Unrestricted War: the leveller Compensating for the PLA's slow rate of military modernisation, Chinese military strategists have published a new theory of warfare that focuses on the weaknesses of potential adversaries. Dr Ehsan Ahrari investigates. ALTHOUGH economic development is Beijing's foremost priority, since 1991 China has been steadily modernising its armed forces. Aside from initiating various modernisation programmes for the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Chinese strategic thinkers have also started to concentrate on making the best of their relative military weakness. A number have concluded that China should look for the 'Achilles' heels' of its potential adversaries and enemies. Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, the only powerful potential enemy facing China is the USA - a superpower that has successfully used its economic power to build its military muscle. China has always been wary of both US intentions in the Asia-Pacific region and US aspirations to be a dominant force in the international arena. It has never ruled out the potential for future military conflict with the USA. The future status of Taiwan might be a key source of friction, but it is by no means the only one. China is also fully aware of its economic underdevelopment and the attendant military weakness vis-à-vis the USA. So how should it handle the reality of US military power? The answer is to study the weak points of the US war machine and warfighting style and try to master the US mindset regarding war. Only then, say Chinese strategists, will China be able to level the playing field in a future military conflict. So what major lessons has China drawn about the overall US approach to war? First and foremost, Americans greatly value human life. The human losses absorbed by US forces in two World Wars were heavy, but in view of what was at stake, the US perspective was that the sacrifice was worth taking. However, the Second World War might have been the 'last good war' the USA fought. The Korean War, although fought under the banner of the UN, became an unpopular domestic issue in the 1950s; the Vietnam War almost tore the social fabric of the country apart. The USA's political will to get involved in military conflict has dramatically diminished, unless it is possible to fight from a distance and with minimum human loss. Secondly, the USA's near obsession with minimising casualties in military conflict means it will rely heavily on technological systems to keep its troops as far from harm as possible. Since the USA has always preferred quality to quantity in its military research and development and the production of military wherewithal, its weapon systems have generally been rated as far superior to those of the former Soviet Union or other European countries. Conflict in the 1991 Gulf War was decisive: proof of the qualitative superiority of US war-making technology. Nevertheless, no country, no matter how superior a force it might create at a given time, is entirely invulnerable. If its adversaries try hard enough, they are likely to find weak points. Since US forces are heavy consumers of high-technology equipment, an adversary should examine in detail the major technological systems used by US forces to determine which ones are vulnerable and at what point in the evolution of a military conflict those systems could be attacked or even destroyed. Thirdly, US forces have been victimised twice by acts of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. The potential for transnational terrorism remains a source of concern for US strategic planners. This substantial pre-occupation with potential acts of terrorism against US troops deployed on foreign soil has made the issue of 'force protection' a crucial one for US commanders. The essence of the doctrine Unrestricted War, the book by two senior colonels of China's People's Liberation Army/Air Force (PLAAF), Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, mentions the use of terrorism as a strategy of war. Colonel Qiao has pointed out in an interview about the book: "You will find . . . not a single word about how China should use the 'terror war'". He added: "Unrestricted war . . . is a double-edged sword and is not aimed at the war plans of a specific country." However, the USA is the chief focus of analysis for Qiao and Wang. Their interpretation of US foreign policy behaviour is highly unconventional, and at times their phraseology is similar to that used by anti-US groups in different parts of the world. What seems to have brought this book to the attention of the Western media is that it was written by two senior PLA officials and that it was reportedly read not only by the Chinese defence and foreign policy establishment but also by President Jiang Zemin himself. Unrestricted War has been described by some in China as "an original theory in two decades", and the "emergence of a new military thinking". The authors claim they have tried to put forth "new ideas, new thinking and new angles concerning war". To fight future wars with advanced technology, they believe it is "necessary to dare to completely upset the order of the cards in one's hands and reorganise them in accordance with the needs of war and the interests of a nation". They point out that many traditional phenomena are undergoing radical changes. Increasing interdependence among states has blurred notions of national sovereignty. The emergence of international finance markets has enhanced money transactions, capital flow and currency exchange rates across the globe, and the Internet has ensured communications to and from far-off places can take place in seconds. Established governments which could once monopolise information in all spheres of life within their borders now have to compete with other transnational sources of information. Today's citizens are well-informed and less susceptible to manipulation by their governments through mis-/disinformation. Such changes in peacetime transactions are bound also to affect the mode and scope of warfighting. Unrestricted War should be studied in the context of changes that will remain in flux for some time. 