Beijing’s Doctrine on the Conduct of “Irregular Forms of Warfare”

[Backwards Observer]

Here are some folks who take it seriously.

Are CHINA and the UNITED STATES headed for WAR?
Yes, say bestselling authors Jed Babbin (former deputy undersecretary of defense) and Edward Timperlake (veteran defense analyst) in this riveting new book that takes you from the latest developments in China’s quest to become a superpower to the possible battlefields of what might become World War III.

Babbin and Timperlake unveil China’s aggressive military buildup (more rapid than that of Nazi Germany before World War II) and expose how China is engaging in a new Cold War aimed at expanding its commercial and military reach at the expense of the United States. Babbin (a former Air Force JAG) and Timperlake (a former Marine fighter pilot) do more than offer expert analysis. In dramatic Clancy-esque style, they take you into the field with Navy SEALs and Air Force bomber pilots, invite you inside the war councils at the White House and the Pentagon, and peer within China’s own Politburo in an exciting—and all too likely—series of war scenarios.

In Showdown, Babbin and Timperlake reveal:

* The unholy alliance between Communist China and radical Islam—and a possible war over Middle Eastern oil
* How China is infiltrating Latin America—including oil-rich Venezuela—to create an anti-American axis
* How a Chinese attack on Taiwan could spark the biggest war in the Pacific since World War II
* The vulnerability of Japan and the United States to Chinese cyber-warfare
* The likelihood of a second Korean War . . . only this time, the madmen in North Korea have nuclear weapons

As Babbin and Timperlake make clear, China is the greatest—and most dangerously ignored—threat to America’s national security. If America does not deter China’s aggressive ambitions, the result could be global war. Provocative, thrilling, and must-reading, Showdown is a wake-up call for America.

From the editorial blurb for:Showdown: Why China Wants War With The United States - Amazon

Also:

U.S. Intelligence Council Reading List

[Backwards Observer]

Just by coincidence, well let's say coincidence, immediately following my previous post, I read this passage in Carl Sagan's, The Demon Haunted World:

We know from early work of the Canadian neurophysiologist Wilder Penfield that electrical stimulation of certain regions of the brain elicits full-blown hallucinations. People with temporal lobe epilepsy—involving a cascade of naturally generated electrical impulses in the part of the brain beneath the forehead —experience a range of hallucinations almost indistinguishable from reality: including the presence of one or more strange beings, anxiety, floating through the air, sexual experiences, and a sense of missing time. There is also what feels like profound insight into the deepest questions and a need to spread the word. A continuum of spontaneous temporal lobe stimulation seems to stretch from people with serious epilepsy to the most average among us. (p.115)

Not saying there's any connection, but it seems prudent to spuriously link unrelated information for some sort of effect these days.

The Demon Haunted World - Amazon

[William F. Owen]

Here are some folks who take it seriously.

Many take it seriously. Very few of them are men I respect on matters of warfare. Most of what gets written about future warfare turns out to be utter rubbish. The next war is usually very like the last war, fought somewhere on he planet.

[Backwards Observer]

Most of what gets written about future warfare turns out to be utter rubbish.

In my case, I blame open "sauce" warfare.

[Bob's World]

It's worth remembering that the US did not supplant Great Britain by defeating her in war; also that Great Britain was able to hand off the baton to a (relatively) trusted ally.

China today is operating much as the US did in the first half of the last century, building economic and military influence behind the scenes and under the protection of European colonial endeavors; only emerging once that burden broke the back of the latter. WWII expedited that transition.

Is GWOT similarly expediting the transition from the US to China? That and our clinging to expensive containment strategies? China has to get a good chuckle over how they can spend a dollar in capabilities to threaten Taiwan, and get the US to spend $1000 to counter it; meanwhile they expand their global economic influence under US security much as the US did under Great Britain's security (most notably how we got the Saudi oil development contract).

China studies carefully how the US rose to power, perhaps more carefully than we ourselves have. The chapter on the Cold War prevailing over the Soviet Union is a chapter that gets close attention, and China is working diligently to do to the US much as what we did to the Soviets. The Soviets probably get a good chuckle on that one as well.

Good news is that it is not too late for the US to change course. The one thing that China cannot change is the growing pressure between various sects and classes within their own country. The greater their success, the greater those pressures will become. The U.S. may well be saved, not by the smart actions we take abroad, but rather by the actions China fails to take at home. The bad news is that, unlike Great Britain, the US will not be handing off to little brother. We can not hope to fare as well in the transition.

[William F. Owen]

China studies carefully how the US rose to power, perhaps more carefully than we ourselves have. The chapter on the Cold War prevailing over the Soviet Union is a chapter that gets close attention, and China is working diligently to do to the US much as what we did to the Soviets. The Soviets probably get a good chuckle on that one as well.

Who knows. Maybe and so what? Having spent two years hanging around folks who claimed to be studying "Chinese Military Power," I found most of them to be utterly unreliable and to have a very poor knowledge of military affairs.

