Thinking like Sun Tzu – part 2, a series of 6 maxims

Part 1 introduced a number of Sun Tzu’s aphorisms. On their own, they can seem somewhat abstract. In Part 2, we will take these ideas and apply them to a number of interlocking maxims that bring the aphorisms to life.

Maxim One, Anticipate the Foe’s Uses of—Cause—Link—Effect.

This maxim involves the indomitable trio this article mentioned earlier, cause—link—effect. This trio is timeless. But this article adds a twist to the theme that will be helpful first to understanding the aphorisms under inquiry, and second developing ways to apply that understanding. Condition setting, involves a plethora of connections to explore. The connections take on a life of their own, and each reveals a variety of energy propelling some into links. These links connect the predicate (cause), to the effect, or outcome. The trio animates and starts to emanate energy hidden in the flows occurring in the operational context housing a given conflict. Elements of this trio and their signatures can prove deceptive or even opaque. Out of necessity, one will discard many probabilities to narrow the focus on the most likely. But discard carefully. What appears dormant or even dead can resurrect and come back to haunt one’s mind and actions.

With study and anticipation, one finds several strands that that appear to satisfy the quest for advantage of knowledge and decision-making, because they connect with the adversary’s vision for success. With this insight into the power of thought, one intends to arrange his mind as T. E. Lawrence describes in Seven Pillars of Wisdom…

 We must also arrange the minds of the enemy as far as we could reach them … then the minds of the enemy nation waiting the verdict; and of the neutrals looking on; circle beyond circle.^[[1]]

Anticipate and watch for appearance of this trio, as seemingly disparate parts or as congealed wholes. Also, they appear in many shapes, forms, sounds, smells, vibrations, or combinations therein. To be effective, each movement toward culmination of the desired action always undergoes a metamorphosis. One must seek and recognize the movement and metamorphosis of causes—links— effects, as they occur in all domains and at all levels of conflict. Consider preempting these moves as they transition from the basis (cause) of the enemy’s desired actions linking into desired effects. Realize though, if one tries to preempt and influence too soon, the outcomes may be poor.

Accordingly, one should cause their attacker’s pre-conceived appearances and anticipated outcomes of his carefully chosen actions to appear suitably true. But the opponent doesn’t sense the potency of the grasp one has on this enemy’s state of being. As such, the enemy proves to be vulnerable to the narratives and counter-narratives that one fosters and arranges to form and influence the enemy’s feelings, perceptions, and thought processes. In this way one intends to influence their enemy’s decision-making at the right time to create the right effect.

And, one anticipates and comprehends how this enemy could sequence actions to satisfy his desires, life-force, purpose, strength of motive, and match all with capabilities. Why? One has to be interested in movements, motions, human and machine energy, or other releases of dynamism associated with causes. Such causes appear as actions that identify high-value links, and ultimately make known his desired effects (outcomes). The right causes and links eventually connect with and enable the enemy’s desired effect to occur—but at their origin, the ‘trio’ appears disaggregated. For the enemy’s desired action to occur, causes and links must eventually move and aggregate. One always seeks to find these aggregations as they come into being.

Fittingly, the requirement becomes obvious. One has to anticipate, seek, discover, and track the moving parts of the causes connecting to the links—ultimately the effects. This activity must occur, and the three elements of the trio must couple. But finding them, when they purposefully mask their shapes and movements, becomes problematic. While some prove false and others spurious, a portion of these movements will prove authentic and important because they intend to connect with the enemy’s will, strategic aim, goals, objectives, and strategies. Once one discovers traces of the causes and links, perhaps from the emanation of energy coursing through their ‘veins,’ the next step involves surmising the enemy’s desired outcome, or in our parlance, the effect becomes possible.

With the links and the causes in hand, one has the power to preempt the enemy’s necessary preparatory actions. This power becomes possible when one thinks like their enemy and possess a good idea of this enemy’s intended outcomes (effects). Once again though, this mental work comes before events happen, and it must be from the enemy’s perspective. It is inside his thought processes that one seeks, senses, and views the enemy’s pressures (emotional, cultural, and physical) before they happen, and subsequently manipulate the pressures before this foe acts and, of course as the actions—cause—link—effect occur. Once again, one has arranged the enemy’s mind.

