This is Volume Two (27 articles) of Sun Tzu's Art of War Rule Book. This second part of the Rule Book focuses on Sun Tzu's concepts for understanding the role of information in competition and developing communication networks.
The Rule Book itself is the culmination of over a decade of work breaking down Sun Tzu's principles into a series of step-by-step practical articles by the Institute's multiple award-winning author and internationally recognized Art of War expert, Gary Gagliardi. The work explains the concepts in the verses of Sun Tzu's classic on strategy in detail, explaining the situations to which they apply the steps in Sun Tzu's system for using them with examples from modern competition. While the original Art of War was originally written for military generals who understood the philosophical concepts of ancient China, our Art of War Rule Book is written for today's readers and provide enough descriptive material so that Sun Tzu's ideas can actually be used in everyday life. Because of its size and detail, the Rule Book is published in nine volumes.
This is the first volume. The topics covered in this volume are listed below:
Rule Book Overview
About Developing Perspective
2.0.0 Developing Perspective
2.1 Information Value
2.1.1 Information Limits
2.1.2 Leveraging Uncertainty
2.1.3 Strategic Deception
2.1.4 Surprise
2.2 Information Gathering
2.2.1 Personal Relationships
2.2.2 Mental Models
2.2.3 Standard Terminology
2.3 Personal Interactions
2.3.1 Action and Reaction
2.3.2 Reaction Unpredictability
2.3.3 Likely Reactions
2.3.4 Using Questions
2.3.5 Infinite Loops
2.3.6 Promises and Threats
2.4 Contact Networks 3
2.4.1 Ground Perspective
2.4.2 Climate Perspective
2.4.3 Command Perspective
2.4.4 Methods Perspective
2.4.5 Mission Perspective
2.5 The Big Picture
2.6 Knowledge Leverage
2.7 Information Secrecy
These articles are written in standard format including original Art of War verse or verses describing the concept, the genera principle in more modern terms, the situation to which the rule is applied or which necessitates the rule, the opportunity created or exploited by the concept, the list of specific Art of War Rules breaking down the general idea into steps with a reference to related articles, and illustrations of those step to a specific competitive arena, i.e. business, politics, etc. Rules are written generically to apply to every competitive arena with each specific illustrations drawn from one of these areas.
Articles are references by a number and title. The initial number identifies where each article appears in Rule Book Structure.
The Nine Parts of the Rule Book cover the following topics:
1. Comparing Positions,
2. Developing Perspective,
3. Identifying Opportunities,
4. Leveraging Probability,
5. Minimizing Mistakes,
6. Responding To Situations,
7. Creating Momentum,
8. Winning Rewards, and
9. Defending Vulnerabilities.
