"All War is Deception" - Sun Tzu

Finished reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War last night, written in the 6th century BC. Interesting book, and lots of strategy for dealing with different types of conditions, whether conditions of terrain or conditions of soldiers. There was a lot of interesting psychology regarding esprit de corps; how soldiers grow more united the farther they are in enemy territory, while the closer to home they are, the more likely are desertions. I found the most interesting chapter to be the last chapter, which talks about spies; he divides them in to five types - local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies and surviving spies. He talks about how all these different types should work in tandem without knowing who's doing what. He talks about how they should be fed misinformation, and how you must be on guard against misinformation. One of the footnotes talks about spies being like water to a boat - it can carry the boat or it can sink it. Lots of juggling - reminded me of Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches.

Amazing how relevant much of the text still seems to be. The book starts out with the importance of avoiding long, drawn-out wars at all costs, how it is foolish of an invading army to engage in this type of conflict - how it depletes the invading army of human and material resources, how it drains the energy of the populace (not to mention the effects it has on the country being invaded.) Bush and Cheney, I think you've just been served!