Retooling 

for the Future

Francisco Wong-Diaz

JSOU Report 13-2

May 2013

Joint Special Operations University

7701 Tampa Point Boulevard

MacDill AFB, FL 33621

https://jsou.socom.mil

 JSOU Report 13-2 Retooling for the Future Wong-Diaz
Joint Special Operations University

and the Strategic Studies Department

The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications to 

contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special operations. 

JSOU publications advance the insights and recommendations of national security 

professionals and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) students and leaders for 

consideration by the SOF community and defense leadership. 

JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special 

Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The 

JSOU mission is to educate SOF executive, senior, and intermediate leaders 

and selected other national and international security decision makers, 

both military and civilian, through teaching, outreach, and research in the 

science and art of joint special operations. JSOU provides education to the men 

and women of SOF and to those who enable the SOF mission in a joint and 

interagency environment. 

JSOU conducts research through its Strategic Studies Department where 

effort centers upon the USSOCOM and United States SOF missions: 

USSOCOM mission. Provide fully capable Special Operations Forces 

to defend the United States and its interests. Synchronize planning of global 

operations against terrorist networks.

USSOF mission. USSOF conducts special operations to prepare the 

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This publication is available on the JSOU public webpage located at: https://

jsou.socom.mil.

Roby C. Barrett

Ph.D., Middle Eastern & South Asian History 

Public Policy Center Middle East Institute 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Joseph D. Celeski

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Chuck Cunningham

Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force, Ret.

Professor of Strategy, Joint Advanced

Warfighting School and JSOU Distinguished 

Senior Fellow

James J.F. Forest

Ph.D., Higher Education Administration

Associate Professor, School of Criminology 

and Justice Studies, University of 

Massachusetts Lowell and JSOU Senior Fellow

Thomas H. Henriksen

Ph.D., History, Hoover Institution,

Stanford University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Bernd Horn

Colonel, Canadian Dept. of National Defence

Ph.D., War Studies, Professional Development 

Centre Director, CANSOFCOM

Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

John D. Jogerst

Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.

James Kiras

Ph.D., History, School of Advanced Air and 

Space Studies, Air University and

JSOU Associate Fellow

Joint Special Operations University

Brian A. Maher, Ed.D., SES, President

Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D., Strategic Studies Department Director

Robert Nalepa, Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force, Ret., Director of Research

Juan Alvarez, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.; William Knarr, Ed.D., Colonel, U.S. 

Army, Ret.; Richard Rubright, Ph.D., Strategic Studies; Jason Quirin, Ph.D., 

Chemical Engineering; Joanna Gutierrez Winters, M.A., International Relations 

and Diplomacy, M.A., Economics, Resident Senior Fellows

Anna-Marie Wyant, M.A., English, JSOU Press Editor

Editorial Advisory Board

William W. Mendel

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Major General, Brazilian Army, Ret.

JSOU Associate Fellow

James F. Powers, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret. 

JSOU Senior Fellow

Thomas Sass

Ph.D., International Relations

Richard H. Shultz, Jr. 

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, International Security Studies 

Program, The Fletcher School, Tufts University 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Ph.D., Physics/Nuclear Engineering

Sandia National Laboratories and JSOU 

Associate Fellow

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, Galisteo 

Consulting Group and JSOU Senior Fellow

Francisco R. Wong-Diaz

J.D., Ph.D., Political Science

Professor of international affairs and law 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Rich Yarger

Ph.D., History

JSOU Senior Fellow
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

On the cover: A chess board (top) symbolizes “Western” strategy, while a 

Weiqi board (bottom), commonly played in China, symbolizes “Eastern” 

strategy. Photos used by permission of Newscom.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

Retooling for the Future

Francisco Wong-Diaz

JSOU Report 13-2

The JSOU Press

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida

2013
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

This monograph and other JSOU publications can be found at 

https://jsou.socom.mil. Click on Publications. Comments about this 

publication are invited and should be forwarded to Director, Strategic 

Studies Department, Joint Special Operations University, 7701 Tampa 

Point Blvd., MacDill AFB, FL 33621.

*******

The JSOU Strategic Studies Department is currently accepting 

written works relevant to special operations for potential publication. 

For more information please contact the JSOU Research Director at 

jsou_research@socom.mil. Thank you for your interest in the JSOU 

Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN: 978-1-933749-74-7
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the 

author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position 

of the United States Government, Department of Defense, 

United States Special Operations Command, or the Joint Special 

Operations University.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

Recent Publications of the JSOU Press

21st Century SOF: Toward an American Theory of Special Operations, 

April 2013, Harry R. Yarger

Irregular Warfare: The Maoist Threat to India’s Internal Security,

December 2012, Prakash Singh

Iran: Illusion, Reality, and Interests, September 2012, Roby Barrett

Knowing Your Partner: The Evolution of Brazilian Special Operations 

Forces, August 2012, Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

2012 JSOU and NDIA SO/LIC Division Essays, July 2012

USSOCOM Research Topics 2013

Confronting the Terrorism of Boko Haram in Nigeria, May 2012, 

James J.F. Forest

Strategic Culture and Strategic Studies: An Alternative Framework 

for Assessing al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad Movement, May 2012, 

Richard Shultz

Understanding the Form, Function, and Logic of Clandestine 

Insurgent and Terrorist Networks: The First Step in Effective 

Counternetwork Operations, April 2012, Derek Jones

“We Will Find a Way”: Understanding the Legacy of Canadian 

Special Operations Forces, February 2012, Bernd Horn

Winning Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan and Elsewhere, February 

2012, Thomas H. Henriksen
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

Contents

Foreword .....................................................................

