The military doctrine of Sun Tzu (the new is a well forgotten old)
From the point of view of Sun Tzu, war is a struggle, in the closest sense - the confrontation of two armies. However, the struggle in the war, according to Sun Tzu, is not something sharply different in nature from the struggle in general: it is the same struggle as any other. Therefore, the Chinese strategist puts it on a par with the struggle of the diplomatic, political and any other. The only difference is: of all types of struggle, "there is nothing more difficult than a struggle in war."
The fight is for gain. “Receiving benefits is victory” - this is how commentator Wang Zhe perceives the teachings of Sun Tzu. It is important to understand that victory is not needed by itself, victory is only a means for obtaining benefits. The concept of benefit applies to every particular manifestation of the struggle: the struggle for position is the struggle for mastering those strategic benefits that this position represents for the one who occupied it, etc.
The concept of benefits from Sun W is subject to all strategic calculations. Profit directs all tactics. But the benefit is not only the goal, but also the means. The enemy also fights for profit. And if so, then by controlling this goal, you can control his actions. This means that the target for the enemy must be able to turn into a means for themselves. It is on this that Sun Wu builds his doctrine about enticing the enemy, forcing him to do this or that desired action. To force the enemy to take the necessary action by giving him some temporary, insignificant, and even directly illusory benefit. "To be able to force the enemy to come himself is to lure him with profit."
The struggle in war, like any struggle, can lead to success or failure. Success for Sun Wu is to gain. Failure is a danger. War is the most difficult form of struggle, and therefore the least profitable and the most dangerous. Why the least profitable? Sun Tzu instructs: “The best is to keep the enemy state intact, in second place is to crush this state. The best is to keep the enemy army safe, in second place - to break it. ” If war is waged for profit, then it is more profitable to take possession of the enemy’s country, without ruining it, it’s better to subjugate the enemy’s army, not destroying it, but having the opportunity to manage it with manpower and material resources.
But in war, at least partial destruction of what they are striving to seize is inevitable. Therefore, war is the least profitable way of acquiring benefits. “A hundred times to fight and a hundred times to win is not the best of the best; the best of the best is to conquer a foreign army without fighting. ”
In a war, everything is at stake. This is stated at the very beginning of the treatise: "War is a great thing for the state, it is the ground of life and death, it is the way of existence and destruction." Therefore, before you decide on a war, you need to try all other means. What is the means?
First, it is necessary to break the plans of the enemy, i.e., with clever policies to destroy the plan of the aggressive-minded neighbor and the corresponding measures in his country to make the implementation of his plans impossible. “The next place is to break his alliances,” that is, to achieve international isolation of the enemy, when he can hardly decide to attack. And only in third place - "break his army."
Sun Tzu - a supporter of blitzkrieg. The entire 11 chapter of his treatise is devoted to the argumentation of this doctrine. Sun Wu rejects a long war because it is unprofitable: "It has never happened before the war lasted a long time and it would be beneficial to the state." Understanding this idea is easy: a protracted war leads to the death of many people, to material losses, financial difficulties, to the decline of the economy and eventually to the ruin of the country, rebellion and the collapse of the state.
How to prevent such hazards? Sun Wu points out one way, which can, if not completely eliminate the difficulties of war, then, in any case, greatly alleviate them: it is necessary to shift all the war to the shoulders of the enemy, and for this to endure military actions on its territory. However, this way the problem is not solved. The decisive means is to enter the war prepared in all respects and carry it out quickly. In view of this, in the treatise a lot of space is reserved for the preparation of war.
Sun Wu distinguishes two aspects of preparation: the political and the military, within which the subparagraphs are singled out. First of all, the strategist speaks about domestic political preparation: you can fight when “the thoughts of the people are the same as the thoughts of the ruler, when the people are ready to die with him, they are ready to live with him, when he doesn’t know either fear or doubt”.
Sun Wu attributed military formation, equipment, good organization, properly delivered leadership and well-organized supplies to the military training area. From all this is the completeness of combat training. Sun Wu in very energetic terms demands: “The rule of war is not to rely on the fact that the enemy will not come, but to rely on what I can meet him with; not to rely on the fact that he does not attack, but to rely on the fact that I will make his attack on myself impossible for him. ”
Chinese warlords. From ancient prints
Sun Tzu attaches great importance to the commander: a good commander is "a treasure for the state." He is “the ruler of the people's destinies, ... the master of the security of the state." In this regard, the strategist makes very high demands on the commander. First of all, it requires from him the presence of five qualities: mind, impartiality, humanity, courage, severity. The mind is of paramount importance.
