Art of War (2009) - full transcript

these women have spent their entire lives in luxury.

trained from birth and the
art of pleasure.

they know nothing of the world beyond
the king's royal court.

but two of these women are about to die
a gruesome death.

the name of their executioner
is one you might have heard.

Sun Tzu.

warrior, philosopher and creator
of the art of war.

this ancient text holds the keys to
victory in war and life.

now the art of wars tactics
and strategies are revealed

in graphic detail to help solve a
military mystery.

were the outcomes of
America's greatest battles



for towards and two
thousand years ago.

did the art of war prophesize
the Nazis ultimate doom.

predict how the north
would be in the Civil War.

and predict why America would be
defeated in Vietnam.

understand the art of
wars lessons

and you will prevail,

ignore them

and to fight in darkness.

~Savaş Sanatı~

King Helu.

ruler of the
Chinese state of Wu.

agonizes over a growing threat.

a hostile neighbor is poised to invade.

desperate to defend his kingdom.



Helu summons one of the greatest
military minds in history.

Sun Tzu.

Sun Tzu was important.

because he has a cohesive holistic
philosophy of how to approach strategy.

if you listen to Sun Tzu.

if you follow his principles.
you will be victorious.

if you ignore him. you do so at your own
peril because you will definitely lose.

Sun Tzu assures King Helu that he can
train the smaller rule army to overcome

and defeat the larger
invading force.

King Helu asks Sun Tzu.

challenges SunTzu.

in something of a mocking way.

he says, do you claim that you can
turn anyone into a soldier

can you turn these palace women.

these spoiled soft concubines
into a fighting force.

Sun Tzu answers of course I can.

he simply shows the women
what the important maneuvers are.

he chooses the two most senior of these
concubine to serve as platoon leaders.

and charges them with making sure
discipline is observed in their units

but when Sun Tzu orders
the exercise to begin.

the women's simply laugh.

Sun Tzu say well okay.

maybe my instruction will not clear to you.

now let me rephrase
again my instructions to you.

in simple language he told the
concubines when the drums is sounded.

the u.s. concubine must assemble as soldiers.
either spears we assaults and fall in line.

Second time, what happens is still
get away. Sun Tzu says, if the orders

Sun Tzu says:

if you orders are unclear.

it is the fault of the general that the
troops do not obey.

but if the orders are clear and my orders
have been clear.

it's the fault of the subordinate officers
that the orders are not obey.

there is only one way Sun Tzu
can convince the concubines.

that he is deadly serious.

To Sun Tzu, war is a
matter of life and death.

this is the key principle of his teachings.

once understood everyone
from the leader down to

the individual soldier
will be motivated to win.

Sun Tzu appoints two new officers.

the women now follow his orders without hesitation.

and the big takeaway from this incident for
King Helu is that even a state like Wu.

which is relatively weak in terms of
numbers compared to its larger neighbor Chu.

can nonetheless wield a discipline
effective military force.

if they take Sun Tzu's
teachings to heart.

and implement them throughout their military.

while these women
will never see battle.

Sun Tzu has proved his point.

king helu appoints Sun Tzu as
commander of the Wu army.

Sun Tzu must now make good
on his promise to train a force of 30,000.

to fight an army ten times larger.

the strategies and tactics
he uses in this showdown

become the foundation of his masterwork.

the art of war.

Sun Tzu rights the art of war around 500 BC.

the book is written on vertical bamboo
strips. each the length of a chopstick.

each strip contains
15 to 25 Chinese characters.

the strips are then painstakingly
stitched together.

inside the 13 chapters of the art of
war like the secrets to success.

basically if you understand the
art of war

and the principles in it you can predict how
wars or battles will turn out.

the art of war is filled
with many important insights.

but there are three key principles that
stand out and unify Sun Tzu philosophy.

Sun Tzu says: know your enemy

and know yourself and in a hundred
battles you will never be in peril.

in the art of war understanding your
opponent is crucial to victory.

Sun Tzu says to win 100 battles
is not the height of skill

to subdue the enemy without fighting

is fighting costs lives and money.

Sun Tzu prizes the general who can
outwit instead of out fight his opponent.

Sun Tzu says avoid what is
strong attack what is weak.

throughout history armies fight
head-to-head on the battlefield

to show their strength and courage.

But Sun Tzu doesn't care about glory.

he only wants to win.

well each of these principles is important think
of them as chords in a strong rope.

individually they may be strong but
when you put them together.

and use them
holistically they're unbreakable.

for more than a thousand years
Sun Tzu secrets are kept hidden.

made available only to
Emperor's and authorised scholars.

They surfaced in the eighth
century in Japan.

and since then their insights have
spread throughout the world.

more recently the art of
war has spawned hundreds of books

that apply its
teachings to sports,

politics,

and business

today it's part of the core curriculum
at many war colleges including West Point

but as we shall see.

Sun Tzu advice isn't always heated.

which often leads to disaster.

I think throughout time if generals
had listened to Sun Tzu

you would probably not have seen a lot
of the bloody wars of attrition.

that mankind has suffered through.

he was very focused on how do
I achieve my goal.

with the minimum amount of resources used
with a minimum amount of destruction.

Sun Tzu's principals are
about to be put to the test.

Sun Tzu has trained the
army of Wu

to defend itself against the powerful
state of Chu to the west.

the outset of this war
between Wu and Chu

when Sun Tzu is given
command of an army of Wu.

it seems that Chu holds
all the advantages.

Sun Tzu's army is
only about 33,000 men.

where Chu can feel
forces of hundreds of thousands of men.

leading 300,000 true
warriors is a power-hungry

and corrupt prime minister
named agua.

non walk cuts a swath of destruction
through the Chinese countryside.

outnumbered nearly ten to one.

Sun Tzu could prepare his defenses
and wait for the true onslaught.

but being Sun Tzu
he does the unexpected

he invades true.

Sun Tzu doesn't
attack Nawaz army head on.

he chooses soft targets like remote
outposts and border crossings.

it would be unwise for Sun Tzu

to try to seek a decisive
engagement early in this war

by attacking
the Chu army directly.

he simply does not have
the mass necessary to do that.

Sun Tzu attacks with blistering
speed and brutal efficiency.

nanhua immediately launches
counter-offensives.

but when the reinforcements
arrive.

Sun Tzu soldiers are gone and
attacking the next location.

by keeping Chu constantly shifting its
forces back and forth on the frontier.

he frustrates their leaders
and gains at the same time

a much better picture of
the way the two armies will likely fight.

after every battle and skirmish Sun Tzu
gains a better understanding of his enemy.

he downplays the value
of direct attack.

and puts the emphasis on
manoeuvre surprise deception.

all warfare should be
based upon to intellect.

in fact the greatest battles of all time
have been won by the brain

and not by brute force.

that doesn't stop
nanhua from trying.

he eventually launches 100,000 soldiers
to try to crush the guerrilla attacks.

this reminds me of the difference
between chess and the Chinese game of go.

chess is very much attrition based.

you start the board
with many many pieces.

over the game they're
eliminated.

and at the end you've only
got a few pieces left standing.

the object of chess is to force your opponent
to surrender by eliminating his pieces.

each piece has its own rank and can
only move in a specific way.

the goal of chess is to kill the king.

in contrast to that the Chinese game of Go
starts with a board empty.

and you use as few pieces as possible
to acquire as much territory as you can.

and in that sense it's a
very resource efficient strategy.

the object of go is not the destruction
of the opponent's force

but the conquest of space.

the goal of goal is to capture the most
territory with the least number of stones.

using a goal like strategy Sun Tzu
decides where and when he fights.

he avoids the strongest part of nawaz army.

and attacks where it is weakest.

