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Sun Tzu’s Fighting Words

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For good generals do not attack in open battle where the danger is mutual, but do it always from a hidden position, so as to kill or at least terrorize the enemy while their own men are unharmed as far as possible. —Vegetius, De Re Militari[1] Colin Gray, the late doyen of strategy scholars, branded one of his maxims of war and strategy as: “If Thucydides, Sun-tzu, and Clausewitz Did Not Say It, It Probably Is Not Worth Saying.”[2] The acceptance of these three texts as a strategic canon, though, poses a challenge for the contemporary strategist. None of these works was originally written in English, and all of them were compiled in an age far removed from our own frames of reference. Thus, we must rely on others to accurately translate the words of the original text for us, and we concurrently need some insight into the historical context in which they were written to verify our interpretations of their meaning. Only then can we accurately gauge their modern relevance. For Clausewitz,

For good generals do not attack in open battle where the danger is mutual, but do it always from a hidden position, so as to kill or at least terrorize the enemy while their own men are unharmed as far as possible. —Vegetius, De Re Militari [1] Colin Gray, the late doyen of strategy scholars, branded one of his maxims of war and strategy as: “If Thucydides, Sun-tzu, and Clausewitz Did Not Say It, It Probably Is Not Worth Saying.”[2] The acceptance of these three texts as a strategic canon, though, poses a challenge for the contemporary strategist. None of these works was originally written in

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