Civil Affairs during the Gulf War

Introduction

The purpose of the Army Reserves Civil Affairs during the Gulf War was to rebuild Kuwait following its occupation by Saddam Hussein. This was no small task: Kuwaiti infrastructure was damaged by the Iraqi invasion, and upon being evicted, Iraq resorted to a “scorched earth” policy, setting fire to more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells. It took Coalition forces 11 months to extinguish them all. Further, to prevent an amphibious landing, Iraq dumped 4 million US barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf.

The Kuwait Task Force, the Civilian Affairs (CA) force that would eventually rebuild Kuwait, was created before the oil well fires and the oil spill – all members of the Task Force knew was that the support they would be providing would be considerable. The establishment of the Kuwait Task Force would prove almost as difficult a task as the reconstruction.

Gulf War Oil Fires. Photo by Ateve McCurry.

Brief History of Civil Affairs

Army Civil Affairs units were created during World War II to allow military commanders to take on governmental roles. As the Cold War began, CA added skill sets usually found only in civilian sectors, including cultural and linguistic knowledge relevant to the country of operation. The result of this was to focus the CA on infrastructure rebuilding in coordination with the host-country.

In the mid-1980s, General William R. Richardson of USATRADOC believed that the functions provided by CA should be outsourced, either to other parts of the military (such as the Army Corps of Engineers) or even to civilian agencies (e.g., the State Department). CA was an anachronism according to Richardson and needed to be removed from the Army.

CA was rescued by the (long term) advocacy of Senator Strom Thurmond, but this left open the question as to where CA should be placed. As it goes, CA was placed within the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) starting in 1987. The Army then redesigned Reserve CA units to support most major logistical operations, wherever USSOCOM operated.

CA is maintained as a military position because civilians in a war zone are more apt to interact with military personnel. CA is a job for Reservists because the particular technical skills CAs possess take an inordinate time to develop, incompatible with active duty time committments.

CA and the Gulf War¹

As the Gulf War started, there was no clear plan for rebuilding Kuwait: USCENTCOM was not developing a plan, and there was a top-level CA vacancy in the Third Army. To people such as COL Randy Elliott (member of 352^nd U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Command as well as the chief of the Middle East Division of the State Department), COL Dennis Barlow ²(of the Joint Staff), and LTC Paul Mikesh (Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict), this appeared to be a repeat of the 1989-1990 events in Panama in which CA tasks were ignored until after days of looting in Panama City.

Could CA be organized so that the needed plans and resources for rebuilding Kuwait be in place before the conflict was concluded? Mikesh, Barlow, and Elliott understood that there was no policy for operationalizing the goal of Kuwaiti reconstruction, and that such a policy would be needed so that CA would be ready at the right time. Of the three, COL Elliott would be most directly influential as it was his 352^nd U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Command that would be deployed to Kuwait.

On 14 August 1990 – almost immediately after President George H. W. Bush’s demand that Iraqi occupying forces withdraw - Mikesh and Barlow wrote a staff paper advocating the early stand-up of a CA team. This paper was submitted to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Jim Locher. Locher accepted the recommendations in this paper and on 22 August he wrote a memo recommending Mikesh and Barlow’s ideas. The ideas in this memo were rejected by the Director of Joint Staff, claiming that the task of rebuilding Iraq must wait until after the conclusion of combat operations.

Locher persisted, writing a policy directive requiring that planning for reconstruction should begin early. The Department of the Army’s response was essentially a repeat of General Richardson’s position: the proper agency to act on reconstruction would be the State Department, that the Army Corps of Engineers would be the appropriate force to perform the reconstruction, and that the twenty functional capabilities outlined in Locher’s directive were best handled individually.

Despite the Department of the Army’s protestations, work on the reconstruction plan continued, but was halted in October 1990 by the Commander and Chief of USCENTCOM, reasoning that no policy should be prepared since none was requested.

Locher persisted and sent messages to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz as well as senior officials in the Army, USSOCOM, and the Joint Staff. They provided little response, but Locher was able to build alliances with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. Mikesh and Barlow were assigned to key roles, but progress was slow.

This changed on 20 September 1990 when officials from the Kuwaiti government-in-exile travelled to Washington, D.C., and specifically asked for reconstruction assistance. COL Elliott knew Ambassador-Designate to Kuwait Edward Gnehm as result of Elliott’s civilian position in the State Department, and Elliott told Gnehm that his CA unit possessed relevant expertise. The Kuwaitis requested CA assistance directly from the President, and 10 days later the plan was approved.

As Iraqi control of Kuwait tightened, the mission expanded beyond infrastructure and government reconstruction to include treatment of Iraqi collaborators as well as displaced civilians. CA progress (of a sort) was made with a Pentagon CA team devising guidelines for the guidelines the Joint Staff were to develop.³

The Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans offered numerous criticisms regarding the Kuwait Task Force during its existence: Army HQ resented the speed and authority which the inter-agency Steering Group committee intervened in Army business; they felt they were denied the opportunity to contribute – they believed that they were “railroaded”⁴; they thought that civilian agencies should be used in lieu of CA Reservists; they gave the ever-popular "diversion of finite and valuable resources from more important projects" excuse for inaction; and they affirmed that the plan was not required by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Finally, they expressed doubts about the competency and dedication of Reservists, with one senior USSOCOM officer openly stating that "the Reserves is just another name for waste, fraud, and abuse."⁵ These doubts were never explicitly raised but were certainly acting as the context for Army HQ’s stalling.

Authorization to activate the CA needed to go through the Army, which gave them a further opportunity to prevaricate. In fact, the Director of Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Michael P.C. Carns, flip-flopped on activation, which resulted in the 352^nd CA Command being alerted for activation twice, and ordered to stand down twice, in four-day period from 17-20 November 1990. Eventually Carnes gave his approval, and a message was sent by the chairman of the JCS to activate a CA task force.

As the standing-up of the Kuwait Task Force proceeded, the commander of the 352^nd, Brigadier General Howard Mooney, was relieved of command of the Task Force on 3 December, and he returned to command of the rest of the 352^nd. The Army raised another objection: they didn’t want active duty officers reporting to flag-rank Reserve officers.

Control of the Kuwait Task Force then moved to COL Elliott. He manned the task force with individuals who had experience in Panama reconstruction efforts; his deputy was the Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the USAID; and Elliott was able to work with numerous federal agencies in Washington, where he was located.

