Sun Tzu Case

Sun Tzu can be described as the greatest military mind in the history of the world. There have been great leaders in every army throughout time. But with all the correct decisions being made during their respective battles, they all made blunders that caused them the victory. A blunder is something that Sun Tzu never suffered from. Sun Tzu had a set of rules that he lead his troops by and no matter how he may have felt at the time, he stood steadfast and lived by his rules. Other leaders however let their emotions be the deciding factor, which in turn has caused them to fail.

An example of an emotional order was "Pickett's Charge" during the battle of Gettysburg. General Robert E. Lee ordered his men to attack the enemy after two other waves failed tremendously. The union soldiers were hunkered down on a ridge in a very formidable defensive posture. Even after losing a substantial amount of men General Lee made an emotional decision because he believed that his army had sacrificed too much already to re-evaluate the situation and change tactics. That was something that Sun Tzu would not have done. "Use an attack to exploit a victory. Never use an attack to rescue a defeat." (Sun Tzu)

Another example of Tzu leadership are to have clear-cut orders from a distinctive command. "It is essential for victory that generals are unconstrained by their leaders." (Sun Tzu) We saw how this worked during World War II, between the Allied commander and Adolf Hitler. The Allied chain of command structure gave total authority to General Eisenhower as the commander of all forces on the Western Front. He had four Leaders beneath him, one for the Navy, Air Force, the US Army, and the British Army. So all his ground force commanders had 100% authority over their immediate soldiers and units.

However Hitler was the complete opposite and had a very confusing and overlapping chain of command. Adolf Hitler wanted to make sure that nobody beneath him had all of the information or control of the German forces at their disposal. And so by dividing it up, Hitler knew he was the one that actually made the final decision on how his army's was arranged or used in battle. This of course limited how the ground forces commanders were able to effectively lead their troops, something that the Allies capitalized on to bring the end of the war within reach.

During my last deployment some of my command restricted the decision making on the soldiers that were actively engaged in situations that the command was not able to analyze. The command was having us conduct extremely high-risk missions for very insignificant targets. The current command has a problem with understanding what "Risk vs. Reward" means. Risk vs. Reward is something that Sun Tzu understood. He would not make a move unless the outcome was worth the lives of some of his men. Sun Tzu would have not struggled with most of the military issues