Maxim Two, Seize Advantages from the Adversary’s Perspectives of Truths.

Know that his ‘truths’ hover and flit about in his mind. Recognize the importance of realizing these truth’s penchant to change. Determine and manipulate the criteria the enemy uses for selecting and applying the veracity of truths and its influence on his acceptance of facts as true or false. Identify, search for, find, and exploit these criteria and use it to suborn his decisions to one’s intended outcomes as he unwittingly accepts the veracity of data one has led him to accept. Follow along deep in one’s mind and the enemy’s as one has inserted the data, criteria, of truth and fact that is supposed to guide his thinking to one’s intended outcomes. Lead the enemy to use self-developed criteria for veracity of data, information, and knowledge while assessing outcomes of his impositions of will and adapts to his next cycle of action. Await the enemy’s next actions with one’s desired action’s mutants.

Advantages prove plentiful to combatants in battle who can discern the difference between truth and falsehood. But such battles of minds can render any mind susceptible to confusion, shadows of unknowns, apparitions, and risk, as human beings in extremis fight against their fears. An opening appears when a one thinks like their adversary as he interprets and understands data from outcomes of actions in the operational context from two perspectives—his own and his adversary’s. Processes for choosing truth are sensitive to the play of chance and variables, which always cause the scourge of vulnerability to appear. Finding truth requires data, information, knowledge, facts, and evidence and the wise leader understands, through thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting, the differences among all.

Narratives prove important and one must anticipate the battles of narratives that appear and travel with any kind of battles. These narratives come from shaped data the friendly forces injects into in the enemy’s recursion cycles and intelligence data gathering efforts. They constitute the sine qua non of the enemy’s decision and co-evolution processes. In particular, one learns how this enemy plans to assesses his and his enemy’s actions and subsequent adaptations.

Maxim Three, Attack the Adversary’s Assessment Cycle and Its Need For Recursive Data

Of further consequence, one must learn how the opponent receives feedback on his actions, as well as his enemy’s actions. The need to assess action drives the demand for specialized, value-laden data; but the difficulty comes because he has to gather it. Thus, one anticipates how the enemy gathers the data he seeks and plans to borrow a portion of it. Quickly and surreptitiously one must mine those slivers of data. This effort includes the enemy’s gathered data and data that flows from the context given hypothesized conditions. Data mining occurs from the data streams constituting his intelligence collection and recursion cycles. One’s intent is to study it, massage it, and ever so furtively and gently, reinject it into the enemy’s data flow and into the sources of collection he deems most reliable.

Understanding the enemy’s data flows prove important because data becomes information and information becomes knowledge and with knowledge the enemy can reduce risk with his intended actions. These gains enable one to think as the enemy thinks. Anticipating the enemy’s actions, all the while knowing the criteria for judging the quality of derivative actions, leads to discovering how the enemy thinks adaptation is working. Through this mental process, it is possible to attack enemy plans at their inception via the normal flow of his thoughts into technical machines, organization flows, and decision processes. And, one must discover the criteria he uses to judge the quality of his derivative actions, and in so doing, one discovers how well the enemy thinks the planned adaptation will work in a variety of scenarios. An epiphany bursts on the stage of strife. Could it be that one could find this to be a way to attack his plans and strategy because it creates ways to shape and indeed manipulate the enemy’s mind to make his actions, appearances, and choices where and when one will be waiting when he comes? And, as an additional benefit, lo and behold, the birth of a derivative requirement appears and never departs. That is, while attacking the opponent’s act, assess, adapt and recursion elements of will, one protects attacks on his own flows.

