Unrestricted Warfare

Unrestricted Warfare

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui

Everyone who has lived through the last decade of the 20th century will have a profound sense of the changes in the world. We don't believe that there is anyone who would claim that there has been any decade in history in which the changes have been greater than those of this decade. Naturally, the causes behind the enormous changes are too numerous to mention, but there are only a few reasons that people bring up repeatedly.

War which has undergone the changes of modern technology and the market system will be launched even more in atypical forms. In other words, while we are seeing a relative reduction in military violence, at the same time we definitely are seeing an increase in political, economic, and technological violence. However, regardless of the form the violence takes, war is war, and a change in the external appearance does not keep any war from abiding by the principles of war.

If we acknowledge that the new principles of war are no longer "using armed force to compel the enemy to submit to one's will," but rather are "using all means, including armed force or nonarmed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one's interests."

This represents change. A change in war and a change in the mode of war occasioned by this. So, just what has led to the change? What kind of changes are they? Where are the changes headed? How does one face these changes? This is the topic that this book attempts to touch on and shed light on, and it is also our motivation in deciding to write this book.

Read more: http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf