The Art of War

1862 Words4 Pages

More than two thousand years ago, a Chinese strategist known as Sun Tzu wrote one of the enduring classics of military theory. Most likely written during a period of Chinese history referred to as the ‘Warring States’ period, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has continued to be studied by military strategists for millennia. Even today, The Art of War is required reading for Naval Officer Candidates. At nearly the same time in the fourth century B.C., the Greek city-states were facing invasion from the mighty Persian army. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks eventually triumphed by defeating their enemies at Plataea, but not before fighting one of history’s greatest military stands at Thermopylae. By using Sun Tzu’s classic text to analyze the battles of Thermopylae and Plataea, it is possible to gain a better understanding not only of the battles themselves, but also of the reasons why The Art of War has remained such an influential and respected text over the centuries. Whether or not Sun Tzu existed and actually wrote The Art of War is still a debate among scholars. There is very little solid evidence that can be used to place Sun Tzu in a specific time period or to independently verify details of his life. Scholars have most often been forced to rely on analysis of The Art of War itself, studying its depictions of battle strategy in order to determine when its author lived and worked. The types of armies depicted in The Art of War tend to support the theory that Sun Tzu’s strategy was developed during the Warring States period of Chinese history and that the text was written by a single author who possessed a large amount of personal and professional experience in military matters. The Warring States period was, much as the tit... ... middle of paper ... ...s Sun Tzu is likely have lived and written his work and though the Warring States of China were thousands of miles away, The Art of War can easily be applied to the strategy used by both sides of the war. Sun Tzu’s work does not only apply to a limited time and a limited style of warfare, it is a work that can be used to describe hostile engagements anywhere in the world and at any time in history. Works Cited Griffith, Samuel B. Sun Tzu: The Art of War (Oxford, 1963) Hanson, Victor Davis. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks. Hanson, Victor Davis 1999 Lendon, J. E. Soldiers & Ghosts A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity. Yale U 2005 How, W.W. “Arms, Tactics, and Strategy in the Persian War” Journal of Hellenic Studies 43.2 (1923) pp 117-132 Wallacker, Benjamin E. “Two Concepts in Early Chinese Military Thought” Language 42.2 (Apr.-Jun. 1996) pp 295-299

Open Document