Sun Tzu: The General Who Stays True to His Word
For a book to survive thousands of years there must be some significance to the text that holds true through the generations and reiterations. The Bible has survived through translations and rewritten copies over thousands of years because it holds a great importance to each generation, enough so that it continues to be a common household book. The Art of War is another, one older than the Bible, which has been passed on and translated through the generations. The Art of War is a philosophical text with applications to war tactics as well as daily life. The book features a way of succeeding with minimal loss and maximum gain. The author was Sun Tzu, a Chinese general and strategist. A controversial
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It is to win while inflicting minimal harm and using the least amount of resources. A victory over war is such when the opposing side yields itself and its resources to the winning army without battle. This is “victory over war” as Sun Tzu means it, to conquer without battle. To be victorious over war itself, one must understand Sun Tzu’s concept of “taking whole,” and thus use it to subtly break the spirits of their challengers and win a battle without picking up a weapon. “Taking whole” is like seeing all of the parts of a car: the gears, the wheels, each lug nut, and everything not part of the car like the driver and the weather; and seeing the interconnectedness of each part that adds up to a working machine. This is like what The Denma Group wrote in the essay on taking whole: “As we start to sense their configurations, our actions become synchronized with this. Being connected to the details, moving with their shapes and confirmation, we can find victory” (Denma 69). Sun Tzu saw the relationship between the concubines and the group leaders, and them to the Emperor. Just like understanding the interconnectedness of a car engine, he used this relationship to his advantage to gain the concubines’ obedience. He also used the concubines to gain the respect of the Emperor, who had little to lose in the deal made with Sun Tzu so long as none of his concubines got hurt. By convincing the Emperor to stay true to his word, to “go all in” not just half way, Sun Tzu gained the Emperor’s respect and attention. He forced the Emperor to invest in the outcome of his concubines army training. Once heard that beheading his two favorite concubines was a success, he appointed Sun Tzu as the general of his army. Sun Tzu saw how to manipulate the Emperor by taking whole the situation and use it to his advantage. This demonstrates that The Art of War is
An artist's job is to interpret, and express the aspects of life in a creative fashion. War has played a big part in shaping our human history, and many artists have portrayed their feelings about art through paintings, and even monuments. Whether it be to show; the joy of victory, the sorrow of defeat, or to educate the public on the gory realities of war. Art about war can also show us a great amount of history of the kinds of weapons that were used at the time. It is necessary for artists to interpret, and criticize all aspects of life; even ones as tragic as war, It can make the public more aware of what goes on in times of war.
This paper will deal with the Perspective of War and how the certain aspects of war has forever changed the history and thought processes of civilizations worldwide. The paper will focus on the duty and action of war, the destruction and fear of war, and finally the memory of war.Investigating these ideas will give us a broader understand of how war has forever changed us as a society and how art is the perfect representation of this change.
It was but a major coincidence that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War came to existence at a similar timeline to the Greco-Persian Wars. Granted, the exact date of the book’s publication was unknown, according to History.com, historians believed that the book was present between the 4th or 5th century BC. Assuming that the estimated date was right, then it was remarkable how the tactics and strategy used in the first and second Persian invasions of Greece that took place from 499 BC to 449 BC, paralleled much of Sun Tzu’s ideology and wisdom on warfare. If Sun Tzu somehow were to travel through space and time to observe the Greco-Persian Wars as it happened, he would have been overwhelmed at the similarities between his principles and the tactics
Menacing circumstances that greeted Lincoln upon his ascension into the White House was the disunity of seven departed states and eight on the edge.
Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War both both provide directions for leadership with similar goals. The Prince is primarily geared towards providing valuable information about how a ruler of many principalities may govern different populations and acquire new lands. The Art of War provides us with a schematic of the optimal path to victory. This book is instead directed towards generals of powerful militaries with only the goal of winning. Concepts such as Machiavelli’s view of destruction will be contrasted with Sun Tzu’s victory-oriented argument for taking whole and several of their other ideas will be compared. Although Machiavelli and Sun Tzu have different intended audiences, many of their ancient tactics can
While reading history, we typically see that wars were typically fought with soldiers in close- order formations with a musket that would be fired in unison on command. Everything changed after the American Civil War, a conflict to determine the fate of slaves in the Union, erupted. Today many historians consider the Civil War as the first modern war because it depended on: heavy industry, fast communication and transportation. But this time all of these new technologies were used to its full potential. As a result new weapon technology was mass produced which inflicted heavy losses on both the Union and the Confederate sides and resulted in
War is a scandalous topic where peoples’ views differ as to what war is. Some people see it as pure evil and wicked while others think that it is brave and noble of what soldiers do. Looking at poems which had been written by people affected by war help show the messages which are portrayed. The two sets of poems which show different views of war as well as some similarities are “the Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars” by Richard Lovelace and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, “The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden. Both these poets use linguistic devices to convince the reader of their view of what the war is. Tennyson and Lovelace show how war is worthy
Confucianism can be found once more in this strategy as the goal was to kill as few people as possible, since the goal of warfare wasn’t to kill people. Sun-tzu favored a primary objective of subjugating other states without fighting thus diplomatic coercion was the idea method. He stressed avoiding prolonged warfare. He wrote, “Thus the army values being victorious; it does not value prolonged warfare.” This meant maximizing the results with minimum destruction that is inflicted. The writers like Wei Liao-tzu focused on speed, deception, concentration of force, assaulting weak points while avoiding strengths as strategic ways of forcing the opponent to acquiesce. Brute force warfare was disdain for a maneuver that provided a quick end to a conflict thus achieving the desired goals without excess killing.
Taoism and Confucianism are two primary Chinese ways of thinking. Historically, these two philosophies have been viewed as polar opposites, but upon further research, they have the same mission. The belief system of Taoism viewed in Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu, is the monistic belief that human kind has a connection to the universe, and the “way” controls your life and everything that you do. The “way” has a pre-determined plan for your life, and you must sit back and follow it. On the other hand, Confucianism represented in The Art of War, shows that you have to work and discipline yourself to become complete. The Art of War is essentially a “battle plan”, and “Tao Te Ching “ is a essentially a book of ultimate humility. These two pieces seem quite different with their own different goals. While Confucianism and Taoism have different ways of reaching their respective goals, their goals and their destiny is essentially the same: and that is self-control.
The United States has fought in many wars throughout the years. The Korean War took place from 1950-1953. It has also been called the forgotten war, as people do not recognize it like the Second World War, the Vietnam War or the Gulf War. This battle consisted of North Korea, South Korea and the United States. It was fought on sea, land and air. The Korean War was a clash between the Communist forces and the free world.
In March 2014, the Chinese government announced that it would receive and identify over 300 remains of Chinese soldiers who were killed in South Korea in the 1950s, adding another similarity between the two major belligerents of the Korean War---China and United States---in recovering their dead soldiers from hostile lands. The similarity deserves a comparison between these two countries’ practices in searching for and repatriating killed servicemen in the last several decades, which will be a section of my dissertation. The project for this semester would focus on the comparison in the first decade after the Korean War.
Another significant lesson on warfare and leadership put forth by Sun Tzu was having the ability to conquer areas with no fighting at all. This lesson also involved the ability to absorb and expand within an area instead of total domination and annihilation. Sun Tzu mentioned, “In the practical art of
Sometime during the course of World War II, the United States became the most powerful nation in the world. During the last two hundred or so years, the United States has fought ten major wars and innumerable smaller military actions. For the most part it has been successful, in some instances defeating some of the world’s most powerful countries. In other instances it has simply been lucky. A common threat throughout the nation’s existence has been the practice of indifference and neglect. Between wars the Army shrinks to a very small size. Funds and attention almost disappear. This policy of the US Army may well indeed danger the nation’s safety in the future
Evaluate the reasons for the success of Mao and the communists gaining support during the Chinese Civil war.
There are numerous studies that say that the nature and character of war are quite similar to one another and can be even used synonymously. However, according to some writers, there