The third chapter contains the Art of War's most celebrated teaching: supreme excellence in warfare consists not in winning every battle, but in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting at all. This chapter establishes the hierarchy of strategic options and introduces the famous axiom about knowing oneself and the enemy.

The title 谋攻 (Móugōng) combines 谋 (Móu, strategy or planning) with 攻 (Gōng, attack). The attack that is planned — that defeats the enemy through superior strategy rather than superior violence — is the highest form of military art.

The Hierarchy of Victory

Sūnzǐ establishes a clear ranking of strategic options, from best to worst:

1. Defeat the enemy's strategy (伐谋 Fámóu) — Neutralize the opponent's plan before it can be executed.
2. Disrupt the enemy's alliances (伐交 Fájiāo) — Isolate the opponent by severing his relationships and support.
3. Defeat the enemy's army (伐兵 Fábīng) — Engage and overcome the opposing force in the field.
4. Besiege the enemy's cities (攻城 Gōngchéng) — The worst option, requiring enormous resources and producing devastating casualties.

The principle is clear: the further up this hierarchy you can resolve the conflict, the less destruction results. Taking an enemy's state whole and intact is better than shattering it. Capturing an army intact is better than destroying it. The logic applies at every scale.

Supreme Excellence

The chapter's defining statement: 百战百胜，非善之善者也；不战而屈人之兵，善之善者也 — Fighting a hundred battles and winning every one is not the highest skill. Subduing the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.

This passage has profound resonance with Daoist martial philosophy. The Dàodéjīng's teaching that the softest thing overcomes the hardest, that water wears down stone, that the Dào accomplishes everything through non-action (Wú Wéi) — all of these find their martial-strategic expression in Sūnzǐ's hierarchy. The Wudang combat principle 后发先至 (Hòu fā xiān zhì — start later, arrive first) operates on the same logic: the ideal response negates the opponent's attack at its inception, before full contact is needed.

Know the Enemy, Know Yourself

The chapter closes with the text's most famous passage:

知彼知己，百战不殆 — Know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will not be in danger.

Know yourself but not the enemy: for every victory, a defeat. Know neither yourself nor the enemy: defeat in every engagement.

This is the foundation of all Wudang partner practice. In Tuīshǒu (推手, push hands), the practitioner simultaneously develops two capacities: Tīngjìn (听劲, listening energy) to perceive the opponent's intention and structure, and self-awareness to know one's own balance, alignment, and readiness. The practitioner who can read the opponent while maintaining structural integrity has already won — just as the general who understands both armies can forecast the battle's outcome before it begins.

The Five Essentials for Victory

Sūnzǐ identifies five conditions that guarantee success: knowing when to fight and when not to; understanding how to handle superior and inferior forces; ensuring unity of purpose throughout all ranks; being prepared while the enemy is not; and possessing military capacity without interference from above. These are not tactics — they are conditions of readiness that make victory a matter of inevitability rather than chance.