Sun Tzu guerrilla tactics against the
true forces echo throughout history.

but it's during an infamous
war more than 2,000 years later

that they resonate more loudly.

and we're Sun Tzu ultimate secret
becomes most evident.

it's the mid-1960s.

and the world's greatest superpower
battles North Vietnamese communists.

in a country smaller than
the state of Montana.

general william Westmoreland.

a hard-nosed world war
two combat officer.

sees the battlefield
like a chessboard.

we're on the stand
and fight head-on.

but unlike chess Vietnam has no clear
objective for Westmoreland to attack.

it's a classic case of a general
fighting the last war.

and in the sense that the lessons
he had learned they're only applied partially.

to Vietnam there
were no fixed objectives to be taken.

there were no fixed units to be destroyed.

no one understands this better than
North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap.

who sees Vietnam like Sun Tzu
would as a go boar.

instead of facing
the overwhelming US military directly.

he uses insurgent forces the Vietcong

to stage hit-and-run
attacks all over the country.

we see something very similar

to Sun Tzu raids into Chu.

in North Vietnamese tactics
and operations in the Vietnam War.

Giap has learned Sun Tzu principle.

that it is more important to
outthink your enemy than to outfight him.

and it's tactics and strategy not
overwhelming firepower.

that causes the u.s. to
ultimately lose the war in Vietnam.

a loss that sons who predicted
thousands of years earlier.

how Sun Tzu
able to do this.

as well as predict the outcome
of the invasion of Normandy.

and the final harrowing day of battle at Gettysburg.

is about to be revealed?

Sun Tzu says in war numbers alone
confer no advantage.

do not advance relying
on sheer military power.

it's the mid-1960s in Vietnam.

US general william Westmoreland
orders intense aerial bombardments.

the US will eventually drop nearly 7 million tons
of bombs on Indochina during the war.

more than twice the tonnage of all the bombs
dropped by the u.s. in World War two.

but the Americans are about to learn
Sun Tzu's lesson the hard way.

that despite overwhelming military
power and the valour of its soldiers

the u.s. cannot
witness war.

between 1959 and 1975 the North
Vietnamese fought a very desperate war

against the South Vietnamese government
and the u.s. allies.

and even though they were heavily outgunned
when you look at how the war was fought

and see that through Sun Tzu eyes.

it's obvious how
they prevailed.

Westmoreland uses a chess inspired strategy.

stop the Communist spread by killing as many
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong as possible.

conversely Westmoreland's adversary.

the North Vietnamese
general Vo Nguyen Giap.

uses more of a Sun
Tzu go strategy.

Westmoreland is trying to attract the
enemy trying to kill as many as possible.

Giap meanwhile is looking at it from
more of a NGO perspective trying to

focus on how do I win as much territory
as possible and thus defeat my enemy.

to combat the American aerial bombardment.

Giap looks to a key
Sun Tzu principle.

know your enemy and know yourself.

and in a hundred
battles you will never be in peril.

the way the Americans often operated
was somewhat predictable

they would prepare a landing zone through

artillery strikes and air strikes and
then they would bring the troops in.

Jap recognize this and realize that if he
could have his troops hunker down and

survive the artillery attacks.

then when the troops landed they would be
able to set up ambushes to take them on.

the American bombs don't destroy the enemy.

they merely telegraphed that the
u.s. infantry is on its way.

Giap also orders his fighters to stay
as close to American soldiers as possible.

Viet Cong captain no tactical air.

they also understand it once their
positions get identified

in any given battle they're gonna
get whack from the air.

so how do you
compensate from that.

well general giap
said you grab the enemy by the belt.

put another way what you want to do is
you don't want to establish positions out there.

and when
they did defensively for example

I like a hamburger hill. you
know well they get hit by lots of air.

but if you're in a tactical
situation you close with the enemy.

you intermingle your forces with
his so they can't bring.

they can't bring air power to bear without
hurting their own troops.

the free from us bombs.

Giap wants his Sun Tzu inspired guerrilla
attacks against Americans on the ground.

ambushes.

Hand Grenade booby traps.

and snipers.

the Jap starts to do is close in harassing
rates against the American.

and Sun Tzu likes this idea.

because by forcing the enemy to
maneuver to respond to you.

he reveals strengths and weaknesses.

and the more you know about his strengths
and weaknesses the more you can avoid the strengths.

and attack
and exploit the weaknesses.

the major u.s. weakness in this war is not on the
battlefield.

now our weakness was
not in Vietnam.

we never lost anything in Vietnam.

we lost no engagements
in in Vietnam.

but we did lose in the resolution of the
American people to pursue the war.

Giap realized this from the very start.

and he did not try to
defeat us in in Vietnam.

he tried to defeat
us in the United States.

Giop knows that if he can turn the
American people against the war.

he can
defeat the overpowering US military.

in the beginning of the war.

nearly 80% of Americans
supported the military action in Vietnam.

between 1965 and 1967

President Johnson
increases troop strength dramatically

from 190,000 to almost half a million.

but more soldiers means more casualties.

between 1959 and1965 the US had
suffered 2,000 battle deaths.

but then in 1966 it jumped to
6,000 and in 1967 it jumped to 11,000.

and this was because Westmoreland was
enacting an attrition based strategy.

he wanted to take the
battle to the North Vietnamese

and tried to kill as many of their soldiers as possible
and of course this led to higher casualties among the Americans.

ignoring the rising death toll
and the potential political backlash.

Westmoreland persists with
his chest like strategy.

one does not win wars by
winning battles.

that's a very archaic
concept the Romans learned this.

they fought for 40
years in Spain.

they fought for 30 years in England and still
couldn't subdue the insurgency's.

war... battle...

battles and military operations are
nothing more than means to an end.

means to the achievement
of strategic goals. okay.

those gold by the way often political.

what often happens to military man in his day
as we used to say in the Army.

you dance with who brung you
they're military guys.

they got one trick.that trick is war. okay.

and what happens and
happens to us now.

is that essentially the war and the
battles become an end in itself.

without any consideration of whether or not it leads to the ultimate strategic goal of breaking the will of the enemy.

but no matter how bloody
the battlefield gets.

the Vietnamese will
is never broken.

Giap famously claims he's willing to
lose ten men for every one American.

many North Vietnamese
troops were a tattoo that says

born in
the north to die in the south.

and it's this difference that
Giap knows will allow him to defeat the Americans.

who now have more than a
half a million soldiers in Vietnam.

many of whom don't
want to be there.

believe me all conscripts
want to do is get the hell out of country.

you know everybody arrives everybody
arrives with what we call their diro state.

they'd have
expected routine and overseas.

you know scratch somewhere
and across your forehead.

this is when I get to go home.

and it's very hard
to train them to do.

the kinds of stuff that special
operations forces have to do.

in order to
fight an insurgency.

so you you put it all together and it's a failure of
strategic thinking.

a failure to appreciate the cultural
context in which things occurre.

and inevitably deduce from that.

our failure to develop tactics.

that are effective.

to combat Giap's
guerrilla insurgency.

