Unrestricted Warfare — Key Takeaway

“Everything is war and everyone is fighting.”

This story was written with the assistance of an AI writing program.

“Unrestricted Warfare,” a book on modern warfare written in 1999 by two Chinese Colonels, (Col. Qiao Liang and Col. Wang Xiangsui), describes a type of warfare this world has not yet witnessed — until now.

Many American military officers have expressed their views about this book, including officer candidates seeking their Master’s degree who based their thesis upon this book

In their understanding of the book, I believe they are all making a fundamental mistake that could become lethal to the United States.

“Unrestricted Warfare” includes sections about the 1991 Gulf War and discusses the “side-principal” along with many other somewhat esoteric concepts of a “new principle” of warfare.

Generally, neither the officers who authored the book nor China’s military and political leadership have any clue about how the United States won the 1991 Gulf War. They think they do, part of the premise of this book is based on their misguided understanding of this war.

But this does not mean that China is weak, nor that any of China’s adversaries are assured of victory. China is a dangerous dragon that has just begun to stretch its wings and those wings grew as a result of this book — or a doctrine that is nearly identical to the principles advanced in “Unrestricted Warfare.”

American military leadership understands war as primarily a clash of arms on the battlefield, in the air, at sea, in space or increasingly, over computer networks. All other avenues or means of war are automatically dismissed as not germane to the discussion of modern warfare and therefore should not be guarded against.

As a result of this understanding, top U.S. military leaders have missed the point of the whole book:

Everything is war and everyone is fighting.

To the CCP, there is no aspect of human endeavor that is not part of war. To the CCP, there is no person who is not engaged in this war to some capacity. And to the CCP, this is not a new war, it is a new recognition of covert war that has been ongoing since the establishment of Communist China in 1949.

If the western democracies do not accept this; if we do not see our world as the Chinese (CCP) perceive it, we cannot win this war. You can’t beat something you don’t even acknowledge exists.

The CCP perceives this as primarily a cultural conflict between the western democracies (including Japan and South Korea) and the “perfected government of socialism” which is what China and the CCP bring to the world.

Everything is war and everyone is fighting. The CCP believes this and we see its evidence in their establishment of “Confucius Centers” at American universities scattered all across the United States, their cyber attacks, their theft of intellectual property, treaties that they only partially keep, the coercion applied against neighboring states and across the globe, their clampdown on internal dissent and the rapid, massive rise of their military prowess.

The American military establishment and our political leadership all perceive war one-dimensionally. They pooh-pooh and dismiss the idea that all of society is a battlefield. The United States and China, led by the CCP, are not fighting a kinetic war, we are fighting a war of ideologies.

The CCP believes, or seems to believe, that the communist structure is the best and perfected form of government. And the CCP seek to apply this communist ideology over every country on Earth.

But, the CCP is fully cognizant of traditional, conventional warfare. As soon as the CCP believes they have the strength of arms to challenge the U.S. militarily, they most likely will do so.

The CCPs’ concept of a greater China does not just include the territory of the nine-dash line, but also Nepal, Bhutan, northern Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and eventually the rest of the world.

China’s voracious appetite for oil may eventually force them to make a substantial move in the South China Sea, and possibly against the oil-rich nations of the Middle East.

The CCP views war as a “full-spectrum” conflict, not limited to military forces. In fact, the CCP knows that the military arm is the grosser, less desired option. There are other means, other ways and other arenas of conflict.

Everything is war and everyone is fighting.