Here at Williams, where I work, we have a "Winter Study," an inter-semester short term, just the month of January, during which students take one condensed "course".  (I have a variety of gripes about Winter Study which I will not regale you with now, save to note the similarities it shares with the old notion about socialism; to paraphrase: students pretend to study and faculty pretend to teach…)

     In any event, my Winter Study course is on Sun Tzu.  We are reading two different translations (Ames and Griffith), watching Kurosawa (Kagemusha), and thinking about applications to politics, business and other contexts.

     In preparing for today’s class, an explication of the first six chapters of Sun Tzu, I wanted to post something here: what I think might be an internal contradiction of Sun Tzu’s thinking.  Not a giant contradiction, but a contradiction nonetheless.

     In chapter 2, Sun Tzu gives us his famous quotes on the advantages of speed in warfare (from Ames):

In joining battle, seek the quick victory…

Thus, in war, I have heard tell of a foolish haste, but I have yet to see a case of cleverly dragging on the hostilities… (107)

     He goes on to describe the disadvantages of taking too much time: increasing costs, losing momentum, weakening of morale, etc.  This all makes good sense and, obviously, military commanders over the centuries have taken this idea seriously.  But as early as chapter one (and we could find other moments in the text that would support this), Sun Tzu tells us that we must "shape a strategic advantage" from the circumstances that surround us:

Having heard what can be gained from my assessments, shape a strategic advantage from them to strengthen our position.  By "strategic advantage" I mean making the most of favorable conditions and tilting the scales in our favor.  (104)

   A bit further along he says:

If he is formidable, prepare against him.  If he is strong, evade him.

    These suggest a certain advantage to taking your time, especially if you are in a materially or numerically inferior position at the outset.   You may not want to rush if certain conditions are working against you.

    At the very least, this suggests that the advantages of speed are not absolute and universal – and I think understanding them in that way is in keeping with the spirit of the work – but are only one factor that must be weighed against other elements of the strategic context. 

    For some combatants, slow wars might be more useful and effective than fast wars.