Sun Tzu - The Art of War Explained In 5 Minutes

[Music] in the age of bloody civil war 2500 years ago a Chinese military commander strategist and philosopher emerged his name son Zhu after successfully defending the state of Wu against its neighbor to to the west a book formerly known as master Sons military methods was born which has later become known as the art of war the art of war is the most influential treatise on war ever written consisting of 13 chapters each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare it has shaped the way in which conflicts have been fought for thousands of years from the Japanese samurai to the Napoleonic war not only has the book influence military commanders and generals all over the world it has had resounding effects on politics sports and business to this day the art of war is of vital importance to the state it's a matter of life and death a road either to safety or to ruin hence it's a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected son Zhu has a holistic philosophy that if you follow correctly and study thoroughly you will be victorious son Zhu says avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak son Zhu is a strong believer that winning the war with as little unnecessary combat as possible is the key to true victory [Music] supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting and the key to doing so is to know your enemy world if your opponent is arrogant pretend to be weak so he will underestimate you if he was relaxing attack and give him no rest if his forces are united separate them son zu is essentially saying that if you know your opponent's weaknesses and how to exploit them you will never lose so adorn the hopeless Athenians do the unthinkable they attack the weary Persians as they disembark their ships on shaky legs after a month at sea they attack before they can establish their welcome and supply their soldiers son Zhu says if you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles during the mid-1960s a war took place between the North Vietnamese communists and the United States of America instead of confronting the Americans head-on the Vietcong had a different idea in mind they used unconventional guerrilla warfare tactics which included hit-and-run strategies this proved very effective against the much larger military of the Americans it's more important to outthink your enemy than to I'll fight him the Vietcong forces were inferior to the Americans in both man and firepower so guerrilla warfare tactics allowed them to inflict significant damage while keeping their casualties to a minimum they also had unparalleled knowledge of the terrain this included a vast network of underground tunnels allowing them to evade carpet bombing and escape the enemy the terrain was also laced with various booby traps and landmines even though the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were heavily out armed by the American superpower they were still able to defeat them as they truly understood son zoos philosophy all warfare is based on deception hence when we are able to attack we must seem unable when using our forces we must appear inactive when we are near we must make the enemy believe we are far away when far away we must make him believe we're near this philosophy can be seen in the world war ii invasion of normandy known as d-day the british created several fictional units of troops stationed in scotland who were ready to invade Europe through its northern regions in particular Scandinavia they then used several misinformation techniques to persuade Hitler that 350,000 of these troops were primed to attack radio chatter and Scotland lit up with talks of these troops preparing for an overseas assault and many of these transmissions were made easily and acceptable Allied spies who had been able to infiltrate the Germans reported these developments as well reinforcing their legitimacy these spies also took photographs of planes and tanks posed for invasion but these were actually blow-up models in most cases all this caused dozens of German divisions to go up to bogus locations and wait for an imaginary army to show up whilst important battles were fought else were this method of dividing enemy forces was also employed to a greater extent on d-day itself Soviet forces kept around a million of the German forces busy on the Eastern Front whilst the Allied invasion occurred on the Western Front this tactic of dividing an enemy is one of sons used key philosophies and allowed the Allies to achieve victory and eventually win the war thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video make sure to LIKE and subscribe and comment down below what video you would like us to do next you

Channel: The Life Guide

Views: 6,720,101

Rating: 4.882628 out of 5

Keywords: the art of war, sun tzu, the life guide, The Art of War, animated book review, documentry, 5 minutes explaned, best quotes from the art of war, how to win every battle, war, ww1, ww2, cod, call of duty, audiobook, philosophy, book, warfare, china, vietnam war, military, treatise, strategy, D-Day, battlefeild, master, Sun Tzu's The Art of War Explained In 5 Minutes, how to win, success, normandy, waterloo, Hitler, Stalin, Guerrilla warfare, American military, usa, business, British, France, Canada, art, of

Id: Hz4FNBj1APA

Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/MonaganX]

This video does not deliver on its title in the slightest.

[u/angrysaget]

alternatively, listen to The Art of War by Sabaton.

[u/[deleted]]

The Art of War summed up:

"Win. Don't not win."

[u/Toad32]

*somewhat explained.

[u/M0b1u5]

100% purest, concentrated bullshit! Just add morons, and stir!

The Art of War is a great read. Yes - it is an actual book. And you can't learn The Art of War, without reading it.

[u/darkmuch]

The Art of War specifically isn't as influential as he says. It's interesting reading but nothing it contains is groundbreaking. I'd call it like warfare 101 or maybe 150.

"Don't attack you're enemy where he is strong" no shit sherlock. This isn't something that really needs to be taught, BUT it serves as a good basis to make sure all the fundamentals are covered. It's like math concept likes addition or multiplacation, pretty straightforward as an adult, but you need to make sure kids learn it.

Someone who reads the book is likely to get a pretty thorough list of do's and dont's.

But like a list of math concepts, while reading the concepts you may think you understand, but sometimes you're off by a bit. That's why most editions I see are annotated giving proper historical context to each quote and examples of battles where the concept applied.

Oh I nearly forgot the original reason I was commenting. The video desperately needs this from Wikipedia

"The book was first translated into French in 1772 by the Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot and a partial translation into English was attempted by British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop in 1905. The first annotated English translation was completed and published by Lionel Giles in 1910.[2]"

So I find it funny he was trying to use pictures of George Washington

[u/JruleAll]

One of My Favorite Sun Tzu quotes is "In War Prize Victory, Not a protracted campaign"