Meanwhile, the USCENTCOM and the US Army Central Command (ARCENT) were developing their own plans for reconstruction, and Kuwait Task Force plans were not coordinated with them. Three reasons were given for this: security (Kuwait Task Force operations were scrutinized by foreign nationals⁶); Schwarzkopf tended to rely on Kuwaiti and Saudi officials for civil affairs issues, instead of his own staff; finally, the Kuwait Task Force reported to interagency officials outside the USCENTCOM command, control, and communication hierarchy.

Nevertheless, the Kuwait Task Force was deployed in theater, so they would come under command of USCENTCOM and ARCENT – but the Task Force would also fall under the recently deployed 352nd CA Command which was headed by… Brigadier General Mooney. Mooney merged the Kuwait Task Force (renamed to Deputy Chief of Staff for Reconstruction⁷) into the Combined Civil Affairs Task Force, which became part of Task Force Freedom, which allowed Mooney and the Task Force to complete their mission.

They did indeed complete their mission:

By the time the KTH and Task Force Freedom departed, the Ministry of Health had become operational and the Kuwaiti medical community was carrying 98% of its pre-war workload. The international airport reopened and the Kuwaitis resumed operational control in April, 1991. Police forces were operational within the first 30 days following liberation. A major Kuwaiti port was opened during the first two weeks after liberation, and two others were being swept for mines. All major roads had been restored to service, with most able to sustain convoy traffic.⁸

Indeed, “not one Kuwaiti died of thirst, starvation, or lack of medical attention after the liberation.”⁹

Analysis and Conclusions

In reading Barlow’s description of events, one must be impressed by the sheer number of federal agencies and the levels of hierarchy that were needed for the Kuwait Task Force to become operational. Further, Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney had to endure internal criticism coming from the Army itself. For them, the amount of bureaucracy they encountered must have been like "swimming through molasses.”

The source of their difficulties was that USSOCOM and USCENTCOM denied the importance of Reserve CA (either completely or until combat operations concluded), and getting results required them to go outside USCENTCOM, to non-military federal agencies. USCENTCOM also doubted the competency of Reserve units in general. It is interesting to speculate on the source of those doubts: were the Reserves demonstratively incompetent, or did the Regular Army ascribe to itself an artificially inflated level of competency? The explanation is not given in either Barlow¹⁰ or Brinkerhoff¹¹.

Does JP 3-0, Joint Operations, address the problems they encountered? By that doctrine, joint forces must view the operational environment from a systems perspective to include other-than-military systems such as political, economic, information, etc. This joint interdependence does not entail the merging of services, however.¹² The expected result of this perspective is that the joint force commander can collaborate with these other systems (embodied as interorganizational or multinational partners) to achieve results that are beyond the capability of joint force commander’s (JFC) authority¹³. Thus, Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney’s work with various federal agencies as well as the Kuwaiti government-in-exile is explicitly not forbidden. JP 3-0 directly mentions that JFC should grant Civil Affairs the authority to coordinate with other-than-military organizations such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.¹⁴

Collaboration is not to extend to any and all partners, even the irrelevant ones, as it is to be understood that "synergy must be available at the lowest echelon at which it can be managed effectively”¹⁴ – the idea is to collaborate with outside agencies only to the extent that it is practical.

JP 3-0 also advocates a mission command philosophy¹⁵, which “is the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based on mission-type orders” and demands that subordinate leaders act aggressively and independently to accomplish the mission.”¹⁶ Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney demonstrated these traits in support of making the Kuwait Task Force a reality.

The current form of JP 3-0 did not come into force until long after the Kuwait Task Force’s mission was completed, but the Kuwait Task Force was created and operated in a manner consistent with those future guidelines. The Task Force used a systems approach to achieving results; it worked with agencies that would be later absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security to extend its range of ability – but it worked with those agencies only up to the point they could be effectively managed; and it used a mission command philosophy.

Footnotes

1. The following account is based on Barlow, D. “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.”
2. This is the same Dennis Barlow that authored Ibid. Most aspects were confirmed in Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force.”
3. This is not a typo – they developed guidelines for the guidelines!
4. Brinkerhoff, J. “United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm”
5. Barlow, “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination,” note 40.
6. Barlow states that this criticism would be valid for combat operations but was irreverent since the Task Force would be operating post-conflict. This ignores the fact that departing Iraqi forces laid booby traps for the incoming Coalition forces, such as placing mines around burning oil wells. Knowledge of the Task Force’s plans would allow the Iraqi to place booby traps to maximize damage.
7. Carlton, in his “Kuwait Task Force,” attributes this name change to the desire to soothe hard feeling within ARCENT and USCENTCOM.
8. Carlton, “Kuwait Task Force.”
9. Barlow, “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.”
10. Ibid.
11. Brinkerhoff, “United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm”
12. Johnsen, “Land power in the age of joint interdependence”, pp. 224-226.
13. JP 3-0, IV-3 – IV-6.
14. Ibid. II-10.
15. Ibid. IV-7.
16. Ibid. IV-5.
17. Deployable Training Division Joint Staff J7, “Mission Command.”

Bibliography

Barlow, D. “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.” In Understanding Complex Military Operations: A case study approach. Edited by Guttieri, Franke, and Civic. Routledge, 21 March 2014. DOI: 10.4324/9781315881577-12

Brinkerhoff, J. United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm: Civil Affairs in the War with Iraq. Department of the Army. 9 October 1991. Retrieved 30 May 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA288659.pdf

Carlton, P. “Kuwait Task Force: A Unique Solution to Kuwait’s Reconstruction Problems.” Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications. Retrieved 29 May 2024 from https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1404&context=sea_fac_articles

Deployable Training Division Joint Staff J7, “Mission Command” January 2020. Retrieved 29 May 2024 from https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/fp/missioncommand_fp_2nd_ed.pdf

Johnsen, W. “Land power in the age of joint interdependence: toward a theory of land power for the twenty-first century.” Defense & Security Analysis, 35:3, 223-240, DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2019.1640417

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations. 17 January 2017.

Operation Desert Storm – an Analysis

Introduction

“Conventional warfare” is a relative term: what counts as conventional warfare depends on the time the war was fought, and frequently depends on the weapons or tactics used. Still, lessons learned in previous conflicts are applicable to subsequent wars: The Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae used phalanx formations which have not withstood the test of time, but they also used delay tactics, feign retreats, and use of geography to constrain the enemy, all of which are timeless. So, while the phalanx eventually became obsolete, the other aspects were fundamental in all future military operations.

