John F Sullivan
@johnfsullivan.bsky.social
Former U.S. Army China Foreign Area Officer currently studying ancient Chinese military & strategic texts and arguing for the need to study and debate them more broadly within our own military PME and academic institutions.
While Kissinger remains the most famous modern American strategist within the name dropping set in China, amongst serious Chinese strategic thinkers, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and particularly this 1997 book of his, appears to be much more influential in their own writings.
November 9, 2025 at 10:12 PM
While Kissinger remains the most famous modern American strategist within the name dropping set in China, amongst serious Chinese strategic thinkers, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and particularly this 1997 book of his, appears to be much more influential in their own writings.
Liu Huaqing (2001): “Defense development is a gradual accumulation process. We cannot ignore it for a decade or two and then rush to address it when funds are available. Many development projects have long cycles, and if we don’t prioritize key projects, the gap will widen.”
November 2, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Liu Huaqing (2001): “Defense development is a gradual accumulation process. We cannot ignore it for a decade or two and then rush to address it when funds are available. Many development projects have long cycles, and if we don’t prioritize key projects, the gap will widen.”
“Comprehensive national power competition strategy is to compel adversaries not to take military action against oneself while striving to achieve predetermined strategic objectives through non-war means. It uses strength as the material foundation for deterring adversaries. It emphasizes defeating …
November 1, 2025 at 9:23 PM
“Comprehensive national power competition strategy is to compel adversaries not to take military action against oneself while striving to achieve predetermined strategic objectives through non-war means. It uses strength as the material foundation for deterring adversaries. It emphasizes defeating …
Wang Huning (1994): “Marxism first asserts that a communist society is an objective necessity, not a subjective desire of individuals. The internal driving force of historical development & the contradictory movement of various social relations inevitably lead to realization of a communist society.
September 9, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Wang Huning (1994): “Marxism first asserts that a communist society is an objective necessity, not a subjective desire of individuals. The internal driving force of historical development & the contradictory movement of various social relations inevitably lead to realization of a communist society.
“What if, during combat, the division commander orders to go east, but the political commissar orders to go west?”
An explanation of the roles of the operational commander & political commissar within PLA ranks from a 2000 book, "Heart-to-Heart Talks with Leading Cadres" ...
An explanation of the roles of the operational commander & political commissar within PLA ranks from a 2000 book, "Heart-to-Heart Talks with Leading Cadres" ...
September 3, 2025 at 4:33 PM
“What if, during combat, the division commander orders to go east, but the political commissar orders to go west?”
An explanation of the roles of the operational commander & political commissar within PLA ranks from a 2000 book, "Heart-to-Heart Talks with Leading Cadres" ...
An explanation of the roles of the operational commander & political commissar within PLA ranks from a 2000 book, "Heart-to-Heart Talks with Leading Cadres" ...
China has their own equivalents to military strategy academics like Michael Howard and Colin Gray, but because we don't bother translating anything beyond a few niche texts we continue to think everything about Chinese strategy can be gleaned from Sun Tzu, Mao, and Unrestricted Warfare …
August 17, 2025 at 9:03 PM
China has their own equivalents to military strategy academics like Michael Howard and Colin Gray, but because we don't bother translating anything beyond a few niche texts we continue to think everything about Chinese strategy can be gleaned from Sun Tzu, Mao, and Unrestricted Warfare …
Xi Jinping (2013): "Our country's national interests have greatly expanded and our security and development are more closely linked to the outside world. Any disturbance in the international arena could affect our security, particularly the security of our overseas interests ...
August 16, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Xi Jinping (2013): "Our country's national interests have greatly expanded and our security and development are more closely linked to the outside world. Any disturbance in the international arena could affect our security, particularly the security of our overseas interests ...