After all the necessary preparations have been carried out, it is necessary to work out a plan of war, which should be based on what Sun Tzu calls “calculations.” “Calculations” is a preliminary account of the situation, the correlation of forces and combat training.
What is subject to accounting? All that concerns itself and the enemy, and it is in comparison. Only knowledge of this relationship can be a solid basis for the operational plan. Specifically, you need to weigh the following: “Who among the sovereigns has the Way? (In the language of Sun Tzu, this means: who in the country achieved the unity of the "thoughts of the people with the thoughts of the ruler".) Who of the generals have talents? (That is, the qualities listed above.) Who used Heaven and Earth? (That is, he took into account the factors of time and space.) Who executes the rules and orders? Who is stronger? Who is better trained officers and soldiers? Who is correctly awarded and punished? ”Thus, the material, organizational and moral factors of war are subject to weighing.
Of course, these calculations can be made only when the relevant data are available, full knowledge of both parties being compared. Self-knowledge is natural. But you also need full knowledge of the enemy. Sun Wu expressed this thought in his famous words: “If you know him and you know yourself, fight a hundred times, there will be no danger; if you know yourself, but you do not know him, you will win once, once again you will fail; if you do not know yourself or him, every time you fight, you will be defeated. ”
But how to get the knowledge of the enemy? Sun Wu's answer is unequivocal: "Knowledge of the position of the enemy can only be obtained from people." That is, from secret agents, spies. We will talk more about this further.
Sun Wu extremely appreciates the value of the preliminary calculation: “Who wins the preliminary calculation before the battle, he has a lot of chances; whoever, even before the battle, does not win by calculation, he has little chance. Whoever has a lot of chances wins; who has little chance does not win; all the more so who has no chance at all. Therefore, for me, at the sight of this one, victory and defeat are already clear. ”
Of course, the enemy will also seek to gather the necessary information. Therefore, Sun Wu pays great attention to the preservation of military secrets. "Moving the troops, act according to your calculations and plans and do so that no one can penetrate them." The plans of the commander should not be known not only to the enemy, but also to his own army, even to the subordinate commanders. Moreover. Sun Tzu advises deliberately mislead not only the enemy, but also his soldiers. “The commander must always be calm and impenetrable to others ... He must be able to mislead the eyes and ears of his officers and soldiers and not allow them to know anything. He must change his plans and change his plans and not allow others to guess about them. He has to change his whereabouts, choose his own ways and not allow others to figure out something. ”
According to Sun Tzu, victory in a battle is the result of combining one’s own invincibility for the enemy with the ability to defeat him. Own invincibility is the result of defense brought to completeness. The ability to defeat the enemy comes down to only one thing - the ability to advance. Real defense is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it is a sign of strength. All the efforts of the enemy are broken about it. She is invincibility. However, “when defending, it means that there is something lacking”. “Anyone who fights well can make himself invincible, but cannot force the enemy to be given a chance to defeat himself,” the strategist teaches. This is precisely what the defender lacks: the ability to win. It is lacking because the possibility of victory over the enemy lies in himself. Therefore, "in ancient times, the one who fought well, first of all, made himself invincible and waited in such a state when it would be possible to defeat the enemy." “When they attack, it means that everything is in abundance,” Sun Tzu says briefly.
How do you still win? "He who fights well, stands on the ground of the impossibility of his defeat and does not miss the possibility of defeating the enemy." "The science of the supreme commander is the ability to assess the enemy, to organize the victory." What is subject to observation and evaluation? “Completeness” and “emptiness,” says Sun W.
By "completeness" Sun Wu means the fullness of combat training, the ability to take action, complete invulnerability for the enemy. By “emptiness” is meant imperfection of preparation, weak ability to act, vulnerability. At the same time, the word "fullness" Sun-Tzu applies to every particular case, calling it so every strong point; the word "emptiness" calls any weak, vulnerable point. It is this “emptiness” of the enemy, his defects, shortcomings, weak, vulnerable sides that the commander should watch. Therefore, it is especially important that he is able to evaluate, since only an experienced eye can open the presence of a vulnerable item.
In this respect, the name that Sun Wu attaches to the spies is characteristic: “jianzhe” (in Japanese - kanja), where “je” is “person”, and “jian” is “gap”, “crack” through which the spy penetrates in the enemy camp, the "emptiness", which he must find the enemy.
