3.15

Chapter: Attack by Stratagem 3.15
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Translation:

(3) By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers.

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Commentary

When people at the top order people way down the tree of command, it both undermines more senior officers and creates conflicts of loyalty in the ordered person.

Such decisions may also be made with insufficient understanding of local conditions.

Rigid and blind commands from senior officers have been the downfall of many troops. The rules of war change and fighting by the rules of the previous war brings doom. In the First World War, the orders for steady advance with bayonets fixed met the new machine guns, with ensuing carnage and waste.