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Finally. I remember reading Sun Tzu and thinking "hmm all this stuff is either very specific to ancient China, or unsubstantiated". As in, everyone sounded like

Finally. I remember reading Sun Tzu and thinking "hmm all this stuff is either very specific to ancient China, or unsubstantiated". As in, everyone sounded like distilled wisdom, but it smelled. The thing that was missing I think was that normally when you read a text about something that's trying to make a general point, it cites a whole bunch of historical precedents. "Always drive deep into enemy territory, like X, Y, and Z times where they won decisively" would work better than just a bunch of "do this, do that".

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
It was a primer aimed at first-time commanders (e.g. coddled nobility with zero experience), not an in-depth thing. That would take a more formal education. It's like the popular science blogs of its age.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Also, in that context does it exist in vacuum. Or is there a teacher that could explain the things and attach suitable context.
hzay 4y ago
This is a modern way of thinking. Ancient wisdom never comes with citations. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.
- samus 4y ago
  Philosophy often goes through cycles of distillation, where authors try to extract and condense the main points of a field, and then commentaries where seasoned practicioners of the field expound on texts that have become canonical, and contibute their own experience and points of view. For example, Cao Cao (the most powerful warlord in the Three Kingdoms period) has written extensive war journals where he also commented on Sun Tzu's works.
- est 4y ago
  > Ancient wisdom never comes with citations Because writing in the past is really expensive and a heavy-duty work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bamboo_book_-_binding_-_UCR.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bamboo_book_-_binding_-_U...
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    A book produced in the 18th century is an odd choice to illustrate that idea.
samus 4y ago
Of course, 2500 years later it can be a bit difficult to put these things into context. But isn't Sun Tzu actually frequently referring to other events in the Spring&Autumn period to illustrate his points?
mcv 4y ago
Well, it's a fairly brief text. I've got a copy of Art of War here, but most of it is commentary by others. Sun Tzu's own text is not a lot. He throws out some principles without explanation or examples, and that's limiting it's practical applicability quite a bit. I suspect much of his more questionable advice is stuff that happened to work once for him in specific circumstances, and it'd be great if he told a bit more about those circumstances. But it won't necessarily work in other circumstances. For example, his advice to live off the enemy's supplies instead of bringing your own (which would be very expensive and cause economic problems that he surprisingly addresses). This is good advice in many cases, and has been done throughout history, but it can also go very wrong. Consider Napoleon's invasion of Russia where Russia just burned down everything in the path of the French army in order to deny them supplies, then harassed French supply lines, and defeated the French army without a single fight. Also very Sun Tzu, incidentally. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on circumstances. Which Sun Tzu rarely goes into.
- brazzy 4y ago
  > For example, his advice to live off the enemy's supplies instead of bringing your own (which would be very expensive and cause economic problems that he surprisingly addresses). This is good advice in many cases, and has been done throughout history, but it can also go very wrong. Consider Napoleon's invasion of Russia where Russia just burned down everything in the path of the French army in order to deny them supplies It's not "good advice in many cases", it was (prior to the availability of first railroads and then trucks, and with the very notable exception of all-cavalry armies operating on grass steppe) an extremely basic fact on how an army works. Bringing your own supplies was, over long distances, not just bad advice, nor just hard to do, it was logistically impossible. Napoleon did not (yet) have the choice to do it any other way, the alternative was not to invade Russia, or to do it piecemeal while consolidating and developing conquered parts before moving on, which would have taken decades.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > it was logistically impossible. The importance of logistics for large armies is widely underestimated. If you abandon your supply base, and try to live of the (enemy's) land, you have to advance continuously and quickly, like Sherman's successful campaign in Georgia and the Carolinas. If you rest for even a day or so, you deplete the available "forage" (i.e. the resources of the civilian population). If you stick with your supply base, then a large part of your force has to be devoted to defending the supply lines; and those supply lines have to be manned, and consume supplies themselves. In the time before internal combustion engines, it was hard to maintain supply lines for armies larger than about 80,000 men, because the fodder required for horses began to exceed the supplies needed by the soldiers. Putin ran into logistics problems almost immediately; Russia depends internally on railways very heavily, but his army had to de-train at the border and switch to trucks, on narrow roads, lined with forests.
paradox242 4y ago
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Cthulhu_ 4y ago

It was a primer aimed at first-time commanders (e.g. coddled nobility with zero experience), not an in-depth thing. That would take a more formal education. It's like the popular science blogs of its age.