Westmoreland launches Search and
Destroy missions throughout South Vietnam.

he believes he is successfully rooting out
Giap's Vietcong insurgents.

but a pentagon report
released after the war.

shows just how wrong
he actually was.

what it found was.

that in more than 80% of the cases
where American troops fought Vietcong troops.

that in fact it was the enemy.

that chose the time and
place of the ambush.

that in point of fact we were not
searching and destroying anything.

in point of fact.

if the enemy didn't want to fight they just
let us stumble on through the bush.

but when they... when I wanted to fight.

it would pick the time and place.

Giap's guerrilla tactics are working.

but his Sun Tzu inspired strategy is suddenly
overruled by his commanding officers.

he is ordered to plan a full-scale direct
offensive against the US forces.

Giap knows this is suicide.

so instead he modifies the plan.

returning to Sun Tzu principles.

he decides to coordinate a
simultaneous multi-pronged attack

in hundreds of different
locations across South Vietnam.

the date for the attack
January 31st 1968.

Viet Nam's Lunar New
Year holiday called Tet.

Giap has less than nine
months to plan his Tet Offensive.

A Sun Tzu inspired
strategy.

that will prove to be a powerful turning
point in the war.

Sun Tzu says let
your plans be as dark as night.

then strike
like a thunderbolt.

during the Vietnam War.

North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap.

prepares his Tet Offensive in absolute secrecy.

and just like the master
Sun Tzu Giap puts his faith in his spies.

Sun Tzu places like
great importance on spies

and in fact he devotes an entire chapter to the
different types of spies

and how they can be used.

Sun Tzu would have been impressed with
general Giap's spy network in South Vietnam.

Giap understood that accurate knowledge
of the enemy is worth 10 divisions.

and so what happened was he literally had
created a spy network that was unrivaled.

I mean every bar man every taxi driver
every taxi dancer

anyone who dealt with Americans was
potentially a source of information for the Vietcong.

the man who ran the taxi stand outside
US headquarters in Saigon.

is supposedly
the chief of Vietcong intelligence.

the point was by simply overhearing what
Americans.

were saying what soldiers were
telling girls

the prostitutes the drug dealers all of this thing.

by collecting that information together able
essentially.

to predict the movement of American units.

and as a result as the
study later shows we didn't surprise anybody.

they knew where were coming on
us all the time.

with up-to-the-minute
information on his enemy.

Giap moves forward with
his plans for the Tet Offensive.

the element of surprise
is key.

but means nothing if his men aren't
sufficiently armed.

Giap's next challenge is to figure out
how to smuggle in and hide

thousands of weapons
throughout South Vietnam.

the solution is all Sun Tzu.

deception and secrecy.

giap goes underground.

what we found is an enormous
complex of tunnels.

I ran four miles and three and four
levels deep.

there were field hospitals below their
supply depots.

it's where the VC and NBA would go to
rest and recuperation.

there was booze gals
down there

and they did some of them ran underneath
American base camps.

the largest of these tunnel complexes is
north of Saigon in Ku-Chi.

stretching from the Cambodian border.

it has more than 75 miles of
interconnecting passages.

built by the Vietnamese
in the 1940s and 50s.

the tunnels were originally dug out of the
hard clay by hand with simple farm tools.

over the next decade.

the tunnels are expanded and fortified with
zigzags and sharp drops to resist us attack.

the Vietcong at secret entrances.

camouflaged ventilation systems and
booby trap doors.

how an all heck's name do you fight in
tunnels they use what we call tunnel rats.

which were often urban
Irish kids.

little not I say little but you know
five five five six

thin.

but brave as hell

I mean to go down through those holes into the tunnels
armed only with a 45 some time and a flashlight.

I mean that's really war up close and personal.

never knowing what
you were going to find on it.

Giap funnels tens of thousands
of Vietcong troops through these tunnels.

as the Tet
Offensive draws nearer.

with just two months until Tet

Giap plays what might be his greatest deception.

Vietnam announces it will honor the traditional Tet
ceasefire.

part of the deception campaign
is actually agreeing to a ceasefire over Tet.

this really lulls the
Americans in the South Vietnamese

into thinking that
they can relax their guard send troops home.

and there will be no conflict
during those holidays.

now with Tet a little
more than a week away.

Giap launches a surprise attack on the
remote US base at Khe Sanh.

US Marines fight back waves of North Vietnamese
soldiers that try to overrun the sprawling compound.

in the US is
determined not to lose Khe Sahn.

Lyndon Johnson actually has a scale
model of the battlefield built.

that he can.. so he can monitor
it on a daily basis.

even goes and takes the
step that

he makes the Joint Chiefs of Staff a sign of
paper that says

the Americans will not lose Khe Sanh.

but Khe Sanh is
not Giap's real objective.

it's a ploy to draw us
attention away from the cities before tet.

sun tzu would
applaud Giap's maneuver.

Sun Tzu says in battle use a
direct attack to engage.

and an indirect attack to win.

in the art of war you should always try
to deceive your enemy.

pick a place you
want to attack.

then attack somewhere
else to divert his attention.

while he's distracted.
capture your real objective.

giap has done everything
he can to prepare for the Tet Offensive.

he uses spies.

secrecy and deception.

the time to attack.

is now at hand.

January 31st 1968

fireworks crackle.

it's the Tet Lunar New Year.

suddenly the celebration turns deadly.

more than 80,000 Vietcong troops carry
out simultaneous individual attacks.

on more than a hundred cities villages and
US bases all across South Vietnam.

the Tet Offensive has begun.

the Americans and the South
Vietnamese are shocked.

they were stunned.

the they had thought the enemy
was on his last legs yet.

reports are coming in from everywhere
every city every town every base.

that they're under attack.

u.s. commanders see the map of South
Vietnam light up like a pinball machine.

we couldn't believe that.

they had moved this many
troops disclosed to the cities.

and you know they very
patient had

taken months to position arms there and troops
and give them cover an amazing amazing logistical feat.

Giap's informants lead the Vietcong and North
Vietnamese troops through the streets to strategic targets.

one group captures
the national radio station.

while another blows a hole in the wall
of the American Embassy.

and fights its way onto the grounds.

the Tet Offensive
looks like it might succeed.

but the North has ignored one
very important Sun Tzu principal.

and it will cost.

Sun Tzu says there are five fundamental
factors for success in war.

weather, terrain, leadership, military doctrine
and most importantly moral influence.

moral influence means a leader must
have the will of the people behind him.

otherwise a war will
ultimately fail.

it's an important clue in
solving the mystery of

whether sons who predicted America's
demise and Vietnam.

as the Tet Offensive rages in 1968.

the Vietcong carry black lists and assassinate
South Vietnamese sympathizers at will

one of the most brutal massacres
takes place in the city of way.

they massacred 5,000 people in
way many of them government functionaries.

whose only crime was that
they worked in a government agency.

and also they exterminated they literally
shot several hundred nuns.

who whose only crime were
that they were Catholic nuns.

that brutality.

I think backfired

a lot of Vietnamese said wait a minute
this is not the kind of thing we do.

it's not the kind of people
we want to live under.

but it was a terrible and
in my judgment ,pointless Massacre.

without the will of the people
Giap's small units are left without
reinforcements.

they have no idea
what to do.

and no way to communicate
with each other.

then US forces sweep in and devastate
the fragmented North Vietnamese fighters.