The commander must “oppose the enemy” with his “fullness”, the enemy’s vulnerability is his own invulnerability, and exactly where the enemy’s vulnerability was revealed. If fatigue is found in the enemy, the freshness of his strength must be opposed to him; if he has a shortage of ammunition, it is necessary to oppose the completeness of his supply, etc. The commander who managed to open the enemy's vulnerable point and oppose his own invulnerability to him, has thereby already won. The battle only draws up the victory already achieved. Sun Wu likens the blow to an already victorious army to an army, already, in fact, defeated, to a blow “with a stone at an egg”, “complete with nothing”.
However, the "emptiness" and "fullness" are mutually interchangeable. A Japanese commentator, Ogyu Sorai, writes: “The fullness and emptiness change so much, they go into each other so much that even the thinnest hair cannot be inserted between them. That which has hitherto been full, suddenly changes and becomes void; that which until now has been emptiness, suddenly changes and becomes full. As there is no once and for all established completeness, so there is no once and for all established emptiness. ”
Sun Wu, as mentioned above, establishes the provisions of his own invincibility and the ability to win. The first position of "Sun Tzu" connects with the concept of defense, the second - with the concept of attack. At the same time, each position contains both a sign of weakness and a sign of strength. The position of defense is a position of power, with it the enemy cannot win. But at the same time, it is a sign of weakness, since the enemy cannot be defeated either. Similarly, with the onset. An offensive is a state where I can defeat an opponent. But the opportunity to win, inherent in me, is realized not only by me, but also by the opponent, who must make his defeat possible. Therefore, the offensive has its own strength - the possibility of victory and its own weakness - the dependence of victory on the state of the enemy.
But this does not exhaust the dialectic of these two phenomena. They themselves are dialectically related to each other, since the offensive and defense, in fact, the same thing. The final formula of the internal balance of defense and offensive is given by the commentator of Sun Tzu Li Wei-gun: “An offensive is a defense mechanism, defense is an instrument of an offensive. If we attack, not defensively, and not to defend, advancing, it means not only to consider these two actions as different things, but also to see in them two different actions in essence ”.
Such is the law of change and transformation of "fullness" and "emptiness". But Sun Wu is far from thinking that it should be limited only to his observation and statement. He allows intervention in the process of change and transformation and, moreover, mastering it.
First of all, according to Sun Wu, you need to know the "changes". Moreover, this knowledge should not be passive, it should be directional, purposeful. The commander must know the process of change in order to discover in him that which may be beneficial to him. And then this knowledge will become a force. In general, the process of changes and transformations for the Chinese is nothing but the world process, the content of all being. Therefore, the one who “knows how to own changes and transformations depending on the opponent and to win a victory is called a deity”.
It has already been said that Sun Tzu believed that it was better to win a victory without fighting. He points out: “You can, without dulling weapons, have a benefit: this is the rule of strategic attack. ” For this you need to put the enemy in a position where he sees that the struggle is useless and that all that remains is to surrender. Sun Wu believes that this is quite possible if the commander has a strategic skill, that is, he understands perfectly the process of change and transformation in a war and knows how to dispose of it.
A strategic attack consists of skillful action by a category that Sun Wu calls "form." "Form" is the general condition of the army, its potential power. It is a derivative of “fullness” and “emptiness”, it depends on the ratio of strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, operating with “form” is, in fact, operating with strengths and weaknesses. This “form” must be unrecognizable for the enemy, so that all my potencies are hidden from him. "Therefore, the limit in giving your army a form is to achieve that this form is not there," says Sun Tzu. “When there is no form, even a deeply penetrated scout cannot peek at anything, even a sage cannot judge anything.” Consequently, the true "form" must be hidden from the enemy; he should only see that “form” that I want to show him. And then this “form” demonstrated to him becomes an instrument of strategic - in the broad sense of the word - attack.
Sun Wu states: “If I show the enemy any form, but I won’t have this form myself, I will keep wholeness, and the enemy will be divided into parts. Maintaining integrity, I will be a unit; divided into parts, the enemy will be ten. Then I will attack his unit with my tenth ... ”Sun-tzu is sure of the unmistakable effect of this maneuver:“ When someone who knows how to make the enemy move shows him form, the enemy always follows him. ” Therefore, it is possible and necessary to control the actions of the enemy so as to put him in the position of inevitable surrender. For this there are various means. “When an enemy is given something, he necessarily takes; they make him move by profit, but they meet him by surprise. ” This means that strategic attack weapons are benefit and harm. To affect a profit is to influence a bait. Creating a threat is an action of “harm”. “To be able to force the enemy to come himself is to lure him with profit; to be able not to let the enemy pass is to restrain him with harm. ”
Instruments of strategic struggle can be such actions as offensive and defense. By combining the offensive and the defense, you need to ensure that the enemy does not know where he will fight with me: if he does not know this, then he must be ready in many places, that is, spray forces. And then my advantage in forces will provide an almost sure surrender of the enemy and certainly a victory.
The first and basic rule of Sun Wu's strategy is: “He who fights well, controls the enemy and does not let him control himself.” It is about keeping the full initiative in your hands. This rule, in essence, summarizes the entire strategic theory of Sun Tzu. All the rest is only the development of this principle. To control the actions of the enemy - this means, first, to control his movements: to force him to go where I want, and not to let him go where he doesn’t want; secondly, to manage his combat actions: to force him to take the fight there and then when it is beneficial to me, and not to give him the opportunity to join the battle with me when it is not beneficial to me.
You can retain the full completeness of the strategic and tactical initiative, firstly, by warning the enemy in all his actions. The second way to control the actions of the enemy is to master what is dear to him: “Take first what is dear to him. If you capture, he will obey you. ” Close to this mode of action is the method of “attacking that the enemy cannot but protect”. Another way is strategic maneuvering, forcing the enemy to take one or another action: “If I don’t want to fight, let me just take a place and defend him, the enemy will not be able to fight with me anyway. This is because I avert him from the path where he goes. ” Sun Tzu considers good actions to control the actions of the enemy, which are surprises for the opponent, which can cause him complete confusion. “The one who knows how to attack, the enemy does not know where to defend him; the one who knows how to defend, the enemy does not know where to attack him ". Sun Wu believes that the commander, who knows how to act in this way, is "the sovereign of the enemy's fate."
That is the general law of warfare. It is based on general tactics and private tactics. At the heart of the general tactics is the position: war is the way of deception. Sun Tzu speaks of various methods of military cunning: tactical disguise, various precautions, the use of the shortcomings or mistakes of the enemy, the impact on him from the inside, the impact on his psychology. In this case, the tricks, deception, he attaches such a value that he considers it possible to declare: "In war they are set on deception."
The theory of “direct and alternate paths” developed by Sun Tzu also belongs to the field of general tactics. The strategist attaches particular importance to what he calls the "workaround tactic." For Sun Tzu, a straight line is hidden in a detour; a detour often leads closer and more accurately to a goal than a direct one: “He who knows the tactics of a direct and detour way in advance wins. This is the law of warfare. ”
Sun-Tzu considers speed to be the most important condition for all actions in the war. Speed in and of itself already represents power. A blow to the enemy, if it is carried out with a speed “similar to the wind,” already has a crushing force. Sun Tzu particularly points out that the best in a war is a quick invasion of enemy territory. He recommends that you closely monitor all the actions of the enemy and trap the convenient moment when he reveals himself. Sun Tzu characterizes the ability to trap the slightest mistake of the enemy while simultaneously masterfully disguising his own intentions in a very figurative way: “First, be like an innocent girl, and the enemy will open the door. Then be like a hare escaped - and the enemy will not have time to take measures to protect. ”
Sun Tzu’s private tactics consist of rules on how to fight in various locations depending on their topographic and strategic properties, how to act in various cases of a numerical balance of forces of the parties, etc. The same rules apply to tactical intelligence.
Sun Tzu says: “There are only two actions in the battle - the right fight and maneuver ... In general, in a fight, they grapple with the enemy by a right fight, they win by the same maneuver.” In this case, the strategist emphasizes that there is no impenetrable wall between these two methods of combat. On the contrary, their correlation is the same dialectical as all other elements of strategy and tactics. The correct battle under certain conditions turns into a maneuver, a maneuver into a correct battle. “There are only two actions in a battle ... but it’s impossible to calculate changes in the right combat and maneuver of all. The right fight and maneuver mutually spawn each other, and this is like a gyre that has no end. ” Thus, in this area of battle, the law of change and transformation prevails, and as always, the secret of victory is to take possession of these changes and transformations.
The last thing that remains to be noted in Sun Tzu’s tactics is his theory of strike. He demands that the blow be swift, calculated, short, crushing. The blow is dealt by nothing other than the “power” of the army, that is, its potential force, which consists of a number of the above described interacting elements.
