in: 5px 0px 10px;">Business magnates love quoting Sun Tzu, the Chinese military philosopher.</p> <p style="

margin: 5px 0px 10px;">All roads lead us to this Sun Tzu quote: “Invincibility lies in the defense; the po

mply a matter of our declaring “mission accomplished” and bringing the troops home. As retired Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege writes: Although Sun Tzu warned statesmen and generals many centuries ago that long wars benefit no one, they continue to occur, and for some very fundamental human reasons.

als— unintentionally inviting new deadlocks to elicit new proposals." We could learn a thing or two from the Chinese, Kissinger implies, particularly Sun Tzu's concept of shi, meaning the "potential energy" of the overall strategic landscape. Our tendency is to have an agenda of 10 different points, each one

if it involves spending real money or running real risks— will only set us up for more humiliating failures. The strategist must know himself, warns Sun Tzu; we must stop pretending to ourselves at least that we are more united and strong willed than we really are. We must also acknowledge the pervasive

s or and Felix Gilbert, eds., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986) and Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, Filiquarian (1986) 52 “Within five hours”: Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscenes (Naval Institute Press, 1964), 354 53 “The exploding