Assignment : Thoughts of Sun Tzu and Liddel Harrt

Course Title: Strategic Studies

Submitted to: Mam Nida Shabbir

Submitted by: Ahmer Rasheed (9702)

Ayesha Choudhary (9736)

Department: BS International Relations

6th semester/ Evening

 CONTENTS

 Abstract
 Sun Tzu “The Master Strategist”
 Significance of Sun Tzu’ Strategy
 Key Tenets of Sun Tzu
 Conclusion of Sun Tzu Strategy
 Thoughts of Liddel Hart
 Key ideas
 Liddel Hart’s Indirect Approach
 Influence
 Contradictions with Clausewitz
 Conclusion
 Abstract
Sun Tzu’s theories as well as the theories of numerous other theorists have a tremendous impact
on warfare.His principles provide military planners and strategists with a non-prescriptive
approach to achieve success in warfare.Though there are many insights provided by Sun Tzu
which will focus primarily on his theories surrounding the importance of strategy, intelligence,
deception, strategic leadership, and most importantly achieving victory.Basil H. Liddell Hart was
considered one of the world’s foremost military thinkers.In his writing, he stressed movement,
flexibility, and surprise. He saw that in most military campaigns, it was vital to take an indirect
approach. Rather than attacking the enemy head-on, one must dislocate their psychological and
physical balance.

Sun Tzu “The Master Strategist”

The exact dates of Sun Tzu’s birth and his death are unknown, but he lived around 500
B.C. The name Sun Tzu (“Master Sun”) is an honorific title that was given to him.He was an
author of book which is known as The Art of War. According to Chinese tradition, he was a
member of the Shi during the consolidation of the Spring and Autumn Period (represented an era
in Chinese History between 722 BC and 481 BC). The Art of war is the first known study of the
planning and conduct of military operations. Samuel Griffith and B.H. Liddell Hart who were the
great British strategists and thinkers described Sun Tzu as the most concentrated essence of
wisdom on the conduct of war.Hart continues on stating that among all the military thinkers of
the past. Sun Tzu has clearer vision, more profound insight, and external freshness.
Some military historians suggest that Napoleon applied Sun Tzu’s philosophies in his military
planning and one, Robert Cantrell, even suggested that he carried a copy of Sun Tzu’s book with
him on his campaigns.

Ssu-ma Ch’ien states that Sun Tzu was born in the state of Ch’i. Ssu-ma Ch’ien.And further
states that he became a general for the King of Wu during the aforementioned Spring and
Autumn period in China (722-481 B.C.) and won great victories for him. To hand down the
wisdom he gained from his years in battle and his observations of statecraft, Sun Tzu wrote The
Art of War. The book has given guidance to military theorists and generals throughout time. The
Art of War became popular among not only military leaders but among leaders of the state.
Cantrell went on so far as to say, “Sun Tzu’s ideas cover not only warfare but state craft; not only
military strategy but grand strategy.” Indeed, it is not too much to say that the principles found
within the text of Sun Tzu’s book have been used successfully in countless battles and crises
throughout time, ranging from the battles of Gettysburg; to the Cuban Missile Crisis; to
Operation Desert Storm; to the operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tzu, S. (2008). The art of war. In Strategic Studies (pp. 63-91). Routledge.

According to Mark McNeilly, “what we can all be sure of is that a book known as The Art of
War most certainly exists and that the lessons it has to teach strategists, are as deep and
meaningful today as they were two thousand years ago.

Significance of Sun Tzu’s Strategy

Both military leaders and strategic planners, civilian and military, need to understand the
strategic concepts found amongst both modern and historical theorists, most specifically, the
tactical concepts found in the writings of Sun Tzu, which remain relevant in today’s
asymmetrical environment. As the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell
said, “I’ve read the Chinese classic The Art of War written by Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu has been
studied for hundreds of years. He continues to give inspiration to soldiers and politicians. So
every American soldier in the Army knows of his works. We require our soldiers to read it.” Sun
Tzu’s theories can be applied to today’s environment and have been supported by leaders at all
levels including those who wage war and those who have the responsibility to make the decisions
about engaging in war.

