The highest tactical art is concealment of dispositions, producing victory from the enemy’s own tactics; tactics may be seen but strategy’s genesis remains hidden, and methods must change with circumstances.

By Sun Tzu, from L'Art de la guerre

Key Arguments

  • Concealed dispositions protect against spies and the schemes of wise adversaries.
  • Transforming the enemy’s tactics into one’s victory is beyond common understanding.
  • Observers may see the manifest tactics, but not the strategic conception behind them.
  • Do not repeat winning tactics; adapt methods to infinite situational variety.

Source Quotes

25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains. 26.
26. How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend. 27.
27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. 28.
28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. 29.

Key Concepts

  • In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.
  • How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
  • All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
  • Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.

Context

vi. Weak Points and Strong (lines 323–404) — concealment, indirectness, and adaptive method