A core contention woven into the fabric of Sun Tzu’s thinking is that all situations faced by a strategic actor, even those that appear on their face to be losing ones, hold seeds of opportunity that, if grasped correctly, can be parlayed into strategic advantage.1 An illustrative statement starts off Passage #5.1 below.

This chapter has two parts. Adopting an accretionist perspective on the Sun Tzu text – regarding it as developing over an extended period with no single author – the first part provides basic background on the Warring States era in which the text took shape. It analyzes an early Chinese battle illustrating Sun Tzu principles, then ends with discussion of logistics aspects of Warring States warfare. Shifting from battlefields to texts, the second part provides comparative overview of different extant copies of the Sun Tzu text, some traditionally transmitted, one archaeologically recovered. Some textual issues aside, the Sun Tzu text is in relatively good shape for a text of its antiquity. The second part ends with overview of a set of eleven traditional commentators on the text; perspective on the sprawling modern Sun Tzu literature; and brief orientation to the Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), one of China’s great pre-modern vernacular novels. Although this novel of Ming dynasty vintage is not properly part of the Sun Tzu tradition, in modern times many Chinese have been exposed to Sun-Tzu-esque thinking through the Sanguo’s vivid, albeit fictionalized, stories.

This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.

Theme #9 is about exploiting dynamics already present in a situation to advance one’s interests. Many Sun Tzu ideas find a place here, reflecting Sun Tzu’s keen appreciation of war’s larger context (Passage #1.1) conjoined with the inherently dynamic quality of Sun Tzu’s core concept of shi.

There are two Sun Tzu verses which, by Sun Tzu’s own affirmations, may be seen as summations of the active ingredient of his way of war. One is Theme #6’s centerpiece verse III.4 (Passage #6.1).

Often regarded as the oldest surviving work on strategy, the Sun Tzu text has influence in many quarters today. This study organizes Sun Tzu’s ideas under fourteen thematic headings. It also clarifies Sun Tzu’s limitations and blind spots. Building on Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, USMC (Ret.)’s translation, this study analyzes Sun Tzu from three standpoints: Sun Tzu (1), Sun Tzu’s ideas in their original Warring States Chinese context; Sun Tzu (2), Sun Tzu’s ideas applied to warfare in a military sense in other times and places; Sun Tzu (3), generalizations of those ideas, including to cyber warfare and other twenty-first-century strategic competitions. Whereas Sun Tzu (1) analysis addresses ways in which the text is a product of its times, intertwined with traditional Chinese cultural milieux, Sun Tzu (2) and (3) analyses, often building on analogical thinking, map universalistic aspects of Sun Tzu’s insights into war and conflict, strategy, logistics, information, intelligence, and espionage. Those analyses also identify ways in which Sun Tzu’s thinking has relevance to gaining strategic advantage in twenty-first-century conflicts.