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

[William F. Owen]

BTW, Bing Fa doesn't mean "strategy." "Soldiers' methods" is a good literal translation. I believe originally it was just called Sun Zi, after the author, until somebody decided it needed a real name.

Well aware, the point is, in the context he writes, "Soldiers Methods" is explicitly "Strategy" - the use of force to attain a political goal. I former PLA Colonel, I met in London, assured me that no-one in the PLA ever refers to the book as the "The Art of War." - and that the Griffith translation has substantial errors. He recommended the RL Wing translation as being the most accurate.

[orange dave]

One more thing. As I mentioned earlier, asymmetric warfare is only a small part of UW, being just one of eight points mentioned in the conclusion. Another one of the eight is minimal consumption. This is important because, as I see it, it's North Korea's most important strategy against the US. I was wondering if there are any Western theorists that address this aspect of warfare - which is obviously more complicated than just describing it, because there are problems like how you sell these sorts of policies to the people, and so on. I'm asking because I don't know; I might be proven wrong on this point.

[RobSentse]

Read this Foreign Affairs article, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...chinas-dilemma and then read the PLA document from …. 1999!!
"Chinese Unrestricted Warfare" (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui)
www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf

Page 6 of this document says:

When people begin to lean toward and rejoice in the reduced use of military force to resolve conflicts, war will be reborn in another form and in another arena, becoming an instrument of enormous power in the hands of all those who harbour intentions of controlling other countries or regions.

Put this together with “The Tyranny of Metaphor” document http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...ny_of_metaphor

This document, a must read!, talks about three enduring illusions (mis)leading the USA White House policy (and maybe this is not an USA privilege), one of which:

A belief in the surefire effectiveness of military strength in containing opponents, whatever their ability to threaten the US.

Now have a look a the Chinese effort in Africa, in the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Italy) and in Afghanistan (analyze where this effort consists of, just read HOW China is influencing behavior)) and compare this with the current Western “non-comprehensive military solution”.

China is pumping a massive amount of money and support in the form of infrastructure like medical facilities into Afghanistan. The cooperation between China and Africa has grown with an enormous speed (for instance: building a huge road network in Kenya). China is helping the deteriorating Greek economy (China will double their 5 Billion trade with Greece in the coming 5 years and will support the extension of Greece harbor facilities).

“Cosco”, a Chinese company, has a close cooperation with the Greece Piraeus harbor and shows interest in the Thessaloniki harbor. China sees these harbors as the “gateway to Europe”. The economical gateway.
Italy and Turkey will be the next countries to be embraced by China’s economic support.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to analyze this all beginning with the Why question? Followed by Why and How “other powers” can “blend in”, including these steps as part of “their” own strategy? Why should “we” shape conditions to support the Chinese economic growth? How can this “strategy” be beneficial for “us”. Why?

Let´s have a look at the PLA document again, page 189:

All of these things are rendering more and more obsolete the idea of confining warfare to the military domain and of using the number of casualties as a means of the intensity of a war. Warfare is now escaping from the boundaries of bloody massacre, and exhibiting a trend towards low casualties, or even none at all, and yet high intensity. This is information warfare, financial warfare, trade warfare, and other entirely new forms of war, new areas opened up in the domain of warfare. In this sense, there is now no domain which warfare cannot use, and there is almost no domain which does not have warfare's offensive pattern.

In August Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivered a prominent speech warning that China’s economy and national modernization process would be jeopardized if the country failed to undertake systemic political reform.

Broadening the FA article I would suggest that now Europe and the United States should persist in seeking common ground on issues such as energy, global trade and finance, and regional security while continuing to reassure Beijing that the “West” does not oppose the growth of a peaceful China.

So, how to support China with their domestic political reform?

www.linkedin.com
www.scribd.com/amniat

[William F. Owen]

... and then read the PLA document from …. 1999!!
"Chinese Unrestricted Warfare" (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui)
www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf

.....This document, a must read!,

It's a "why bother read?" IMO, it's very contestable and I really doubt the two authors had the appropriate levels of knowledge to write it. The whole thing reads like a paper written by students. I don't know many folks who take it seriously.

[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.