In his deep exile, Van was doing a lot of reading. His field of study was war. He was reading Clausewitz. Clausewitz was a dolt. He was reading Lidell-Hart. Lidell-Hart was full of himself. He was reading Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was a New-Agey Zen mystic. He was reading Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu had some rather interesting stuff going on.