Yu Sheng (from the 24th issue of “Learning Lamp”)

Many years ago, I read an anthropologist’s observation of a primitive tribal “war.” I still remember it clearly. Although I don’t have the relevant documents at hand, this is common anthropological knowledge: two sides lined up facing each other, about fifty meters apart. Each side had thirty or forty men, lined up in a row, each holding a javelin. They shouted insults at each other, occasionally throwing javelins at one another, but not all at once; only one or two people, unable to contain their anger, threw javelins, indicating a lack of discipline. Such javelin throwing didn’t necessarily hit anyone, as there was time to dodge. After shouting and cursing for a long time, an accident suddenly occurred: someone was shot, and the injury was so severe that both sides immediately retreated home. Occasionally, ambushes occurred, and the attacked side would also attempt to ambush the other side in retaliation. This greatly affected normal life and production, forcing both sides to negotiate and stop the ambushes. In millions of years of human history, the scale and brutality of such wars have remained unchanged, without increasing in frequency.

Warfare during the reign of Duke Xiang of Song was not the same, but the practice of lining up and launching attacks was essentially the same as not attacking, indicating that warfare at that time still retained characteristics of primitive tribal and ethnic violent conflicts. This was related to the socio-economic conditions of the time. The military strength of various states had not yet reached the point of controlling all the land and population within their borders; peasants could migrate freely. This is why Confucius discussed the issue of attracting distant peasants to his side through virtuous governance three times in the *Analects*. Chinese peasants at that time had the option to choose among the various states, much like contemporary Western voters choosing between different political parties. Nixon, who broke the rules in his election campaign, was forced to resign. In the Spring and Autumn Period, those who broke the rules and launched surprise attacks were similarly despised, as Guan Zhong said, “Those who do not seek small gains for personal pleasure will lose the support of the world.”

Wars in the early stages of Mediterranean civilization, the origin of Western civilization, were not like this. Ancient Mediterranean civilizations, with Mesopotamia and Egypt as the earliest, later gave rise to ancient Greek and Jewish civilizations, the sources of Western civilization. This led to competition among numerous civilizations, with Mesopotamia and ancient Greece themselves dividing into many independent city-states, which were constantly at war with each other. Compared to China’s unification of the world, the West initially resembled the biblical account of brothers killing each other. Mesopotamia and ancient Greece, in particular, were characterized by commerce and wealth accumulation. Existing family structures broke down, and free individuals formed city-states located along rivers and coasts, becoming hubs for transportation and trade. Wars in this context were no longer the violent conflicts of primitive societies constrained by human nature, nor were they a way to resolve disputes on an equal footing. Their purpose was the plunder of wealth, resources, and slaves. They typically killed all the men of the defeated nation and sold women and children into slavery. This provided the economic foundation and social mechanism for wealth accumulation and escalating wars, forming a tradition of warfare where the strong preyed on the weak, making the strong stronger. The culture of wealth accumulation built on commerce and slavery controls the means of production within a social mechanism controlled by a minority, encompassing the entire population. An individual cannot survive outside this existing social mechanism. Ancient China did not establish such a two-tiered social operating mechanism.

During the Warring States period, China entered a secondary society. The military power of the various states grew to the point where they controlled all the land and population within their territories. Under these circumstances, China adopted the Asiatic mode of production as described by Marxism: peasants were not slaves of slave owners, but slaves of autocratic rulers. In Confucius’s time, the states sought to attract peasants from distant lands through virtuous governance; these peasants were not slaves to anyone. To survive, like ancient Greece, the states of Warring States period formed loose alliances to maintain a balance of power, ultimately being conquered by a culturally less advanced but more militarized local power in a remote region, leading to unification. The presence or absence of vestiges of the original social order reveals the following differences:

The Athens and Sparta alliances in ancient Greece, with their differing political systems, maintained a relatively stable alliance, unlike the shifting power dynamics of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in China, where individual states vied for hegemony. Even after the Warring States period began, powerful Chinese states still aspired to hegemony, a desire absent in ancient Greece. Furthermore, powerful Chinese states tended to choose their own titles, such as king or emperor, for self-respect, a tendency absent in ancient Greece. China witnessed a rise in cultural authoritarianism aimed at unifying thought and institutions, a phenomenon absent in ancient Greece. The powerful Qin state in China employed the strategy of “befriending distant states while attacking nearby ones,” employing tactics of inflicting casualties on the enemy, while ancient Greece enslaved captives. These differences led to the eventual unification by force: in China, it was one of many states, while in ancient Greece, it was equivalent to the external power of the Macedonian kingdom. All these differences stemmed from China’s misconception that the two-tiered society of the Warring States period was still a primitive society, whereas ancient Greece possessed a profound understanding of the nature of a two-tiered society.

29. The Differences Between Eastern and Western Warfare Cultures:
(IV) Sun Tzu’s Art of War and the Ancient Greek Phalanx: Differences Between Eastern and Western Warfare Cultures

author By Dr. You-Sheng Li

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