"The Use of Spies"

Something that Sun Tzu stresses throughout the entire book is the condition of knowing the enemy. If an army's commander knows all of his enemy's dispositions, he will be able to predict with pinpoint accuracy the moves that his enemy will make and will thus be able to modify his own strategy to compensate for the enemy's. In the final chapter, of the book, Tzu finally explains how to obtain the critical knowledge that is so essential to victory. Because "raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State," spies are needed to reduce the strain. The rest of the chapter is focused on the different ways spies can be positioned into an enemy position and the different ways they can be used to someone's advantage. The primary goal of a spy is to provide knowledge of the enemy that can only be obtained from the inside. However spies can also serve other purposes such as assassination. On the other hand, an enemy's spies must be "sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed." They can be converted into double agents. I see particularly in this chapter the applications of the strategies mentioned in Tzu's book in today's world. Espionage is so prevalent today that many countries know that spies are present within their borders but do not know how to seek them out. Almost every major nations has an agency specifically dedicated to spying such as the renowned CIA and KGB (former).. These agencies send a network of spies to other countries even in times of peace. They gather intelligence that can either avert or instigate a nuclear war.