Review | Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and how it applies to battles modern and ancient
- Written some 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, with its ‘five decisive factors’ and ‘nine variables’, is as relevant to military strategy now as then
- From the Roman defeat of Carthage to Napoleon in Prussia to the first Gulf war, this is shown in a new English translation produced the traditional Chinese way
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War Illustrated: Chinese Bound, translated by James Trapp, Amber Books, 4/5 stars
The first thing to understand when reading an English translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is that you are dealing with what former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld called “known unknowns”. Scholars are not certain when the book was written (estimates range between 770BC and 221BC), whether it was written by one or several authors, and what motivated the author(s) to write the book.
Sun Tzu wrote about kinetic war in a very sophisticated and commonsense manner. The Art of War, like Machiavelli’s The Prince, is a book of advice based presumably on experience – in Sun Tzu’s case, the experience of commanding troops in battle.
The third thing to understand is that the book is a product of its time – it is about warfare in ancient China, possibly written during the “Warring States” period between 403BC and 221BC. In the book’s introduction, however, translator James Trapp notes that many other scholars believe Sun Tzu wrote it sometime during the Spring and Autumn Annals period between 770BC and 476BC.