The Art of War is a magical book. It has not become obsolete for more than 2,000 years. Not only can it be used in the military, but many people also use it in political battles, business competitions, and even falling in love. The more broad the book can be used, the more the book represents the truth, and the more it does not give a clear answer to a specific question. Sometimes I feel that in order to understand the Ukrainian-Russian war, instead of using "The Art of War" to analyze, it is better to look at the military regulations of the Russian army or NATO (USA) to be straightforward.
In fact, the role of the military book is that many times it is "a lot of stationery for poor students".
Many good students don't care about stationery at all
As far as military books are concerned, many nations in the world that are good at fighting do not have military books. Take Genghis Khan, who created the world's largest empire, for example, there is no military book handed down, and the same is true for many excellent generals. This is one aspect of the problem. Another aspect of the problem is that the nation that wrote the military book was often not the most powerful fighting nation, and even the era in which the military book was written was not necessarily the most powerful dynasty in the war. As far as China is concerned, the period in which we have written the most military and summarized the most is actually the Song Dynasty, which has the weakest military strength. The soldiers of the Song Dynasty were guided by the "Seven Books of the Martial Arts", which was a textbook for the martial artists.
Why is there a lot of stationery for poor students?
As far as our generation of boys is concerned, there is more or less a bit of a "martial arts" dream in the younger generation, while the directors of the older generation prefer to make a martial arts film as a self-description of life, from Chen Kaige's "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun", Zhang Yimou's great country feelings, Ang Lee's English version of "Emotion and Reason", a remake of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", to Hou Xiaoxian's Shu Qi walking around on the ground with private goods "Nie Yinniang" and so on. Moreover, the worse the physical fitness, the more bullied by other boys, the stronger the "martial arts" dream in his heart,......
The soldiers of the Song Dynasty wrote so many military books, and it is estimated that the cultural cultivation is very good, although the battle is not good, but it must be expressed on paper. It's not just about taking a breath of bird, it's about finding solutions on paper.
China's most powerful general who doesn't read military books
Who was the most powerful general in ancient China? Huo Qu's disease. Huo Quzhi's military career was extremely short, only from 18 to 24 years old. But in just these 6 years, he single-handedly commanded the Battle of Hexi twice, and dealt a heavy blow to the right of the Xiongnu. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty thus established the four counties of Hexi, and since then, the power of the Western Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu has begun to grow and decline and have a significant impact. Later, in the battle of Mobei, more than 70,000 people of the main force of the Xiongnu Zuoxian Wang Department were eliminated, and the Xiongnu army was pursued until the Wolf Juxu Mountain and Guyan Mountain, and the heaven and earth were sacrificed, and the Hanhai Sea was returned. This battle made "the Xiongnu flee far away, and there is no royal court in Monan". And this natural general, his tactics are different from those of his predecessors. Moreover, the young general was not very kind to the soldiers. Although Sima Qian is very great, he still has a slight opinion about Huo Qu's illness in his description of "The Biography of General Wei's Hussars". What's more, this genius is not a scholar, and in the "Biography of the Lie", it is described that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty wants to ask him to learn the art of war from Sun Tzu and Wu Qi, and his answer is, "Just look at the big strategy, and you don't have to learn all these military books." "Look at it like this, General Huo is also dealing with the emperor, and he doesn't study when he goes home.
Most of the time, geniuses are "God appreciates food", such as mathematics, not so much that you are learning mathematics, but that mathematics has selected you. The same is true in the military, Huo Qubing is a natural general, he does not have to read "Sun Tzu", but his military actions reflect the essence of "Sun Tzu's Art of War". Many generals are born, and this cannot be taught or learned. The efforts of mortals are just for you to prove how far God has rewarded you.
And "The Art of War" cow, why is it so good? There are so many military books in China, why is this one still very popular? In the current Ukrainian-Russian war, I see that many Chinese military bloggers still quote Mr. Sun's famous words from time to time. Because "The Art of War" is a purely pragmatic book and talks about military philosophy, it can remain unchanged for more than 2,000 years, and it summarizes all kinds of basic principles of military affairs very well, such as when to use troops, terrain, virtual reality, marching, and so on. The more practical books of the time were, the more practical they were at the time, the more useless they are now, such as how to set up camp, how to attack, how to arrange troops, how to set up military rules and regulations, how to punish soldiers, and so on, which are basically completely outdated. In the era of the Song Dynasty, many military books that have been handed down are about many specific operational procedures.
Regulations of the Soviet Army of the U.S. Army and the Ukrainian-Russian War
For the current Ukrainian-Russian war, there are very few answers that can be obtained by reading "The Art of War", but sometimes we can learn a lot of military common sense and knowledge by comparing the regulations of the Soviet army and the US army. These are publicly available materials. There are many descriptions of the basic principles of offense and defense, which are more practical and understandable to modern warfare.
After years of war, countless blood costs and successful cases, these regulations are highly summarized in the specific application of what is the best solution to the problem. To give a few examples, what kind of formation should a row of people take if you want to cross a bridge? If you want to attack the enemy's positions, how should you first reconnoitre, how many times? Secondly, how to allocate troops? How is the firepower configured? What was the order of the army's offensive after that? There are all kinds of routines, and these are all routines.
Why is AI the commanding heights of future warfare? This is because after absorbing all the information, the AI system can develop an optimal plan for the field commander. Moreover, this scheme can be optimized at any time according to changes in the battlefield situation. And with the current development of AI, it is more than enough to be able to defeat humans intellectually. Then the confrontation between the two armies has become, to a certain extent, a process in which two sets of AI systems compete with each other for the optimal solution.
Commander's operational flow chart
U.S. Army Regulations 2017 Edition
brief summary
Raise the level a little, not only the military books, but also the books in the world. Is reading useful? It doesn't matter to geniuses, it's all God's food. For ordinary people, reading should never be sacred. There is no such thing as "half of the Analects ruling the world" in the world, including "The Art of War". The nation that holds books unrealistically is often "poor students with a lot of stationery".