Such is in general terms the military doctrine of Sun Tzu. As we see, it relies on the deepest philosophical understanding of the struggle in general. This is the reason for its enormous influence on many areas of life - including the Japanese art of ninjutsu.
The fight is for gain. “Receiving benefits is victory” - this is how commentator Wang Zhe perceives the teachings of Sun Tzu. It is important to understand that victory is not needed by itself, victory is only a means for obtaining benefits. The concept of benefit applies to every particular manifestation of the struggle: the struggle for position is the struggle for mastering those strategic benefits that this position represents for the one who occupied it, etc.
The concept of benefits from Sun W is subject to all strategic calculations. Profit directs all tactics. But the benefit is not only the goal, but also the means. The enemy also fights for profit. And if so, then by controlling this goal, you can control his actions. This means that the target for the enemy must be able to turn into a means for themselves. It is on this that Sun Wu builds his doctrine about enticing the enemy, forcing him to do this or that desired action. To force the enemy to take the necessary action by giving him some temporary, insignificant, and even directly illusory benefit. "To be able to force the enemy to come himself is to lure him with profit."
The struggle in war, like any struggle, can lead to success or failure. Success for Sun Wu is to gain. Failure is a danger. War is the most difficult form of struggle, and therefore the least profitable and the most dangerous. Why the least profitable? Sun Tzu instructs: “The best is to keep the enemy state intact, in second place is to crush this state. The best is to keep the enemy army safe, in second place - to break it. ” If war is waged for profit, then it is more profitable to take possession of the enemy’s country, without ruining it, it’s better to subjugate the enemy’s army, not destroying it, but having the opportunity to manage it with manpower and material resources.
But in war, at least partial destruction of what they are striving to seize is inevitable. Therefore, war is the least profitable way of acquiring benefits. “A hundred times to fight and a hundred times to win is not the best of the best; the best of the best is to conquer a foreign army without fighting. ”
In a war, everything is at stake. This is stated at the very beginning of the treatise: "War is a great thing for the state, it is the ground of life and death, it is the way of existence and destruction." Therefore, before you decide on a war, you need to try all other means. What is the means?
First, it is necessary to break the plans of the enemy, i.e., with clever policies to destroy the plan of the aggressive-minded neighbor and the corresponding measures in his country to make the implementation of his plans impossible. “The next place is to break his alliances,” that is, to achieve international isolation of the enemy, when he can hardly decide to attack. And only in third place - "break his army."
Sun Tzu - a supporter of blitzkrieg. The entire 11 chapter of his treatise is devoted to the argumentation of this doctrine. Sun Wu rejects a long war because it is unprofitable: "It has never happened before the war lasted a long time and it would be beneficial to the state." Understanding this idea is easy: a protracted war leads to the death of many people, to material losses, financial difficulties, to the decline of the economy and eventually to the ruin of the country, rebellion and the collapse of the state.
How to prevent such hazards? Sun Wu points out one way, which can, if not completely eliminate the difficulties of war, then, in any case, greatly alleviate them: it is necessary to shift all the war to the shoulders of the enemy, and for this to endure military actions on its territory. However, this way the problem is not solved. The decisive means is to enter the war prepared in all respects and carry it out quickly. In view of this, in the treatise a lot of space is reserved for the preparation of war.
Sun Wu distinguishes two aspects of preparation: the political and the military, within which the subparagraphs are singled out. First of all, the strategist speaks about domestic political preparation: you can fight when “the thoughts of the people are the same as the thoughts of the ruler, when the people are ready to die with him, they are ready to live with him, when he doesn’t know either fear or doubt”.
Sun Wu attributed military formation, equipment, good organization, properly delivered leadership and well-organized supplies to the military training area. From all this is the completeness of combat training. Sun Wu in very energetic terms demands: “The rule of war is not to rely on the fact that the enemy will not come, but to rely on what I can meet him with; not to rely on the fact that he does not attack, but to rely on the fact that I will make his attack on myself impossible for him. ”
Chinese warlords. From ancient prints
Sun Tzu attaches great importance to the commander: a good commander is "a treasure for the state." He is “the ruler of the people's destinies, ... the master of the security of the state." In this regard, the strategist makes very high demands on the commander. First of all, it requires from him the presence of five qualities: mind, impartiality, humanity, courage, severity. The mind is of paramount importance.
After all the necessary preparations have been carried out, it is necessary to work out a plan of war, which should be based on what Sun Tzu calls “calculations.” “Calculations” is a preliminary account of the situation, the correlation of forces and combat training.