Conflicting entities require feedback—on their actions, on their opponent’s actions, and the operational context. Feedback, essential for co-evolution, which all competing entities must experience, is always at play and directly ties with thinking, making decisions, and adaptation. Without feedback, good decisions, and adaptation, the entity can become extinct either by self-destruction or obliteration by an enemy. Thus, striving to unpack and use Sun Tzu’s aphorism, ‘a way’ involves feedback. Now, feedback means:

… outputs of a system … routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop.^[[2]] The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems: Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole.^[[3]]

Thus, one must obtain, either passively, actively, or accidentally, the data, information, and or knowledge that informs how this enemy’s actions or plans perform and how he sees friendly actions or plans perform. It is crucial for successfully attacking and defeating the enemy’s strategies and plans. The enemy needs high-value data to assess his outcomes of action, outcome of one’s actions, and changes in the operational context brought about by influxes of data and changes coming from nonlinear systems. The requests for data and subsequent collection come forth as opportunities to attack the enemy’s plans at their inception directly or indirectly through deception. Intercept and alter the enemy’s gathered assessment data so he believes it to be true, but as one dictates its appearance. Data carries value and validation to the enemy’s mind. Or, it could carry misinformation, disinformation, or deception from multiple angles and perspectives orchestrated across all domains and levels of conflict.

Maxim Four, Understand the Phenomenon of Will. 

Will is the central idea in any conflict. It is the enemy’s will, in stasis or in motion as action, that breathes life into the causes, links, and effects essential for achieving desired outcomes. This requires the importance of affecting will’s 14 essential elements^[[4]] including life force, purpose, capabilities, strength of motive, perseverance, determination, disadvantage, advantage, passion, sacrifice, imposition, action, assess, adapt. This requires learning about how the enemy thinks about these vital elements of will and attacking them while protecting one’s own elements. This also means keeping in mind how some of these elements shift in size and importance, e.g., passion and sacrifice, perseverance and determination. Knowing this thought model opens the door to understanding what is valuable at particular moments in time. It also serves to focus friendly assaults on the enemy’s essential elements and protecting friendly elements, which could be different than one’s indigenous, original view because these come through the eyes and mind of the adversary.

This maxim involves understanding will sufficiently well to comprehend the enemy’s thinking and impending actions. Remember, will is the central idea in all conflict. Recognize and attack the enemy’s 14 critical elements of will and know with certainty that he will be attacking one’s critical aspects of will. Know how the enemy thinks about each of his elements. Anticipate how the enemy anticipates his foe’s attacks and subsequent off-sets, deception, or protection. The capability to deceive awaits combatants in each element. Shape this thinking via thought, action, deception, assessing outcomes, and adapting faster and more effectively than any enemy.

Maxim Five—Attack the Enemy’s Mind.

A thinking enemy always follows a simple thought model— perceive, think, plan, act, assess, and adapt. While these elements appear simple and important to the whole per se, they are but a smaller, nested aggregate in a larger aggregation. So, there is the presence of more important steps in this whole of thinking and these must be found. Accordingly, one peeks behind the enemy’s curtain of secrecy and into the framework of his mind. There, one discovers the enemy’s thought cycle and finds 13 aggregated steps at work. These steps include—perceive, think, plan, decide, act, assess, observe, collect, recompose, synthesize, evaluate, learn, and adapt. Any enemy must use some of the steps depending on situational variables; thus, this aggregation proves particularly vulnerable to friendly thinking and actions.

One must know and engage in anticipatory analysis to not only think as the enemy thinks, but to design actions to beat him while attempting to engage some or all of these 13 steps. They open a series of windows into the enemy’s mind—the windows are, of course, the 13 steps or variations therein, depending on context and his enemy’s actions. Once through any window, one finds themselves in the vortex of the enemy’s mind and can begin to understand how he is thinking, what he plans by way of action or non action, and how he thinks the friendlies think. One has options; one can preempt. One can preempt his preemption.

Also, of interest, one can hold off any action and let the enemy think he has one, two or all six elements of advantage at beck and call. Thus, while entering the enemy’s mind, understand how he thinks about and uses these elements. If appropriate, consider preempting or shaping the enemy’s thinking, decisions, and subsequent actions for gaining advantages. Seizing and holding some or even all of the seven advantages is essential. Identify the advantages the enemy depends on and how it or they stay true or become untrue in the enemy’s mind, and thus pave the way to deception.

Maxim Six, Wargame the Enemy’s Wargaming.

This maxim sounds easy, but it is difficult to do. Notwithstanding, it is the surest way to visit the enemy’s mind and think as the he thinks in order to outthink him. Obviously, ‘intellectually challenging’ best describes this aphorism. Think how the enemy thinks about how you think is complicated by its very nature because the maxim asks for a suspension of reality and to think like the opponent. The requirement is—enter his mind and think like he thinks you think.

