Light Reading and Art Classes.....
So here I sits in my little room re-reading for the umpteenth time SunTzu's Art of War.
It strikes me with such clarity as to why we do not achieve victory in modern times, but instead fight to Pyrrhic victories Strategically.
I have included s few of the more relevant versus and some thoughts in Red. I've always had a fondness for Art Class....Guess I'm a Liberal Arts kind of Guy.
WAGING WAR
When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.This is the inevitable seizing of political control by your opponents and an even more costly, slower Loss of Victory.
Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. This is the only type of warfare we now wage due to our desire to wage war with civility. Our enemy only sees this as a weakness for that is what it is.
It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice.
Do what must be done quickly and without delaying the actions that must be done to achieve victory.
Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy. Thus the army will have food enough for its needs.
Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.
On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.
When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.
This toll on the people is what breaks their will to continue to support it. Instead, for our enemy we attempt to provide for them in hopes of winning them over by our good will. Foolishness.
Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own store.
This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.
In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