What is subject to accounting? All that concerns itself and the enemy, and it is in comparison. Only knowledge of this relationship can be a solid basis for the operational plan. Specifically, you need to weigh the following: “Who among the sovereigns has the Way? (In the language of Sun Tzu, this means: who in the country achieved the unity of the "thoughts of the people with the thoughts of the ruler".) Who of the generals have talents? (That is, the qualities listed above.) Who used Heaven and Earth? (That is, he took into account the factors of time and space.) Who executes the rules and orders? Who is stronger? Who is better trained officers and soldiers? Who is correctly awarded and punished? ”Thus, the material, organizational and moral factors of war are subject to weighing.
Of course, these calculations can be made only when the relevant data are available, full knowledge of both parties being compared. Self-knowledge is natural. But you also need full knowledge of the enemy. Sun Wu expressed this thought in his famous words: “If you know him and you know yourself, fight a hundred times, there will be no danger; if you know yourself, but you do not know him, you will win once, once again you will fail; if you do not know yourself or him, every time you fight, you will be defeated. ”
But how to get the knowledge of the enemy? Sun Wu's answer is unequivocal: "Knowledge of the position of the enemy can only be obtained from people." That is, from secret agents, spies. We will talk more about this further.
Sun Wu extremely appreciates the value of the preliminary calculation: “Who wins the preliminary calculation before the battle, he has a lot of chances; whoever, even before the battle, does not win by calculation, he has little chance. Whoever has a lot of chances wins; who has little chance does not win; all the more so who has no chance at all. Therefore, for me, at the sight of this one, victory and defeat are already clear. ”
Of course, the enemy will also seek to gather the necessary information. Therefore, Sun Wu pays great attention to the preservation of military secrets. "Moving the troops, act according to your calculations and plans and do so that no one can penetrate them." The plans of the commander should not be known not only to the enemy, but also to his own army, even to the subordinate commanders. Moreover. Sun Tzu advises deliberately mislead not only the enemy, but also his soldiers. “The commander must always be calm and impenetrable to others ... He must be able to mislead the eyes and ears of his officers and soldiers and not allow them to know anything. He must change his plans and change his plans and not allow others to guess about them. He has to change his whereabouts, choose his own ways and not allow others to figure out something. ”
According to Sun Tzu, victory in a battle is the result of combining one’s own invincibility for the enemy with the ability to defeat him. Own invincibility is the result of defense brought to completeness. The ability to defeat the enemy comes down to only one thing - the ability to advance. Real defense is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it is a sign of strength. All the efforts of the enemy are broken about it. She is invincibility. However, “when defending, it means that there is something lacking”. “Anyone who fights well can make himself invincible, but cannot force the enemy to be given a chance to defeat himself,” the strategist teaches. This is precisely what the defender lacks: the ability to win. It is lacking because the possibility of victory over the enemy lies in himself. Therefore, "in ancient times, the one who fought well, first of all, made himself invincible and waited in such a state when it would be possible to defeat the enemy." “When they attack, it means that everything is in abundance,” Sun Tzu says briefly.
How do you still win? "He who fights well, stands on the ground of the impossibility of his defeat and does not miss the possibility of defeating the enemy." "The science of the supreme commander is the ability to assess the enemy, to organize the victory." What is subject to observation and evaluation? “Completeness” and “emptiness,” says Sun W.
By "completeness" Sun Wu means the fullness of combat training, the ability to take action, complete invulnerability for the enemy. By “emptiness” is meant imperfection of preparation, weak ability to act, vulnerability. At the same time, the word "fullness" Sun-Tzu applies to every particular case, calling it so every strong point; the word "emptiness" calls any weak, vulnerable point. It is this “emptiness” of the enemy, his defects, shortcomings, weak, vulnerable sides that the commander should watch. Therefore, it is especially important that he is able to evaluate, since only an experienced eye can open the presence of a vulnerable item.
In this respect, the name that Sun Wu attaches to the spies is characteristic: “jianzhe” (in Japanese - kanja), where “je” is “person”, and “jian” is “gap”, “crack” through which the spy penetrates in the enemy camp, the "emptiness", which he must find the enemy.
