The Chinese Strategic Tradition: A Research Program (I)

In previous posts I have described the Chinese strategic tradition as a “great conversation” between disparate voices and viewpoints often locked in bitter debates over basic fundamentals: the nature of power and control, the true sources of national strength, the utility of armed force, the respective merits of offense and defense, the proper aims of an armed campaign, the relative importance of prior planning or strategic thinking to military success, and so forth. While not the first voice to be heard in these debates, the Sunzi Bingfa (Sunzi’s Art of War, old style: Sun-tzu Bingfa) was one of the most important and is today by far the best known in the West. Barely a new year goes by without a new translation–perhaps only the Analects, the Yijing (I Ching), and the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) have been translated into English more often. This small book has also seen intensive study in the West, where it is canonical in war studies syllabi and Marine Corp reading lists. It is regularly analyzed in general histories of strategic thought [2], has been rigorously compared to Western strategic thinkers [3], and more rarely (but most profitably) has been studied in the context of ancient Chinese thought [4]. Even if we eliminated all of the rather spurious books and articles that have attempted to apply the Sunzi‘s precepts to business, sports, or social climbing, we would be left with a small library of essays and books chapters applying concepts found in the Sunzi to various tactical, operational, and strategic challenges. 

It is important to remember through all of this that both in its own day and afterwards the Sunzi was not the only voice in the debate.The strategic principles included therein were hotly contested in ancient China, with many thinkers directly attacking the Sunzi and its precepts. [5] Traditionally, Chinese scholars looking back on the intellectual history of these times described this period of Chinese history as the “hundred schools of thought” (zhuzibaijia), for it was a day when many different philosophical schools flourished (and competed) side by side. However, we must not forget that these hundred schools flourished in an age of conflict and chaos–a period whose regular name is “Warring States.” As the name might suggest, the Warring States period (475-221 BC) was an age of vicious and near eternal warfare. During this time any thinker who wanted the attention of those in power had to be able to explain to anxious monarchs how to secure their kingdoms from the threat posed by foreign invasion. This meant that every single Chinese philosophical school had to propose what today we might call a coherent theory of victory, and all thinkers who wanted royal patronage would have to at least touch on war and diplomacy.

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