Member-only story

Sun-Tzu Said No One Profits From a Protracted War: Shame No One Told Him About The Military Industrial Complex

Adebayo Adeniran
3 min readApr 25, 2024

Read on..

Image by Paulo Marcelo Martins via Pexels

I have an extremely nasty habit.

And it entails going back to my old books to reread them to glean insights which I may have missed the first or second time.

Rereading a number of my previously read books has turned out to be the most extraordinary orgasmic experience as every word really did hit my g-spot.

But it is with great sadness that I must state that the Art of War wasn’t one of them.

Ploughing through Sun-Tzu’s classic on the business of waging and winning wars, I have to state that it was something of a damp squib.

While I thought that a number if abstract phrases were brilliant, there were several which were totally out of step with our times.

And here’s a few examples:

There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare

What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.

Today, it is so easy to pick holes in the points made by Master Sun and for this we have the military-industrial complex to thank.

--

--

Adebayo Adeniran
Adebayo Adeniran

Written by Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible

Responses (23)