Thousands of years after Thermopylae came the trench warfare of WWI, followed by the mechanized warfare of WWII, with its blitzkriegs and tanks. The Gulf War was primarily a technological war, with weaponry so advanced that those used in previous wars appeared to be as anachronistic as the phalanx formation. Thus the Gulf War became the “conventional” war of the day.

This paper examines the operational components of the Gulf War and the interpretation of that war by American military analysts as well as by near-peer competitors.

Goals of the Gulf War

The Gulf War had both strategic goals and strategic constraints. The goals were to remove the Iraqi invasion force from Kuwait, and to degrade the military to prevent it from attacking Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other nearby countries. The constraint was to not degrade the military so far that it wouldn’t be a credible deterrence to Iranian invasion.

To accomplish this, combined air and ground operations were employed. The air operation was designed to destroy Iraqi air power, weaken its ground forces, and prepare the way for the ground invasion.

The precursor to Operation Desert Storm was, of course, Operation Desert Shield. Desert Shield allowed the George H. W. Bush administration to assemble the Coalition forces, and to position those forces for what would come next, should Saddam not withdraw from Kuwait. It gave time for the economic sanctions placed upon Iraq to have an effect. Finally, it allowed Coalition forces to train in a desert environment.

Demolished vehicles line Highway 80, also known as the "Highway of Death", the route fleeing Iraqi forces took as they retreated from Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Joe Coleman, 18 April 1991.

Operation Desert Storm was divided into four phases¹. Phase I was to be a strategic air campaign designed to disrupt Iraq’s command and control over their forces, and to destroy NBC weapons research and production facilities. Phase II was to establish air supremacy over Kuwait. The goal of Phase III was to isolate Iraqi forces in Kuwait from reinforcement and resupply. Finally, Phase IV was to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

The first three phases were air campaigns and will be treated as a whole.

The Air Operation

The air operation lasted from 17 January 1991 to 23 February 1991, during which Coalition forces performed over 100,000 sorties and dropped 85,000 tons of bombs.

The air campaign began with the destruction of enemy radar sites near the Saudi-Iraqi border by American Apache and Pave Low helicopters. If left intact, those sites would warn Iraq of upcoming attacks. Following this, the weapons of choice were Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by ships positioned in the Persian Gulf, stealth bombers dropping “smart” bombs, and F/A-18 Hornets carrying anti-radar missiles. These latter homed-in on radar antennas, destroying them. This completed the destruction of Iraq’s radar system, thereby degrading their air capability. It further blinded Iraq from observing and responding to Coalition activities. Bombing continued using television-guided and laser-guided missiles.

At the time, Iraq’s air force was the sixth largest in the world. This changed due to three factors: first, aerial combat in which 36 Iraqi aircraft were downed; second, destruction of 254 aircraft while on the ground (either in standard or underground hangers); and finally, relocation of military assets into Iran.

It was originally thought that this movement of aircraft was a result of pilot desertion, but it was later proven that this was Saddam’s attempt at preserving Iraqi air power. This was confirmed from documents captured during the occupation of Iraq following the 2003 invasion². The US did not capture all the documents, however – some fell into the hands of Iran or Iranian-backed groups; these documents included the names of Iraqi pilots from the Iraq-Iran War, and those pilots were targeted for execution³.

Commercial aircraft were moved into Iran as well. Iraq’s deal with Iran for sheltering aircraft covered only civilian and transport aircraft, so it came as a surprise that Iraqi military aircraft were crossing into Iranian airspace.

When questioned over this, Iranian officials promised to keep Saddam’s aircraft until the conclusion of the Gulf War. Many of the aircraft would be incorporated into the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Aviation Division and would never be returned⁴.

The Ground Operation

Following the destruction of Iraq’s radar and communication facilities, their command-and-control ability was thereby lost. This included Iraq’s logistic capabilities, leaving their ground forces in and around Kuwait unsupported. The ground operation began on 24 February 1991 when Marines began heading towards Kuwait City. Within the first 24 hours of the ground operation, 10,000 Iraqi troops surrendered (by end of operation, a total of 50,000 prisoners were taken). The large number of surrenders were caused by the incessant bombing operations of the Coalition forces, the inability of Iraqi ground troops to communicate with their commanders, and the shear lack of logistical support.

The opening hours of the land operation would also see the creation of a forward operating base (FOB Cobra) deep within Iraq territory. FOB Cobra would serve as a staging base for the tank war that followed.

Approximately 1,900 tanks, mostly M1A1 Abrams were brought in to battle Soviet-built T-72s, manned by Republican Guard members. Coalition forces destroyed over 3,300 of these tanks through air and ground attacks in what were some of the largest tank battles in American history. At least 100 tanks were destroyed by AH-64 “tank-killer” helicopters, which challenged the prevailing belief that the best weapon against a tank was another tank.

Iraq withdrew from Kuwait almost immediately, but not before setting fire to 700 Kuwaiti oil wells, some of which they surrounded by mines.

All Coalition military operations were halted 100 hours after the start, but under four conditions: all Iraqi military operations must stop, including Scud missile attacks; all Coalition military prisoners and Kuwaiti civilian hostages must be immediately released; Iraq would comply with all relevant UN resolutions; and the Iraqi army must assist in locating and removing all land and sea mines.

On 27 February Saddam surrendered, and on 3 March 1991 Iraq signed the official cease fire agreement.

Consequences – Interpretation by American Analysts

Taken together, the air and land operations achieved the war’s strategic goals: it removed the Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait, it degraded Iraq’s military so that it could no longer attack Saudi Arabia and Israel, but it didn’t degrade them to the point where they were unable to defend themselves against Iran.

Operation Desert Storm has been described as an “effects-based operation” (EBO) in that the purpose was to neutralize the enemy without necessarily destroying their forces. While this is true at face value, EBO was reformulated as a “software approach to warfare” when it was systemized by the United States Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). This introduced considerable baggage: computer-modeling software, operational net assessment, and system-of-system analysis.

The EBO doctrine was criticized by Lt. General Paul Van Riper and General James Mattis⁵ because operational control moved from commanders to staff; it entailed centralized decision-making along with consequent micromanagement; and that the doctrine gave the illusion of complete knowledge of the enemy’s present and future states. Finally, it overemphasized the importance of air power and minimized the usefulness of ground forces.