About the Author .........................................................

Introduction .................................................................

1. A Strategic Pivot or Rebalancing .............................

2. A great power transition? ........................................

3. The role and functions of combinations ..................

4. Lawfare ..................................................................

5. Conclusion: Retooling for the Future ......................

Endnotes ......................................................................

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JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

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JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

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Foreword

China is undeniably a rising power on the world stage; according to Dr. Francisco Wong-Diaz, whether or not China will become a peer competitor to the United States is not as important as its strategic culture. China’s 

military spending is on the rise, its economy is now half as large as the U.S. 

economy, and its territorial ambitions in the region are worrying to China’s 

immediate neighbors; yet it is far from parity. Many see an inevitable strategic conflict of interests between China and the United States. Others see the 

rise of China as an opportunity for the U.S. to collaborate on international 

security. Businesses see potential for both new markets and competition 

from cheap labor. The perceptions of China vary dramatically—however, it 

is clear China cannot be ignored. 

As Dr. Wong Diaz points out, President Obama has articulated that the 

United States will remain a Pacific power and needs to focus on the Far East. 

While the challenges and efforts of the last decade will only be ignored at 

our peril, a shift of focus to the Asia Pacific area will present profound and 

unique challenges to U.S. strategic thought. Yet, the lessons learned from 

the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be very useful as the defense establishment starts to ponder U.S. efforts in the Pacific region and the unique 

Chinese strategic perspective.

Dr. Wong-Diaz emphasizes the Chinese concept of unrestricted warfare 

(URW) in this thought-provoking monograph. Whether the Chinese approach economic and military parity with the United States is of secondary 

concern to the strategic vehicle they will use to influence regional and global 

behavior. URW will fundamentally challenge the United States’ capability to 

engage China with a coherent strategy. However, the asymmetrical approach 

of the Chinese is not as foreign as it once may have been. Counterinsurgency 

and asymmetrical threats are now within the paradigm of U.S. thinkers more 

than at any time in the last 30 years. This foundation presents an opportunity 

for the U.S. to begin to tackle the complex nature of the Chinese strategy.

With the increasing challenge of a rising China, Dr. Wong-Diaz comes 

to grips with URW in a way that allows the reader to garner a concise understanding of the monumental task of countering such a strategy. As the 

author points out, the task will be challenging, even daunting, and requires 

a concerted effort. It will also require a realistic analysis and action on our 

weakness that an asymmetric opponent can leverage such as lawfare. How-
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

x

ever, the Unites States has an opportunity to proactively come to grips with 

the strategic challenges of a regionally dominant China. As the Unites States 

“pivots” toward the Asia-Pacific region, it is better to understand the strategic challenges today rather than tomorrow, and a strategic retooling will be 

required that will certainly involve SOF. 

 Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D.

 Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

About the Author

Dr. Francisco Wong-Diaz is a senior fellow with the Joint Special Operations University 

Strategic Studies Department. A naturalized American citizen, he is emeritus of international affairs 

and law at the City College of San Francisco and 

expert subject lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School. A member of the Global 

Futures Forum, he was an academic fellow on terrorism with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (2007). 

Previously he was a fellow at the University of California (UC) at the 

Berkeley Center for the Teaching and Study of American Cultures (1995); 

visiting scholar and research associate at UC Berkeley Graduate School of 

Business (1983); visiting researcher at the Hoover Institution (1971); and 

Rackham fellow in political science at the University of Michigan (1967 

to 1970). He has taught at the University of Michigan (1967 to 1969), University of Detroit (1967), and San Francisco State University (1977) and 

presented at Columbia University School of Law, Stanford University, The 

University of Texas, University of Southern California, University of Miami 

(Florida), and others. His interest areas include U.S. foreign policy, strategy, 

counterterrorism, intelligence, national security law, and Cuban and Latin 

American politics. 

Dr. Wong-Diaz is an active member of the State Bar of California (1980), 

the Florida Bar (1987), and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District 

of California (1981). A former research assistant to the Honorable Frank 

Newman, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1976 to 1977), 

and law clerk of the presiding judge of Marin County Superior Court (1980), 

he served on the editorial boards of the California Lawyer (1991 to 1994), 

the Industrial Relations Law Journal (1975 to 1976), and the Ecology Law 

Quarterly (1976). A U.S. Department of State diplomat/scholar (1975), he 

served as dean/director of the Inter-American Center at Miami-Dade College (1985 to 1986); special assistant to the chancellor (1984 to 1985) and 

chairman of Latin American Studies/Coordinator of Legal Studies at the 

City College of San Francisco (1979 to 1985).