As the current world superpower, the United States will continue to find itself involved in world
affairs whether we choose to or not. The odds are high that the opposition we may potentially
encounter will not challenge us directly with large-scale conventional warfare. Instead the
opposition will most likely challenge us indirectly and that requires an indirect approach to be
applied. Sun Tzu understood this hundreds of years ago and his writings reflect so by stating,
“He who knows the art of the direct and the indirect approach will be victorious.” He provides
numerous tactical insights that can be applied from the operational to the strategic level and these
insights are necessary tools to deal with both the current and the future world of uncertainty.

Critzer, O. D. (2012). 21st Century Strategy Needs Sun Tzu. ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE
BARRACKS PA.

Sun Tzu provides basic tools for strategist at all levels to address the complexities threaded
throughout today’s world of uncertainty and in one where conventional and indirect warfare
tactics and techniques are required. Specifically, he brings awareness to the significance of
strategy as it applies to waging war, to the concept of battle avoidance, and to the need for both
military and diplomatic involvement to achieve victory. He provides a very flexible approach to
address the complexities surrounding the current strategic environment that involves uncertainty,
terrorism, and both irregular and asymmetrical warfare. To understand the messages embedded
in his writings, several terms should be clearly understood to include, strategy, terrorism,
irregular warfare.

Strategy

Strategy as defined is “the art and science of developing and employing instruments of national
power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national and/or multi-national
objectives.”

Terrorism

Terrorism as defined is “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to
inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals
that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”

Irregular Warfare

Irregular Warfare as defined in Air Force Doctrine Document 2-3, Irregular Warfare, is, “a
violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant
population. Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ
the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence,
and will.” A close reading of The Art of War shows that Sun Tzu anticipated these definitions
and further, that his theory provides practical insights, strategies, and tactics that leaders and
strategist have applied in past encounters, and can apply to problems in the current and future
strategic environment. What Sun Tzu understood thousands of years ago, and articulated in his
writing, The Art of War, has become common spoken language and its meanings and
interpretations are threaded throughout the language of our current military doctrine.

Key Tenets of Sun Tzu

1. Sun Tzu was extremely prudent as far as strategy was concerned. He considered it best to
subdue the enemy’s army without fighting and pointed out, “To win one hundred
victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without
fighting is the supreme excellence.”
2. He reveals his thoughts on the significance of strategy with the admonition that “War is a
matter of vital importance to the State: the province of life or death; the road to survival
or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.
3. “Victory is the main object in war.” War must be studied and those involved with war
planning must develop clearly defined strategies to achieve success.
4. “The supreme excellence in war is to attack the enemy’s plan; next best to disrupt his
alliances; next best to attack his army’ the worst is to attack his cities.”

But, Sun Tzu did not advocate going directly to war. He understood the seriousness of war and
believed that rational men had the capacity with their moral and intellectual faculties to make the
right decisions. More importantly, he believed that war was a last resort and that battle avoidance
techniques including frustration of the enemy, the use of spies to gain information, the sowing of
dissension, and the nurturing of subversion were key parts of the strategy to win.

Lo, V. H. Y., Ho, C. O., & Sculli, D. (1998). The strategic insights of Sun Tzu and quality
management. The TQM Magazine.

Sun Tzu devoted considerable time and attention to concerns prior to the engaging in war to
include the significance of diplomatic engagement strategies as alternatives to achieve stated
objectives. He expressed great awareness of the dire consequences resulting from decisions to
engage in war and that diplomacy was the best means to achieve success without engaging in
bloodshed as a result of fighting. He identified dire consequences that included the potential for
significant draining of resources that included populations and cities. Sun Tzu believed that every
possible means to avoid war should be investigated first. “Only when the enemy could not be
overcome by these means was there recourse to armed force, which was to be applied so that
victory was gained:

(a) In the shortest possible time.