The EBO interpretation of the Gulf War was rejected, as was the entire concept of effects-based operations.

The “naïve” formulation of EBO was retained, however, and is now called “effects-based approach to operations” (EBAO) in Air Force doctrine⁶. EBAO is no longer a strategy but instead a “way of thinking.” While annihilation and attrition are still viable options, “the ultimate aim in war is not just to overthrow the enemy’s military power but to compel them to do one’s will.”⁷

Interpretation by Near-Peer Competitors

The success of Operation Desert Storm was noted by our near-peer competitors. Both China and Russia realized that it was impossible for them to compete against America in conventional conflicts, so they began considering alternative means of warfare.

Russia pursued what Kilcullen called “liminal warfare”⁸ which involves covert actions operating below the threshold which a military response would be warranted… until it was too late. It is a refined version of gray zone warfare. A good example of this strategy was the Russian take-over of Crimea⁹: Russians created and supported sympathetic unions and political parties; Cossacks and Serbian paramilitary groups were imported, which appeared to destabilize the region. Russia responded with “relief columns” in response to this “humanitarian crisis,” but the true goal was to support pro-Russian forces already inside the country. By the time the true purpose of Russia’s “relief” became clear, a military response from NATO was not possible because there apparently was no military invasion.

For China, the new warfare was called “unrestricted warfare” (UW) which consists of cultural, economic and political moves as forms of warfare¹⁰, either applied individually or in combination. UW is founded on the belief that “everything that can benefit mankind can also harm him.”¹¹ Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, the authors of Unrestricted Warfare, the text that gave us the name UW, state that “the best way to achieve victory is to control, not to kill.”¹² The similarity of goals with the Air Force’s conception of EBAO is striking.

The clearest example of UW in action is the Belt and Road Initiative, in which China loans money to a host country to build infrastructure in that host country. These loans included predatory interest rates and backed by unconvertible Chinese currency. The actual construction requires that only Chinese labor be used so no local jobs were created. If the country defaults on the loan, ownership of the new infrastructure goes to China; if the host country does not default, the country must repay the loan to China. Either way the host country becomes a vassal state.

The direct correlation between the results of the Gulf War and unrestricted warfare is explicit: the text Unlimited Warfare has an entire chapter describing the Gulf War and the lessons Americans learned and what we did not learn. The connection between the Gulf War and liminal warfare is not so clear, though the ease at which American M1A1 Abrams tanks destroyed Soviet-made T-72 tanks surely made an impression on the Russians.

Both liminal warfare and unrestricted warfare build upon elements of past techniques. Liminal war is similar to Soviet attempts to undermine Western institutions, and unrestricted warfare – in particular the Belt and Road Initiative – is like the tributary system practiced by the Chinese during their dynastic era. Much as the tactics used by the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae served as the foundation for future battles, these historical precedents underly Russia’s and China’s new approaches to warfare.

Conclusion

The Gulf War left Saddam Hussein in place – regime change was not part of the UN mandates and it was expected that he would be toppled by internal rebellions. Insurgencies by Kurdish and Shiite groups within Iraq lead to crackdowns by Saddam, and in response, US and British forces established two no-fly zones: one in the north to protect the Kurds and one in the south to protect Shiite Muslims. These no-fly zones would remain in place until the 2003 Iraq War.

Something else that remained in place were the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the US and the UN. Because they were still in effect at the time of the later invasions, those sanctions could not be used to pressure Saddam to leave office.

The Gulf War became the model of conventional warfare due to its success, speed of execution, and relatively small number of Coalition casualties. It was a “textbook” war, but that textbook was studied by Russia and China. In response, they devised their own counterstrategies: liminal warfare and unrestricted warfare, respectively. If these are the future forms of warfare, then what counts as “conventional warfare” must be updated.

Footnotes

1. Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience.
2. Michael Brill, “Remembering Desert Storm and the Gulf War(s) Odyssey of Iraq’s Air Force, Part 1”
3. Ibid.
4. Michael Brill, “Remembering Desert Storm and the Gulf War(s) Odyssey of Iraq’s Air Force, Part 2”
5. James Mattis, “USJFCOM Commander’s Guidance for Effects-based Operations.”
6. John T. Correll, “The Assault on EBO.”
7. U.S. Air Force, AFDP 3-0 Operations and Planning, p. 19.
8. David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West.
9. Robert Leonhard, Little Green Men: A Primer on Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013-14.
10. Dean Cheng, “Chinese Lessons from the Gulf War.”
11. Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare.
12. Ibid.

 

Bibliography

U.S. Air Force, AFDP 3-0 Operations and Planning, 4 November 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2024 from https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDP_3-0/3-0-AFDP-OPERATIONS-PLANNING.pdf

Brill, M. “Remembering Desert Storm and the Gulf War(s) Odyssey of Iraq’s Air Force, Part 1” Wilson Center Sources and Methods. 14 January 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2024 from https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/remembering-desert-storm-and-gulf-wars-odyssey-iraqs-air-force-part-1

Brill, M. “Remembering Desert Storm and the Gulf War(s) Odyssey of Iraq’s Air Force, Part 2” Wilson Center Sources and Methods. 15 January 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2024 from https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/remembering-desert-storm-and-gulf-wars-odyssey-iraqs-air-force-part-2

Cheng, D. “Chinese Lessons from the Gulf War.” November 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2024 from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep11966.8.pdf

Correll, J. “The Assault on EBO” Air Force Magazine, January 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2024 from https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2013/January%202013/0113EBO.pdf

Kilcullen, D. The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Leonhard, R. Little Green Men: A Primer on Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013-14. United States Army Special Operations Command, 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2024 from https://www.jhuapl.edu/sites/default/files/2022-12/ARIS_LittleGreenMen.pdf

Mattis, J. “USJFCOM Commander’s Guidance for Effects-based Operations.” Parameters 38, no. 3 (2008), doi:10.55540/0031-1723.2437. Retrieved 23 May 2024 from https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2437&context=parameters

Qiao L. & Wang X. Unrestricted Warfare. PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, Beijing, 1999.

Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience. Routledge, 2009.

Spalding, R. War Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination. Sentinel Press, 2022.

