1 min readApr 17, 2021
- I would submit that you might be missing the deeper implication of Sun Tzu’s quote in that a desperate foe should be allowed ‘wiggle room’ as it were, but a wise general would ensure that such wiggle room is only in the direction (or the kind of action) that he *wants* the foe to take. Think about it — if you tell a man (who in his own mind has broke NO law) that he must surrender, and he knows that if he surrenders, that he’ll almost certainly be sent to the gallows, do you really think he’ll surrender? Especially if to his own way of thinking, he was only doing what he thought was good and right and patriotic (as the Japanese High Command believed)? No, he won’t, not as long as he himself sees other options.
- Please take no offense, but your reference to WWI is a flawed example. It’s been long noted that the reparations placed on Germany by the Triple Entente were extremely onerous, and played a significant role in the economic debacle that was the Weimar Republic. Furthermore, Woodrow Wilson was strongly against such harsh treatment of the Germans. Unfortunately, at the height of the negotiations concerning the Treaty of Versailles, he contracted the 1918 H1N1 influenza, and was too weak to effectively make his case for a more sensible peace agreement. The extreme harshness of the punishment imposed on and reparations demanded of Germany gave the Germans a reason to hate…and made it easy for Hitler to capitalize on the opportunity it presented.