Recent major publications include Castro’s Cuba: Quo Vadis? (Strategic 

xi
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

xii

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2006) and American 

Politics in a Changing World (2004 revision). His articles, commentary, and 

op-editions have also appeared in The New York Times, San Jose Mercury 

News, Washington Times, Marin Independent Journal, Hispanic Magazine 

Online, FrontPage magazine, and elsewhere. For over two decades he has 

provided political analysis and news commentary in Spanish for Univisión 

and guest appeared on national radio broadcasts, PBS, NBC News, CBS, 

and other media outlets. Dr. Wong-Diaz is listed in Who’s Who in America, 

Who’s Who in the World, and Who’s Who in American Law. Memberships 

include the Pacific Council on International Policy, American Bar Association (Standing Committee on Law and National Security), International Institute for Strategic Studies, Proteus U.S. Army War College, Committee on 

the Present Danger, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and 

Africa, Commonwealth Club, and the World Association of International 

Studies. He was recognized as one of the “100 most influential Hispanics in 

the nation” by Hispanic Business magazine.

Dr. Wong-Diaz received his B.A. in Political Science (1965) from Northern Michigan University, M.A. in Social Science (1967) from the University 

of Detroit, M.A. in Political Science (1970) and Ph.D. in Political Science 

(1974) from the University of Michigan, and Juris Doctor from UC-Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall, 1976). He specialized in national security 

law at the University of Virginia School of Law Center for National Security 

Law (1996) and in trial advocacy at UC-Hastings College of the Law (1995). 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

1

Introduction

The first two decades of the 21st century presented a global security environment unanticipated by the end of the Cold War and bipolarity 

between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The unipolar world 

that followed the Soviet collapse is transforming into a multipolar system 

driven by the challenging rise of China, a resurgent Russia, an economically 

weaker European Union, and the development of India, Brazil, and Germany 

as independent power centers.

Meanwhile, state actors like North Korea and Iran have acquired or seek 

to acquire the capability to cause catastrophic nuclear destruction, while at 

the other end of the spectrum violent non-state actors like al-Qaeda challenge 

the nation-state system itself. As the United States moved to end its decadeslong intervention in Iraq and begins to wind down the war in Afghanistan, 

the uprisings of the Arab Spring altered the strategic map of the Middle 

East. Against this backdrop, on 5 January 2012, the Department of Defense 

(DOD) released a new strategic guidance articulating priorities to sustain 

U.S. global leadership during the 21st century.

The guidance reflects the DOD’s need to affect significant budget cuts 

mandated by Congress in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, implement 

the Obama administration’s new strategic turn or “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific 

region, and complete a reduction in European-based U.S. forces. It seeks 

to rebalance U.S. foreign, economic, and military policy as U.S. military 

forces would no longer be sized to “conduct large-scale, prolonged stability 

operations” like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, since the aim was to have 

a joint force that was “smaller, leaner, agile and flexible, able to work within 

a range of operational concepts and environments.”1

The shift toward the Asia-Pacific, in particular, has significant implications 

for the future of Special Operations Forces (SOF) in an age of austerity 

and war fatigue in light of our Asian adversaries’ presumed adherence to 

the strategic concept of unrestricted warfare (URW). As a result, in this 

study—after addressing the background and meaning of the U.S. strategic 

rebalancing or pivot to the Asia-Pacific region—we analyze the meaning 

and challenges presented by the Asian strategy of URW and how it seeks to 

reshape the global security environment. 

We illustrate the multidimensional nature of the challenges presented 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

2

by the Asia-Pacific to the SOF community as it retools for the future by 

highlighting one important dimension of URW known as “lawfare.” 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

3

1. A Strategic Pivot or Rebalancing?

Writing in the journal Foreign Policy in November 2011, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “As the war in Iraq winds down 

and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United 

States stands at a pivot point. ... One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially 

increased investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise—in 

the Asia-Pacific region.” Furthermore, she indicated that the “pivot” raises 

the priority allocated to Asia-Pacific in U.S. foreign policy.2 On 17 November 2011, President Obama addressed the Australian Parliament to reaffirm 

the U.S. alliance with Australia and: 

To address the larger purpose of my visit to this region—our efforts to advance security, prosperity, and human dignity across the 

Asia-Pacific. For the United States, this reflects a broader shift. 

After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, 

in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention 

to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region. ... As president, 

I have, therefore, made a deliberate and strategic decision—the 

United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation ... the 

United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this 

region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close 

partnership with our allies and friends.3

In his speech, President Obama highlighted security as the foundation for 

peace and prosperity and stressed that reductions in defense spending would 

not come at the expense of the Asia-Pacific region.4 Along the same lines, 

General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking 

later that month in London about the current security environment, said that 

given potential threats posed by state and non-state actors and emerging and 

re-emerging nations like China, the world may be facing a strategic inflection 

point as important as the one facing Allied leaders in World War II (WWII). 

