“To take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation.”
A longer, feinted route can arrive first if it misleads the opponent; the detour is the shortcut.
Chapter 7 defines its signature maneuver with a paradox: take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, reach the goal before him — this shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation. The detour wins because of the enticement, not despite it. Distance is only a cost when both sides travel it; the feint makes the enemy travel his.
A chipmaker wants a flagship design win every competitor is courting directly. It spends a year on a seemingly unrelated detour — co-developing a small component with the flagship’s second-tier supplier. When the flagship’s lead vendor stumbles on delivery, the chipmaker’s component is already qualified, already inside the supply chain, already trusted. It entered the big contract through a door the direct competitors never knew existed, having "started later."
The artifice is in the combination, and removing either half breaks it: a detour without the enticement is just being slow, and an enticement without the detour is theater with no destination. Sun Tzu’s paradox has been misread as permission for elaborate indirection on its own — but deviation only "contrives to reach the goal before him," and the goal is the test.