'Unrestricted war' will be fought in a world where national borders have lost their original meaning. It will be conducted by nations, one or more of whose armed forces are heavy consumers of the most sophisticated, highly integrated, precision-guided war-making technologies. In Unrestricted War, distinctions between the traditional and unconventional battlefields are blurred; war-fighters will include conventional soldiers as well as civilian programmers, technocrats and computer hackers. Other non-traditional war-fighters will include financial institutions, drug cartels, transnational crime syndicates and terrorist groups. So, while stealth and precision as well as digital, biochemical and technological issues will continue to play a crucial role in the warfare of the future, an increasing number of actors from the civilian and technological communities will also participate more in war. As the authors of Unrestricted War observe: "[The] war will be fought and won in a war beyond the battlefield." The basic question raised by Qiao and Wang is this: "Faced with high-tech warfare, how can a weak and developing country survive?" To answer it, they decided to study the USA, the sole superpower of the post-Cold War era whose economic power and dominance in contemporary warfare is unquestioned. As a general strategy, the authors of Unrestricted War also analyse the overall foreign policy behaviour of the USA since the implosion of the USSR. Their analysis includes military operations, such as 'Desert Storm' in 1991, 'Desert Fox' in 1998 and 'Allied Force' in 1999. They also focus on US policies regarding the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) countries and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as well as looking at the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. Their unstated assumption is that, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the global arena is receptive to US tactics aimed at establishing its global hegemony. Qiao and Wang say the USA is "an extremely rich country" with an "extreme fear of casualties", which would rather "treat war as a marathon contest in military technology" than "a trial of strength in morale, bravery, cleverness and resourcefulness". Americans "like a war of luxury weapons in which only millionaires can fight". In the most recent air campaign against Yugoslavia, the USA "dispatched aircraft costing an average of US$26 million each and used Tomahawk cruise missiles costing US$1.6 million apiece to destroy buildings and bridges that cost a great deal less". Yet the US people were very pleased with this kind military "extravagance" with "zero casualties". Qiao and Wang identify 25 different types of warfare, a number of which, they claim, have been used by the USA. For example, in dealing with Osama bin Laden, they write: "[The] Americans have used state terrorist warfare, intelligence warfare, financial warfare, network warfare and legal warfare." Their use of the phrase "state terrorist warfare" apparently refers to the August 1998 decision by the Clinton administration to launch cruise missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan. Against Iraq, say the authors, the USA has simultaneously used "conventional warfare, diplomatic warfare, sanctions warfare, legal warfare, media warfare, psychological warfare and intelligence warfare". Other states, they claim, also use such practices. For instance, Hong Kong, since becoming a part of China, has used various types of warfare against financial speculators. These include "financial warfare, legal warfare, psychological warfare and media warfare". Individual states are likely to indulge in "international law warfare". The USA has also been a leader in this arena. In the pursuit of its national and security interests, "a mature great power like the United States appeared much smarter than Iraq", write the authors. "Since the day they stepped onto the international stage, the Americans have been seizing things by force or by trickery, and the benefits they obtained from other countries were many times greater than what Iraq got from Kuwait." To maintain its dominance in world affairs, the USA, the authors claim, "never misses any opportunity to take a hand in international organisations involving US interests" and makes sure that all of these organisations are "closely related to US interests". They give two examples to make their argument: l when Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke originally promoted the idea of APEC, it was only aimed at including Asian countries. Washington opposed this idea and successfully insisted on incorporating itself and Canada, then "spared no effort in insisting [that] some Asian countries sign independent agreements with the