A condition that is reflected in the ongoing proxy war between Turkey and 

Iran with Iran supplying weapons to Syria and Turkey arming the opposition 

while the United States, Russia and China hover in the background.5

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in a televised interview also 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

4

spoke about facing a strategic turning point after a decade of two wars. He 

noted that DOD is confronting substantial defense cuts, but unlike past 

drawdowns (e.g. WWII, Vietnam) the country faces a number of outstanding 

challenges and threats that have not gone away—ranging from terrorists and 

nuclear proliferation, to Iran and North Korea. Secretary Panetta was asked 

specifically about the pivot and “What does that mean? Does that mean containing China’s growing power? When you call for this new emphasis or 

shift, what would you do now that—what would you do now that you are not 

able to do?” He responded, “I think the most important thing is obviously 

maintaining our naval presence out in the Pacific, maintaining our military 

presence.”6 Six months later, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue of 

the 11th International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit 

in Singapore, Secretary Panetta announced that as part of the rebalancing by 

2020 about 60 percent of the U.S. Navy would be repostured in the Pacific.7

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the so-called 

‘pivot’ to the Pacific is a continuation and expansion of policies already undertaken by previous administrations and is now largely driven by four factors: China’s new status as the world’s second economic power, its growing 

military capabilities and more assertive maritime posture, the winding down 

of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, and the need for U.S. federal budget defense cuts. The CRS says that underlying the pivot is the conviction that 

the “center of gravity for American foreign policy, national security, and 

economic interests is shifting to Asia.”8 It should be noted that the decision 

to refer to this strategic turn as a pivot was mostly driven by the Department 

of State and the National Security Council with the DOD preferring to refer 

to it as a “rebalance.” The difference in language is important since a pivot 

might be seen as temporary and reversible while a rebalancing suggests a 

more permanent commitment and sustained performance since continuity of 

commitment to our friends and allies in the region is at issue. The strategic 

move is not a sharp break with the past because it brings the United States 

back to its role as a protector of the global commons—oceans, airspace, and 

outer space. 

Historically speaking, the U.S. shift to Asia began four decades ago during the Cold War period. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 memorable visit 

to Beijing ended the policy of isolation of the People’s Republic of China 

(PRC) following the “ping-pong” diplomacy. For almost a century China 

had been a failed state until the PRC was established. The United States did 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

5

not even recognize the PRC as a legitimate government for 30 years until 

1979.9 The Nixon-Kissinger Realpolitik strategy that led to the February 

1972 China Summit with Mao Zedong repositioned the international system 

as the United States moved to help strengthen the PRC as a counter to the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.10 Subsequent administrations continued the Nixon policy of engaging the PRC in particular as it began to reform 

and accelerate its economic development after Mao’s death in 1976. Led by 

Deng Xiaoping, beginning in 1978 Mao’s successors discarded many of his 

domestic policies and began reforms that accelerated economic growth with 

annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates averaging 10 percent. 

The rapprochement between the two countries culminated in the Taiwan 

Relations Act of 1979 (United States Code Title 22 Chapter 48 Sections 

3301-3316) that extended diplomatic recognition to the PRC as the legitimate government of China.

The U.S. has had a lot to do with the economic and military rise of China 

since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger traveled to China and sought an 

alliance with the PRC against the Soviet Union. Their visit to Beijing, for 

instance, laid the groundwork for the export of advanced dual technology to 

China. Later in 1993 the Clinton administration, after chastising the “butchers of Tiananmen Square,” loosened export restrictions allowing, among 

other things, the sale of Sun Microsystems supercomputers to China.11 As 

Aaron Friedberg and James Mann have documented respectively since the 

1970s we have basically armed China against ourselves.12 In the late 1990s 

some experts were still debating whether China was a rogue nation or nearcollapse.13 A sort of answer came in February 2009 when new U.S. Secretary 

of State Hillary Clinton, breaking with a 48-year-old tradition, embarked to 

Asia on her first official overseas trip instead of Europe. During her tenure 

as secretary of state she traveled to the Asia-Pacific more than twice the 

number of times of her predecessor Condoleezza Rice. Despite its campaign 

rhetoric, from the beginning the Obama administration followed a course 

traced under President George W. Bush with the United States strengthening 

relations with allies in Asia, moving toward a more flexible and sustainable 

troop presence in the region, concluding a free trade agreement (FTA) with 

South Korea, bringing the United States into the Trans-Pacific Partnership 

FTA negotiations, and forging new partnerships with India and Vietnam.14

As noted below, what is different about the Obama-Clinton shift to Asia is 

its emphasis in the military sphere. The new defense strategy, or pivot, does 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

