Sun Tzu’s Grade: FAIL
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
Twice, Trump has declared war on the most powerful news outlet speaking to voters in his party, in both cases because he decided it’d disrespected him.
Sun Tzu’s Grade: FAIL
Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
Now here’s an intriguing one. What if Trump’s alleged stumbles are simply setting a trap? So far, every candidate who has directly attacked Trump has seen his own stock fall—except Ben Carson, who quickly backed off. Perhaps he’s projecting weakness to lure them in, so it’s too soon to tell.
Sun Tzu’s Grade: INCOMPLETE
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
More than anything, Trump has shown his ability to pick a fight where it’s most effective. Needless to say, he wasn’t going to win a wonk battle with Jeb Bush. But by assailing Bush as low-energy, he found his opponent’s weakness and has ruthlessly exploited it; Bush’s standing in the polls has sunk consistently since Trump’s entry.
Sun Tzu’s Grade: PASS
Ponder and deliberate before you make a move .... Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength. Keep your army continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans.
We’ve already addressed Trump’s apparently rash strategies on some matters, but credit where it’s due: He’s the master of unfathomable plans. “I do know what to do and I would know how to bring ISIS to the table or, beyond that, defeat ISIS very quickly,” he said in May. “And I'm not gonna tell you what it is tonight” because “I don't want the enemy to know what I'm doing.” Often his answer to a quandary is that he’ll hire great people. No one can claim to be fathoming these plans.
Sun Tzu’s Grade: PASS
What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.
Here we have a classic formulation of the need for a good opposition-research team for digging up dirt on political opponents. In his debate performances and on the stump, Trump has demonstrated a strong familiarity with critiques of his rivals that are appearing in the media and has wielded them to great effect, but he doesn’t appear to have any original oppo researchers on his side, nor trackers at his rivals’ campaign events—the modern-day political equivalent of Sun Tzu’s spies.