In their revisionist book on the battle of Midway, Shattered Sword, the authors Parshall and Tully seem to infer that adopting Sun Tzu's tactics may have been Admiral Yamamoto's undoing at the battle of Midway. Japanese naval strategy was influenced from it's very inception by Oriental philosophies on the conduct of war, which emphasized the value of deception and indirect approaches. However, at Midway, the Japanese encountered a problem where subtlety was a dangerous luxury. If ever a situation demanded brute concentration of force, Midway was it. By spreading the Japanese fleet over half the Pacific, it just invited defeat in detail, especially when much of Yamamoto's mail was being read by Nimitz and company.
Either that or it was an incorrect interpretation of Sun Tzu on Yamamoto's part that led to his downfall.
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