Victory is being measured in battles won instead of costs avoided.

The book's verdict on itself, and it inverts the hero story. The celebrated general who wins every battle is second-rate; the supreme artist takes the country intact, the army uncaptured, the cities unsieged. Destruction is a failure of imagination: every battle actually fought is a plan that didn't work earlier, when it was cheaper. The ranking is explicit. The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; next, to prevent the junction of his forces; next, to attack his army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities, where a third of your men can die and the town still stands.