What if two Chinese colonels think that warfare is changing, even if you don't?

By Col. C. Anthony
Pfaff, U.S. Army


Best Defense guest
columnist

There has been a great deal of discussion lately regarding how political
and technological developments have impacted our understanding of
war.

More than a decade of frustration combating weaker insurgent
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the likelihood of future frustration
to ensure political stability in developing nations and U.S. access to critical
markets and infrastructure has led many to question whether we still adequately
understand what war is. Central to this discussion has been a debate over
whether the nature of war has changed or simply its character. At stake in this debate is not only how we
develop, organize, and employ military forces, but also our doctrinal view of
war, which has important implications for how we justify the use of those
forces. How we justify the use of those forces has equally important
implications for how often we find ourselves using it. 

In a recent article on
"War on the Rocks," Christopher Mewett described war's nature as "violent,
political and interactive." His concern, rightfully so, is that if we do not
get the nature of war right, we will not properly prepare for it. However, this
view of war is not necessarily shared by at least some possible U.S.
adversaries. In their oft-cited 1999 book, Unrestricted Warfare, two
Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang
Xiansui, argued that the United States narrowly defined war and
this narrow understanding exposed it to a vulnerability
that weaker states, like China, could exploit. In fact, they
stated the U.S. military does a poor job of deliberating upon future
fights, adding "lucid and incisive thinking ... is not a strong point of
the Americans." If only they knew.

They
argued, employing the language of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, that U.S.
conventional success has more or less permanently transformed war. Since no
adversary can hope to defeat U.S. conventional forces, war for them is no
longer about "using armed force to compel the enemy to submit to one's will,"
as Clausewitz might say, but rather "using all means, including armed force or
non-armed force, military and nonmilitary, and lethal and nonlethal means to
compel the enemy to accept
one's interests," which they argue is more in line with Sun Tzu's thinking.

While
they did not explicitly use the words nature or character, their point suggests
that something about war has changed that goes beyond simply the means by which
we wage it. The shift of war's aim from imposing one's will to gaining
acceptance of one's interests in turn changes what it means to fight well, in
both the practical and ethical sense. One revision this view suggests is that
rather than seeking decisive battles, which Victor Davis Hanson has argued is
the signature of the Western style of war, military force may be better used to
shape and incentivize the kinds of alternatives adversaries can make. Another
revision is to view military force as just one kind of national power that can
be employed in war against an enemy.

To underscore
their point, Qiao and Wang list numerous "kinds" of warfare which
include nuclear, diplomatic, financial, network, trade, bio-chemical,
intelligence, resources, ecological, psychological, economic aid, space, tactical,
regulatory, electronic, smuggling, sanction, guerrilla, drug, news media,
terrorist, virtual, ideological warfare, and many more. Additionally, these
elements of warfare can be combined in infinite ways to form various kinds of
warfare. For example, the Chinese colonels describe the U.S. war on terror as
"national terrorist warfare + intelligence warfare + financial warfare +
network warfare + regulatory warfare." They also describe efforts by the Hong
Kong government in 1998, just prior to its return to Chinese government
control, as a war fought with "financial speculators," using financial warfare
combined with regulatory, psychological, and news media "warfare." I would note
that not all of these kinds
of warfare entail violence, which as previously noted, is often cited
as an essential feature of the nature of war.

Further,
from this shift in ends emerges a view of war that expands on our
traditional conceptions associated with war. Friend and enemy are
joined by collaborator and competitor; resistance and surrender are replaced by
acceptance and rejection; victory and defeat are replaced by success and
failure. Further, "friend" and "enemy" do not refer simply to states, but to
sub-state and non-state organizations as well. Additionally, such conflicts are
not zero-sum. If one can achieve one's interests by benefiting the enemy, or
some subgroup within the enemy's community, so much the better.

It is not
clear if this shift counts as a change in the nature of war or simply its character.
If the nature of war is that it is "political, interactive, and
violent," then perhaps the shift from imposing one's will to compelling
acceptance of one's interest simply marks a difference in the character of the
political component of war's nature. However, by broadening their understanding
of war the way they did, they clearly articulated forms of warfare that do not
necessarily entail violence. I think a fair criticism of this view is that
given war's close association with violence they risk expanding the kinds
of international engagements that can lead to violent conflict. But that is an
ethical concern that doesn't address directly whether they
are right that violence isn't a necessary feature of warfare. 

Qiao and
Wang's views are instructive on how the Chinese military engages in this
debate. However, given that the debate over the nature vs. character of war is
largely a linguistic exercise (I don't mean to trivialize it -- words do
matter), there is at least some utility in favoring the view that war's nature
doesn't change and that it is inherently violent. Otherwise, metaphorical uses
of the term could conceivably be employed to justify the use of
military force in response to non-military "acts of
aggression." Such a situation could set conditions
for increased violent conflict, which under our current understanding of
war would not be justified.

Col. C. Anthony Pfaff is senior military and Army advisor to
the Department of State. The views stated here are his own and do not represent
those of the Army, the Defense Department, or the Department of State.