10,000 died in the first
few days of the attack.

while US forces suffer only 250
casualties.

Tet is a military disaster
for the North Vietnamese.

but Sun Tzu's concept of moral
influence cuts both ways.

when Americans see the images of the
Tet Offensive on their television screens.

popular support for the war rapidly erodes.

this had the effect of just simply turning
everybody feelings about the war upside down.

we had thought
we were winning in Vietnam.

and we were finding that we
were losing in Vietnam.

and at that moment I think
everything changed in America.

despite losing the battle.

Giop is well on his way to winning the war

by defeating the US
where it matters most.

at home.

after Teth,
Giap returns with guerrilla tactics.

in 1975 with US military
support all but gone.

Saigon finally falls to
the North Vietnamese Army.

at the end of the
war US Colonel Harry summers meets with

North Vietnamese leaders to negotiate
the American withdraw.

Harry summons under meeting with Colonel too was
Vietnamese North Vietnamese counterpart in Hanoi.

probably got a little
angry at was going on

and snapped to the colonel
and the Vietnamese colonel.

well the truth is you never
beat us on the battlefield.

the Vietnamese Colonel
looked at him and said well that's true

he said but it's also irrelevant and
there you have it.

it was the political context.

that was important far
more than the military.

as it always is
throughout history.

one more time to
remember that war is a means to an end.

and that end is almost always governed
by politics not by military victory or defeat.

this is a notion that general Giap well
understood as did the master Sun Tzu.

it's about 500 BC in ancient China.

Sun Tzu's hit-and-run campaign against
the kingdom of truth is working.

Sun Tzu's adversary.

the true Prime Minister nanhua.

grows frustrated and loses
some political allies.

Nan Hua as generals are
increasingly frustrated by Sun Tzu's cross-border raids.

the constant
harassment is undermining the morale of the Chu troops.

money is being drained
out of the Chu treasury.

some cases the best of choose warriors are either
killed or captured by Sun Tzu.

faced with this dilemma.

nan hua is forced to turn to choose allies for
men money and material.

throughout the countryside there is fear
of where Sun Tzu will strike next.

leaders in the royal court
begin to lose faith in Non Hua.

and allies begin to
defect to Sun Tzu's suicide.

but this disloyalty doesn't
come without punishment.

nan-hua deploys his army to destroy a
rogue ally in the north called Cai.

as the capital is about
to be attacked.

the Duke of Cai calls
on Sun Tzu for help.

Sun Tzu, now faces a seemingly no-win situation.

if he does nothing, his ally
will be destroyed.

if he tries to save his ally
non-hua will crush his army.

but for Sun-Tzu the solution is simple.

he leads a small force toward Cai to act as
bait to draw non-hua away from the city.

it's a key principle of Sun Tzu's teaching.

to move your enemy entice him
with something he is certain to take.

this is this whole idea of in a sense achieving
kind of a maneuver dominance room

or controlling an enemy
movement by your own maneuver.

non-hua immediately
stops his siege on Cai.

and mobilizes his army
to intercept Sun Tzu.

Sun Tzu saves his
ally without drawing a sword.

but will he be
able to save himself.

well Sun Tzu has succeeded in drawing
non-hua a get away from his siege of sight.

it seems that he's maneuvered himself.
into a trap.

he's surrounded
by non-hua forces.

Sun Tzu has placed his men where
there is no possibility of retreat.

he has placed them
on death ground.

Sun Tzu says put
the army in the face of death

where there is no escape and
they will not flee or be afraid.

there is nothing they cannot achieve.

Sun Tzu studied every aspect of war.

including the psychology of men
facing imminent death.

Sun Tzu says men
know that they are in death ground.

they all be transformed.

they become overnight fearless fighters.

that they will fight we all have in order to end.

on death ground is exactly where
Sun Tzu wants his soldiers.

and it is on death ground that
another great army finds itself.

with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

June 6th 1944.

allied troops in world war 2 invade Europe.

they land on the treacherous
beaches of Normandy France.

if you put troops on
a beach

from which there is no retreat
and there's almost no retreat from beaches.

then they will fight
because they have to fight to survive.

and you can
see this at Normandy.

what those men went through was almost
unbelievable.

when you see those
bitches

and you see what doesn't men had
to face it was it's absolutely sobering to to realize.

and it makes you very proud to be an
American far as I'm concerned.

how they survived
and ultimately defeat the Nazis

is predicted
in the pages of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Sun Tzu says all warfare is deception.

if you can deceive your
enemy before battle

you are more likely to win.

dimension I got 10,000 soldiers
you've got one Midland.

right, so what I
have to do to counter you?

right I had to deceive you.

into speedy area forces into
more diverse group.

supreme Allied commander Dwight D.
eisenhower takes this principle to heart

as he prepares to invade Europe during World War two.

his invasion strategy at Normandy is one
of the most daring in history.

and it's foreshadowed in the
pages of Sun Tzu's art of war.

by 1944 Nazi Germany knows
the Allies are coming.

but they don't know
where or when.

it's very clear at some point.

that in order to win world
war two.

the Allies would have
had to invade the continent.

and the buildup in England

is the only place they could build up from meant
it was going to come somewhere on the coast of France.

the only question is
where.

there are only three feasible
locations where the Allies could land.

the pas-de-calais, the Cherbourg Peninsula
or the Normandy beaches.

the reason why this was true.

is that the Allies were
absolutely certain to only land

on a beach that could be
protected by the air power of the other
fighter planes

that could fly out of
southern England.

the range of these fighters was
400 miles.

therefore any landing site had to be within
200 miles of these beaches

but even with air support

the Allies know of each invasion
of Europe is nearly impossible

to succeed they must employ more
of a go strategy than a chess strategy.

so instead of a direct attack.

the Allies follow Sun Tzu's principle of deception

and convinced the Germans the
attack will not occur at Normandy.

one way Normandy is comparable to go is
the fact that the deception is involved

as you're playing go it's a you are
signalling buyer moves

which parts of the territory
are going to try and conquer.

what the Allies were able to do
with the clever use of deception

as well as actually clear military logic was to
convince the Germans that when it came

it would come at Ponte Calais.

and when in fact they plan to come at Normandy.

it's called Operation fortitude

and it's one of the most complex deception
campaigns ever attempted.

the Allies create a fake army

that appears ready to strike at Calais.

they use inflatable tanks planes and trucks
to fool German photo reconnaissance.

they would move the tanks and the trucks around
at night and they would have men with rollers

actually making the track so that it would there
would actually be tracks in the grounds

that it would look like there was a real
movement of troops during the night.

the phantom army needs
to be seen and heard.

so allied army personnel broadcast endless hours of fake
transmissions about troop and supply movements.

on the one hand you would think
it'd be a bit of a funny job

because you're just
sending bogus bogus traffic.

but on the other hand.

it's an a very important job that if they were
lacks in it or they didn't do it well.

it would defeat the whole
purpose of the deception plan.

Eisenhower shows
the Germans his fake army.

but keeps his real
fighting force an absolute secret

for weeks they are successful
in their deception campaign.

but one month before the d-day invasion
of Normandy is set to begin.

the Allies fear their secret is out.

British counterintelligence officers discover five crucial
Normandy code names in a single newspaper crossword puzzle.

Overlord, Neptune, Utah,
Omaha and Mulberry.