6

not only shift the focus of attention to the Asia-Pacific but it includes a shift 

from having the capability to fight two regional wars at the same time to a 

“win-spoil” plan. Under this new plan the United States will maintain a capability to fight and win one regional war while acting to “spoil” the military 

actions of a second adversary elsewhere. As part of the rebalancing, ground 

forces will be reduced in favor of air and sea forces that will operate in a 

maritime and littoral theater. So over the next few years the U.S. Army and 

Marine Corps will reduce the number troops, while the Navy and Air Force 

will be maintained at current levels. To some, this emphasis on air and naval 

forces is a risky strategy because it does not provide flexibility and might 

limit the U.S. ability to respond to unexpected events at the low end of the 

military spectrum creating a sort of “strategic monism.”15 One response to 

this criticism is that as part of this new defense strategy the number of SOF 

under U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and their mission 

roles will significantly increase to provide agility and flexibility in power 

projection operations. Nonetheless, what The Economist calls the 10-year 

strategic distraction of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan—coupled 

with the global economic crisis, the confrontation with Iran, and the economic growth and military buildup of the PRC—have placed the U.S. at an 

inflection point, in General Dempsey’s words, generating a sense of urgency 

for the redirection of attention and effort to rebalance in order to maintain 

our standing as the dominant Pacific power.16
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

7

2. A Great Power Transition?

I

n the field of international relations the Power Transition Theory addresses 

the rise and decline of great powers from the Peloponnesian Wars to the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. The theory has its critics because of its cyclical 

approach to historical events and reliance on two main variables—power 

parity and degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.17 Nonetheless, the 

conceptual framework is useful as students of power transition theory see a 

familiar scenario developing as the U.S. finds itself at a strategic crossroad 

facing budgetary cuts while disengaging from two long-drawn wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. Power transition theory fundamentally sees the global 

system as being anarchical and hierarchically structured with dominant, great, 

middle, and small powers. The international system remains stable (status 

quo) for as long as the dominant power and its allies remain in control. The 

system is also dynamic as the distribution of power among states ebbs and 

flows as they move up and down the power pyramid. A critical point exists 

where the dominant power seeks to maintain the status quo and its position 

atop the pyramid while rising revisionist challengers seek to alter their 

position or eliminate the established system. Simply put, the theory posits 

a scenario where the dominant power begins to decline while the power of 

one or more contenders is rising. At some point the interests of a dissatisfied 

rising power will clash with those of the dominant and they might be unable 

to resolve their differences peacefully. Dissatisfaction is a necessary but 

insufficient factor, however, since it is relational between the nation-states. 

Perceptions of relative power also play an important role. Since the dominant 

power may perceive that it is unable to delay or decelerate its power decline 

it may seek to militarily preempt the stronger challenger while it has the 

capability. On the other hand, the rising challenger may seek to bring down 

the dominant power by deception and surprise attack as its relative power 

increases. The probability of conflict significantly increases as both enter 

the inflection point area where the downward curve of the declining power 

meets the upward curve of the rising challenger. One measure of power used 

in the analysis is gross domestic product (GDP).18

General Dempsey’s inflection point corresponds with former Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen’s often quoted statement that “Our 

national debt is our biggest national security threat.” This may suggest to 

policymakers that unless the U.S. economy begins to recover, or alternatively 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

8

China slows down its economic growth and military buildup, we might be 

approaching a zone of dangerous conflict.19 Obviously, key to this process 

are the policymakers and military leaders’ perceptions and the metrics used 

by both sides to establish their power calculus. In the contemporary situation 

such factors as whether China is a status quo or a revisionist state dissatisfied 

with the existing order, whether or not and to what extent might the U.S. be 

in decline, and if so whether it is doing so at a fast or slow rate will influence 

their interpretation of reality and shape their decision making. Because 

miscalculation and misperception could precipitate a military conflict with 

grave consequences, a consistent emphasis on transparency about intentions 

and capabilities has played a major role in U.S. dealings not only with China 

but with other authoritarian regimes like Iran and North Korea. A cautionary 

posture about power transition analysis is addressed by historian Niall 

Ferguson who after comparing the swift collapse of several empires asked 

“But what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arrhythmic—at 

times almost stationary but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports 

car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes 

suddenly, like a thief in the night?”20 The collapse of the United States due to 

a combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch may be more sudden 

than most imagine. Such is the logic behind the U.S. efforts to achieve more 

transparency by maintaining military-to-military relationships with China, 

albeit China’s practice is to turn them on and off when displeased with U.S. 

behavior. Presently, due to the 

economic crisis, the focus is on 

the economic rate of China’s 

growth and the economic 

stagnation of the United States 

and the West as independent 

factors influencing the military 

balance. 

 Worthy of consideration 

is what might happen in the 

historical record showing militarily and economically less powerful states 

initiating war against a stronger state. The theory of deterrence postulates 

that the military superiority of the status quo (dominant) power together with 

a credible retaliatory threat would deter attack by challengers. Yet, in 1904 

Japan attacked Russia and in 1941 the United States at Pearl Harbor; in 

Presently, due to the economic 

crisis, the focus is on the economic 

rate of China’s growth and the 

economic stagnation of the 

United States and the West as 

independent factors influencing 

the military balance.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

9

1950 a weaker China intervened against the U.S. and the United Nations 

in Korea; in 1973 Egypt crossed into the Sinai; and in 1982 Argentina 

invaded the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands provoking a British expeditionary 

counterattack.21 China in the 21st century seeks to avoid the mistakes made 

by weaker powers that initiated conflicts and lost. Until recently, Chinese 

leaders since Mao have been patient, cautious, and reassuring of their 

“peaceful rise” in their dealings with the U.S. and the rest of the world. 

