The Military Thinkers View of International Relations

Question

Instructions

Provide a 300-500 word response to the instructor-assigned questions below.  

Imagine you are a Chinese military leader and you are war-gaming a conflict in which the United States makes a show of force by sending a carrier strike group towards the Paracel islands. Use one war theorist to inform your response to the United States from a Chinese military perspective.      

Explain why you chose that particular theorist in support of your response.

Please choose between the two theorist below: 

Land domain: Clausewitz or Sun Tzu

Please use of the attached references. Professor will deduct points if no references are used from the course. Please cite Author, year and page number. 

PLEASE READ BELOW!

PRIMER: In Lesson 1 we looked at three primary worldviews or perspectives that help explain how states act.  In this week’s discussion you’re being asked to respond to a scenario from the perspective of a Chinese military leader who is war-gaming a conflict where the US is making a show of force by placing a carrier strike group near the Paracel Islands.  Building on what we discussed in Lesson 1 you’re now being asked to apply it.

In addressing the question you should also consider concepts and principles studied in the warfare studies self-paced course such as the nature of war: war’s unchanging essence of violence, interaction and politics – as well as the character of war: the changing way that war manifests in the real world.

As a Chinese military leader you also know the US adheres to just war theory – a belief that war must be morally justifiable based on a series of criteria.  How does this knowledge of the US and its use of military force inform your opinion?

Throughout world history there have been many theorists who’ve written about warfare from various perspectives.  In this assignment, you’re to also select a war theorists to inform your response and explain why you chose that particular theorist.

Most prominent theorists were practitioners of warfare or were war historians – or both.   In answering this question I recommend you stick with one of the true “cannons” of war theory – but you’re free to select any war theorist.  In picking one of the major cannons, you’ve already been exposed to most of them through your readings in the self-paced courses.  Below are the theorists I recommend:

·       Land domain: Clausewitz, Jomini, Sun Tzu

·       Sea Domain: Corbett and Mahan

·       Air domain: Douhet, Mitchell, Trenchard

·       Unconventional warfare: Mao and Guevara

But what of the space and cyberspace war-fighting domains?  This is an interesting dilemma to me.  In world history prominent theorists evolved to offer an overarching point of view of how warfare should be conducted in the Earthly physical domains.  And we also have theorists who were skilled in unconventional methods of war who’ve laid out treatises of war theory as well.

While much has been written about space power theory and space power in general, there hasn’t been a true cannon that has come forward to offer a compelling use of military force theory for the space domain despite the fact we’ve been operating in the domain militarily for decades.  Probably the closest thing we have is the work of James Oberg (Links to an external site.) - but how many of you even recognize his name? 

It’s interesting to me we’ve stood up an entirely new service, the Space Force, but we still don’t have a compelling and widely promulgated space power theory for operating in the domain militarily.

WRT cyberspace the situation is more austere.  Yes, there are many people writing about cyberspace and cyberspace power theory – even WRT military operations.  But again, can you name a single cyberspace power war theorist?

There have been some attempts to take the theories of other domains and apply them to space and cyberspace.  For example, some have claimed Corbett’s theory is a good model for the space domain and others say Mahan’s theory could be adopted in cyberspace.  But shouldn’t these war-fighting domains warrant their own unique theories?

I take this detour in order to make the following point.  In answering this question from the point of view of a Chinese military leader, recall the Chinese are very skilled in the cyberspace domain.  As the world’s second-largest economy, a nuclear power and having the world’s second-largest defense budget, China is a major threat to the US in all war-fighting domains.

After carefully watching how the US conducted Operation Desert Storm with its high-tech weaponry, China realized in order to defend itself in the future it needed to acquire high-tech capability, but also chose to focus on information technologies.

As  Lyu Jinghua  points out in her 1 April 2019 article, “What are China’s Cyber Capabilities and Intentions,” (Links to an external site.)“In 1993, two years after the Gulf War, the Chinese military adjusted its military strategic guideline which set “winning local wars in conditions of modern technology, particularly high technology,” as the basic aim of preparations for military struggle (PMS). In 2004, one year after the Iraq War, the military’s PMS was changed to “winning local wars under conditions of informationization.” The basic understanding, as elaborated in China’s National Defense in 2004, is that “informationization has become the key factor in enhancing the warfighting capability of the armed forces”’ (Jinghua, “What are China’s Cyber Capabilities and Intentions,” (Links to an external site.) 2019).

As a Chinese military leader it may be that you would focus on a cyberspace response…or include cyberspace as part of your overall scenario response.  The Chinese have been focusing on and working militarily in the cyberspace domain longer than the US.  The fact the US has no codified theory of cyberspace might make the US vulnerable.

WRT the space domain, the US has a distinct advantage technologically and experience wise – though China is working fast to catch up.  But, again, with no true space power theory, is the US vulnerable from or in the space domain?

In completing this assignment a successful answer will be one that comes at the question from the perspective of a Chinese military leader and uses a known war theorist to help inform your response.  Particularly WRT your primary post, you should demonstrate you have a working understanding of the key premises of the theorist you’ve selected in your analysis.  You should do this by drawing from the readings, concepts, theories and principles studied in the two self-paced courses and citing appropriately.