War as a Matter of Life and Death

Sun Tzu — The Art of War

Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin.

Written around the 5th century BC, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is one of the oldest and most influential military treatises in the world. This opening line, from Lionel Giles' 1910 English translation, sets the stakes for everything that follows: for Sun Tzu, war is a matter of state survival, to be studied with total seriousness.