From a military standpoint the pivot to Asia is a continuation of a return 

to the Asia Pacific region interrupted by a decade of war in the Middle East 

following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. From a SOF perspective, it means a 

rebalancing of resources and deployments from the U.S. Central Command 

area of responsibility (AOR) to the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) AOR 

at a time when China is rapidly modernizing its military and, among other 

things, expanding its special forces units.22 Unfortunately, the timing overlaps 

the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and is a reminder of 

Sun Tzu’s comment that long military campaigns are a plague to a nation—

“When power and resources are exhausted, then the homeland is drained.”23 

Since the challenges presented by violent extremism, the aftermath of the 

Arab Spring, nuclear North Korea, Iran nuclear facilities, and instability 

in Pakistan have not evaporated, a recent strategic analysis recommends 

that the U.S. should balance the pivot to Asia with a hedge to the Middle 

East.24 Along those lines, Friedberg proposes a different combination for 

rebalancing called “congagement plus,” that is a combination of containment 

and engagement with an emphasis on military power projection.25

Similarly, a gloomy Charles Kupchan believes that the decline of the U.S. 

will lead to a multipolar world with no center of gravity and no guardian, so 

the U.S. should abandon its overzealous democracy promotion agenda and 

treat China with a “nuanced mix of engagement and containment.”26

A sort of “hedge within the pivot” was evident at the time of President 

Obama’s November 2011 visit to Australia. To assuage the concerns of Asian 

allies and friends and signal resolve the president announced that the U.S. 

would be sending 250 Marines rotating in and out of a base in Darwin for 

approximately six months at a time building up to a force of 2,500 personnel 

over the years. The announced deployment was interpreted by the media as 

an attempt to enhance credibility at a time of budget constraints by affirming 

the U.S. commitment to Asia-Pacific and as a counter against China’s military 

buildup. As the president put it, “We welcome a rising, peaceful China,” but 
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10

the U.S. will send a “clear message that they need to be on track in accepting 

the rules and responsibilities that come with being a world power.”27

In response to the new defense posture, China’s Ministry of Defense 

spokesman Geng Yansheng warned in the ministry website that:

We have noted that the United States issues this guide to its defense strategy, and we will closely observe the impact that U.S. 

military strategic adjustments has on the Asia-Pacific region and 

on global security. ... The accusations leveled at China by the 

U.S. side in this document are totally baseless. ... We hope that 

the U.S. will flow with the tide of the era, and deal with China 

and the Chinese military in an objective and rational way, will be 

careful in its words and actions.28

Some American commentators have also objected to the pivot from a 

fiscal policy perspective arguing that the administration can cut defense 

spending or pivot to Asia—but not both. While supporting the maintenance 

of large bases in Japan and South Korea, and the deployment of Marines, 

navy ships, and aircraft to the Northern Territory of Australia as an initial but 

important step, they argue that the defense budget cuts undermine the new 

strategy of stationing new combat ships in Singapore and negotiating with 

the Philippines to base naval ships at existing facilities.29 The warnings by 

General Dempsey and Admiral Mullen, on the other hand, mimic President 

Ike Eisenhower’s viewpoint that the nation’s fiscal health is a national 

security concern. The warnings also convey a sense of urgency; the AsiaPacific challenge to the U.S. is that China’s economic growth is the engine 

behind its military buildup, just like the United States status as a global 

superpower hinged on its economy.30

For some time now civilian and military analysts have been discussing the 

themes of the China dream and the China threat. One pessimist about China’s 

ability to sustain its economic growth has described the China dream in terms 

of American and Western European hopes of reaping riches from expanding 

trade, investing, and selling to China. For centuries since Marco Polo, China’s 

large population has been a magnet for traders and merchants hoping to make 

it big. In fact, the West and its allies in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have 

had a lot to do with the rapid economic growth of China in the 1990s as over 

$300 billion in foreign investment poured into China. Unfortunately, many 
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Western businesses 

seeking unlimited 

o p p o r t u n i t i e s 

have encountered 

cultural and political 

factors that made 

the Chinese market 

seem impenetrable.31 

A recent example 

of how that China 

dream might turn into 

a business nightmare 

is the experience 

of Google, which 

opened its first 

office in China in 

2005. Since its arrival Google was harassed by hackers to the extent that in 

June 2009 a “DNS poisoning” attack caused Google to crash worldwide. 

Google also lost market share to its Chinese government-supported rival 

Baidu, and after becoming a target of state media attacks due to a clash 

with the government over censorship, it shut down its search engine on 22 

March 2010 and pulled out of China. Thereafter, on 24 March, Go Daddy, 

the world’s largest Internet domain name registration company, announced 

that it would no longer register web addresses in China due to tough new 

personal-identification requirements.

32 Two years later, the Wall Street 

Journal reported that Google was renewing its push to expand its operations 

to China because it could not afford to miss out on the world’s largest 

Internet market.

33 One lesson learned is that in order to operate in China’s 

economic environment foreign companies and investors must adjust their 

actions and expectations to the day-to-day operations of an authoritarian 

political system. 