NAFTA"; l the USA opposed the Japanese proposal to create an Asian monetary fund to deal with the Asian financial crisis. Instead, Washington "advocated the implementation of a rescue plan, with strings attached, by way of the International Monetary Fund, of which it is a major shareholder". Despite its power, the authors observe, the USA has not been effective in dealing with transnational terrorism. They write: "Global terrorist activity is one of the by-products of globalisation, a trend that has been ushered in by the technological integration." Terrorist groups are "posing a greater and greater threat to sovereign nations". Compared to these groups, "professional armies are like gigantic dinosaurs that lack strength commensurate to their size in this new age". "The advent of Bin Laden-style terrorism has deepened the impression that national force, no matter how powerful, will find it difficult to gain the upper hand in a game that has no rules." This comment refers to the US firing of cruise missiles in retaliation for attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998. The greatest controversy concerning Unrestricted War stems from a statement made by Colonel Qiao in an interview after the book was published. He is said to have observed that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia "did not know how to fight a people's war". Qiao says he should have sent teams of terrorists to Italy, France, Germany and Belgium, especially to US bases in some of these countries, during NATO's war on his country. Then he should have started an urban guerrilla war in Europe: "Once continental Europe feels the pain, it will no longer let . . . Britain and the United States conduct war on its territory." Views on Unrestricted War Unrestricted War may not be compared to anything written by Clausewitz or Sun Tzu, but it does demonstrate some original thinking. As a statement linking the conduct of war in the 21st century to the emerging 'megatrends' and continuing 'powershift', it is a respectable endeavour. However, as a general review of war, it is unlikely to be remembered for long. Most of the observations regarding information warfare, cyber warfare, cyber-terrorism, space warfare and other types of warfare have already been covered by other Chinese defence specialists. As China enhances its theoretical understanding of warfare in the future, Chinese strategists are attempting to integrate various largely Western theories of warfare and indigenise (or 'Sinicise') them. To the extent that Qiao and Wang advocate that Milosevic should have followed a 'People's War' principle and used urban terrorists during NATO's war on Yugoslavia, it is an interesting contribution to the theory of conventional warfare - and a variable about which the USA was highly concerned during the Gulf War and every time a US force built up in the Gulf since then. The fact that two Chinese military strategists have advocated the use of this tactic will only intensify the resolve of all nations to be more careful about potential terrorist acts when involved in military conflicts. When China was in the process of becoming a nuclear power, it ridiculed nuclear war and labelled nuclear powers 'paper tigers'. Yet even while it derided the established notions of the destructive power of nuclear weapons, China was labouring to possess them and gain entry into the 'big power' league. This episode is an important aspect of China's strategic legacy, and the ploy will be utilised repeatedly to gain advantage for the PRC in the coming decades. Following Unrestricted War, Chinese strategic thinkers are establishing a new framework. Claiming that future wars will be without limits is another way of saying that a militarily weak and economically underdeveloped nation (China) should go to any extreme, violate any rules and break any traditional precepts of war to be victorious over a technologically superior and militarily powerful country (the USA). Rules of war, Qiao and Wang say, need only be followed by the strong powers who make the rules; a weak nation is not obliged to follow suit. The all-encompassing aspects of unrestricted war underscore the fact that a militarily stronger side will not win simply because it enjoys technological superiority over its weaker opponent. The US armed forces took note of this study, which came out at a time when Sino-US relations were fragile. However, since then Washington and Beijing are unlikely to allow their mutual ties to deteriorate to the extent of triggering a military conflict. In this context, while the Taiwan issue is popular among Republican lawmakers in the USA, they are unlikely to push a US president to go to war with China over it. However, the PRC should be careful with rhetoric about the use of force to reunite Taiwan. While the USA might not want a war with China over Taiwan, it does represent a commitment made by the USA in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. The USA needs to stand by its security commitments in case Japan and Korea conclude that if Washington can violate its promise to defend Taiwan from a Chinese military takeover, it is also likely to violate commitments made to Tokyo and Seoul. Dr Ehsan Ahari is a Professor of National Security and Strategy at the Joint Combined Warfighting School, Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia, USA. ©Jane's Information Group 2000 http://jir.janes.com/
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