Sam’s take was of particular interest to me because unlike most of us he has more than a mere passing familiarity with The Art of War. All 4GW conflicts have their origin in faulty or inept statesmanship and in remedying that it is helpful to refresh ourselves with Sun Tzu, the consumate statesman of all times.
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Matt McIntosh:
October 20th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Except there’s no indication that the terrorists are actually winning the 4GW. It’s kind of hard to get the public on your side when you’re going around blowing them up.
Larry Dunbar:
October 20th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
Hi Mark,
Sun Tzu handed Taiwan to China (Taiwan’s ship came in unfortunately it docked in mainland China). And his strategy is working for the insurgents in Iraq. If simply causing chaos is progress, I suppose it is having some success. However, I don’t see his policies as being relevant to our efforts. We seem to be using the more linear strategy of PISRR.
Anonymous:
October 21st, 2005 at 10:49 pm
I agree with Mr. McIntosh. The Sun Tzu method works where you have some place to hide when needed and someplace to attack from when possible. And the support of some sort of infrastructure, like a country or countryside.
Piece by piece the terrorists are losing what little they had of these things, due to a military that has read Sun Tzu and planned for defeating such aged and too-well known strategies.
Sun Tzu’s strategies require military and political will. Defeating his strategies requires the same thing.
Lloyd