Legal and Moral Authorization to Conduct the Gulf War

Introduction: Historical and Operational

On 2 August 1990, the Iraq military, under command of Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. The invasion not only left Iraq in possession of Kuwait’s people, land, and mineral resources, it also left Iraq in a position to attack Saudi Arabia, which Saddam had threatened to do. This led to the Gulf War of 1990-1991 in which the United States and her allies fought to restore Kuwait’s independence and to protect Saudi Arabia’s territory.[1] [2]

There were two phases to the Gulf War: Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Of the two, Desert Shield is most relevant here.

Operation Desert Shield was primarily an operational stage in that military resources were positioned and coordinated so that they could be used to accomplish specific political goals. The idea is, to quote Clausewitz, “that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means.” In the Gulf War, the political objectives were to liberate Kuwait and to protect the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia[3].

USMC patrol near a burning well close to Kuwait City on March 7, 1991. (AP)

Legal Authorizations of the Gulf War[4]

Immediately following the invasion, President George H. W. Bush issued executive orders[5] banning trade and financial transactions with Iraq as well as implementing a travel ban. He further ordered that Iraqi assets within the US be frozen. Two days later, the House and Senate separately passed legislation supporting those executive orders, but neither of these were signed into law.

These executive orders were mirrored by the UN Security Council when it passed Resolution 661 on 6 August 1990 which imposed numerous economic sanctions on Iraq. These sanctions included bans on trade and financial transactions, except for medicines and food; a freezing of Iraqi government assets abroad; embargos on oil and arms; and so on. Approximately one hundred and ten countries took part in the embargo.

Bush began building an international coalition to isolate Iraq both militarily and diplomatically. The coalition was (at the time) unique in that it had a single purpose and was not meant to be long-term. Bush and his ambassadors were even able to alienate Iraq from members of the Arab League. Israel was kept neutral to avoid destabilizing the coalition, even though Iraq launched Scud missiles targeting Israel during the last month of Desert Shield.

Meanwhile, coalition military assets were being positioned in the region in readiness for Desert Storm.

On 29 November 1990, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 678, which authorized coalition members to use all necessary means to secure peace, giving Iraq a deadline of 15 January 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait.

On 14 January, the day before the UN deadline, the 102nd Congress passed H.J.Res.77, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, which was the closest Congress came to an actual declaration of war. George H. W. Bush signed it into law (Public Law No: 102-1), and in his signing statement, Bush announced that

…[M]y request for congressional support did not, and my signing this resolution does not, constitute any change in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on either the President's constitutional authority to use the Armed Forces to defend vital U.S. interests or the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution.[6]

Saddam Hussein ignored the UN deadline for withdrawal, and Operation Desert Storm began on 17 January 1991.

Just War Theory and the Gulf War

Just War Theory (JWT) is a tradition of military ethics that uses criteria to ensure that a war is ethically justifiable. Western JWT began with Saint Augustine and was refined and extended by Saint Thomas Aquinas. The tradition continues through the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. Contemporary JWT, as espoused by Michael Walzer[7], for example, is secular but maintains several Christian attributes, notably an altruistic ethical foundation.

In either the Christian or secular forms, JWT has two primary components: criteria for when to justly begin a war (jus ad bellum) and criteria for just conduct during war (jus in bello)[8]. Of the two components, jus ad bellum would be most relevant here.

To justly enter a state of war, the war must satisfy all of the following criteria: war must be publicly declared by the appropriate authority; it must be for just cause and just intentions; it must be a last resort; the means used must be proportional to the provocation; and there must be a reasonable chance of success.

As the sole power to declare war is granted to Congress by the Constitution, the Gulf War does not satisfy the jus ad bellum criterion that a just war must be publicly declared by the proper authority.

The “just cause” and “just intentions” criteria are highly subjective, but these are usually taken to mean that the goal of a war is to redress harms, address human rights violations, and reestablish a just peace. The Gulf War could pass those criteria.

The “option of last resort” criteria was also met, since both the US and UN imposed economic sanctions on Iraq immediately following their invasion of Kuwait, and the UN gave an explicit deadline for Iraq to withdraw along with a clear statement of what would happen if they didn’t. Between the first imposition of sanctions by the US and the UN’s deadline for withdrawal, 166 days elapsed, which was more than sufficient time for economic sanctions to hit home. Diplomacy failed; economic sanctions failed; war thus became the last resort.

The “reasonable chance of success” criteria was also satisfied: between the far larger American military and the operational and logistical preparations made before Desert Storm began, success was highly likely.

Finally, the “proportional response” criterion is met, presumably: the coalition forces were used against Iraq’s to evict them from Kuwait and to prevent excursions into Saudi Arabia all while leaving Iraq able to defend itself from Iran. Others would point to the large number of casualties together with harms caused by the economic sanctions as proof that the response was not proportional.

JWT requires all these jus ad bellum criteria to be met for a nation to justly enter a state of war. There never was a declaration by the appropriate authority[9]; whether the proportional response criterion was satisfied is debatable; and the just cause and good intentions are extremely subjective. The Gulf War violated the proper declaration condition, so it cannot be considered a just war.

It must be noted that (besides pacifism) there is at least one other ethical theory of war, which is usually called “realist.” This theory holds that a war must be declared and executed only in a nation’s best interest. The goal of JWT is to minimize the brutality or war; a side effect of the realist position is to shorten the duration and frequency of wars. Unfortunately, realist war theories are presented only as a straw man[10], and the theory currently lacks a holistic exposition.

Conclusion

In the case of the Gulf War, the legal and the moral justifications were at odds: the war was certainly sanctioned by the United Nations and (while stopping short of a full declaration of war) it was approved by Congress; according to Just War Theory (either biblical or secular), it was an unjust war.

There is an additional justification that must be considered: popular support. This must be considered under Clausewitz’s people-military-government trinity, and it explains the incessant and fawning media coverage the Gulf War received, making it into what was sometimes called the “video game war.”

In reviewing the buildup to the war, one must wonder why George H. W. Bush went through the media and the UN as opposed to petitioning Congress[11]. The answer lies in his signing statement for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution – he explicitly doubted the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. Instead of addressing that directly or addressing the problems the WPR was meant to correct, he ignored it. This is something all subsequent presidents would do.

Footnotes

[1] Westermeyer, Liberating Kuwait.

[2] Stewart, War in the Persian Gulf.

[3] Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.

[4] The chronology of events in this section follows Englehardt, “Desert Shield and Desert Storm”

[5] EO 12722 and 12723.

[6] Bush, Bush, Statement on Signing the Resolution Authorizing the Use of Military Force Against Iraq.

