ART OF WAR BY SUN TZU

From: shannon@som-uky.campus.mci.net (shannon wagoner)
Newsgroups: misc.survivalism
Subject: thoughts from "the art of war" by sun tzu
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 01:21:45 GMT

Just started reading the art of war, and the book looks really
interesting, but this one sentence really started me thinking about
current affairs in america right now, let me type out part of it and
see if it strikes a thought with any one else.

"on strategy, involve examining the way of an adversary group-the
moral fiber, the coherence of social order, the popularity of the
government, or the common morale. under the right conditions a small
group could prevail over a large group; and among the conditions that
could make this possible were justice, order, cohesion, and morale."

"the superior militarist foils enemies' plots; next best is to ruin
their alliances, next after that is to attack their armed forces,
worst is to besiege their cities"

"plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while
it is small. the most difficult things in the world must be done while
they are still easy, the greatest things done in the world must be
done while they are still small. for this reason sages never do what
is great, and this is why they can achieve that greatness."

there are more, but you get the idea, it is definitely a good read.

feel free to tell me you thoughts on this.  ttyl.

From: Alex Osinski <osinski4@concentric.net>
Newsgroups: misc.survivalism
Subject: Re: thoughts from "the art of war" by sun tzu
Date: 20 Dec 1996 02:30:07 GMT

Sun Tzu's writings have been tanslated by a number of authors and 
organizations.  I suggest getting a few different published versions of 
_The Art of War_ if you really want to get a lot out of it. 

The biggest strategy is on prior preparation. However, you can run into 
different kinds of timing problems if you spend too much time preparing 
for less likely scenarios. 

Sun Tzu's writings were studied by the Vietcong while the US marines 
were studying Clausewitz, go figure, all in all I would go for Sun Tzu 
any day for guerilla even conventional warfare.