"Weapons are nothing but ominous instruments": The Daodejing's view on war and peace

This chapter shows that while the Daodejing (DDJ) is firmly committed to peace and harmony, it also recognizes the need to employ force of arms when there is no other choice. The DDJ contrasts 'military weapons' as 'ominous instruments' to the human world as a 'sacred instrument'. DDJ also known as the Laozi, is an ancient Chinese text about 5,000 characters long, traditionally taken as a representative Daoist classic expressing a distinctive philosophy from the Warring States Period. Wang Fuzhi, a Confucian scholar of the Qing Dynasty, also views the author of the DDJ as the 'forefather of the military treatise' who is 'the teaching guide for all who write on war. Although the DDJ does discuss how to wage war, including various tactics and strategies, it also uses warfare. Since Daoism is quite skeptical about any kind of offensive acts, the warfare the DDJ talks about is defensive war; that is, war for the purpose of self-defense.