British agents tracked down
the creator of the crossword puzzle.

a 54 year old
teacher named Leonard Dawe

and they interrogate him and he gets very
indignant and says you know.

am I not allowed to choose the words
that I want for a crossword puzzle.

and they press him but at the end
of the day they figure out that

he is actually telling the truth and that
the words were actually just an accident.

with the scare behind
them.

the Allies must now actively sell the Germans
on the Calais invasion threat.

they turned to one of
Sun Tzu's favorite methods.

Spies.

Sun Tzu says it is essential to seek out enemy
agents who have come to spy against you.

and bribe them to serve you.

in the art of war double agents are
the most important spies

double agents begin as the spies
that your adversary has sent to spy on you.

when you find them out you don't
jail them or execute them, you hire them.

you give them lavish
rewards

and what they start to do then.

is they continue to act
as if they're spying on you.

but the information they feed back to
your adversary is misinformation.

during World War two nobody uses double
agents better than the British.

their program is called
double-cross

and one of their key double agents is a Welsh
naval contractor named Alfred Owen.

when the war breaks out,
he's picked up right away.

and they offer him a deal.

either come over and
become a double agent for us

or essentially you go to prison
and many of them were executed.

and Heba gets
the code word snow

and so when the Germans tried to infiltrate their
first wave of spies in September of 1940.

the Germans Radio snow and let him know
that these four agents are coming in

and of course they're met with a British
reception committee right away.

double-cross is so successful.

that British intelligence is able to turn or imprison
nearly every spy sent by Germany during the war.

these double agent are both Brutus and
tricycle gives such convincing misinformation.

that the Germans not only believe
the invasion is coming to Calais.

but it's the Normandy
landing that's the diversion.

Sun Tzu says the way a wise general can
achieve greatness beyond ordinary men.

is through foreknowledge

Sun Tzu teaches the importance
of deception and foreknowledge

to uncover
the enemy's intentions.

the allies gain foreknowledge
by breaking german codes

four years the germans believe they're encoding
machine called enigma is completely unbreakable.

it can scramble a message
150 million million million ways.

but with the help of a Polish
mathematician

British intelligence does the impossible

they are able to decode
an intercepted German message within hours

they call their code breaking system ultra.

through ultra

the Allies know what the
Germans are thinking.

what their perceptions
are of the battlefield.

and their view of what's happening.

thus they're able to you feed German spies
information that reinforces those misconceptions.

Sun Tzu would prise ultra
for its ability to read the mind of the enemy.

the other wall essentially is
using the mind to fight the war.

meaning to say that it is a mind to mind battle

so in order to win against the enemy.

you must be able to read the mind of the
enem.

but sometimes knowing what your
enemy is thinking creates moral dilemmas.

according to a British intelligence
officer on November 14th 1940.

the British decode a German message about an
impending attack on the English city of Coventry.

if Churchill tries to protect
Coventry he could tip off the Germans

that he's reading
their messages

it must have been a very very
difficult position

to be placed in and very difficult
decision for him to make

and in this particular case

he was looking at the
long term allied victory

and he essentially sacrificed.

the the citizens of Coventry
that were lost that night.

Coventry is devastated from the air.

the destruction is so complete.

the Germans coin a new phrase.

covent rated to describe
total obliteration of a town.

the story is controversial

as there is no hard evidence to support the claim
that Churchill was warned about the Coventry attack.

as d-day approaches

the Allies discovered through
ultra and their network of spies

that the Nazi still believed the
invasion will come through Calais.

still attacking Normandy will be difficult as
the Germans established defenses all along the coast.

Sun Tzu would praise the Allies
preparation for the landing.

and their mastery of deception.

but he would seriously condemn
what they do once they arrive.

Sun Tzu says when a falcon strike
breaks the body of its prey

it is because of timing when torrential
water tosses boulders

it is because of momentum.

Sun Tzu believes even the most
well-executed attack can be ruined

if momentum is lost.

the Normandy invasion shows

that Sun Tzu could have predicted its
outcome some 2,000 years earlier

after months of preparation and
deceptio.

Eisenhower launches his attack
against German occupied France.

a hundred fifty thousand ground troops

jammed onto hundreds of small landing craft

leave England and cross
the English Channel.

though land at five
different beaches in France.

codenamed Juno, sword, gold,
Utah and Omaha.

as the landing craft approached the
beaches

15,000 aircraft and 7,000 ships provide
a coordinated aerial assault on the beaches.

at some of the landing sites.

the Allied soldiers meet very
little resistance.

but it beaches like Omaha,
it's hell on earth.

for many of the Allied soldiers inside
the landing craft.

these moments before the
door opens will be their last

a case of incredible
courage.

in the face of overwhelming
horror.

I mean as though let if you think
about it.

the landing craft came
up to the beach

and as they came up to the beach

the troops inside the landing craft could hear
the machine guns tapping on the outside.

the anime machine gun is switched to
what they call fcl.

final coordination line.

they're going to put this month's machine gun fire

on the front of that boat
so when it drops.

bullets go right through it kill
two or three guys at a time.

a lot of guys just died that way.

many don't make it off the boats.

so the soldier lucky enough to survive
the initial machine-gun barrage.

the nightmare is just beginning

he then has to cross 200 yards of the
mind title plants.

wait down, with wet, heavy gear.

then get through another hundred yards
of barbed wire beaches.

it's three football fields of death and destruction
as German machine guns shred fellow soldiers and friends.

if you ever
get a chance to visit no maja

it will change your whole
view about the world

it would change a whole view
about America.

it will make you realize what incredible tourism
was displayed by those guys there.

the Allies survived
on death row

exactly the way Sun Tzu predicts
by biting together.

and never giving up.

there was an unmitigated horror.

and still they kept coming.

and you wonder, you know why how,
how do you make people do that.

and perhaps Sun Tzu is
in fact instructive here.

you make them do that because
there's no other alternative except death.

what do you do turn around with
the equipment and swim back in

there's no plan for evacuation unless, you
wounded.

there's no way you could
refuse to get off the boat.

so in a sense once you put
that number of guys on the beach.

you're following Sun Tzu.

in that you're putting an
army in a situation of it must fight or die

and they fought and
they fought well and they survived.

the Allies also benefit from
another Sun Tzu principle.

the poor judgment of their enemies leader.

Sun Tzu says it is essential for victory

that generals are
unconstrained by their leader.

the Allied command structure gives
total authority to General Eisenhower.

as supreme commander of all
forces on the western front.

beneath him
are four commander's,

one for the Navy, Air Force,
the US Army Group and the British Army Group.

in the business world this would be a very
clean org chart with well-defined responsibilities.

great advantage that Eisenhower had that
he could work with all sorts of people.

and there were huge
number of prima donnas.

and on both sides.

he was able to work with these people and
get them to work for the common good.

one would expect a dictator like Hitler to have an
even more efficient chain of command than the Allies.

but it's just the opposite.

Hitler sets up a confusing system of
overlapping Authority.

he wanted to make sure that no one
person beneath him had all of the information.

and or all of the
control over forces at their disposal

and so by divvying it up

it always ensured that Hitler was the one that
actually made the final decision on the disposition.

and the allocation of troops.

general von Rundstedt holds the title of
commander in chief for forces in the West.

but the Navy and Air fully each had
separate command chains.

that aren't under his control and often
don't cooperate with each other.

the waffen-ss a separate military arm
that fights alongside the German army

answers to Himmler and rune stead has only indirect
control of the mechanized divisions

for tank units are
under his command

but the remaining six are
split between army groups B and G.

it's a complete mess.

