opponent has obviously lost before be he has even begun to recognize the futility of fighting. The second is to deploy one's own forces in a way that neutralizes the enemy's strategy. His advice that "the best military policy is to attack strategies, next to attack alliances, the next to attack soldiers, and the worst to assault walled cities," shows he prefers diplomatic initiative.(5)