War imposes immense social and economic costs, so refusing modest expenditures on intelligence is inhumane and disqualifies one from leadership.

By Sun Tzu, from L'Art de la guerre

Key Arguments

  • Mobilizing and sustaining large armies drains state resources, exhausts people, and disrupts countless families.
  • Battles may be decided in a single day after years of standoff, making timely intelligence a high-leverage expense.
  • Grudging small sums for intelligence amidst vast wartime expenditures reflects moral failure and strategic incompetence.

Source Quotes

The Use of Spies 1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver.
Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways.
There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways. As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor. 2.
Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity. 3.
3. One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory. 4.

Key Concepts

  • Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State.
  • The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver.
  • As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor.
  • to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.
  • One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory.

Context

xiii. The Use of Spies (lines 924–989) — economic and moral justification for investing in intelligence