Winning without fighting: is 'subduing the enemy whole' an ethic of restraint or of total instrumental control?

Sun Tzu, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

The highest excellence is to break the enemy's resistance without fighting, and, where fighting cannot be avoided, to take his army and his state intact rather than to destroy them. A hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the summit of skill; it is the failure to have found a cheaper way.¹²

Sources

1. Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own store. 16. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards. 17.

   The Art of War

2. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Chapter IV. TACTICAL DISPOSITIONS 1.

   The Art of War

Where the argument is made

• The Art of War, ch. III (Attack by Stratagem): "to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill"
• the ranking of taking a state or army whole above shattering it

How the argument was received

Contested as to its spirit: an ethic of humane restraint, or a doctrine of total control that spares only what it means to use.