Fight, skirmishes, encounters, and battles are different denominations, standing for violent differences between individuals, groups, societies or nations. This battle or war is as old as the man himself. Immediately after the first man grew into plural and started putting their claim on resources, available around, counter claims emerged resulting in bitterness and fight ensued. That’s why the history of war is quite old. Ancient philosophers and political thinkers of different countries expressed their views or wrote books on this theme. Like intelligence, you will not find several books on war as well.
Accordingly, war as an academic and strategic science was taken up for the first time in China. A Chinese scholar, named Sun Tzu, over 2,000 years ago, studied this subject as a research student and wrote a book entitled The Art Of War, which even today is treated as an authentic work on this subject. While determining their strategy for hot war, the great generals over the world, refer to his wise and in-depth prescriptions. I understand that even the terrorists and ideological extremists try to abide by his battle tactics. His most famous advice is: ‘Do not wage a war if there is no surety of victory. Wait till that favourable situation is available. He adds, do not wage a war without a cause. If the people do not appreciate and join, no war can succeed and they will keep off till they realize that there is a pupose favouring them behind the war. For example, the Naxalites allure the deprived that the class war will annihilate the capitalists and the resources will be evenly distributed.
The authorities on war history and those really involved in this dangerous game, refer to his one more pragmatic approach.
“ Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
He will win who knows how to handle both superiors and inferior forces.
He will win whose army is animated by the same sprit throughout all its ranks.
He will win, who prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
Thus we see that all the mythological books of India, Greece, China, Egypt, Rome etc are stories of war, resulting in victory for some and defeat for others. But there is hardly any book on the science of war as such. After reading the Gathering Storm by Winston Churchil, an excellent work on the Second World War and My Struggle by Adolf Hitler, I found The Art Of War very informative and interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment