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From Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" Chapter 1:

01. LAYING PLANS

Excerpts:

17. According as circumstances are favorable,
one should modify one's plans.

18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we
are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away;
when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder,
and crush him.

21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.

22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where
you are not expected.

25. These military devices, leading to victory,
must not be divulged beforehand.

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Another Summary, from a good Wikipedia post:

http://www.andya.org.uk/everywiki/doku.php?id=suntzu

Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

I was planning to make this a paraphrasing of the key points of the book as I saw, however there is a lot of repetition in the text or the same point being made with regard to very subtly different situations. Because of this I have discarded the original format and re-ordered the points to make the order more logical (to me at least).

Sun Tzu lists a number of factors which he claims you can use to calculate who will win a war. Which is all rather odd since the whole point of the book is how to win a war no matter what the numbers say.

War is rather important so study it and be aware of the risks involved.

- Those unable to understand the risks involved in resorting to war are also unable to employ force well.

- Civil leaders should not be allowed to give tactical orders to the army, how the achieve the required goal should be left to the general.

- Warfare is about information, spying is about gathering information. It is impossible to succeed in the former without making full use of the latter.

- War's expensive, make sure you can pay for it before starting out.

- Keep wars short, long protracted fights will wear you down as much as the opponent, you may hear of bad decisions being made quickly but you never hear of cunning prolonged decisions. An attack need not be original but it mast be fast.

- War is based on deception, make the enemy think you are weaker than you are, confuse him as to your location.
Do the unexpected.

- Know your enemy and know yourself.

- Annoy the leader of the enemy and anger him into making rash attacks.

- Cause disagreements between the government and the military leaders of your opponent.

- Isolate your enemies and prevent them from forming alliances.

- Don't allow the enemy time to recover and regroup.

- Bring your weapons with you but live off the land, transporting consumables will eat up resources like crazy and should be minimised.

- Once an army has sated it's ambition (either a desire for revenge or to loot) then they will no longer fight well, make sure that they always have a reason for wanting to win the next fight.

- The point of war is to capture the opponents land, not to kill everyone. To capture the enemy is preferable to destroying them.

- The best tactic is to find a weakness in your opponents strategy and exploit it. Failing that isolate him from his allies.

- Don't attack his cities, you will be destroying the very thing you want to capture intact.

- The point of a good offensive it to win without fighting. A good general will not win a close fought battle, he will defeat the enemy before they even take the field.

- Always have a way of getting out if it becomes inevitable that you will lose.

- Not losing is dependent purely on your defence. Wining is dependent on both your attack and your opponent making a mistake.

- Make yourself invulnerable and then wait for the enemy to become vulnerable.

- A good general will only ever have easy fights because he has already arranged matters such that his enemy is weak. (He seems to like making this point, it gets repeated a lot)

- To control a host is the same as controlling a handful, it is a matter of organisation.

- Organise your force into two, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The ordinary does the expected, the extraordinary wins the battle.

- Ordinary and extraordinary are interchangeable as circumstances change and your enemy reacts.

- Build up momentum, when you make the winning manoeuvre do it quickly and with unstoppable force.

- Use your forces in ways in which they are effective, don't ask them to defend the indefensible or attack the invulnerable.

- Make the enemy to do this whenever possible by attacking when they are in poor locations or forcing them to attack your defences.

- Do not attack the enemy's fortifications, instead attack something that he must leave his fortifications to protect.

- Appear to be somewhere distant that he must defend so that he is forced to rush around.

- Whoever holds the battle field first waits calmly, those who arrive later rush into battle exhausted.

- Do not rush into a distant battle, you will arrive weak and dispersed.

- Position your own troops such that your plans are concealed until they are put into effect.

- Move only when there is some advantage in doing so.

- If you do not make use of people with local knowledge you will not be able to take advantage of the ground.

- Do not pursue an enemy who appears to flee.

- Always leave the enemy a way out, never force the enemy to fight to the death.

- Fight downhill.

- Do not fight or camp with your back to an impassable barrier.

- Do not attack an enemy as he crosses a river, wait until he is half across and then attack while he is in disorder.

- If the enemy sees and advantage but does not take it then he is fatigued and weak.




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