The commander must “oppose the enemy” with his “fullness”, the enemy’s vulnerability is his own invulnerability, and exactly where the enemy’s vulnerability was revealed. If fatigue is found in the enemy, the freshness of his strength must be opposed to him; if he has a shortage of ammunition, it is necessary to oppose the completeness of his supply, etc. The commander who managed to open the enemy's vulnerable point and oppose his own invulnerability to him, has thereby already won. The battle only draws up the victory already achieved. Sun Wu likens the blow to an already victorious army to an army, already, in fact, defeated, to a blow “with a stone at an egg”, “complete with nothing”.
However, the "emptiness" and "fullness" are mutually interchangeable. A Japanese commentator, Ogyu Sorai, writes: “The fullness and emptiness change so much, they go into each other so much that even the thinnest hair cannot be inserted between them. That which has hitherto been full, suddenly changes and becomes void; that which until now has been emptiness, suddenly changes and becomes full. As there is no once and for all established completeness, so there is no once and for all established emptiness. ”
Sun Wu, as mentioned above, establishes the provisions of his own invincibility and the ability to win. The first position of "Sun Tzu" connects with the concept of defense, the second - with the concept of attack. At the same time, each position contains both a sign of weakness and a sign of strength. The position of defense is a position of power, with it the enemy cannot win. But at the same time, it is a sign of weakness, since the enemy cannot be defeated either. Similarly, with the onset. An offensive is a state where I can defeat an opponent. But the opportunity to win, inherent in me, is realized not only by me, but also by the opponent, who must make his defeat possible. Therefore, the offensive has its own strength - the possibility of victory and its own weakness - the dependence of victory on the state of the enemy.
But this does not exhaust the dialectic of these two phenomena. They themselves are dialectically related to each other, since the offensive and defense, in fact, the same thing. The final formula of the internal balance of defense and offensive is given by the commentator of Sun Tzu Li Wei-gun: “An offensive is a defense mechanism, defense is an instrument of an offensive. If we attack, not defensively, and not to defend, advancing, it means not only to consider these two actions as different things, but also to see in them two different actions in essence ”.
Such is the law of change and transformation of "fullness" and "emptiness". But Sun Wu is far from thinking that it should be limited only to his observation and statement. He allows intervention in the process of change and transformation and, moreover, mastering it.
First of all, according to Sun Wu, you need to know the "changes". Moreover, this knowledge should not be passive, it should be directional, purposeful. The commander must know the process of change in order to discover in him that which may be beneficial to him. And then this knowledge will become a force. In general, the process of changes and transformations for the Chinese is nothing but the world process, the content of all being. Therefore, the one who “knows how to own changes and transformations depending on the opponent and to win a victory is called a deity”.
It has already been said that Sun Tzu believed that it was better to win a victory without fighting. He points out: “You can, without dulling weapons, have a benefit: this is the rule of strategic attack. ” For this you need to put the enemy in a position where he sees that the struggle is useless and that all that remains is to surrender. Sun Wu believes that this is quite possible if the commander has a strategic skill, that is, he understands perfectly the process of change and transformation in a war and knows how to dispose of it.
A strategic attack consists of skillful action by a category that Sun Wu calls "form." "Form" is the general condition of the army, its potential power. It is a derivative of “fullness” and “emptiness”, it depends on the ratio of strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, operating with “form” is, in fact, operating with strengths and weaknesses. This “form” must be unrecognizable for the enemy, so that all my potencies are hidden from him. "Therefore, the limit in giving your army a form is to achieve that this form is not there," says Sun Tzu. “When there is no form, even a deeply penetrated scout cannot peek at anything, even a sage cannot judge anything.” Consequently, the true "form" must be hidden from the enemy; he should only see that “form” that I want to show him. And then this “form” demonstrated to him becomes an instrument of strategic - in the broad sense of the word - attack.
Sun Wu states: “If I show the enemy any form, but I won’t have this form myself, I will keep wholeness, and the enemy will be divided into parts. Maintaining integrity, I will be a unit; divided into parts, the enemy will be ten. Then I will attack his unit with my tenth ... ”Sun-tzu is sure of the unmistakable effect of this maneuver:“ When someone who knows how to make the enemy move shows him form, the enemy always follows him. ” Therefore, it is possible and necessary to control the actions of the enemy so as to put him in the position of inevitable surrender. For this there are various means. “When an enemy is given something, he necessarily takes; they make him move by profit, but they meet him by surprise. ” This means that strategic attack weapons are benefit and harm. To affect a profit is to influence a bait. Creating a threat is an action of “harm”. “To be able to force the enemy to come himself is to lure him with profit; to be able not to let the enemy pass is to restrain him with harm. ”
Instruments of strategic struggle can be such actions as offensive and defense. By combining the offensive and the defense, you need to ensure that the enemy does not know where he will fight with me: if he does not know this, then he must be ready in many places, that is, spray forces. And then my advantage in forces will provide an almost sure surrender of the enemy and certainly a victory.