[7] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars.

[8] A third component (jus post bellum) that addresses justice following the conclusion of a war, was added relatively late in the Just War Tradition.

[9] This is disputed in O’Brien, “Desert Storm: A Just War Analysis.”

[10] Frowe, The Ethics of War and Peace.

[11] Burgin, “Rethinking the Role of the War Powers Resolution.”

Bibliography

Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 1991, Public Law No: 102-1, Retrieved 16 May 2024 from https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-joint-resolution/77/text

Burgin, E. “Rethinking the Role of the War Powers Resolution: Congress and the Persian Gulf War.” Notre Dame Journal of Legislation 21 (no. 23) (1995). Retrieved 15 May 2024 from https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1232&context=jleg

Bush, G. H. W. Statement on Signing the Resolution Authorizing the Use of Military Force Against Iraq. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I), 14 January 1991. Retrieved 16 May 2024 from https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PPP-1991-book1/html/PPP-1991-book1-doc-pg40.htm

Englehardt, J. P. “Desert Shield and Desert Storm: A Chronology and Troop List for the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf Crisis.” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 25 March 1991. Retrieved 13 May 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA234743.pdf

Frowe, H. The Ethics of War and Peace. Routledge, 2022.

O’Brien, W. “Desert Storm: A Just War Analysis.” St. John’s Law Review 66 (no. 3), Fall 1992. Retrieved 16 May 2024 from https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1794&context=lawreview

Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience. Routledge, 2009.

Stewart, R. War in the Persian Gulf: Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm August 1990 – March 1991. Center of Military History, May 2010. Last retrieved 12 May 2024 from https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-117-1/CMH_70-117-1.pdf

Walzer, M. Just and Unjust Wars. Basic Books 2015.

Westermeyer, P. Liberating Kuwait: U.S. Marines in the Gulf War, 1990–1991. History Division USMC, 2014. Retrieved 13 May 2024 from https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Liberating%20Kuwait.pdf

Unrestricted Warfare: A Near-Peer Approach to Modern Conflict

Introduction

The Gulf War has spurred our near-peers China and Russia to consider radically different concepts of warfare, warfare that fits into the broad model specified by Sun Tzu but bearing little resemblance to contests of military force. This paper examines the new model of warfare coming from our nearest of peers, China. This new model is called unrestricted warfare, which is also the name of the text in which this this model is formulated.

The origin of unrestricted warfare is described in this paper, and the tactics it employs are examined along with the concepts upon which they rest. The Chinese authors of Unrestricted Warfare have been either denounced as “pseudo profound” or hailed as the best thing since Clausewitz, and this spectrum of responses by members of the US military will be surveyed. Finally, a general approach to counter unrestricted warfare tactics is outlined.

Genesis of Unrestricted Warfare

The Chinese colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui developed and wrote Unrestricted Warfare in response to lessons learned from America’s victory in the Gulf War. The saw us as immensely capable of conventional warfare that features the combined use of land and air forces. They understood how mastery of this type of warfare required a dependence – maybe an overdependence – on technology. They conjectured that this dependence on technology combined with our spectacular success in the Gulf War would lead us to think that this was the only way to fight wars and would blind us to other forms of warfare.

They took away other lessons, too: that Americans have become extremely averse to casualties. They saw the advantages to hastily arranged alliances of convenience over long-term alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and how those alliances could be rapidly solidified by the UN. They saw the importance of media coverage in shaping public opinion of the war – and that the concept of “media objectivity” gave it more gravitas than official propaganda.

Finally, they realized that when confronted with the type of military force displayed in the Gulf War, that China could never ever win.

Qiao and Wang did what any smart individuals would do: they changed the battlefield. Thus, unrestricted warfare was born.

Redefining Fundamental Concepts

One of the most interesting things done in Unrestricted Warfare¹ (hereafter abbreviated as UW) is to redefine fundamental concepts.

The word “victory” used to mean that an enemy is forced to accept one’s will. Qiao and Wang redefined it to mean that an enemy is forced to serve one’s own interest. “The best way to achieve victory is to control, not to kill,”² they wrote.

A battlefield used to be a region of land or the surface of a body of water. Current battlefields can also be air, space, underwater, psychological, cyberspace, and anywhere reachable by long-range missiles. “Where is the battlefield?” the Chinese colonels asked. “Everywhere,” they answered.

The traditional warfighter working for a traditional (Westphalian) state can now include hackers working for non-state actor.

The dictum that "war is a continuation of politics" or "war is politics with bloodshed", has been extended by the US military to include information warfare, precision warfare, joint operations, and military operations other than war (MOOTW). The Chinese colonels now include “non-military war operations.”

What is a target? Just War Theory distinguishes between combatant and noncombatant and requires that only combatants should be targeted. In unrestricted warfare, the distinction between combatant and noncombatant is dissolved³.

Qiao and Wang give us a new concept of weapon. Instead of a tool to kill or destroy, they note that:

Everything that can benefit mankind can also harm him⁴. This is to say that there is nothing in the world today that cannot become a weapon, and this requires that our understanding of weapons must have an awareness that breaks through all boundaries.

The goal of these “new weapons” is to paralyze and undermine, not to cause casualties. The bloodless wars that result are essentially stealth wars⁵.

How do new weapons relate to their targets? Qiao and Wang write that "new weapons… are closely linked to the lives of the common people," and go on to state that

The new concept of weapons will cause ordinary people and military men alike to be greatly astonished at the fact that commonplace things that are close to them can also become weapons with which to engage in war. We believe that some morning people will awake to discover with surprise that quite a few gentle and kind things have begun to have offensive and lethal characteristics.

As the Chinese colonels write: “the war god’s face has become indistinct.”⁶

The “New Weapons”

What are these new weapons? They are essentially economic means of control. UW contains the following list of these new weapons for non-military war operations:

• Financial
• Ecological
• Psychological
• Smuggling
• Media warfare
• Drug warfare
• Network warfare
• Technological warfare
• Fabrication
• Resources
• Economic aid warfare
• Cultural warfare
• International lawfare

To demonstrate their operation, several of these weapons will be examined in detail.

Financial Warfare

Financial warfare is the easiest to understand. There is no single tactic, but the idea is to solidify economic ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the point where exit becomes impossible. For example, China could nationalize foreign assets and return them only should their owner perform certain actions. Requiring that transactions between Chinese and foreign companies take place using Chinese yuan renminbi freezes the foreign company into a relationship with the Chinese one, since China’s yuan is a non-convertible currency.

