Its highest ideal isn't winning the battle. It's winning so completely that the battle never has to happen.
Supreme excellence: win without fighting. Win by force and it costs soldiers, resources, years. Win without fighting and it costs you nothing. As Sun Tzu put it: "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Counterintuitive, but true. Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. The victory isn't decided on the battlefield — it's decided long before, in preparation, positioning, and knowing when not to engage. The best general arranges things so the enemy surrenders on its own accord.
Know both. Always. Know the enemy. Know yourself. And in a hundred battles, you'll never be in peril.
Lesson beyond war. People who seem to win effortlessly aren't better fighters. They avoid fights they don't need, and set up the ones they do so the outcome is decided before it starts. Loud confrontation is often a sign someone planned badly.