To take advantage of what one learns about each step/process—singularly or together—to think as the enemy thinks, one has to wargame the enemy’s wargaming.^[[5]] This idea is more complicated than others and thus demands more consideration. Know that wargaming the enemy’s wargaming grades out as the easiest maxim for identifying technical implications to help people succeed in this deep incursion into thought. Quite simply, a need arises for synthetic contexts to represent or model the actual context that surrounds the impending battle of wills. In today’s age, human minds are insufficient when alone; there must be machine learning (ML), very smart Avatars, empowered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative adversarial networks (GAN), and augmented reality (AR) to reveal the enemy’s characteristics and his range of actions. This avatar, one programs to become smarter with experience over time, represents how an opponent from this culture thinks, imbued, of course, with the rules that drive the culture, and the action models in which the culture and its rules guide. This demands technology to bring to reality the notion of surrogate travel in virtual reality.^[[6]] This would require the fidelity to intrude into actual reality so as to anticipate the enemy’s causes—links—effects. This means including the transformations from idea to reality to linkage among the causes (actions), and links to empower his desired effects.

Another visit to the enemy’s mind is warranted, and several requirements compete for attention. On this venture, one pushes further into the enemy’s thought routines. Such wargaming requires one to determine how this foe imagines, assesses, and assembles probabilities to select actions. Questioning and delving into what constitutes the enemy’s knowledge and how he finds existing knowledge, improves upon existing knowledge, or develops new knowledge. Likewise, one seeks answers to focused questions:

How does he plan? How does he collect data and information? How does he decide? How does he plan to correct his misconceptions? How does veracity play into his choice of truth or false? Does knowledge or data drive decisions? How does he off-set risk? How does he resolve issues among truth, fact, and fiction? How does he audit his analysis and collection system if they are not producing what he expects or if large gaps in data, information, or knowledge exist?

Finding answers to these questions based on their knowledge of this enemy, and his will, aim, goals, objectives, strategy, and tactics is essential. Realizing how the enemy’s culture and its attendant rules guide his thinking and action models. One feeds these questions to the friendly intelligence system. It is this system that provides knowledge and synthesis that helps to clarify and understand the wholes and their viscera at play and how they aggregate one to the other. Through this one can discern the enemy’s mission, tasks, how he plans to assess his competitor, his view of operational context, domains of conflict, and—of course—strategy. Here one determines why the enemy accepts or rejects data as factual or rubbish, and how he values, trusts, or distrusts data. Thus, the enemy’s process of establishing truth, generally and specifically, becomes known; it is imperative for success or failure.

One must learn to think how an enemy would think about each element of strategic thought that he thinks one would use. This thinking though, is from the enemy’s perspective. A few examples of the 27 elements of strategic thought one can use for wargaming the enemy’s wargaming includes—will, aim, goals, objectives, resources, constraints, strategies, tactics, context, decisive points, pressure points, centres of gravity, Clausewitz’s trinity, observed/observer relationships, duality, time, risk, co-evolution, adaptation, condition setting, and so forth. This is important for designing one’s actions to counter the enemy’s that emanates from how he thinks you think about each element, e.g., strategy and subsequent actions. Think about von Moltke in the Franco-Prussian War and how he entrapped the French Army at Sedan. You can find historical evidence that indeed this is an avenue of approach into thinking about and application of Sun Tzu’s aphorism. With this maxim, one peeks behind a dense curtain of secrecy that protects the enemy’s mind. The mother-lode appears—it is the enemy’s mind, his worldview, and how this enemy thinks to gain advantages, openly or subtlety. More knowledge exists about ‘how to’ wargame the enemy’s wargaming should a desire arise to pursue this maxim in greater depth.^[[7]]

Maxim six also emboldens one to engage in foreknowledge (awareness of something before it happens—Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press). Please recall our earlier discussion of the subject and importance of Sun Tzu’s idea of foreknowledge in this kind of anticipation. In any work with foreknowledge, one needs knowledge of the enemy, the situation from his view, and the context. One can gain such ‘filler’ for foreknowledge from people and machines that possess such knowledge and for them to act as a double for the enemy’s thinking and actions.

