Sun Tzu's Art of War Applied to Iraq and Afghanistan

Introduction: Sun Tzu's Philosophy of War

In his famous book The Art of War, Sun-zi (Sun Tzu) was evidently influenced by Confucian ideals, as reflected in his statements about avoiding prolonged war whenever possible and his belief that the most successful generals are those who can win without fighting at all. He was from the southern, semi-barbaric state of Wu, and his book was probably written during the Warring States period or perhaps during the Han Dynasty. He never referred to barbarians or any ethnic differences, and always maintained that the greatest generals had to know both themselves and the enemy. Nor did he ever demonize his opponents or call for their total destruction; rather, he recommended humane treatment for prisoners of war and civilian populations.

Sun Tzu relied on clever tactics, strategy, and espionage rather than brute force to win victories, and from beginning to end his book cast a rather negative light on war rather than glorifying it. Near its conclusion, he reminded his readers that "raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the state."¹ In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, he would have argued strongly against lengthy wars that depleted the resources of the state. Sun Tzu favored quick, decisive wars against weaker and poorly prepared opponents, preferably financed by plundering the enemy's resources. He disliked siege warfare, wars of attrition, and warfare driven by hatred, revenge, or ideology. He would also have criticized U.S. leaders for initially supporting Iraq, the Taliban, and Islamic fundamentalists in the 1980s. For Sun Tzu, this would have been a sign that American leaders had not thoroughly pondered all their options before acting and did not understand either their enemies or themselves. If forced to fight a war against guerrillas and insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, however, Sun Tzu would not have followed orthodox and conventional textbook methods.

Sun Tzu and the Challenge of Unconventional Warfare

Sun Tzu was writing during a period of feudalism in China, in which each state sought to unify the others and become dominant in the region. He was most familiar with conventional warfare involving standing armies and set-piece battles in open country, and had relatively little to say about guerrilla or unconventional warfare — although he was well aware of the northern "barbarians" who engaged in this type of conflict. Some of the barbarians mentioned in ancient Chinese sources would also be recognizable to Westerners, as they clearly refer to the nomadic horsemen of Central Asia, such as the Turks, Huns, and Mongols. Indeed, the Hun-chu mentioned in the Records of the Grand Historian of China very likely were the same Huns who attacked the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD. The Chinese records used a variety of names for them — Northern Barbarians, Mountain Barbarians, Hun-chu, and Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu) — the latter having been "a source of constant worry and harm to China."²

When the Chinese used the term "barbarian," they meant it in the Greek and Roman sense: nomads without permanent towns, settled agriculture, or writing — all of which the Chinese had developed very early in their own history. They also regarded the barbarians as extremely hostile and aggressive, always making incursions into more "civilized" areas, with all boys learning to ride and use the bow and arrow from a very early age.

Asymmetric Conflict and Guerrilla Warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan

This description is certainly reminiscent of the type of guerrilla and insurgent warfare the United States has faced in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is not a conventional standing army but men, women, and children with strong ideological motivations rooted in nationalism or religion. Sun Tzu was pragmatic rather than ideological and had little use for this type of warfare, arguing that anger, hatred, and passion should never influence military decisions. His views differed sharply from the Realpolitik of Machiavelli as well as from the Islamic fundamentalism of Osama bin Laden.³

Sun Tzu always favored the use of deception in warfare — putting on a show of weakness to conceal strength, or feigning inactivity to conceal activity, and vice versa. Rather than fighting directly, the better strategy was to outmaneuver the enemy, seizing and defending the best positions before they could. He opposed long, drawn-out wars of attrition and maintained that the best policy was to "preserve one's own economic, military, and political assets."⁴

For Sun Tzu, the most successful military leader was one who achieved victory without ever fighting at all — by attacking the enemy's plans and alliances. His third-best option was to engage enemy armies in battle, preferably those in a weakened position who were badly prepared and could be taken by surprise. His least preferred option was long, drawn-out siege warfare. He always sought to win quickly and decisively and thereby reduce the human and economic costs of warfare.⁵ In this sense, his truest modern disciples are Erwin Rommel and George S. Patton, rather than Mao Zedong, Vo Nguyen Giap, and other advocates of protracted guerrilla warfare.