(b) At the least possible cost of lives and efforts.
(c) With infliction on the enemy of the fewest possible casualties.
He understood and supported battle avoidance and believed those involved with the design or
execution of strategy should fully understand this concept. “Thus, those skilled in war subdue the
enemy’s army without battle. They capture his cities without assaulting them and overthrow his
state without protracted operations.”

Two ways to achieve victory

There are two ways through which it can be achieved:

1. One is through the use of political, economic, psychological, and moral means before
engaging in military efforts
2. And the other is through the use of a wise war strategy when military means are put into
play.

Wise war strategy means not just seeking to fight battles, but utilizing intelligence, deception,
surprise, speed, and other methods to either outmaneuver the enemy or to ensure that any battles
will end in victory.

Conclusion
 As a result, the goal of strategy is not only to achieve the nation’s aims through
controlling or influencing its sphere of influence, but to do so without resorting to
fighting. Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, identified and codified many operational practices
that are regarded as maxims for all types of conflicts today.
  He provided guidance on deception, when to advance and when to withdraw, when to
attack and when to defend, the disposition of forces, discipline, and intelligence.
 Throughout the book, Sun Tzu stresses the significance of both the political and
psychological aspects of conflict and he provides numerous observations regarding the
character of war as well as the multitude of issues that a true strategist should consider
when determining how to achieve victory.

Thoughts of Liddell Hart

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (31 October 1895 – 29 January 1970), commonly known throughout
most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was a British soldier, military historian and
military theorist. He wrote a series of military histories that proved influential among strategists.
He argued that frontal assault was a strategy that was bound to fail at great cost in lives, as
happened in the First World War. He instead recommended the “indirect approach” and reliance
on fast-moving armoured formations.

On the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Liddell Hart volunteered for the British Army,
where he became an officer in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and served with the
regiment on the Western Front. He was hit three times without serious injury before being badly
gassed and sent out of the line on 19 July 1916. His battalion was nearly wiped out on the first
day of the offensive on 1 July, a part of the 60,000 casualties suffered in the heaviest single day’s
loss in British history. The experiences he suffered on the Western Front profoundly affected him
for the rest of his life.

In the mid-to-late 1920s Liddell Hart wrote a series of histories of major military figures through
which he advanced his ideas that the frontal assault was a strategy bound to fail at great cost in
lives. He argued that the tremendous losses Britain suffered in the Great War were caused by its
commanding officers not appreciating that fact of history.

After the war, Liddell Hart was responsible for extensive interviews and debriefs for several
high-ranking German generals, who were held by the Allies as prisoners-of-war. Liddell Hart
provided commentary on their outlook. The work was published as The Other Side of the Hill
(UK edition, 1948) and The German Generals Talk .in 1954, Liddell Hart published his most
influential work, Strategy. It was followed by a second expanded edition in 1967. The book was
largely devoted to a historical study of the indirect approach and in what ways various battles
and campaigns could be analyzed using that concept. Still relevant at the turn of the century, it
was a factor in the development of the British maneuver doctrine. The Queen made Liddell Hart
a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honors of 1966.

Key ideas

 Not of one period but of its whole course, points to the fact.
 That, in all decisive campaigns, the dislocation of the enemy’s.
 Psychological and physical balance has been the vital prelude.
 To his overthrow
— B. H. Liddell Hart]

Liddell Hart was an advocate of the notion that it is easier to succeed in war by an indirect
approach. To attack where the opponent expects, as Liddell Hart explained, makes the task of
winning harder: “To move along the line of natural expectation consolidates the opponent’s
balance and thus increases his resisting power”. That is in contrast to an indirect approach, in
which physical or psychological surprise is a component.

Liddell Hart’s indirect approach has seven key themes

 The dislocation of the enemy’s balance should be the prelude to defeat, not to utter
destruction.
 Negotiate an end to unprofitable wars.
 The methods of the indirect approach are better suited to democracy.
 Military power relies on economic endurance. Defeating an enemy by beating him
economically incurs no risk.
 Implicitly, war is an activity between states.
 Liddell Hart’s notion of “rational pacifism”.
 Victory often emerges as the result of an enemy defeating itself.