Another historical example comes to mind and helps one think about the ideas in this article. It involves the Japanese attack on Singapore early in WWII. The time is December 1941 in the Pacific. The British hold what their Prime Minister, Winston Churchill thought to be the impregnable fortress of Singapore, along with the Malayan Raj. Their adversary, the Japanese, mount a diverse series of attacks all across the Pacific—in addition to the Pearl Harbor surprise strike, Japanese military forces attack Burma, The Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and even the Philippines. Reputed to be unassailable, Singapore, in reality, was not the citadel Churchill had imagined. Its defenders were from several nations, e.g., Great Britain, Australia, India, Malaya and some were not well-trained. British air power could not compete with the Japanese in numbers and quality. And, there was confusion as to whether Singapore should be thought of first and foremost as a naval base controlling seaborne traffic in the Strait of Malacca or as a land fortress bastion anchoring the British strategic position in the region. The British high command thought of a Japanese landward attack on Singapore island originating from the north—Malaya—to be impossible owing to the heavy jungle and believing the terrain to be unusable by armour. Richard B. Frank relates Japanese awareness of Commonwealth vulnerabilities:

Tokyo detailed the Twenty-Fifth Army under General Tomoyuki Yamashita to conquer Singapore … Yamashita’s army comprised what were regarded widely as the three best Imperial Army divisions … and Lt. Col. Masanobu Tsuji, Yamashita’s talented chief operations officer.’ Contrary to later assertions, the Imperial Army devoted no rigorous attention to Malaya before August 1940. But during the next year, the Taiwan Army Research Section developed a very sound battle doctrine for the forthcoming campaign … including a near travelogue on Malaya with helpful insight on native customs, and a ‘know your enemy’ section highlighting as weaknesses the multiracial diversity of British forces^[[8]] … There was hard calculation behind Yamashita’s optimism. Japanese planners were by now well briefed on British weaknesses.^[[9]]

The Japanese had done their homework in evaluating their adversary and the environment. They knew themselves and they knew their enemy. The British command, however, learned these things after hostilities began—and by then it was too late. John Toland relates:

On January 7 General Wavell, chose at ‘Arcadia’ to command the entire area, flew from his headquarters in Bandung in Java to Singapore on a brief inspection tour. The previous night fifteen Japanese tanks had burst through the front lines of the 11th Indian Division … less than 250 air miles from Singapore itself. There wasn’t a single allied tank in all Malaya to stop them; British experts had decreed that armour was unsuited for jungle warfare.

Wavell returned to Singapore to inspect the defences on the north side of the great fortress island. He found nothing, not even detailed plans for resistance against land attack. To his consternation, he also learned that almost all of the island’s great guns facing the sea could not be turned around to fire at the advancing Japanese…

Churchill was dumbfounded by Wavell’s report from Singapore, far from being impregnable, was almost naked. He blamed himself for putting his faith in Fortress Singapore and hastily penned this note for his Chiefs of Staff: ‘I must admit to being staggered by Wavell’s telegram of the 16th … It never occurred to me for a moment … that the gorge of the fortress of Singapore with its splendid mote half a mile to a mile wide, was not entirely fortified against an attack from the northward. What is the use of having an island for a fortress if it is not to be made into a citadel? … I have repeatedly shown that I relied upon this defence of Singapore Island against a formal siege, and never relied on the Kra Isthmus plan [Singapore as a naval base] …’

From the first the enemy had kept the British off balance in Malaya. Outnumbered more than two to one, the Japanese never stopped to consolidate a gain, to regroup or wait for supplies; they surged down the main roads on thousands of bicycles and in hundreds of abandoned British cars and trucks. Whenever they came to a destroyed bridge, the cyclists waded across the shoulders of engineers.