Media Warfare

A very blatant example of media warfare is the way Hollywood kowtows to China. Consider how the plots or characters of Hollywood films are altered to present China in a positive light, or at least in a non-threatening manner⁷. An example of this is with the movie called “Red Dawn”. In the 1984 version, the US is invaded by the Soviets. The original script to the 2012 remake involved the Chinese invading the US. In the final release of “Red Dawn”, it was the North Koreans who did the invading.

The 2018 film “Bohemian Rhapsody” told the story of Freddie Mercury and the band he fronted, Queen. All mention that Mercury was gay was removed for the version of the film released in China. The net effect of erasing this aspect of Mercury was to shift focus to the band.

Three movies, “Barbie” (2023), “Uncharted” (2022), and “Abominable” (2019), all included brief scenes showing a map of the South China Sea depicting the “nine-dash line,” a maritime border which China uses to indicate its claims over that area⁸. “Abominable” was a co-production between DreamWorks and the Chinese production firm Pearl Studio. The Chinese connections with the other movies are not clear.

There are product placements: in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (2024), one character (while in Texas) withdraws cash from a Chinese ATM, while another character purchases Chinese protein drink (in Chicago).

Even movie posters have been altered to appease to China. For example, the movie poster for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was altered to minimize photo of the main Black character in the film.

The Chinese market for movies is an even larger market than all of North America⁹. That in part explains the appeasement coming from Hollywood.

Drug Warfare

Of the methods of unrestricted warfare examined here, drug warfare is the easiest to quantify. China is the source of multiple illicit drugs commonly used in the United States including xylazine (“tranq”), methamphetamine, and of course fentanyl. This latter has been a scourge on America, with the number of fentanyl-related overdoses rising at a staggering rate over the past decade.

There have been attempts to force China to stop the export of fentanyl, but they have come to naught. For example, in retaliation for Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing suspended collaboration with the United States to halt the manufacture and export of fentanyl precursor chemicals either directly to the United States or to Mexico cartels which then traffics the drug into America.

Economic Aid Warfare

The best example of economic aid warfare is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is a massive infrastructure investment program to create networks of highways, railways, and pipelines through former Soviet-bloc countries as well as throughout south and southeast Asia. Announced in 2013, the program has since expanded into Africa and parts of South America. The infrastructure programs are funded by loans from China. The debt financing contracts frequently prevent restructuring, and China retains the right to recall the loans at any time. These give China the power to enforce their interests using financial controls¹⁰.

The BRI is not simply a physical infrastructure program – it also involves the creation of streamlined border crossings as well as special economic zones that encourages industrialization and the adoption of Chinese technology. This network expands the use of Chinese currency and thus the political influence of China.

As of 2023, 147 countries have either began work on BRI projects or have shown interest in doing so. This accounts for 40% of global GDP and two-thirds of the world’s population.

When economic factors force a country to default on BRI loans, the county results to sovereign default, which happened in Ghana and Zambia. When Pakistan defaulted, they were bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. When Sri Lanka defaulted on a $435 million BRI loan to build a harbor there, China enforced a debt-for-equity swap giving China 70% stake in the harbor.

For countries that do not default on BRI loans, they become vassal states to China.

New Weapon Commonalities and a Comparison to Liminal Warfare

These examples of unrestricted warfare tactics – financial warfare, media warfare, drug warfare, and economic aid warfare – show a variety of methods of operation, a range of precision, and a common goal.

The mechanisms of financial warfare are obvious: China essentially “locks in” a business owner by nationalizing assets or conducting transactions in non-convertible Chinese currency. This gives the CCP leverage over the business owner, forcing him to work to China’s advantage.

Media warfare works by the using the profit motive of Hollywood executives to produce movies that serve as propaganda in the east Asian markets and to soften and elevate the image of China in Western markets. Should a Hollywood executive not alter one of his films for Chinese consumption, the film is banned by Chinese sensors, and its earnings are greatly decreased. Here, the object of control is not America itself but rather one of its industries.

With drug warfare, China permits the manufacture of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors which, when imported to America, directly harms Americans. China is perhaps the most pernicious surveillance state ever to exist, and their protestations that they cannot limit its manufacture and export are simply that: protestations. China never intends to control fentanyl export, but they use promises to do so to either influence American politicians to operate in their favor, or punish politicians when they don’t, as illustrated by China’s reaction to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Given that China has no intention of limiting fentanyl export, their reaction was as staged and hollow as their promises.

Of all the weapons listed in UW, the Belt and Road Initiative is closest to the tributary system practiced by China during certain parts of its dynastic period: both involved turning other nations into vassal states. Enforcement of the tribute was by stick: the threat of invasion. With BRI both the carrot and stick are used: the carrot is in the form of loans, and the stick is economic ruin in response to either defaulting on the loans or taking some action contrary to the CCP. The BRI is the weapon that least directly harms the United States, but it does certainly decrease Western influence on the global stage.

These new weapons and indeed all the weapons listed in UW have several things in common: first is that China gains leverage over the economy, politicians, or businesses of a target country and uses that leverage to its own advantage. Second, they operate at a level below which military reprisal would be seen as just. Third, the weapons operate along a continuum – the “pressure” can be turned up or down depending on the victim’s level of compliance. Fourth, the weapons do not operate in covert or clandestine manner, to a certain extent.

This last commonality is a way unrestricted warfare differs from the liminal warfare practiced by Russia¹¹. Liminal warfare depends on secrecy to operate, and a particular liminal operation comes to an end once its existence and perpetrator become known. Unrestricted warfare is carried out in public, but if the extent of, say, the BRI should become known all at once, the pattern would be clear, and resistance would be universal. Thus, unlimited warfare is subject to thresholds (one being the threshold for which a military response is acceptable, the other threshold being the discovery of the entirety of the operation), and maneuver between the thresholds is necessary for success¹², just like with liminal warfare¹³.

Analysis of Unrestricted Warfare by the U.S. Military

Before reviewing some of the evaluations of UW made by members of the U.S. military, it must be asked: how does China itself evaluate unrestricted warfare? As seen from the above examples, China is using the new weapons listed in UW, but that isn’t necessarily the same as taking UW as a far-reaching military policy. The best proof that they are considering UW seriously are the careers of the two authors following the text’s publication.