Fact is you can make a lot of money writing evidence free scary stuff about the Chinese military. That doesn't make any of it good or useful.

[Bob's World]

Oh, I agree. It is not the chinese military we need to worry about. That is just the flashy red cape. The Matador has other ways to deal with those who draw too much confidence from their great size and power, but that are easily distracted by such ploys.

[selil]

Who knows. Maybe and so what? Having spent two years hanging around folks who claimed to be studying "Chinese Military Power," I found most of them to be utterly unreliable and to have a very poor knowledge of military affairs.

Fact is you can make a lot of money writing evidence free scary stuff about the Chinese military. That doesn't make any of it good or useful.

Come on Wilf that isn't nearly up to your normal level of quality post. I read too, and a lot on Chinese military history. I see poorly written fearful diatribes based on ethnocentrism rather than realistic risk aversion too.

You'll have to define "Define Chinese Military Power" for me though. What you call it likely isn't what the Chinese call it. I also don't see why making money has to be a point to denigrate authors either (everybody knows I don't make any money writing).

The Chinese don't see their military as their primary source of power. They see their population size and education level as a primacy of power. Watch Chinese television for a few weeks and the internal dialog they are having is much simpler than most people seem to believe. The inscrutable Chinese general is remarkably absent from all but Chinese soap operas.

I see deep divides between western expectations and Chinese realizations. I agree with you Wilf, that most western writing is poorly executed when Chinese sophistication stops with Sun Tzu. I'm just not sure why you popped off on the document "Unrestricted Warfare". The authors have given talks in the United States, there are numerous translations, and some are fairly poor. It is a government level document and I have never read one from any any country that didn't read like a grade school primer. So why the hostility?

[William F. Owen]

Come on Wilf that isn't nearly up to your normal level of quality post.

Thank you!

You'll have to define "Define Chinese Military Power" for me though. What you call it likely isn't what the Chinese call it. I also don't see why making money has to be a point to denigrate authors either (everybody knows I don't make any money writing).

Chinese military power to me, and the Chinese, would be the use of "Military means." I can fully concede "other means" as being something different. Nothing new there.
Not denigrating anyone, except to say there are things they state in their work, that they clearly do not know a lot about. A lot of their work is conjecture and uses paper thin evidence. Some of the things they state as being categoric are extremely contestable and context specific. All in all I see not a lot of worth in this work.

The Chinese don't see their military as their primary source of power.

Agreed. Same as everyone.

They see their population size and education level as a primacy of power.

Not sure how that works out, but OK.

Watch Chinese television for a few weeks and the internal dialog they are having is much simpler than most people seem to believe.

Watched the English language CCTV for 2 years. I confess it gave me little insight.

I'm just not sure why you popped off on the document "Unrestricted Warfare". The authors have given talks in the United States, there are numerous translations, and some are fairly poor. It is a government level document and I have never read one from any any country that didn't read like a grade school primer. So why the hostility?

I'm not being "hostile." I just think it's not an insightful or even useful work and people gift it with insights and ideas that are just not there, once the words are subject to rigour. There is lot of clever sounding but ultimately empty stuff.
I am merely cautioning anyone reading this thread with taking that publication seriously.

[Fuchs]

It's difficult to surpass Jan Gotlib Bloch in regard to future warfare anticipations.
He wasn't only quite accurate, but also intelligent enough to draw the correct lesson without an extremely wasteful trial & error procedure. The wasted value of this Cassandra was beyond imagination.
I admire how he succeeded in his research of sources without such a thing as the internet or inter-library lending.


I knew about the UW work for a decade, but I admit I've never really read it. It looked to me like one of the primary sources which are so widely cited that reading it first-hand would likely not reveal anything new. 'Breaking the Phalanx' was another example of such a work.

My impression based on second-hand info is that it's too early to judge the work, though. The future is the authorized judge, not us.

There's also the possibility that the written and published version of their findings/opinion is just the surface. Guderian's "Achtung Panzer" revealed only a few per cent of his ideas, for example.
UW is probably similarly designed to fire up the bureaucracy and new blood instead of revealing the real set of ideas.

[slapout9]

China studies carefully how the US rose to power, perhaps more carefully than we ourselves have. The chapter on the Cold War prevailing over the Soviet Union is a chapter that gets close attention, and China is working diligently to do to the US much as what we did to the Soviets.

You better believe it! In particular they have studied President Lincoln and his "Greenback" policy on money! They are following what would have been Reconstruction in the South(series of internal improvements) if Lincoln hadn't been shot.

[Backwards Observer]

China studies carefully how the US rose to power, perhaps more carefully than we ourselves have.

Personally, I think it's possible that China in the early Seventies was heavily influenced by the last scene of the film, Joe. But that could just be the "open sauce" talking.

Joe (1970) - youtube

Joe - wikipedia