Preliminaries

Summary

This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.