On the one hand we lament that what CCP leadership thinks is an unknowable black box, yet on the other hand we’ve never even bothered to translate Wang Huning’s magnum opus on the principles of Marxist political thought, a work that heavily influenced Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, & Xi Jinping …
August 3, 2025 at 10:43 PM
On the one hand we lament that what CCP leadership thinks is an unknowable black box, yet on the other hand we’ve never even bothered to translate Wang Huning’s magnum opus on the principles of Marxist political thought, a work that heavily influenced Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, & Xi Jinping …
Xi Jinping doesn’t publicly acknowledges the June 4th Tiananmen crackdown, but in internal speeches to his military leaders he does bring it up as an example where the PLA was severely tested & passed. He usually refers to it as the “political turmoil (政治风波) in spring of 1989
July 26, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Xi Jinping doesn’t publicly acknowledges the June 4th Tiananmen crackdown, but in internal speeches to his military leaders he does bring it up as an example where the PLA was severely tested & passed. He usually refers to it as the “political turmoil (政治风波) in spring of 1989
King Wei of Qi had two governors—one praised to the sky by the king's ministers, the other ceaselessly vilified by the same officials. He dispatches trusted aides to discover the reason. The vilified governor runs an efficient domain, the praised governor runs a decrepit one ...
June 7, 2025 at 6:42 PM
King Wei of Qi had two governors—one praised to the sky by the king's ministers, the other ceaselessly vilified by the same officials. He dispatches trusted aides to discover the reason. The vilified governor runs an efficient domain, the praised governor runs a decrepit one ...
Got tired of waiting for somebody (anybody!) to get around to translating Yang Kuan's classic history of the Warring States era, so finally just did it myself. A link to the first three chapters is posted below if anyone is interested.
May 31, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Got tired of waiting for somebody (anybody!) to get around to translating Yang Kuan's classic history of the Warring States era, so finally just did it myself. A link to the first three chapters is posted below if anyone is interested.
Li Ling: “Some foreign military scholars hold Sun Tzu in extremely high esteem … Sometimes, their high praise surprises even us [Chinese]
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May 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Li Ling: “Some foreign military scholars hold Sun Tzu in extremely high esteem … Sometimes, their high praise surprises even us [Chinese]
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For anyone who might be interested in the Zuozhuan as military history but find it too time consuming, complicated, or expensive (all legitimate complaints), I do have a distillation of the over 600 military actions it documents in a report you can freely access.
May 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM
For anyone who might be interested in the Zuozhuan as military history but find it too time consuming, complicated, or expensive (all legitimate complaints), I do have a distillation of the over 600 military actions it documents in a report you can freely access.
Unfortunately, there is no available English language history of China's extremely influential Spring & Autumn era (770-453 BC), but there are some excellent Chinese language sources. Perhaps the best is "Spring & Autumn History" by Gu Derong (顾德融) and Zhu Shunlong (朱顺龙).
May 10, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Unfortunately, there is no available English language history of China's extremely influential Spring & Autumn era (770-453 BC), but there are some excellent Chinese language sources. Perhaps the best is "Spring & Autumn History" by Gu Derong (顾德融) and Zhu Shunlong (朱顺龙).
Hong Bing's book, "Analysis of Chinese Strategic Principles" 《中国战略原理解析》has a useful framework to think about the foundation of early Chinese strategic thought. I have reproduced the graphic from his text here:
May 10, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Hong Bing's book, "Analysis of Chinese Strategic Principles" 《中国战略原理解析》has a useful framework to think about the foundation of early Chinese strategic thought. I have reproduced the graphic from his text here:
Is it better to view Sun Tzu's Art of War as a method of strategic thinking using the modern definition of STRATEGY or instead a reflection of the original Greek meaning of STRATEGOS, indicating the purview of the general but not necessarily covering broader political themes ...
May 9, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Is it better to view Sun Tzu's Art of War as a method of strategic thinking using the modern definition of STRATEGY or instead a reflection of the original Greek meaning of STRATEGOS, indicating the purview of the general but not necessarily covering broader political themes ...
It is truly a tragedy that the Chinese speaking world has ready access to provocatively engaging, philological & historically grounded Sun Tzu analysis like Huang Pumin’s book, while the English speaking world is left to suffer through Derek Yuen’s “Deciphering Sun Tzu.”
May 4, 2025 at 6:23 PM
It is truly a tragedy that the Chinese speaking world has ready access to provocatively engaging, philological & historically grounded Sun Tzu analysis like Huang Pumin’s book, while the English speaking world is left to suffer through Derek Yuen’s “Deciphering Sun Tzu.”
Huang Pumin: “Profit (利) runs like a red thread through The Art of War. One should rely on all useful methods to destroy the enemy and preserve oneself. Thus, Sun Tzu proposed that when to wage war and how to conduct it depends on 'profit'—whether war benefits oneself.”
