Studying the Art of War - Article IV

This is the fourth installment of my series called Studying the Art of War. This series is a study of the classic book The Art of War by Sun Tzu and then taking concepts from the book and applying them to modern day warfare.

It should be noted that I will be using the translation provided by Lionel Giles as I feel this is the closest English translation that is not diluted.

Note: Commander is the fourth of the five factors as outlined by Sun Tzu

"The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness."

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War Chapter 1 - Laying of plans, line 9

The one feature that is timeless with any armed force is the commander or general. The commanding general of a nation's armed force(s) should always have a balanced mix of the above traits listed by Sun Tzu. To give a better understanding of how each trait is represented in a commander I have proved the following list:

Virtues of Wisdom - This trait is where the general will either possess a level of wisdom of their own or have the sense to listen when there is need.

Sincerity - To me this means that a commander should mean everything they say and be reflected in their actions.

Benevolence - This trait could be seen as having two meanings. The first is that the general will treat his/her troops with respect and not throw their lives away. The second is how a general should act towards an enemy states populace as the war is waged within the confines of their nation.

Courage - This is pretty self explanatory in that a commander should be willing to do as he orders and/or have the fortitude to see unpopular or disagreeable actions through to their conclusion.

Strictness - Obviously any person who is in command of a large body of troops will need to have a level of personal discipline, but they must also enforce this same level of discipline upon the troops at all levels of rank.

Now as for examples from any kind of modern day point of view I was unable to come up with a general who truly encompassed all of these traits. There are a number of examples where different generals contain a mixture of these traits, but not a single one had them all. One must see that due to the human condition it would be rather impossible for any commander to possess all of these traits, but it is important that during the course of an engagement he/she should always put on the show that they do possess every single one of these traits to keep confidence levels high.