Krigskunsten

I admit to reading this out of curiosity - why did Dr. Melfi recommend Tony Soprano read this and how did he then apply it. Interesting reading but as I already knew, I would make a lousy general. ( )

Read large chunks of this before, but finally sat down and read, cover-to-cover, The Art of War, as well as The Saying of Wuzi appended. I was underwhelmed before, and not much changed on re-reading. There's some good advice in the book but almost all of it is vague, fairly common-sense stuff. It doesn't have the piercing insights of Machiavelli or the appreciation of war's fundamental unpredictability like Clausewitz. You're certainly not going to become Napoleon by reading it.

The introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon was also very meh. It's vaguely depressing how so much classical literature is just being repacked into trite truisms for the M.B.A. crowd. Also he describes Clausewitz's On War as "simple technical manuals on the mechanics of waging war", which really raised my eyebrow, because Clausewitz is certainly no less abstract than Sun Tzu or Wuzi.

I can't help but suspect that a lot of the staying power of On War is due to a lingering Orientalist mystique, the old stereotype of the wise Chinese grandmaster. And sort of like the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, it's now the sort of book people use to signal something. ( )

Es tarea fatua tratar de hallarle émulos en Europa antes de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, pues la obra de Sun Tzu era desconocida en occidente hasta poco antes de la Revolución Francesa, cuando pasó a Europa en forma de una breve traducción realizada por el sacerdote jesuita J. J. M. Amiot. Y aun a pesar de todo, no se hizo popular hasta el siglo XX, al rebufo de la importancia mediática que adquirió China a partir de la revolución de Mao. Y por fin, no fue tampoco hasta 1972 cuando se descubrió que en realidad habían existido dos Sun Tzu, cada uno autor de su tratado sobre la guerra, con varios cientos de años de diferencia, en torno a entre ocho y cuatro siglos a. de C.
Desde que esta obra se hizo popular en occidente, se ha considerado de aplicación no sólo en el arte militar, sino en cualquier otro campo en que haya un contrincante u opositor a quien batir. En el terreno del empleo y en el económico han pasado a ponerse en práctica muchos de sus principios filosóficos. ( )

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Contents
Foreword
1. Laying Plans
2. Waging War
3. Attack by Stratagem
4. Tactical Dispositions
5. Energy
6. Weak Points and Strong
7. Maneuvering
8. Variation of Tactics
9. The Army on the March
10. Terrain
11. The Nine Situations
12. The Attack by Fire
13. The Use of Spies ( )

A wise warrior avoids the battle or something along these lines. The book is no literary wonder written simply as a series of bullet points. What makes it amazing is the fact that it was written before 2500 years & it is still relevant to our modern day. The set of rules outlined can be applied by any leader in any field.
PS: of course the financial details associated with the armies can be safely discarded. ( )