Ekaros 4y ago
Also, in that context does it exist in vacuum. Or is there a teacher that could explain the things and attach suitable context.

hzay 4y ago

This is a modern way of thinking. Ancient wisdom never comes with citations. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.

samus 4y ago
Philosophy often goes through cycles of distillation, where authors try to extract and condense the main points of a field, and then commentaries where seasoned practicioners of the field expound on texts that have become canonical, and contibute their own experience and points of view. For example, Cao Cao (the most powerful warlord in the Three Kingdoms period) has written extensive war journals where he also commented on Sun Tzu's works.
est 4y ago
> Ancient wisdom never comes with citations Because writing in the past is really expensive and a heavy-duty work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bamboo_book_-_binding_-_UCR.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bamboo_book_-_binding_-_U...
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  A book produced in the 18th century is an odd choice to illustrate that idea.

samus 4y ago

Of course, 2500 years later it can be a bit difficult to put these things into context. But isn't Sun Tzu actually frequently referring to other events in the Spring&Autumn period to illustrate his points?

mcv 4y ago

Well, it's a fairly brief text. I've got a copy of Art of War here, but most of it is commentary by others. Sun Tzu's own text is not a lot. He throws out some principles without explanation or examples, and that's limiting it's practical applicability quite a bit. I suspect much of his more questionable advice is stuff that happened to work once for him in specific circumstances, and it'd be great if he told a bit more about those circumstances. But it won't necessarily work in other circumstances. For example, his advice to live off the enemy's supplies instead of bringing your own (which would be very expensive and cause economic problems that he surprisingly addresses). This is good advice in many cases, and has been done throughout history, but it can also go very wrong. Consider Napoleon's invasion of Russia where Russia just burned down everything in the path of the French army in order to deny them supplies, then harassed French supply lines, and defeated the French army without a single fight. Also very Sun Tzu, incidentally. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on circumstances. Which Sun Tzu rarely goes into.

brazzy 4y ago
> For example, his advice to live off the enemy's supplies instead of bringing your own (which would be very expensive and cause economic problems that he surprisingly addresses). This is good advice in many cases, and has been done throughout history, but it can also go very wrong. Consider Napoleon's invasion of Russia where Russia just burned down everything in the path of the French army in order to deny them supplies It's not "good advice in many cases", it was (prior to the availability of first railroads and then trucks, and with the very notable exception of all-cavalry armies operating on grass steppe) an extremely basic fact on how an army works. Bringing your own supplies was, over long distances, not just bad advice, nor just hard to do, it was logistically impossible. Napoleon did not (yet) have the choice to do it any other way, the alternative was not to invade Russia, or to do it piecemeal while consolidating and developing conquered parts before moving on, which would have taken decades.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > it was logistically impossible. The importance of logistics for large armies is widely underestimated. If you abandon your supply base, and try to live of the (enemy's) land, you have to advance continuously and quickly, like Sherman's successful campaign in Georgia and the Carolinas. If you rest for even a day or so, you deplete the available "forage" (i.e. the resources of the civilian population). If you stick with your supply base, then a large part of your force has to be devoted to defending the supply lines; and those supply lines have to be manned, and consume supplies themselves. In the time before internal combustion engines, it was hard to maintain supply lines for armies larger than about 80,000 men, because the fodder required for horses began to exceed the supplies needed by the soldiers. Putin ran into logistics problems almost immediately; Russia depends internally on railways very heavily, but his army had to de-train at the border and switch to trucks, on narrow roads, lined with forests.

paradox242 4y ago

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