The accelerating Japanese success was unforeseen on both sides. A captured British engineer told Colonel Tsuji [Yamashita’s operations officer] he had expected the defences in northern Malaya to hold out for at least three months. He said, ‘As the Japanese Army had not beaten the weak Chinese Army after four years of fighting in China, we did not consider it a formidable enemy.^[[10]]

General Yamashita clearly understood the complete surprise he had created with his place and method of attack. He overcame shortages of men and ammunition and fuel by speed, pressure, and a relentless driving force. The Allies did not think the Japanese capable of conducting an attack as savagely and quickly as happened. They failed to wargame the situation to discover and then remedy its unfavourable features, much less wargame the adversary’s wargaming and use the insights. Imagine what might have been learned, had the Allied Commanding Generals asked their doppelganger of the Japanese operation officer, Lt. Col. Tsuji, to defeat their plan. Even better, one would love to be able to ask Lt. Col. Tsuji’s actual doppelganger, or LTG Yamashita himself, to defeat their own plan.

Attacking through the jungle and bringing artillery and light tanks across terrain thought to be impassible to armour surprised the British. Their lines of defence and command and control proved erratic and reactionary. Shock, speed, and constant action enabled Yamashita to seize, use, and keep several advantages including initiative, tempo, momentum, decision, position, and freedom of movement. He realized the advantages his forces achieved by their swift and relentless attack through the dense jungle of the forgotten land to the north of Singapore, which totally surprised the Allies. Yamashita anticipated and swiftly solved problem sets and vigorously acted.^[[11]] He did not give his counterparts time to think, plan, act, assess, or adapt. Since his actions were not considered either probable or possible, he dictated the allies’ actions while on the move and thus attacked their strategy at their inception not just once but multiple times because he was causing reactions to appear as viable plans in the allied commanders’ minds and Yamashita was waiting for them. It was an incredible accomplishment and in so many ways serves us to pay attention and learn how to think about attacking the enemy’s strategy and plans at their inception. It can and should be done!

Conclusion

Purposeful preparation, deep thinking, and life-long learning lead to a continuing, learning, aggressive state of intellectual readiness. Such a state of being proves necessary to use Sun Tzu’s aphorisms to gain and hold advantages over the enemy. This paper postulates the essential mental attributes one must possess for winning in bouts of mental combat. Generally, these attributes don’t come with birth; therefore, most people have to learn ‘how to think’ as this paper describes. It is difficult, but doable. Know well though, even capable minds must work hard to learn ‘how to think’ about attacking the enemy’s mind and possessing insights about the playground for attacking his strategies and plans at their inception.

It should be obvious by now that people who attempt to put Sun Tzu’s aphorisms to work must have a method of thinking with wholes and viscera, or contents within, an understanding of the nature of contexts, usable thought models, explanatory concepts, supporting readings, and historical works, so as to learn ‘how to think’ about this challenge. Accordingly, people must recognize the need to stimulate and shape minds with purpose and intent, for developing the thinking sufficient to first think about, comprehend, and then to put Sun Tzu’s aphorisms into use.

To succeed in using Sun Tzu’s aphorisms, people have to learn to think as this article advocates—deeply. With a reading of Sun Tzu’s works, it is obvious he thought via wholes and the details therein.^[[12]] This approach to thinking provides a view of and access to a chaotic world of shifting actions, connections under many guises, and a variety of perspectives. Such a view helps one find the right ‘trios’ (cause—link—effect), as they change from a probability of cause, converting into a cause, connecting with a link, and activating the effect. More specifically, some of the thinking skills one needs to emulate Sun Tzu’s thinking about wholes involve learning to think via analysis, synthesis, fragmentation, coalescence, disaggregation, aggregation, relationships, combinations,

 

Footnotes

^[1] T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 195.

^[2] Andrew Ford, “Chapter 9: Information feedback and causal loop diagrams,” Modelling the Environment (Island Press, 2010), 99.

^[3] Karl Johan Åström; Richard M. Murray (2008). ” What is feedback?” in Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 1.

^[4] Hall, The Power of Will In International Conflict, 128.

^[5] Ibid, 287-336.

^[6] Wayne Michael Hall, Stray Voltage War In The Information Age (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003), 153-154.

^[7] Hall, The Power of Will In International Conflict,1-345.

^[8] Richard B. Frank, Tower of Skulls A History of the Pacific War, July 1937-May 1942 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2020), 345-346.

^[9] Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 114.

^[10] John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945, Volume 1 (New York: Random House, 1970), 335-337.

^[11] LTG Yamashita was known as The Tiger of Malaya that he earned by his conquering all of Malaya and Singapore in 70 days.

^[12] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 65.