Some believe that China and America are bound to be rivals, but they 

do not have to be antagonistic.34 For others the China dream turns into the 

nightmare of the “China threat” due to the challenge presented by China’s 

ongoing military “modernization” and regional hegemonic aspirations.35 

Despite its unprecedented economic growth rate, China remains a highly 

populated (1.3 billion) poor country with a GDP that is one third of the 

Figure 1. 2011 Top 10 Defense Budgets.
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12

United States, with a plethora of domestic issues ranging from an aging 

population, a birthrate below replacement due to a one-child policy, growing 

differences in wealth between the heavily populated, rich coastal areas and 

restive rural areas, to severe air pollution in industrial cities. As the country 

moves through a new leadership transition process, sustaining a high 

rate of economic growth and addressing an array of domestic issues will 

remain the new government’s priorities. In addition to these many domestic 

concerns the fact remains, as shown in Figure 1, that in 2011 the U.S. 

defense budget surpassed that of the next nine largest militaries combined. 

So why the concern about China’s growing military strength? One reason 

for the heightened concern is the presence among China’s military elites of a 

staunchly nationalistic and aggressive segment that advocates confrontation 

with the United States through a doctrine called URW.

The U.S. rebalancing 

toward the Asia-Pacific 

region will bring its military 

face to face with URW, the 

asymmetric warfare strategy 

advocated by certain elements 

within the Chinese military 

establishment. The lack 

of transparency regarding 

the respective interests and 

objectives of China’s civilian government and its military lies behind the 

American concern over its military buildup. In particular, open expression of 

support by Chinese military officers to the strategy of URW is a policy driver 

in the relations between the two countries.

Defining Terms

Former USSOCOM Commander Admiral Eric Olson has indicated that 

URW is not a doctrinally defined term.36 In 1999, Qiao Liang and Wang 

Xiangsui, two senior colonels of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 

published a manuscript entitled Chao Xian Zhan, translated to Unrestricted 

Warfare, which provided a definition of the term and a manual for its use and 

application.37 URW is defined by Liang and Xiangsui “as using all means, 

including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and 

lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.”38 

The U.S. rebalancing toward the 

Asia-Pacific region will bring its 

military face to face with URW, 

the asymmetric warfare strategy 

advocated by certain elements 

within the Chinese military 

establishment. 
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Significantly, the events that compelled the writing of the manual were their 

participation in the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis and the U.S. dominant 

performance during the Gulf War, which they underscore as the “one war 

that changed the world.”39 A translator’s note indicates that in a subsequent 

interview Qiao Liang summarized the book’s core theme as “the first rule 

of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.”40 

The significance of the concept is that in the case of terrorism, for example, 

“national forces must always conduct themselves in according to certain 

rules and therefore are only able to use their unlimited resources to fight a 

limited war.”41

Some Americans do not consider URW as a new type of war; however, 

pointing out that in1962 President John F. Kennedy had adroitly addressed it 

in a graduation speech at West Point:

This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its 

origins—war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; 

wars by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration instead of 

aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy 

instead of engaging him ... it requires in those situations where 

we must encounter it ... a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly 

different kind of force, and therefore a new and wholly different 

kind of military training.42

Yet, the URW book raised concerns throughout the United States and 

Europe after it became known that the authors had both predicted the World 

Trade Center terror attacks and made reference to Osama bin Laden before 

11 September 2001. The work noted that the Strategic Institute of the U.S. 

Army War College had discovered the “frequency bandwidth” or blind 

spot problem in the new military revolution. It was “the gap between the 

American military in terms of military thought and the real threat facing 

national security” and “Whether it be the intrusion of hackers, a major 

explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, 

all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the 

American military.”43 In particular, they had noted that “The advent of binLaden style terrorism has deepened the impression that a national force, no 

matter how powerful, will find it difficult to gain the upper hand in a game 

that has no rules.”44
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During the Iraq War, in order to defeat the insurgency, General Stanley 

McChrystal transformed the special operations approach to the enemy. As he 

put it, “it became clear to me and to many others that to defeat a networked 

enemy we had to become a network ourselves.”45 The two authors of 

Unrestricted Warfare had predicted in 1999 that if such a move were to be 

made it was bound to fail—“Even if a country turns itself into a terrorist 

element, as the Americans are now in the process of doing, it will not be able 

to achieve success.”46 The United States command under General McChrystal 

did not turn itself into a terrorist element but rather it sought to address the 

bandwidth issue. It was successfully accomplished through the introduction 

of a process fusing the intelligence and operations functions. A version of the 

process is described as “find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, and disseminate,” 

or F3EAD.47 Nonetheless, since the 9/11 attacks have been identified by 

the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks as a bandwidth problem, 

an “intelligence failure” showing a “failure of imagination,” the Chinese 

colonels’ predictions about bin Laden’s behavior and their understanding of 

the U.S. military’s constraints seemed very prescient.48

The URW book triggered a gamut of U.S. studies, workshops, seminars,49

and war games. A notably controversial example of the latter was the 

Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02), a reported DOD $250 million exercise 

