How does sun tzu define strategy

The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms. This logically leads us to understand why Clausewitz considers the destruction of the enemy armed forces as the first priority.

After destroying the armed forces, one can subdue the enemy lands then bring the enemy to the peace table. By dealing with uncertainty, and consequently friction, Clausewitz allows for one inevitability of war and strategy that Sun Tzu does not allude to enough — things going wrong.

Sun Tzu does state that war is of a varying nature and that orthodox and unorthodox attacks are endlessly varying in nature. Clausewitz certainly does stand apart on his persuasiveness on the subject of how and why things can go very wrong. Friction is what makes the easy difficult, what makes plans go astray, and friction is always in contact when there is chance involved.

To reel this back to the trinity, we can see how Sun Tzu is undermined when delving deeper into the second tendency. Whilst he does concentrate enough on the abilities needed in a general, the uncertainty and friction of war and strategy is neglected.

However it must be remembered that friction affects the whole trinity, but it has great potential effect if one considers the in ability of a general or commander to compensate for it on the battlefield. But surely, in the realm of mere common sense, we cannot assume everything to go according to plan. If we wish to apply Sun Tzu to the real world, we cannot ignore the looming possibility of errors of any kind.

This is where Clausewitz takes over from Sun Tzu as the more complete theorist of war. Sun Tzu, however, does have more emphasis on one crucial aspect of war that Clausewitz tends to neglect: intelligence and net assessments of the enemy. Whilst Sun Tzu discusses intelligence on all levels, Clausewitz mostly discusses it on the operational and tactical levels, and negatively portrays it.

An example here could be how inter-war British industrial intelligence managed to anticipate a knock-out attempt by Nazi Germany and a British survival, which would later on bring latent economic strength to bear against the Third Reich.

The operational and tactical level analysis of intelligence is a major divergence between the two, but the usefulness of this kind of intelligence depends on the relationship of technology, information and mobility, as Handel alludes to. Handel alludes to this when we look at table Nonetheless, as explained above, they are largely similar in most aspects, and Handel is, interpretatively, mostly correct.

We can understand Sun Tzu as the thinker who would rather maintain war as a mind game, or a question of intelligence and political meddling, rather than letting it turn into a bloodbath.

To end on a convergence, the trinity mostly remains intact with Sun Tzu. In the past, there has been an entire discussion on the disposition and representation of these elements. The main reason why this framework is useful for Strategic Analysis is straightforward: typically, as we have seen, Strategy Definitions have been aligned on loosely defining the objectives although we have already seen this is not the aim of Strategy , and then often move directly into the Plan. But few offer a genuinely full map of what is existing.

All of these elements influence the Strategy and can be affected by the Strategy itself with the sole exception of the Meteorology. The one overarching element of this framework is that it is based on a profound knowledge of the environment, the external forces that shape it, the competition but also your internal organisation.

As in the quote mentioned above, not knowing yourself is probably the biggest problem in defining a Strategy. Moreover, this framework can help in shaping what we have seen, defined as Strategy as Learning. Imagine building a system where all these elements are not just an occasionally analysed when the Strategy is set, but preferably continuously, focusing on picking up the weak signals and early warnings of the changing environment.

It can become the focus of a continuous movement of learning and adaptation. Again, the idea of the Strategy defined as a mere battle between two opponents is not what we should consider in a business context. What comes immediately to mind is that these are not traditional questions for the definition of a strategy. We tend to look too much at the financials, not at the organisation capabilities. This is where probably the pure modernity of this approach comes through: its focus on the skills of the actors involved in the environment.

It may seem weird to resort to a model that is more than two millennia old. However, with so many people continually referring to it, I thought it would be good to consider it and check what value this could have in a modern perspective.

As we consider more and more our companies as living organisations within an ecosystem one of the primary Purpose of the visual guide that I presented as Organisation Evolution Framework , I think this tie with the ancient past can be beneficial for our understanding, especially in a VUCA environment where constant learning is key. Cover Photo by Wicked Sheila on Unsplash.

The Art of War, by the ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu, is the most famous work on military operation in ancient China and the books have been repeatedly translated, investigated and discussed. Also in recent times, the use of military strategies in the business and management contexts is increasing.

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