How the Government Applied Sun Tzu Art of War in Handling the Little India Riot

It may be obvious to many people now that the Singapore government applied the Sun Tzu Art of War in dealing with the Little India Riot.

Sun Tzu considered war as a necessary evil that must be avoided whenever possible. The war should be fought swiftly to avoid economic losses.  This was what the Special Force has done: they avoided direct confrontation war with the rioters and instead formed a wall to prevent them from running away. By 11.30 pm, just 2 hours after the riot broke out, the police has fully controlled the area and began arresting the rioters.

The most famous verses from the 5,000 words book is this in chapter 3:

知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

This can be shortened to: 知己知彼，百戰不殆。If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win numerous (literally, "a hundred") battles without jeopardy.

The government knew that its special forces had no prior experience in dealing with such riots and thus cannot hastily take the first step. But it also knew that the rioters also had no planning or organized effort; thus the chance of winning is equal for both sides.  In such cases whichever party that takes the first step will have a huge advantage.  

In order to prevent the riot from happening again, the government again did no war but instead went to unplug the root of the problem: drinking.  So it started the 6-month ban of drinking in public places and also restricted the sale of alcohol to no later than 8 pm.  

Furthermore, the government did not restrict the number of people congregating in Little India but instead went to the source of congregation: cut down by one-third the number of private buses going to that area.  It also went further by requesting all dormitories operators to provide free recreational activities in the weekends. Such simple stroke effectively reduced greatly the incentives for the workers to go to Little India.  Imagine if you can have free entertainment at your own hostel, why would you want to go all the way to Little India and still cannot drink alcohol?

By Andy Ng, whose courses on Sun Tzu Art of War have appeared in media like Lianhe Zaobao, The Straits Times and Sin Min Daily News.  One course called Sun Tzu Art of War for Sales has even travelled all the way to The Philippines in August 2013.