Hiller's leadership style

and the chaotic command structure

in the German army

render Hitler a very cooperative
adversary

for a Sun Tzu type campaign.

he is constantly.
interfering. in the decisions of his subordinates.

the generals who should be acting
objectively and professionally.

in trying to defend France
against the Allied invasion.

one of Hitler's greatest blunders.

is how he deployed his prized Panzer tank
divisions.

some generals believe the
Panzers must be close to the beaches

to knock the
invading troops back into the sea

others think the tank
should be held in reserve.

so they could be deployed and
forced wherever the Allies choose to land.

since none of the generals have the
authority to make the call

the decision Falls to Hitler.

and being Hitler he made
all the wrong decisions.

he put one Panzer Division in Holland and
another Panzer Division at the Bay of Biscay

both of which were entirely out of any
range of a possible landing.

and he put the rest of his Panzer divisions
back at some distance from the beaches

Hitler's failure is a perfect example
of why Sun Tzu says

the enlightened general must be free to
conduct war without interference from the leader.

when you look at the strategy for the
German defense in France or in Normandy

it's very divided over how the defense
should be arranged

what forces are
actually available to defend the beaches

and what forces are actually available
to reinforce the beaches

or reinforce the German
forces at the invasion point

because no one person has control of all of the
forces as Eisenhower did on the Allied side.

the Allies achieved
the impossible.

through bravery and
determination

the troops are able to take all five landing
sites at Normandy.

despite all of the complex planning that went into the
invasion of Normandy.

it was the small unit tactics and the buddies fighting
side-by-side that wins the battle of the beaches

and that's consistent throughout history.

Sun Tzu would have marveled at the
timing and execution of the invasion.

but soon the Allies encounter a new and
completely unexpected enemy.

a labyrinth of giant impenetrable hedge rows in
what is known as the Bocage country of France.

it looks like the Allies have
pulled off this amazing

miraculous feat and they have they've landed
an army on the beaches of Normandy.

but then they get bogged down.

in the hedgerow country.

they had not anticipated that.

despite the fact that the reconnaissance aircraft
had photographed these hedgerows.

the Allied planners simply assumed that
these were like the hedges in a suburban backyard.

for five feet tall maybe

but these ancient hedges
dating back nearly 2,000 years.

are 20 to 30 feet
tall and extremely thick.

they can't be climbed
tanks can't maneuver through them safely.

and explosives would give
away a unit's position.

the hedgerow country in Normandy threatens to completely
undermine the momentum that the Allies need to build up.

American army is a
mechanized army.

and you can't move tanks and trucks very quickly through
hedgerows that are enormous we think.

the Allies momentum stops
dead in its tracks.

forty days passed and they have only
reached their day five objectives.

casualties amount
to more than 78,000

and the entire
invasion is in jeopardy.

but the solution on
how to escape this enormous maze.

lies in the pages of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Sun Tzu says make your
enemy prepare on his left

and he will be weak on his right.

in Normandy France.

the Allies are getting pummeled in the
hedgerows of the Bocage country.

terrain perfectly suited for
German ambushes and snipers.

the Germans have a word for
closer to combat.

in terrain that's very complex enclosed.

it's called a rotten Creek.

it means literally the war of the rats.

it means in essence that

warfare gets reduced to almost individual combat
one or two men against one or two men.

because the terrain in this case the
hedgerows won't allow you to maneuver.

won't allow you to bring your your
technological advances of artillery

air power mobility to tanks to bear

so the war and the hedgerows was a
terrible war was up close and personal.

but perhaps what's most deadly in the hedgerows
are the German Panzer tanks prowling the maze.

the British actually had a pamphlet on
how to hunt tanks.

they would send out specialized
teams of individuals

with bazookas or Piet's as the British and
the Canadian Army's called them

in order to actually hunt down
tanks and take them out.

and the the manual actually likens it to
big-game hunting where you're out stalking.

a tiger or an
elephant and trying to take it down

eventually the Allies devise a Sun Tzu
inspired strategy

to help free themselves from the carnage of
the Bocage country.

the plan is to lure most of the German forces
fighting at the Bocage to the City of Khan.

so a weakened force is
left behind

primarily because Khan had airfields
and it was closest to Paris

and so the Germans were fairly
sure that we would attack through Khan.

the Allied plan begins with
operation Goodwood.

a blistering barrage of air power
against the City of Khan.

the Germans take the bait and move many of
their Panzer tank divisions away from the Bocage.

leaving only one and a half divisions behind to
hold back the US forces in the hedgerows.

the u.s.
immediately takes advantage of the shift

and strikes with a withering air attack on
the remaining German Panzer tank divisions.

it's called Operation Cobra.

Sun Tzu says,

you must behave like the snake.

why?

so that when you are attack on the front,
the back will reinforce the front.

you attack in the rear the front
can reinforce that point

and you attack the middle,
both sides to come in.

so for Sun Tzu, right it is really the enemy
attacking you

in your ear responses.
you must be flexible.

with nearly all of the
German tanks destroyed.

US forces are able to punch a hole in the
German line with artillery tanks and infantry.

finally, after weeks
of frustration.

the Allies break out of the Bocage.

the diversion of Goodwood at Khan

and the success of Cobra in the
Bocage country changes the strategic equation.

the stalled allied momentum
returns with a vengeance.

throughout the
Normandy invasion.

Sun Tzus invisible hand
guides the Allies to victory.

through their use of deception
for knowledge

and a superior command structure.

that motivates the entire
army to fight as one.

Sun Tzu says,

the winning army realizes
the conditions for victory first, then fights.

the losing army fights first,
then seeks victory.

the battle between the kingdoms of Wu
and Chu rages.

Sun Tzu's small rule force is undeath
ground.

they are surrounded by the army of the
true Prime Minister, non hua.

but Sun Tzu, isn't worried.

Well, non hua's army attacks, Sun Tzu's main
force is headed to capture the two capital of Ying.

when non-hua realizes,
that Sun Tzu's main force

is bent on the attack on Ying.

he has a tough decision to make.

obviously, he wants to kill Sun Tzu.

he wants to wipe out this force under Sun
Tzu's command.

but while he doesn't think the Wu force
the main body is much of a threat to the Chu capital.

he's afraid
that the defender of inge.

another general will win credit for defending
the capital against the wolf forces.

as a result he races
back to defend it.

it will be non hua
most colossal mistake of the war.

like Non Hua generals throughout history
have charged headlong into battle.

without having all
the information they need.

thousands of years later

in the farmlands of Pennsylvania.

another general rushes into battle without
knowing what lies ahead.

he is Confederate
General Robert Ely.

who some consider the
greatest commander in American history.

but at Gettysburg Lee fails to heed
Sun-Tzu's wisdom and pays a terrible price.