If forced to fight a guerrilla war like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sun Tzu would not have used methods of direct attack or attrition — quite the opposite, which runs counter to conventional, textbook thinking. He would have advised U.S. military leaders to act in a highly deceptive and evasive manner, and to "speak and act submissively" to conceal their true intentions.⁶ They should put on a show of weakness and confusion that would enhance the enemy's arrogance and false confidence. Sun Tzu would not have attacked them openly, but would instead have lulled them into a sense of false security before taking them by surprise through ambush when they least expected it.

Strategic Principles: Avoiding Entanglement and Exploiting Weakness

Another maxim of Sun Tzu was always to avoid entangling positions and to attack the enemy only at his weakest point. Never waste resources attacking strong, well-prepared enemies in their strongest defensive positions, as this leads only to defeat. He would have approved of the "Shock and Awe" phase of the Iraq War and the rapid defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan two years earlier, but would have strongly disapproved of the protracted wars that followed. In this sense, both Iraq and Afghanistan had become entangling positions — yet they could not simply be abandoned, or "we would never have any credibility in those countries again."⁷

Iraq also occupies a central strategic position in the Middle East, and with bases there the U.S. could deter Syria and Iran, even if it might not be able to fight wars against those countries simultaneously. Up to that point, the U.S. had achieved success against the enemy, even at great cost, and the opposing forces had "fallen apart, been disorganized, or had to retreat."⁸ On the other hand, the U.S. was facing an enemy skilled at exploiting mass communications — particularly for issuing threats — and American military leaders needed to be at least as skilled as their opponents in using the media.

In the War on Terror, the U.S. was caught weak and unprepared by a patient and skilled enemy, and was taken by complete surprise on September 11, 2001. Prior to that date, its efforts against terrorism had been "half-hearted and disorganized," though this was no longer the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.⁹ In recent years, the wave of revolutions across the Middle East may have indicated that the region was moving in a more pro-Western direction.

Conclusion: Sun Tzu's Verdict on Iraq and Afghanistan

The idea that the Chinese considered all outsiders as savages and barbarians in ancient history is overdrawn, since Sun Tzu and the Confucian scholars often avoided such characterizations. Nor were they in favor of constant warfare around the periphery of the Empire, not least because of the costs and burdens such wars placed on the people and the state. Even ancient Chinese leaders who held nomadic barbarians in contempt often made alliances with them when it suited their purposes — and sometimes broke those agreements when the allies were no longer useful. These patterns are also familiar to any student of ancient Greek and Roman history, where matters were never as simple as brutal savages constantly attacking civilization. Often, civilization itself was the aggressor and used the barbarians for its own purposes, just as the U.S. did with Saddam Hussein and the Islamic fundamentalists in the 1980s.

Sun Tzu would have regarded these actions as imprudent and shortsighted, and would equally have disapproved of the long, drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would have much preferred the type of war that could be won quickly and decisively, and without the complications of anger, revenge, and ideological factors that characterized these conflicts. In addition, he would have been genuinely alarmed at the economic and political condition of the United States and would have questioned whether the country was capable of sustaining any prolonged war.

Sun Tzu's advice for Iraq and Afghanistan would most likely have been not to fight there at all — or, if war was unavoidable, to find some way to win decisively in the least amount of time and at the lowest possible cost, preferably through unconventional methods of stealth, deceit, ambush, and evasion.

Bibliography

The Debate on Salt and Iron. In De Bray, Theodore (Ed.), Sources of East Asian Traditions: Pre-modern Asia. Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 199–201.

Gagliardi, Larry. Strategy against Terror: Ancient Wisdom for Today's War. Clearbridge Publishing, 1999, 2004.

Lowther, Adam. Americans and Asymmetric Conflict: Lebanon, Somalia and Afghanistan. Praeger Security International, 2007.

Records of the Grand Historian of China. Translated from the Shih Chi of Ssu-Ma Chien by Burton Watson, Volume II: The Age of Emperor Wu, 140 to Circa 100 BC. Columbia University Press.

Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Pax Librorum Publishing House, 2009.