Evolution Of Strategy from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz

Evolution Of Strategy from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz

Col Harjeet Singh (Retd)

Publisher: Pentagon Press
 

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“The self is the friend of a man who masters himself through the self, but for a man without self-mastery, the self is like an enemy at war.” — The Bhagwad Gita All wars result from political decisions and express a political intent, whether it may be appropriate or not, for implementing the policy it serves. War, or any kind of conflict, is waged and won through a strategy. While the philosophical inquiry into the subject of war leaves more questions unanswered, there have been efforts throughout the ages to determine better ways to wage war. Cynical as it may sound, it is an indisputable fact of history that man has made immense efforts to find ways and means to indulge in mass killing of his fellow beings. An ancestor in the dim past would have discovered the usefulness of a sharp stone to fell his opponent, but since then, there has been a consistent, constant and deliberate attempt to get the better of the other in combat. From the simple stone to a sharpened one; from a sharpened stone to one attached to a wooden shaft, to a sling, to weapons made of copper, bronze, iron to gunpowder and finally to the nuclear bomb. From the simple and straight forward frontal combat to deceiving the opponent, lying in wait, attacking from behind, jumping at him in the darkness and all other stratagems of warfare are being constantly refined. Thus, perhaps, ‘strategy’ has developed over the ages.