May 2, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Huang Pumin: “Profit (利) runs like a red thread through The Art of War. One should rely on all useful methods to destroy the enemy and preserve oneself. Thus, Sun Tzu proposed that when to wage war and how to conduct it depends on 'profit'—whether war benefits oneself.”
Translating a lot of Chinese articles on Sun Tzu & notice many need to go to great lengths to explain away an apparent contradiction: If winning without fighting is the ideal pursuit, why doesn't it adequately explain how to achieve this? There is a simpler way to resolve this.
May 1, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Translating a lot of Chinese articles on Sun Tzu & notice many need to go to great lengths to explain away an apparent contradiction: If winning without fighting is the ideal pursuit, why doesn't it adequately explain how to achieve this? There is a simpler way to resolve this.
In both Gaddis’ “On Grand Strategy” & Kissinger’s “On China” the only references to early Chinese strategic influence they can muster are a few stale Sun Tzu quotes. Meanwhile the best known work in China, Wu Chunqiu’s “Grand Strategy” devotes an entire chapter to the statecraft of Duke Huan of Qi…
April 29, 2025 at 9:41 PM
In both Gaddis’ “On Grand Strategy” & Kissinger’s “On China” the only references to early Chinese strategic influence they can muster are a few stale Sun Tzu quotes. Meanwhile the best known work in China, Wu Chunqiu’s “Grand Strategy” devotes an entire chapter to the statecraft of Duke Huan of Qi…
“Mao was quick to acknowledge that the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, gave him practically all the ideas incorporated into his theory.”
It’s truly amazing how deeply rooted is the idiotic idea that through all of Chinese mil. history, only Sun Tzu has any value.
It’s truly amazing how deeply rooted is the idiotic idea that through all of Chinese mil. history, only Sun Tzu has any value.
April 27, 2025 at 7:11 PM
“Mao was quick to acknowledge that the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, gave him practically all the ideas incorporated into his theory.”
It’s truly amazing how deeply rooted is the idiotic idea that through all of Chinese mil. history, only Sun Tzu has any value.
It’s truly amazing how deeply rooted is the idiotic idea that through all of Chinese mil. history, only Sun Tzu has any value.
Fang Ke's 1992 book "Pre-Qin History of Chinese Military Dialectics" is the first work I've encountered which aligns with my contrarian view that Chu's counter-attack plan prior to the 506 BC Battle of Boju would have likely annihilated Sun Tzu's invading force if enacted...
April 26, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Fang Ke's 1992 book "Pre-Qin History of Chinese Military Dialectics" is the first work I've encountered which aligns with my contrarian view that Chu's counter-attack plan prior to the 506 BC Battle of Boju would have likely annihilated Sun Tzu's invading force if enacted...
Guo Huaruo's “Annotated Sun Tzu” notes the main contradiction in the conventional rendering of the 1st verse of Chapter 3 as identifying one's own intention to “preserve the enemy state intact” If this is correct, Sun Tzu fails to adequately explain how one accomplishes this ...
April 24, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Guo Huaruo's “Annotated Sun Tzu” notes the main contradiction in the conventional rendering of the 1st verse of Chapter 3 as identifying one's own intention to “preserve the enemy state intact” If this is correct, Sun Tzu fails to adequately explain how one accomplishes this ...
“Clausewitz claimed his book contained a kernel [of war's truth], but disappointingly, On War barely reveals it. He seems to acknowledge this writing in his preface [of a future individual who might be able to turn the kernel into a whole]. In fact, that greater mind already existed—Sun Tzu.”
April 20, 2025 at 10:07 PM
“Clausewitz claimed his book contained a kernel [of war's truth], but disappointingly, On War barely reveals it. He seems to acknowledge this writing in his preface [of a future individual who might be able to turn the kernel into a whole]. In fact, that greater mind already existed—Sun Tzu.”
Jomini: “I acknowledge that my prejudices are in favor of the good old times when the French & English guards courteously invited each other to fire first—as at Fontenoy—preferring them to the frightful epoch when priests, women, and children throughout Spain plotted the murder of isolated soldiers”
April 18, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Jomini: “I acknowledge that my prejudices are in favor of the good old times when the French & English guards courteously invited each other to fire first—as at Fontenoy—preferring them to the frightful epoch when priests, women, and children throughout Spain plotted the murder of isolated soldiers”