For in war it’s experience in action that matters. The so-called Seven Military Classics are full of nonsense about water and fire, lucky omens and advice on the weather, all at random and contradicting each other. I told my officials once that if you followed these books you would never win a battle.[6]

One of the most extensive critiques of Sun Tzu comes from the third century BC Confucian philosopher, Xunzi. In a chapter titled “A Debate on Military Affairs,” King Xiaocheng of Zhao asks about the most crucial aspects of military strategy. Lord Linwu, invoking the name of Sun Tzu, argues that following the advice laid out in his book is the surest way to achieving victory. Xunzi vehemently disagrees and launches into a lengthy discourse as to why relying on the guidance of Sun Tzu might produce ephemeral gains, the inherent weakness of his overall military theory inevitably results in strategic defeat. Xunzi suggests that adherence to the military counsel of Sun Tzu is so detrimental to one’s own self-interest, that it would be equivalent to “using one’s finger to stir a boiling pot.”[7]

Xunzi’s pessimism is not without historical basis. Commentators on Sun Tzu invariably cite his campaign against the state of Chu in 506 BC as evidence of his strategic acumen. As the commander of the state of Wu’s small army, Sun Tzu defied expectations by invading his much larger and more powerful neighbor, Chu. At the Battle of Boju, the forces of Wu shockingly defeated the Chu army and occupied their capital at Ying. Most commentators conveniently quit the story at this point, but this cropping of the historical timeline masks strategic folly with operational and tactical success. According to the Zuozhuan, China’s oldest historical narrative of this era, Sun Tzu’s triumph was surprisingly short lived.[8] Immediately following its defeat, the remnants of the Chu army allied themselves with the state of Qin, who together quickly expelled Sun Tzu’s forces from Chu territory. Wu’s retreat was complicated by the fact the state of Yue had taken advantage of Sun Tzu’s absence by invading Wu’s homeland. Piling on calamity, an attempted coup by the king of Wu’s younger brother concurrent with these events leaves one questioning the overall strategic value of Sun Tzu’s most celebrated campaign.

Within two years of Sun Tzu’s offensive, the state of Chu regained its status as a major Chinese power, a position it would maintain for the next three centuries.[9] And what ultimate fate befell Wu, the entity Sun Tzu vowed to strengthen and protect, the realm profiting directly from his personal tutelage? Only three decades after its startling victory at Boju, the state of Wu was completely exterminated—wiped off the map by its implacable enemy to the south, Yue, who decimated Wu with the assistance of a still smarting Chu.[10] As a Western military theorist would later caution: “the ultimate outcome of war is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil.”[11] Sun Tzu might have benefited from Clausewitz’s counsel that “the destruction of the enemy’s forces is always the superior, more effective means, which others cannot compete.”[12]

This healthy skepticism over The Art of War is sorely lacking in contemporary analyses of the work. Authors such as Mark McNeilly and Bevin Alexander forcefully argue that Sun Tzu provides us with universal and enduring principles for achieving military victory, and only by foolishly diverging from these tenets have commanders suffered ignominious defeat. Derek Yuen sees in this ancient tome a precursor to what modern theorists label “cybernetics,” and alchemizes disparate verses from the text into an implausibly intricate contrivance for manipulating the opposing commander’s feedback mechanisms, thereby rendering one’s enemy combat ineffective before the first shot is fired. The History Channel’s episode on Sun Tzu beats the viewer over the head with its absurdly simplistic hypothesis that the tragedy of Vietnam could have been avoided if only U.S. military commanders unequivocally adopted the book’s teachings.