Sun Tzu's view of war, which combines heavy fighting with cautious fighting, has inspired modern war thoughts to attach great importance to national security. Sun Tzu's Art of War established his fundamental attitude towards war by revealing the contradictory movement law of "benefit" and "harm" in war, thus determining the dominant tendency of utilitarianism in his military thought. It was with utilitarianism that Sun Tzu examined the war at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and put forward a view of war that emphasized war and was cautious. The Spring and Autumn Period when Sun Tzu's Art of War came into being was a transitional period for China to change from a slave society to a feudal society. Fierce social changes are reflected in the political life of the society, manifested in frequent wars. Take Lu Shi and Chunqiu for example. In 242 years, there were 483 major wars. In the whirlpool of war, the victory or defeat of big countries is uncertain, the security of small countries is uncertain and the situation is complicated. Sun Tzu realized from the social reality that the Korean-Korean alliance was scattered at that time and the war had not been declared, that the war could only be temporarily subsided and would not be abolished from now on. Therefore, he pointed out from the beginning: "Soldiers, national affairs, places of life and death, and ways of survival must be observed." Remind people to pay attention to war, study war and prepare for war.

At present, the cold war has become a thing of the past. With the disintegration of the bipolar strategic pattern, new changes have taken place in the international situation, and a new combination of forces has emerged in the world's basic contradictions, gradually forming a "multipolar" strategic pattern similar to Sun Tzu's era. Peace and development have become two major themes in today's world. In this situation, Sun Tzu's thought of paying great attention to war shows great vitality, which provides a useful reference for people to understand the military struggle under the multi-polar situation and control the development and changes of local war situations.

The influence of Sun Tzu's Art of War on modern western military thought has experienced a historical development process. The first world war mercilessly exposed the defects and weaknesses of military theory and art in various imperialist countries, prompting western militarists to reflect on bourgeois military thought. After the First World War, the research on military theory in Europe was relatively active, and some outstanding talents like ludendorff, Hart and Fuller appeared. They tried to get rid of the battlefield mode that appeared in the First World War and seek to realize the national security goal from the lessons of history. World War II can be said to be the experimental field for western military theorists to carry out the above exploration. Especially after several local wars, western countries began to summarize and reflect on bourgeois military theory after paying a painful price. Collins, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies of National Defense University, believes that World War I was a "blind battle without realistic goals" between the two sides of the war, which soon became a meaningless and deadlocked catastrophe, consuming a lot of manpower and material resources. He hit the nail on the head and pointed out: "No war in history can clearly show that strategic thinking usually lags behind technology." In order to change the backward situation of this military theory, he carefully studied Sun Tzu's Art of War and was surprised to find: "Today, no one understands the interrelationship of strategies, the problems to be considered and the limitations to be suffered more deeply than he does." During this period, the strategic concepts of the East and the West appeared a trend of integration and complementarity, and the influence of Sun Tzu's Art of War on western military theory reached an unprecedented breadth and depth.

Generally speaking, the wide application of high technology in modern warfare has made modern combat styles highlight many new features. But no matter how the style and form change, the war will inevitably develop along the track of the basic laws of war. In this sense, the general laws of war and the basic principles of strategy and tactics summarized and revealed by Sun Tzu's Art of War are ideological and creative beyond the times and still have a strong guiding role in modern wars.