Inventing the General

The Sunzi bingfa, commonly known as Sun Tzu's Art of War, reads like a treasure trove of strategic wisdom. When it first appeared in the late fourth century BCE, however, the Sunzi drew intense censure for its radical departure from the strategic culture of the age and for the author’s call for a professional standard of command in war. The revolutionary nature of the text is often lost on contemporary readers who assume the existence of a professionally-run military. This oversight obscures much of the potential value of this book for modern students of war and strategic theory and leaves the text open to severe misinterpretation. The mass armies common in late fourth-century BCE China could not be effectively led until new social roles were created, such as military officers who wielded routinised rather than charismatic authority. The Sunzi railed against “traditional” approaches to war and argued for a strategic culture centred upon the professional expertise of the commander. In other words, the author was inventing the “general” and providing the conceptual framework within which the military technology of his day could reach its full potential. The Sunzian general, for whom command was not a test of valour or mantic office but an intellectual enterprise, was defined by his professional expertise and unique qualities of mind. As such, the Sunzi is an elaborate defence of the authority of the commander and the autonomy of the realm within which he operated. The Sunzi, therefore, anticipates the kind of military-intellectual complex that all advanced societies manifest, and highlights many of the enduring tensions evident between the “professional” military and “amateur” statesmen.

Chinese history and philosophy · History