“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” -Sun Tzu
Timothy Walton has an interesting paper entitled “Treble Spyglass, Treble Spear?: China’s Three Warfares” (385kb PDF) in the Winter issue of Defense Concepts, a journal put out by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.
The paper essentially describes the Chinese as adjusting military strategy to incorporate all of the elements of power. In the U.S., this is called DIME, for Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic (or the expanded version that never gained the same traction: DIMELIF, DIME + Finance, Intelligence, Law Enforcement). Still, if you are interested in China, this is worth a read.
Other resources on the subject I strongly recommend are:
- Dragon Bytes: Chinese Information War Theory and Practice from 1995-2003 by Tim Thomas (contact me to link you to Tim)
- Decoding The Virtual Dragon – Critical Evolutions In The Science And Philosophy Of China’s Information Operations And Military Strategy, also by Tim Thomas.
- Peaceful Rise through Unrestricted Warfare: Grand Strategy with Chinese Characteristics by Tony Corn at Small Wars Journal.
- “China Info Warfare“, a brief post by Bill Gertz on a Chinese book “Information Warfare Theory”.
Excerpts from Walton’s paper:
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