At time of publication, Qiao Liang was a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. He retired with the rank of major general and is now secretary general of the Council for National Security Policy Studies. His co-author Wang Xiangsui was a colonel in the PLA when UW was released. He had since retired with the rank of senior colonel and is currently the director of the Center for Strategic Issues.

Qiao and Wang have both advanced in rank since the publication of UW and now hold leading positions at security institutions in China. It appears that they are indeed taken seriously by the CCP.

Wang Xiangsui and Qiao Liang

The response to UW by either current or former members of the U.S. military has been mixed. At the one extreme is Major John A. van Messel, who in his 2005 master’s thesis¹⁴ for the Marine Corps University, concludes that “Unrestricted Warfare, as it is currently written, is less of an executable doctrine than a collection of tactics, techniques, and procedures for future war adversaries.” His appraisal is that “Unrestricted Warfare is neither a revolution in military thought nor an executable doctrine for future warfare…”

To justify these conclusions, van Messel notes that most if not all theoretical concepts in UW, from the idea that new weapon systems can alter the form of war to the idea of non-military weapons, have been in circulation prior to the publication of UW. He also notes that the Chinese colonels’ analysis of the Gulf War was taken from various DoD documents.

Van Messel then conducts thought experiments, simulating the success a large nation (China), a small nation (Taiwan), and a non-state actor (Abu Sayyaf) would have in using the particular “new weapons” of unrestricted warfare against an adversary. He concludes that only a large nation such as China would have the ability to use all the “new weapons.” He adds, correctly, that unrestricted warfare does not explain how a nation would organize, train, and equip the necessary elements of national power to implement these “new weapons.”

He concludes that China would have the most success in applying the “new weapons,” but the operationalization of these weapons would be negatively “impacted by adhering to rules of law and the effects of globalization.”

Van Messel’s position can thus be summarized as “nothing to see here.” At the other extreme is retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding, who explains in his 2022 book titled War Without Rules¹⁵ that the weapons described in UW pose a major threat to the United States.

Spalding does not examine the originality of the theoretical framework presented in UW, but he does take note of it.

Spalding’s position on operationalizing the “new weapons” is directly opposite from van Messel’s: the new weapons depend on globalization, and that China does not adhere to international rule of law. Spalding justifies these conclusions by describing how recent Chinese foreign relations and economic policies demonstrate the “new weapons” in use, including the Belt and Road Initiative.

Spalding concludes by listing very concrete steps we can take to limit the harm the new weapons can have on the United States and the world. These steps include increasing the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, strengthening our currency, and monitoring the security implications of Chinese land and business purchases.

Other authors mix the extremes represented by van Messel and Spalding. Take, for example, Dave Maxwell, a retired Special Forces Colonel, Editor-in-Chief of Small Wars Journal, and Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy. The position he put forward in a 2023 paper¹⁶ is that discussions of the underpinning theoretical concepts of UW are a distraction from addressing the actions of the People’s Liberation Army.

The sinologist and Executive Assistant at the National Defense University Josh Baughman completely dismisses UW, stating that it is not China’s “Master Plan.” After doing a chapter-by-chapter study of UW, he concludes¹⁷ that it is “pseudo profound.” His opinion is based on a chapter of UW that attempts to apply Chinese numerology to warfare, and that one chapter poisons the rest of the book.

An Alternative Analysis

The problem with the analyses described above is that they all miss the most important part of UW: its reinterpretation of fundamental concepts like “victory”, “weapon”, “target”, and so on. These redefinitions explain the choices of “new weapons” presented in the text.

More importantly, the new definitions of fundamental concepts allow us to predict future weapons - future means of control - not mentioned in UW. Examples of the weapons missed by Qiao and Wang include control of medicine, the Chinese purchase of American land and businesses, and mass migration.

By focusing on fundamental concepts, we can defend against a wider class of weapons. The key to doing so lies in Qiao and Wang’s statement “everything that can benefit mankind can also harm him.” The accurate rephrasing should be: “everything that can benefit mankind and that we control can also harm him.” This makes clear the two conditions that make unrestricted warfare effective: globalization, and the omnipotent CCP - unrestricted warfare requires “everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

These observations point to a fundamental way to stop unrestricted warfare: rigorously enforce private property rights, especially in financial transactions. This, combined with strong currency and rational fiscal policies, would go a long way to block new weapons, both those mentioned in UW as well as those yet to be invented.

Conclusions

In summary, UW is quite important both in that it describes the economic and foreign policy decisions currently being made by China, and that it provides a conceptual framework explaining why those decisions are being made.

By understanding this conceptual framework, strategies and tactics to counter unrestricted warfare become apparent. Spalding’s recommendations block the effects of unrestricted warfare only in a piecemeal fashion, but shoring-up property rights counters China’s influence on America in one swoop. Considering the extent that politicians and corporations benefit from cooperating with China¹⁸, though, one must wonder if they are willing to take these steps and counter China’s “new weapons.”

 

Footnotes

1. Qiao & Liang, Unrestricted Warfare.
2. Ibid, as are all quotes in this section, unless specified otherwise.
3. This is similar to a "Realist War Theory": instead of combatants/noncombatants, RWT has combatants/enablers or combatants/supporters.
4. Emphasis added.
5. Kerry Gershaneck, “To Win Without Fighting”.
6. Qiao Liang also happens to be a fiction writer, and this may explain odd phrasings like this that occur at numerous places in UW.
7. Morgan Martin and Clinton Williamson, “Mapping Chinese Influence in Hollywood”
8. Chad Guzman, “Barbie is Just the Latest Hollywood Film to Get Caught in the Crossfire of Asian Geopolitics.”
9. Terry Gross, “Hollywood relies on China to stay afloat. What does that mean for movies?”
10. Qiao, “One Belt, One Road."
11. David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes.
12. Octavian Manea, “Liminal and Conceptual Development: Warfare in the Age of Dragons.”
13. A similar point is made by McFarlane and Paterson in ”Is America Ready for Chinese-Russian Liminal Warfare?”
14. John van Messel, “Unrestricted Warfare: A Chinese doctrine for future warfare?”
15. Spalding, War Without Rules.
16. David Maxwell, “The First Rule of Fight Club and Irregular Warfare Should be the Same.”
17. Josh Baughman, “’Unrestricted Warfare’ is Not China’s Master Plan.”
18. Robert Spalding. Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept.

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