Sun-Tzu says, no nation has ever
benefited from prolonged war.

the American Civil War is Sun Tzu's a
nightmare scenario.

a bloody stalemate that will end up
costing more than 620,000 lives

by far the deadliest war
in American history

by 1863 it's pretty clear, on both sides that this is not going
to be the short war everyone thought it was going to be.

when at the Battle of Manassas

the ladies and gentlemen,

drove out of DC in their
carriages with picnic lunches to

observe what they thought would
be the first and last battle.

of the war, everybody knows now
it's going to be a long war.

the war affects every American.

sometimes in unexpected ways.

the Civil War sees the
creation of the first American psychiatric hospital

at st.
Elizabeth's in Washington DC.

still in operation today.

the war between the north and south.

also affected how Americans
receive their mail?

a Cleveland postmaster becomes so distraught by the sight
of anxious wives and children lining up at his post office.

that he Institute's home delivery
for the very first time.

that what many homes receive

are death notices

the turkey puzzles realize that whenever
they saw an army that.

sooner or later that
would be flesh to eat.

and as the armies moved along.

they often moved along with
hundreds of Turkey buzzards.

overhead just waiting for the battlefield

waiting for the carnage

waiting for the open wounds.
pick out their eyes.

and eat the innards as they
would any other carrion.

and then almost a horrific scene.

but that's what war is
pretty horrific in times.

Civil War field hospitals are human butcher
shops. with arms and legs, stacked in piles.

some 40,000 amputations
are performed on the Union side alone.

only 24,000
of them under anesthesia.

doctors performed dozens of surgeries
without ever washing their hands.

it was seven times safer to fight through
the entire Battle of Gettysburg.

than it was to be sent to an Army Hospital.

the death rate there was 30 and 40%

taking the limo off was just one.

one part of it now in public gangrene super ation,
infection and the death rates were just staggeringly high.

the American Civil War is a classic example of why
Sun Tzu warns against going to war in the first place.

but other principles in the art of war.

will prove instrumental in how the war
eventually ends.

Sun Tzu says,

those skilled in war bring the enemy to the
field of battle

they are not brought by him

Pennsylvania, 1863.

the Civil War is a bloody stalemate.

by the end of June of that year
Confederate General Robert Ely

boldly moves his
army of nearly 60,000 men

into union territory.

while most of the battles of the American
Civil War have been fought in the south.

Lee decides the moment is
right to invade Union soil.

Lee's plan, destroy as many military posts as
possible in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

while Union armies
defend Washington DC.

one key target is camp
Curtin outside of Harrisburg.

the largest military supply
depot in the north.

the strategy of Lee's attack on
the north is not primarily military.

it's primarily political.

and he's going to try to essentially
to defeat Lincoln politically

what he hopes is a massive
defeat of the north

will encourage
people to lose faith in the war.

these bold military
action to achieve a political victory.

is more of a go
strategy than a chess strategy.

exactly the
kind of plan Sun-Tzu would have admired.

but as Lee's main
force moves north

a skirmish erupts in Gettysburg
between two cavalry units

Confederate General Heath
had a division at cash town

and he wanted to move over to Gettysburg.

in order to get some shoes
they were in a factory there.

that was the only reason he wen.

he and in this fashion

he be moved without any
understanding of what lay ahead of him.

and in the process that off the greatest war
that's ever been fought in the Western Hemisphere.

Lee gets word of the skirmish.

and is told that a major
union force is at Gettysburg.

instead of sending a cavalry reconnaissance
force to confirm the report.

Lee orders his
entire army to mobilize.

it's a colossal mistake.

Lee decides to abandon the original plan.

he gives up what we call
strategic aim.

and he makes the mistake of allowing
operational developments to drive strategy.

Lee orders all his forces
to converge at Cashtown.

a small village seven miles
from Gettysburg.

Sun Tzu would not like his choice
as cash town has not been fully scouted.

had robert e. lee read Sun-Tzu, he would have known
better than to proceed on what you think is happening .

and try to spend the resources
to find out what really is happening.

Sun-Tzu says, move only
when you see an advantage

and there is something to gain.

only fight if a position is critical.

some 60,000 Confederate troops begin to
pour in from nearby cash town and Carlisle.

3,000 Union soldiers take
position on McPherson Ridge.

they try to hold off the onslaught of
enemy soldiers until help arrives

but reinforcements are miles away, toward
Washington DC.

so the Union soldiers withdraw southeast
on to Cemetery Ridge

a range of hills that
forms the shape of a fishhook.

Cemetery Ridge
provides an extremely strong defensive advantage.

the terrain is so obvious

in favor of the defense that my guess is almost
any second lieutenant from West Point

but have chosen that ground
given the opportunity to do it.

when Union general Hancock arrives.

he declares it the best natural
position he's ever seen.

lead immediately sees the danger
of the union's position.

but because Union troops
are still straggling in

he believes they are vulnerable.

Lee then gives an order to
confederate general Ewell

that many believe isn't
really an order at all.

and Lee says to him, attack when you think
it's practical.

didn't order him to attack

you'll new on the battlefield
don't know what the hell's going on

and decides not to attack.

you all decided that it was not practical.

because his troops were tired.

and they were exhausted and he
wanted to rest.

while some criticized you all for not
following orders.

Sun-Tzu's own words place
the blame on Lee.

if we look all the way back
to this famous interview

between King Helu of Wu and Sun Tzu

in that incident with
the palace concubines.

the importance of clarity in orders.

Sun-Tzu says at that point, if the orders are
unclear it is the fault of the general.

at Gettysburg.
we see Lee

issuing very unclear and very ambiguous
orders to his subordinates.

Union reinforcements
soon arrive

and strengthen their position.

Lee now faces an uphill battle.

Sun-Tzu says, when the enemy occupies
high ground, do not confront him.

if he attacks downhill,
do not oppose him.

as night falls on the first day of the
Battle of Gettysburg.

Lee confers with another
Confederate General.

James Longstreet.

a man who grasps the situation
from Sun Tzu's perspective.

Longstreet wants lead to abandon
the idea of attacking the Union High ground.

instead he wants to march
south around Cemetery Ridge .

then east right toward
Washington DC.

and this will force the Union Army
to come off the Cemetery Ridge

and attack us where we are.

and if they attack us we will win.

this would have been precisely what we
thought Sun Tzu would have recommended.

but Lee says no.

he points to Cemetery Ridge and says,

Lee has completely
given up his go strategy

and reverts back to chess.

Longstreet is stunned.

he sees the Union Army
dug in and the hills

and knows that they should not be attacked.

Sun-Tzu would have advise
against it he would have said,

assess the situation adjust your forces find
another way to attack the enemy.

but Lee doesn't listen.

the second day
of Gettysburg is hell on earth.

bucolic pastures are transformed into
fields of slaughter.

places like plum run.

the peach orchard
and Little Round Top.

see some of the bloodiest
and to hand combat of the war.

what's terrible about hand-to-hand
combat is the memories.

you know, for a lot of war, you can pull the
trigger and maybe you see somebody drop.

maybe most often.

you don't but this is up close and
personal this bayonets knives rifle butts

pistol shots in the head,
in the face and you see it.

and it takes a piece out of you.

it and that's why you have
psychiatric casualties.

God knows how many members of
both sides remember that battle.

you know every night for the rest
of their lives.

and it's just gory beyond belief.

on top of Little Round Top.
is Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain

and the 20th Maine regiment.

they have survived
three Confederate charges.

and are nearly out of ammunition.

and here comes the fourth attack

and Chamberlain
orders fixed bayonets.

stanzin every fight everybody fires the
last two rounds

they got stands up in
a great moment in history

stands on the wall with a saber

and gives the command which rings through
the years of American infantry history.

follow me boys, bayonets forward
and down they go.

