Book Review: The Art of War

Book Author: Sun Tzu

This is an interesting book. For myself much of it felt self-evident due to a childhood spent playing strategy games.

For example, the idea that all warfare is based on deception is demonstrated by an RTS with fog of war. In Starcraft or Age of Empires it is well worth the shift of your production curve to scout early with a worker and gain insight into the tech path of your oppenent. Information is vital in strategy games and deception can be an interesting play. Making it look like you are doing a certain tech path while you expand at another base. Of course, on a small map where there is no distance between you and your opponentm deception becomes more costly. On a large map there is more places to hide and therefore decieve. Space creates opportunity for cunning. Tight confines and fewer options take it away.

This doesn’t translate as nicely to business but perhaps the employment of “spies” in business is advisors and formers/alumni from competitors in the space. In business your competition is somewhat indirect and is not zero-sum or purely adversarial. The interactions are more complex but the flow of good information to inform decision making is well worth the expense of seeking it out.

Be like water and flow to where the enemy is weak. This is also demonstrated by strategy games. You always want to trade efficiently. Dropping warriors into the enemies production center and slaughtering their workers is classic.

There is no permanence to war only an infinite application of prinicples that is context dependent. This is the meta. The meta is always in flux on any game.

There are also five organizing principles to strategy, that map to:

• purpose
• leadership
• doctrine
• landscape
• climate

Purpose is your moral imperative. The righteousness of your cause, or the belief in it, that binds you and your people together. It reflects your shared will.

Doctrine are principles that apply to every context such as the training and provisioning of your forces. You train. You prepare. You know how to use your weapons and tools.

Climate is context, forces that sweep over the terrain and shift the advantages and disadvantages.The emergence of new technologies, the change in capital access, etc.

Landscape is your position, and the position of the other players. The places you can go. The positions you can hold.

Finally leadership is the impetus for action. Taking advantages of landscape and climate with doctrine. Deciding why to go there vs. here.