21st Century Strategy Needs Sun Tzu

Abstract : Today's world is filled with uncertainty. It is a world in which the traditional lines of the battlefield no longer exist. The current strategic environment is best described as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCU). The future strategic environment will likely be a place in which contingencies involving the United States will be asymmetrical. As the current world superpower, the United States will continue to find itself involved in world conflicts (whether it chooses to or not), therefore, strategists must be properly armed. The odds are high that the opposition we encounter will not challenge us directly with large-scale conventional warfare. Instead, the opposition will most likely challenge us indirectly, and that will require an indirect approach on our part. Theories are tools that strategists can use to study and understand the current and future strategic environment. Sun Tzu's theories provide military planners and strategists with a nonprescriptive approach to achieving success in modern warfare, and they demand careful examination before a nation's military is sent to war. This Strategic Research Project argues that several of the precepts of warfare addressed in Sun Tzu's The Art of War remain relevant today, and they will continue to remain relevant well beyond the 21st century. This paper will focus primarily on his theories surrounding the importance of strategy, intelligence, deception, strategic leadership, and most importantly, achieving victory. The paper will attempt to show how some of these insights have become common language in our doctrine and will provide numerous examples of operations in which commanders and strategists have successfully applied them to achieve victory. The paper will show that Sun Tzu's precepts have influenced military doctrine and strategic decision making through an examination of historic and more recent contingency operations.