Success and Competitive Knowledge

Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter 10, Section 5:1-10

This post continues our project explaining each stanza of Sun Tzu’s work. The English translation and Chinese transliterations are from my award-winning book, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed

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This article discusses the first stanza of Section 5 of Chapter 10 of The Art of War. This chapter’s general topic is the six types of terrain on which we compete. This section’s first stanza expands on the idea of knowing your enemy and knowing yourself.

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Offensive Comparison

We can know when our forces are relatively strong, with enough resources to move into an new territory.

<Know> <our> <soldiers> <it> <can> <by> <strike>
You may know what your soldiers will do in an attack.

We can know that our forces will show themselves to be strong during any sort of advance into new areas, but is this enough?

<And> <yet> <no> <know> <enemy> <’s> <no> <can> <strike>
You may not know if the enemy is vulnerable to attack.

However, competition is a comparison. We may have all the resource we need to advance, but what happens when we meet opposition. Will we win the comparison with whoever opposes us. We don’t want to advance into an opponent who looks even better than we do.

<Victory> <of> <half> <also>
You will then win only half the time.

Having half the needed knowledge for a comparison results in half of the number of possible successes.

Offensive Ignorance

We must understand our relative offensive capability as well.

<Know> <enemy> <’s> <can> <strike>
You may know that the enemy is vulnerable to attack.

We can know when an opponent has weaknesses that allow them to be challenged. The Chinese here is confusing because Chinese characters can be nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech. The same characters can be active or passive. Here, the sense is passive. The opponent “can be struck,” in other words, they have weak places that will not fare well in a comparison. The Chinese doesn’t simple mean that an opponent has the ability to attack us.

<And> <yet> <no> <know> <our> <soldiers> <it> <no> <can> <by> <means> <of> <strike>
You may not know if your men have the capability of attacking him.

This line of Chinese makes it clear that we do not know how well our people will compare to an opponents in their areas of weakness. Will our capabilities in these areas be good enough for us to win the overall comparison?

<Victory> <of> <half> <also>
You will still win only half the time.

This lack of knowledge will also result in half as much success as we might hope.

Awareness of Opponent’s Strength

These same ideas are applied to defending our own positions.

<Know> <enemy> <’s> <can> <strike>
You may know that the enemy is vulnerable to attack.

The Chinese has the sense of “we can know that the enemy’s position can be struck. We must know that the opponent forces are at a disadvantage in certain areas of weakness. We must know that we can successfully strike them where it matters.

Comparing Relative Terrain

Our forces may appear ready to win any comparison of abilities.

<Know> <our> <soldiers> <it> <can> <by> <strike>
You may know that your men are ready to attack.

But this comparison of relative forces is not enough. We do not fight in the abstract. We compete over real territory.

<And> <yet> <no> <know> <ground> <form> <’s> <no> <can> <by> <means> <of> <battle>
You may not, however, know how to position yourself in the field for battle.

We must know the terrain: the terrain we are on and the terrain of those whom we are opposing. We want to know use that position. Positioning our forces on it for moving forward where the opponent’s terrain is not easily defended,

<Victory> <’s> <half> <also>
You will still win only half the time.

If we do not know the nature of the terrain and who it favors, we will also lose half of the comparisons we have with opposing forces. One of my favorite aspects of this stanza is that it adds up to losing a hundred and fifty percent of our comparison is we lack the needed knowledge.