The Art of War

A short read, the book tells a great deal about proper leadership and organization. The chapters often focus on some specific aspect of strategy and require a good deal of study to separate the information and understand the meaning behind some sayings. It fundamentally looks at war from the macro-perspective of a commander and first outlines much of the factors that goes into deciding victory or defeat, and then delves into effective leadership and good command. It also analyzes the internal workings of an organization or an army, to see where defeat can come from within and what features demarcate which flaws. I would recommend this book to anyone, since at its core the book describes effective leadership.

The most important point from this book was its stance on inciting conflicts, where the intellectual preparation should dictate all action or inaction. The quote that summarizes this best is “the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory”. The decision of whether and when to engage in the conflict is the intellectual’s ultimate advantage against the brute. It naturally follows that the leader should use focus the greatest effort to have intellectual advantages, through the means of using spies and deception (described in the last chapter) as long as they don’t undermine the organization’s moral appearances.