July 11, 2008
by Brian Trent

"War is a vital matter for state," Sun Tzu wrote 2,400 years ago in his classic volume on warfare. In the most fundamental iteration we see how correct he is. War is the tool of a nation; without the means of national defense, you are subject to the whims and appetites of predators.

Yet one of the problems with American culture today is its utter misunderstanding of war, both in purpose and execution. We think of Hollywood depictions, where things have a clear beginning, definite objective, and certain end credits.  We add a toxic amount of jingoism into our perception of why wars are fought, and perhaps worst of all we tend to polarize ourselves into two quibbling - and ultimately idiotic -  camps. Pacifists and militarists share the same fanatical pathology.

Sun Tzu built a reputation on strategy, tactics, and the art of warfare, the study of which had been going on in China long before his birth. In America, we tend not to study warfare at all. This is a weakness.

"War is a vital matter of state," Sun Tzu writes, and this is reasonable. All civilizations have a right to defend themselves, as surely as living things have the same right. Persia attempts to force the gates at Thermopylae; the Spartans and the brilliant naval commander Themistocles repel them. The Nazis attempt to stitch Europe into one fascist quilt, and the Allied Forces battle fiercely to defeat them.

And yet, it is the same Sun Tzu who also writes, "There has never been a state which has benefited from a prolonged war. Hence, if one is not fully cognizant of the evils of waging war, he cannot be fully cognizant either of how to turn it to best account."

Today's warhawks consider a prolonged war a form of economic output, or a shopping day for the military-industrial complex. Sun Tzu would remind us that this is short-sighted to the point of ruin.

This is why John McCain has been receiving so much flak for his statement in January at a New Hampshire town hall. When a crowd member asked McCain about Bush's declaration that U.S. soldiers would still be fighting in Iraq 50 years from now, McCain said:

"Maybe 100," McCain replied. "As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you." To clarify any misunderstandings, McCain later went on Face the Nation and said we might be in Iraq for 10,000 years. I guess that's assuming today's mistakes (like eternal warhawking) doesn't destroy America long before ten centuries has passed, the way it destroyed Rome and the British Empire.

And Military Analyst Sun Tzu had more to say on the subject.

"Intelligence is of the essence in warfare," he writes.

Indeed, both in the general and in the specific. War may be necessary with Iran, but we must have intelligence on which to base a decision, and currently all the intelligence indicates that not only are Iranians not pursing a nuclear weapons program but that they have no designs on attacking America. The intelligent -- not to mention moral -- stance is you don't threaten to initiate a war against a target which is no threat to you.

Quite simply, for the U.S. to begin another war of aggression, without a solid foundation of justification, is nothing short of idiocy; for the U.S. to begin a nuclear war as some have advocated is nothing less than evil.

Sun Tzu would remind today's administration that intelligence has been a problem in our deliberations: two of the biggest intelligence failures in modern American history (September 11th, and Iraq's where-did-they-go WMDs) happened while George W. Bush presided.

"Being invincible lies with defense," Sun Tzu writes. "The vulnerability of the enemy comes with the attack."

More to the point, he adds, "The far-sighted ruler thinks the situation through carefully."

The warhawk vampirism of today's military-industrial complex ignores these core lessons, minding only the checks they write in blood. War becomes a tool for profit, not national defense. Any hint of guilt is quashed through daily prayers to a God of War.

I have little wonder of what Sun Tzu would say to our government about the way the Bush Administration has divided our allies and united our enemies.

About the way the War on Terror has been sidelined by the Iraq War.

About the way the global goodwill America had after 9-11 was squandered, about how our resources and manpower are now mired in a country which had no connections to terrorism, about how our credibility is stained.

About how we have come to rely on a media which usually has neither depth nor courage, and how our "news" is anything but; a collection of pre-approved sound-bytes dipped in sugar for easy digestion, and with all the nutrients of cardboard.

"War," Sun Tzu writes, "is the field on which life or death is determined and the road that leads to either survival or ruin, and must be examined with the greatest care."

I wonder how many of today's politicians have read these words. I suspect it's the same number as those who bother to read the laws they pass or the Constitution they are supposed to defend. Surely we're not paying their salaries just so they can read their bank statements?

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Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of "Remembering Hypatia" and the just-released "Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh."  Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine.  Visit his website at www.briantrent.com.

Copyright 2008 Brian Trent

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