Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Its infuriating to read so many people praise a book they clearly do not understand when they think its a bunch of flowery Chinese words that can apply to anything and any situation. This is a sign that these folks do not understand THE most important book ever written about warfare. Because of this Western mindset failing, I have to place B.H. Liddell-Hart's Strategy as the FIRST and most important military book ever written--read this first THEN tackle Sun Tzu's Art of War. Together these are THE two most important military books ever written and for the impatient I will explain why. Hart explains through military history how warfare is a mental battle that is executed in the physical plane for a tangible result. Sun Tzu's thrust is the same--and its not just a gimmick or a ploy one uses by tacking onto a Western mindset of materialism or the like. The Eastern mind which Sun Tzu articulates does not see war or conflict as "good" or as a means to an end. Its in a fascinating way, a view that is more Judeo-Christian than the so-called Protestant reformation-based West's concepts of positional warfare and a climactic battle as a form of a nation-state duel that justifies their existence (raison d-etre) in that Sun Tzu sees the highest form of warfare is AVOIDING IT by deception and psychological ploys that result in the enemy becoming your friend because war is a waste for everyone that practices it. Those that see Sun Tzu as an after-school karate class one takes to be a nice-to-have adjunct to an ends-justifies-the-means run-over-people-to-get-what-you-want Western mindset are "missing the boat" and reading the book at a very shallow, selfish level. These folks are really wannabe Samarai reading a book for quiet ninjas. Sun Tzu also goes on to show that the epitome of warfighting is NOT "prolonged operations, however brilliantly executed" but the General who can avoid war and ironically by so doing receives no glory or acclaim yet is the true hero of the people and the state. What this means is that today--in the 21st Century with the information warfare means available to us, we can for the first time execute Sun Tzu's vision better than ever before because we can bypass armies and bloody fights and reach the hearts/minds of the people themselves--if we are clever and moral enough to do so. If we think of Sun Tzu as a parlor trick, we will not have the morality to persuade the other person to join our side and the trickery of physical fighting will only yield a temporary victory as the enemy rebounds at a later date. Sun Tzu looks deep into the human condition, to understand him you have to do the same; the way of a ninja is more closely related to this kind of thinking than a samurai looking for public acclaim/attention. A true ninja today would use Sun Tzu to make the militaries of the free world more effective in 4th Generation War (See Van Crevald's The Transformation of War) and use all the customary battlefield tricks of indirectness and deception he talks about if these primary efforts fail. If you want to truly understand Sun Tzu, get your mind on the right boat to China and look deep into your condition as a human and put aside what he says as gimmicks.