Comparing Sun Tzu With Other Military Greats Essay

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Sun Tzu and Military Classics

Sun Tzu believed in freedom of action, mobility, surprise, deception and indirect attacks rather than frontal assaults. His method was always to "entice the enemy, to unbalance him, and to create a situation favorable for a decisive counter-stroke," while avoiding sieges and prolonged wars of attrition (Harvey, 2008, p. xlii). This was the opposite type of strategy from the commanders of the First World War or the American Civil War, who hurled masses of men against powerful defensive positions and inflicted mass casualties on their armies for no real purpose. Basil Liddell Hart, who was "horrified by the waste" of World War I, agreed with Sun Tzu that the indirect approach was superior, particularly using the mobility that tanks and air power provided (Harvey, p. xxxv). Most of the great commanders of history, like George Washington, Bernard Montgomery, Douglas MacArthur and George Patton have followed these principles, and also put heavy emphasis on both morale and morality of purpose in warfare, while they also had "an almost political ability to charm and inspire their men" (Harvey, p. xv). Like Sun Tzu, they were generally not from an elite or aristocratic background but more self-made men who were talented enough to break through the barriers of social class, which were much higher in the past. Commanders who followed these principles in warfare, including Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap in the Vietnam War or Dwight Eisenhower at Normandy, had more successful outcomes than those who failed to do so, like Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, who kept launching futile attacks against an opponent who had the high ground and strong defensive positions.

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General Nguyen Giap, the great North Vietnamese commander, was one example of the successful adaptation of Sun Tzu's methods to the 20th Century battlefield in the wars against the French and the Americans. Gen. William Westmoreland failed to understand the strategy of his enemy in the Vietnam War and therefore had no idea how to counter it effectively. He was fighting a war of attrition and search-and-destroy missions against an enemy that was prepared to take large casualties over many years, and keep coming back for more. Even worse, Westmoreland never realized that the enemy set the times and terms of almost all the battles, at least 80% of the time. Giap's Tet Offensive caught him completely by surprise in January 1968, especially when the Viet Cong launched over 100 separate attacks simultaneously in one night with over 80,000 troops.

It took Giap nine months of careful planning and preparation to organize the Tet Offensive, making use of many of Sun Tzu's principles like deceit, misdirection, diversions and surprise. Like Sun Tzu, Giap had great faith in intelligence and espionage, and his spy network was so effective that he knew exactly where and when the Americans would attack. He used camouflage and deception to smuggle weapons into South Vietnam and conceal them in large, underground tunnel complexes. Before the beginning of the actual Tet Offensive, he ordered diversionary attacks at Khe Sanh to misdirect and confuse the Americans, and in this he was successful right up to the level of President Lyndon Johnson.….....

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