On War

I’m reading The Art of War, edited by John Minford. I found there an interested passage. It is a quote from Records of the Grand Historian, which was written by Sima Qian in 109 BC – 91 BC. I feel this text would be an appropriate commentary to today’s policy of U.S.

Records of the Grand Historian, Chapter 112

It is said in The Art of War, “For an army of a hundred thousand soldiers, one must spend  thousand taels of silver a day.” The Qin forces were constantly raising large numbers of troops, several hundreds of thousands at a time. Although they succeeded in defeating armies, slaying generals, and taking prisoners from among the barbarians, this only had the effect of stirring up bitter hatred and deep resentment toward Qui; it did not make up for the huge costs to the country. To empty the state coffers and to wear out the common people, simply in order to have one’s way with a foreign nation, is not a sound policy.

This quote can be found on Google Books.