“One gets the sense with The Art of War that Sun Tzu saw it as a vital part of his own strategy for personal survival, offering dire warnings to belligerent princelings that war was never to be taken lightly, and only considered as the last possible resort. There is an entire chapter on ‘Espionage’, not merely in a tactical sense for reconnaissance, but in terms of embedded assets within rival kingdoms, misinformation campaigns and double agents. Sun Tzu would do literally anything to prevent a war, and is not above sending a suicide mission to off an enemy leader before trouble begins. It will, he notes, save lives elsewhere.”

From my chapter on Sun Tzu, which opens Iain Dale’s just-published volume on military leaders, and draws, of course, on my own translation of The Art of War.