The strategy of the indirect approach first found full expression in 1929 in a volume entitled The
Decisive Wars of History. Liddell-Hart’s ideas were influenced by his disenchantment with the
misconduct of the First World War. He witnessed the terrible devastation and killing caused by
what he believed was a faulty strategy based on Clausewitz doctrines and leading to the brutality
of trench warfare. He was not a pacifist, however, and he never believed that war could be
avoided altogether. His objective was to consider how war could be fought more cleanly, more
decisively, more intelligently and, above all, as humanely as possible.

Influence

During the 1960s Liddell Hart’s reputation reached extraordinary heights. When he visited Israel
in 1960 his trip stimulated more public interest than that of any other foreign visitor except
Marily — Brian Holden Re

Liddell Hart’s reputation as a military thinker stood very high at his death in 1970. Post-mortem
assessments, however, have been more ambivalent.

— Christopher Bassford.

At the height of his popularity, John F. Kennedy called Liddell Hart “the Captain who teaches
Generals” and was using his writings to attack the Eisenhower administration, which he said was
too dependent on nuclear arms.

Liddell Hart influence extended to armies outside the UK and the US as well. Baumgartner
stated of Liddell Hart’s influence in the Australian Army: “The indirect approach was also one of
the key influences on the development of maneuver theory, a dominant element in Army
thinking throughout the 1990s”. Retired Pakistani General Shaafat Shah called Liddell Hart’s
book Strategy: the Indirect Approach “A seminal work of military history and theory.

Contradictions with Clausewitz

Clausewitz was the strategist of ‘offensive war’. Liddell-Hart was the strategist of ‘ defensive or
limited war’. He believed that given the changes in military technology, offence was no longer
the correct strategy. Rather the ‘indirect strategy’ of manoeuvre and surprise, which forced the
enemy to disperse his forces, was the correct strategy. Thus, in a deeper and wider sense than
Clausewitz implied, the defensive is the stronger as well as the more economical form of
strategy.

His main conclusion was that

 ‘The strength of the enemy . . . is dependent upon

Stability or “equilibrium” of control, morale and supply’.

He said: ‘In all the decisive campaigns, the dislocation of the enemy’s psychological and
physical balance has been the vital prelude to a successful attempt at his overthrow. This
dislocation has been produced by the indirect approach.

Liddell-Hart criticized the Clausewitzian notion of treating war as mainly a matter of

concentrating superior force. He argued that true concentration of force is the product of
dispersion forced upon the enemy by manoeuvre. To concentrate all is impractical and even
dangerous.

“Concentrating your force against an object too solid to be shattered is useless and
counterproductive. Effective concentration can only be achieved when the enemy's forces are
dispersed, and in order to ensure the dispersal of enemy forces, one's own forces must be widely
distributed or perceived as widely distributed. So force your enemy to disperse their forces
widely before the start of the war.)'our dispersal, their dispersion and then your concentration. In
short, true concentration is the product of calculated dispersal. Clausewitz and Liddell-Hart
differed in more than one area. Whereas Clausewitz emphasized the need to attack the strongest
power first in a coalition of hostile states, Liddell-Hart suggested the opposite: 'Attack the
weaker side of the coalition first”.

According to Liddell-Hart, 'In a campaign against more than one state or army, it is more fruitful
to concentrate against the weaker partner, than to attempt the overthrow of the stronger, in the
belief that the weaker partner's defeat will automatically involve the collapse of the others.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the strategy of indirect approach is the only sound strategy, it is necessary
to achieve the three following aims.

(a) Cut the enemy's lines of communication, thus paralyzing his physical buildup.

(b) Seal him off from his lines of retreat, thus undermining the enemy's will and morale.
(c) Attack his centre of administration and disrupt his communications, thus severing the link
between his brain and limb.
References

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA561113

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-china/the-art-of-war https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-

journals/liddell-hart-indirectapproach/docview/195628948/se-2

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Basil-Henry-Liddell-Hart