The first and basic rule of Sun Wu's strategy is: “He who fights well, controls the enemy and does not let him control himself.” It is about keeping the full initiative in your hands. This rule, in essence, summarizes the entire strategic theory of Sun Tzu. All the rest is only the development of this principle. To control the actions of the enemy - this means, first, to control his movements: to force him to go where I want, and not to let him go where he doesn’t want; secondly, to manage his combat actions: to force him to take the fight there and then when it is beneficial to me, and not to give him the opportunity to join the battle with me when it is not beneficial to me.
You can retain the full completeness of the strategic and tactical initiative, firstly, by warning the enemy in all his actions. The second way to control the actions of the enemy is to master what is dear to him: “Take first what is dear to him. If you capture, he will obey you. ” Close to this mode of action is the method of “attacking that the enemy cannot but protect”. Another way is strategic maneuvering, forcing the enemy to take one or another action: “If I don’t want to fight, let me just take a place and defend him, the enemy will not be able to fight with me anyway. This is because I avert him from the path where he goes. ” Sun Tzu considers good actions to control the actions of the enemy, which are surprises for the opponent, which can cause him complete confusion. “The one who knows how to attack, the enemy does not know where to defend him; the one who knows how to defend, the enemy does not know where to attack him ". Sun Wu believes that the commander, who knows how to act in this way, is "the sovereign of the enemy's fate."
That is the general law of warfare. It is based on general tactics and private tactics. At the heart of the general tactics is the position: war is the way of deception. Sun Tzu speaks of various methods of military cunning: tactical disguise, various precautions, the use of the shortcomings or mistakes of the enemy, the impact on him from the inside, the impact on his psychology. In this case, the tricks, deception, he attaches such a value that he considers it possible to declare: "In war they are set on deception."
The theory of “direct and alternate paths” developed by Sun Tzu also belongs to the field of general tactics. The strategist attaches particular importance to what he calls the "workaround tactic." For Sun Tzu, a straight line is hidden in a detour; a detour often leads closer and more accurately to a goal than a direct one: “He who knows the tactics of a direct and detour way in advance wins. This is the law of warfare. ”
Sun-Tzu considers speed to be the most important condition for all actions in the war. Speed in and of itself already represents power. A blow to the enemy, if it is carried out with a speed “similar to the wind,” already has a crushing force. Sun Tzu particularly points out that the best in a war is a quick invasion of enemy territory. He recommends that you closely monitor all the actions of the enemy and trap the convenient moment when he reveals himself. Sun Tzu characterizes the ability to trap the slightest mistake of the enemy while simultaneously masterfully disguising his own intentions in a very figurative way: “First, be like an innocent girl, and the enemy will open the door. Then be like a hare escaped - and the enemy will not have time to take measures to protect. ”
Sun Tzu’s private tactics consist of rules on how to fight in various locations depending on their topographic and strategic properties, how to act in various cases of a numerical balance of forces of the parties, etc. The same rules apply to tactical intelligence.
Sun Tzu says: “There are only two actions in the battle - the right fight and maneuver ... In general, in a fight, they grapple with the enemy by a right fight, they win by the same maneuver.” In this case, the strategist emphasizes that there is no impenetrable wall between these two methods of combat. On the contrary, their correlation is the same dialectical as all other elements of strategy and tactics. The correct battle under certain conditions turns into a maneuver, a maneuver into a correct battle. “There are only two actions in a battle ... but it’s impossible to calculate changes in the right combat and maneuver of all. The right fight and maneuver mutually spawn each other, and this is like a gyre that has no end. ” Thus, in this area of battle, the law of change and transformation prevails, and as always, the secret of victory is to take possession of these changes and transformations.
The last thing that remains to be noted in Sun Tzu’s tactics is his theory of strike. He demands that the blow be swift, calculated, short, crushing. The blow is dealt by nothing other than the “power” of the army, that is, its potential force, which consists of a number of the above described interacting elements.
Such is in general terms the military doctrine of Sun Tzu. As we see, it relies on the deepest philosophical understanding of the struggle in general. This is the reason for its enormous influence on many areas of life - including the Japanese art of ninjutsu.
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