Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 7: 11 "Without its equipment, an army is lost; without provisions, an army is lost; without its base stores, an army is lost."

Counting today's verse, there remain four more Failure Analyses that Master Sun will torture us with. Today's verse includes, hellaciously, three additional failures: equipment, provisions, base stores. Let's see if we can't figure out what these three failures mean.

Equipment is easy. Shields and swords, weapons of all sorts, chariots, all the accoutrement of war itself, war materiel. Just focus on a single type of weapon, bows. What good can they be without arrows. In today's terms, what good are guns without bullets?

Provisions is most likely food and salt, and such. But it can also be bandages, medications and herbs, tea and wine, as well as all that which is required to keep an army on the move. What happens when the wood staves for your tents break? How about rope?

Myself, I get a bit lost over base stores. What are they? Could it be that such stores are more like flour from which to make bread, as opposed to the bread itself? Yeast, by which to raise the flour? Sugar with which to put into deserts, baked goods, or sweetened tea?

Or maybe, it is the wood by which to make shafts, and the feathers by which to guide the arrows. Maybe the glue and the leather by which to repair chariots and the lacquer by which to strengthen armor. Oh, how I wish I knew more about ancient Chinese war fighting.

By whatever definitions, loss of equipment, provisions and/or base stores dooms an army to failure. Logistics. We have been told from of old that an army marches on its stomach. To win at war is to provide for war fighting in every aspect of its logistical requirements.

I believe we have a separate but connected section here, following upon the previous 3 verses of loss. 30 miles double time for an illusory gain, 15 miles, 10 miles. In all cases not only are the men exhausted, supplies are left behind. Perhaps we might focus on replenishment.

Master Sun doesn't give us the indication of how far an acceptable march might be. By deduction, we might imagine five miles is not too far. We can keep the rear connected with the vanguard, and our supplies can be brought with our movement. Never, however, for illusory gain!

You decide to take your son fishing for a day. You imagine you're going to catch some big ones, fry them up and eat so well. Should you take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich along, as well? By all means yes. What if you catch no fish? You don't want your boy's tummy growling!

Bad old Alinsky discusses the same point. He teaches us that we MUST provide our people with tactics that they consider to be fun. We must never let them get bored. Their faith in the mission, and their joy from the action is absolutely mandatory.

As food is to warfighting, joy is to politicking, faith and joy. Bad old Alinsky gives us the opposing perspective as well. We must attack continuously, so as to wear down the faith and joy of our opponents. Tied to this is Alinsky's principle of power.

He teaches us that power is not what you actually have, it is rather what your enemies believe you have. Their fear of your power, be it actual or merely perceived, is how you deplete their stores of joy and faith in their own mission. You must read him. He gives many examples.

Return to Master Sun's three times repeated refrain, without such and so an army is lost. Ponder that now deeply. Lost? An army can be lost on its way to battle, that is, it doesn't know how to arrive on time. Or, an army can be lost, entirely. I fear it is the latter he means.

Why am I typing these comments out in English, not French? In part, because the greatest error Napoleon ever made was to march farther than his supply train could support. There were many other dooms he met on the way to Moscow. But how do you supply such an attack? You can't.

Your followers' faith and joy are a leader's greatest challenge. Yes, you must select the best objective you can. You must recruit the best people, true followers whose egos are in the mission, nowhere else. Once you've chosen mission and team, now you manage faith and joy.

You will certainly NOT win every battle. There is no such thing as failure-free success. But, after the battles lost, faith and joy in the mission must be rebuilt. The greatest challenge of Failure Analysis is to maintain faith and joy in the face of defeat.

Your base stores of faith and joy in mission are actually the limiting condition determining how far is too far, how difficult is too difficult. If you choose battles that can't be won, your leadership will be a burden upon your followers, not a lift beneath their wings.

Look at it the other way round. Every time you engage in battle and lose, you must discover how you chose a losing battle. How did you break your supply line? How did you reach too far? What gain allured you with its false hope? How did you fail as a leader?

I say, you must - you have no choice in the matter - read Minford's Sun Tzu. You must also read Alinsky. If you won't study that much, your failures will NOT be my fault. You have been duly warned!

165 verses completed, 257 to go.

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there. Please retweet each entry you enjoy.

P.S. My wonderful friend @BlakeBecker49 provides the following spectacular website, to help enlighten our studies!

ancient.eu/Chinese_Warfar…