Union troops, howl down the hill.

shocked at the charge the Confederate
soldiers retreat.

against all odds,
the union ends on to Little Round Top.

Sun Tzu's principle of never attacking
an enemy on high ground holds true

but this does not
seem to deter Lee

for he's going to ignore
Sun zu yet again.

and order his men to attack uphill.

one more time.

Sun-Tzu says, there are some armies that should not
be fought some ground that should not be contested.

the Sun rises on
the third day of the Battle of Gettysbug.

despite the thousands of dead
bodies strewn across the fields.

Confederate General Robert E Lee is about to
order his troops to attack the high ground, yet again.

one of the things you never
want to do in war.

never throw good money after bad.

follow the advice of Sun-Tzu,
use an attack to exploit a victory.

never use an attack to rescue a defeat.

and Longstreet gets it.

general Longstreet once again suggests to lead
that they should move around Cemetery Ridge.

and threaten Washington DC.

to draw the unit off the high ground.

Longstreet understands.

that the Confederates are in a terrible position .

they are outnumbered.
they do not have the high ground.

they have suffered terrible casualties in the
line' the last two days of fighting.

and that there's no real chance of pushing
the Union Army off the high ground.

but Lee feels.

his men has sacrificed too
much to turn back now.

Lee gives the order to attack.

the infantry charge is led by Major General
George Pickett

the story is Dutch Longstreet is sitting
there

and Pickett's a shall I go general

shall I go and Longstreet just
drops his head

and looks away

general shall I go and
Longstreet again looks away

said general, I'm going into the attack and
Longstreet looked again away.

Longstreet never gave the order to attack.

he knew it was suicidal.

in the sweltering July heat.
12500 Confederate soldiers led by Pickett.

make their determined march across
an open field nearly a mile long.

as they advanced in close ranks.

thousands are cut down by Union artillery and rifle fire

there was nowhere they could hide, there was almost
no range between the Union forces and the Confederate forces

and the Union forces was simply able to
stand behind these these reinforced positions

and fire on the Confederates and so the
Confederates had no way of defending themselves.

to pickets men's bravery.

they continued all
the way up.

there's one whole unit from South Carolina
that much straight into the Rhode Island

a children guns it was destroyed by canister
shot the whole unit died, instantaneously.

just tore through people limbs, heads,
eyes, blood hair and eyeballs, everywhere.

of the more than 12,000 Confederate soldiers
who made the charge only 5,000 survived.

the Battle of Gettysburg is over.

Sun Tzu would have been horrified
at the tragic waste of Pickett's Charge.

Sun Tzu always believed in using the
intellect rather than force

and never attacking headlong an enemy
force if he could do otherwise.

at Gettysburg, lead doesn't adjust his
strategy to the situations on the ground.

he refuses to retreat even when the
situation is clearly hopeless.

and Lee takes off his hat.

dismount and walks into the field

and says it's all my fault boys.

it's all my fault.

yeah, damn right general,
it's all your fault.

no one in his right mind would have ordered
that you should have listened to Sun-Tzu.

in the end, his failure
to follow Sun-Tzu's wisdom.

is one of the factors that
costs the Confederates the war.

Sun-Tzu says, when troops flee, our insubordinate,
collapse or a routed in battle.

it is the fault of the general.

in "the art of war", Sun-Tzu imagines the role of the
supreme general a man who must be intelligent and cunning

never rash nor arrogant.

exactly the opposite of
Sun Tzu's adversary in the Wu to war

Non-Hua.

Su-Tzu is deadly against impulsive behavior.

rash behavior or making the army much
double-quick time in order to seize victory

for instances my, victory comes from deep thinking,
from detail calculation, from long preparation.

while Non-Hua has a larger more powerful army.

Sun-Tzu shows, he is the master
by outwitting his enemy.

Non-Hua rushes to his capital

believing Sun-Tzu is
about to invade.

but the master never had any intention of
attacking such a well-protected city.

it's a ruse to lure Non-Hua into a trap.

and it works perfectly.

without warning more than 20,000 of Sun Tzu's
elite warriors ambushed Non-Hua forces

the surprise attack, throws Non-Hua men
into confusion

what we have now is a series of running
battles

between Non-Hua much depleted
forces and Sun Tzu's may enforce.

in each battle no more
gets weaker.

Sun Tzu gets stronger and
that Chu capital lays exposed.

Sun-Tzu joins up with his main force and
attacks the disorganized Chu army.

finally, Sun-Tzu has won the war.

through preparation, deception
and indirect attacks.

Sun-Tzu pulls off one of the greatest
upsets in history.

but as mysteriously as
he arrived.

Sun-Tzu leaves and disappears.

there's some speculation as
to why he disappears.

one theory is that,
the behavior of the leaders of Wu

shocked him.
discourage him.

when the king of Wu
enters the Chu capital,

he's dumbstruck by
its wealth.

he becomes greedy and
covetous.

it would seem then that
Sun-Tzu has provided.

this ambitious and potentially
corrupt king.

with a dangerous instrument.

this new military, that
he's honed.

he also sees infighting breaking out.

and perhaps this is the
moment that Sun-Tzu retires from this life.

and goes instead to write.

what he sees as the lessons
of the conflict between wu and yue.

the first line of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" is war
is a matter of vital importance to the state.

it is a
matter of life and death.

survival or ruin.

Sun-Tzu knows that war can lead to
disaster.

sometimes the best way to win
is not to fight at all.

this is perhaps
Sun Tzu's ultimate secret.

nations often rush into Wars with
very little concern for thinking through.

what the total cost is
going to be

not just in dollars but also in terms
of human suffering

not only to you, but to the civilians and
children of the country in which you're fighting

it's the kind of thing that you
know we find in Sun Tzu.

you know,
before you go to war think this through

and then ask yourself is the reasons for
which you're finding.

worth the total cost of the war
or is there another way.

as Sun-Tzu says,
the angry can be made happy again

but the dead cannot be
brought back to life

still some historians believe the genius
behind "the art of war".

wasn't actually Sun-Tzu.

but a collection of different strategists.

while his existence is debated.

his legacy isn't.

today the art of war his read by
generals, CEO's and professional sports coaches

and while it offers us insights
into the battles of the past.

it could prepare us for the
Wars of the future.

Sun Tzu's extremely relevant to us today

because the rules that he laid down 400 BC

by the same rules that we apply to
warfare today or should apply to warfare today

the recommendations for
indirect warfare that we learned from Sun Tzu

are the way we need to fight
wars today

because there's no way we can
continue to fight direct heavy conventional Wars

because the no other
army is going to attack us

and in a conventional
fashion.

we're going to have to use the indirect
methods of dealing with the enemy

that Sun Tzu
recommended and the quicker we learned

these the more likely would it be
successful in our Wars of the future

Sun-Tzu can teach us.

not merely to know ourselves to know
our strength, our weaknesses

what we're capable of doing
on the battlefiel?

but constantly reminds us

that is as important if not more so to cultivate
a deep fundamental understanding of our adversaries.

so that
we went better achieve our objectives.

that's what I think makes it a
possession for all time.

throughout history. Sun-Tzu's principles
have guided the outcome of war.

we must embrace his wisdom
or fight in darkness.

Encoding by Atilla Sade / 2019