The White House has fought this war by the book: specifically, a book written by a Chinese military strategist who died some 25 centuries ago. The Art of War, the manual combining common sense with uncommon perception written by the warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu, has been repeatedly cited by American commanders during the Iraq conflict. It is required reading at top US military colleges, and its tenets have been adapted into the fighting doctrines of both the US Army and the Marines. General Tommy Franks can recite much of Sun Tzu by heart, and he deploys his aphorisms at every opportunity. Sun’s treatise has even been distributed to GIs in a new Services paperback edition.

Cunning, deliberate and brutally realistic, Sun Tzu helped the warlord king of the ancient Chinese state of Wu to achieve a series of remarkable military victories in late 6th century BC at one point overcoming an enemy army of 300,000 men with a force one tenth that size.

China’s first emperor, the samurai and Mao Zedong all adopted, in various ways, Sun’s oblique and psychologically sophisticated approach to warfare, which relies as much on messing with your enemy’s head as cutting it off. It is perhaps unsurprising that Master Sun’s succinct one-liners should have found such favour within the Bush Administration, which prides itself on directness.

Harlan Ullman, the military strategist who conceived the term “shock and awe” in 1996, specifically cites Sun, as does the Defence Department, which says: “Sun was well aware of the crucial importance of achieving ‘shock and awe’ prior to, during, and in ending the battle.” Similarly, the notion of “decapitation”, the term repeatedly used by America in its efforts to kill Saddam, derives from Sun. The Chinese warrior, charged with bringing discipline to the female soldiers of Ho Lu, ruler of Wu, had two luckless women beheaded pour encourager les autres. “From that moment on,” the Pentagon notes approvingly, “the ladies learned to march with the precision of a drill team.”

The Art of War might have been the basic training manual for the Second Gulf War. Here is Sun Tzu on dusk bombing attacks: “In raiding and plundering be like fire, fall like a thunderbolt ... a soldier’s spirit is keenest in the morning, in the evening his mind is bent only on returning to camp.” On fomenting rebellion: “Await the appearance of disorder and hubbub among the enemy.” On speed of manoeuvre: “Rapidity is the essence of war.” On special forces: “By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated.” And on grinding down morale: “To be well-fed while the enemy is famished, this is the art of husbanding one’s strength.”

Perhaps Sun Tzu’s most memorable adage, and a modus operandi that has informed this campaign from the outset, is the idea that the greatest victory is the one that avoids conflict altogether: “Fight not unless the position is critical ... He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” The notion of attacking an enemy’s psychology without firing a shot was elaborated into modern military theory by the late Colonel John Boyd, an American tactician who argued that an enemy commander might be mentally disarmed even before battle begins. Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, has called Boyd “the most influential military thinker since Sun Tzu”. Boyd, acknowledging his debt to the Chinese sage, called his theory the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop. Sun was pithier: “Know the enemy and know yourself.”

The military campaign in Iraq is already being hailed, somewhat prematurely, as a brilliant coup for modern military tactics, but to judge from the repeated allusions to Sun Tzu much of the thinking is very old; indeed, in many ways the war was fought on classic military lines. This is not to deny some impressive military creativity on the battlefield — the taking of Basra by gradual assertiveness being the best example — but merely to demonstrate the enduring practical relevance of a work written when the Pharaohs still ruled Egypt.

This may be because The Art of War is as much about art as war. As a Taoist seeking the Way, the ancient Chinese thinker was exploring not just military strategy, but more broadly the application of intelligence to the conduct of human affairs, which is why Sun-Tzu is as popular in the boardroom as the battlefield.

Tony Soprano, the mafia boss of The Sopranos TV series, has even told his therapist of his reliance on Sun Tzu. Deception, surprise, secrecy, economy of effort, finding weakness in an enemy’s strength: these are the secrets of all successful competitive activity.

Sun’s precepts are by no means the exclusive property of the coalition. Mao, inspired by Sun Tzu’s maxim “Avoid the enemy when he is full of vigour, strike when he is fatigued and withdraws”, came up with the mantra of guerrilla war: “The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.” And that, of course, is precisely what Saddam’s loyalists will now attempt in Iraq.

It is a reflection of how deeply embedded Sun Tzu is with the advancing US Army that when the troops paused outside Baghdad, critics immediately cited the Chinese tactician: “The worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.” But the American troops did not besiege Baghdad; instead, they rolled into it, as Sun would have wanted. “Ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.”

In the end, superabundance of strength meant more than tactical genius in this conflict, but when the medals are handed out, it may justly be claimed that, in part, it was Sun Tzu wot won it.

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