conducted in July-August 2002. It was the largest military exercise in history, 

planned over two years, involving 13,500 personnel from the Army, Navy, 

Air Force, and Marines and designed to test naval and aerial combat theories 

in a simulated battle between the United States (Blue Team) and a fictitious 

adversary in the Persian Gulf (Red Team).50 The controversy surrounding 

the exercise developed following statements made in 2008 by the initial Red 

Team commander, retired Marine Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, who 

claimed that during the exercise he had sunk 16 American ships, including an 

aircraft carrier and most of its strike group, by applying asymmetrical tactics 

like swarming the Navy ships with small boats and missiles. If his statement, 

“The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and 

electronically, to handle the attack” is true, then it was another instance of 

the “bandwidth gap” and it might be very relevant to the current challenges 

presented by Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.51

China is not the only country interested in URW; North Korea and Iran 

have been adopting some of its principles in their regional strategies. On April 

2010, for instance, while diplomatically continuing to resist more intrusive 
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International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) supervision of its nuclear 

facilities, the Iranian government announced that the Islamic Revolutionary 

Guard Corps had the “Great Prophet V” exercise using “ultrafast” watercraft 

in a 300 boat swarming attack.52 These asymmetric warfare exercises were 

followed by the 24 December 2011, Velayat-90 naval drills covering a 2,000 

kilometer stretch of sea around the Strait of Hormuz from the Persian Gulf 

to the Arabian Sea. (Figure 2). The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s 

most important chokepoints 

through which half of the 

world’s oil passes. The 

purpose of the 10-day 

exercise was to taunt the 

U.S. Navy and convey 

the message that in these 

narrow passages and coastal 

waters the Iranians would 

raise the cost to U.S. naval 

forces by subjecting them to 

destructive attacks and other 

asymmetric tactics similar 

to those used by General 

Van Riper in the MC02 

simulation.53

As the most recent DOD annual report to Congress on China’s military 

shows, the Chinese official military budget reached $106 billion in 2012, an 

11.2 percent increase, and China would soon commission its first Kuznetsovclass aircraft carrier. The real total spending is estimated around $120 billion 

and $180 billion as the PLA transforms its air force and navy into forces 

capable of offshore offensive and defensive operations.54 The relevance of 

the concept of URW in the case of China is based on the assumption that as 

China rapidly increases its conventional capabilities to approach those of 

URW itself is neither new or original for its long genealogy can be traced 

back both to Sun Tzu’s the Art of War and B.H. Liddell Hart concept of 

“grand strategy.”55 While Tzu and Clausewitz addressed the theory and 

practice of war in general, however, the Chinese manual is specifically 

directed at the United States. The practice of URW relies on deception 

and surprise in the unrestricted use of means and methods to achieve goals 

Figure 2. Strait of Hormuz and surrounding 

areas.
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and objectives. In the book, the authors focus on the “American-style 

extravagant warfare,” while displaying familiarity with American military 

history, organization, culture, and methods, and a keen interest on analyzing 

our idiosyncratic vulnerabilities. Their interpretation of the American way 

of war, as exemplified by Operation Desert Storm, forms the basis for their 

theory and perceptual screen. In their view, the United States engages in 

“large-scale use of costly weapons in order to realize objectives and reduce 

casualties without counting cost—this kind of warfare, which can only be 

waged by men of wealth is a game that the American military is good at ... 

has already become an addiction.”56 To them the American way of war is 

comparable to “attacking birds with golden bullets.”57 Moreover, “this is a 

nationality that has never been willing to pay the price of life and, moreover, 

has always vied for victory at all costs.”58 Their advice is that “All of the 

opponents who have engaged in battle with the American military have 

probably mastered the secret of success—if you have no way of defeating 

this force, you should kill its rank and file soldiers.”59 The main allegation 

being that when the U.S. goes to war it is casualty averse since “reducing 

casualties is the highest objective in formulating the plan” and “there must be 

victory without casualties.” Casualty aversion is an American vulnerability 

to be exploited.60

In reaching that conclusion the authors apparently were influenced by 

the work of Russell Weigley who argued that the American way of war 

since WWII was characterized by the application of overwhelming force 

against its enemies and avoidance of excessive casualties.61 A non-military, 

sociological interpretation of casualty aversion, however, is provided by 

Luttwak who claims that “advanced societies whose small families lack 

expendable children have a very low tolerance for casualties.”62 To support 

their argument that the U.S. is casualty averse the Chinese colonels point 

out, “During the Gulf War, of 500,000 troops, there were only 148 fatalities 

and 458 wounded. Goals that they long since only dreamt were almost 

realized—no casualties.”63 In truth, American warfighters are not afraid of 

suffering casualties per se and have long engaged in close quarters fighting 

continuing to do so through the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They have 

sought to maximize enemy casualties while minimizing friendly casualties 

because we have precise, highly lethal weapons systems and a highly 

trained volunteer force recruited in a representative democracy where every 

individual life is valuable and popular support for war is needed. 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan with increasing casualty 

levels the American people have remained as proud and supportive of 

its military as ever. Public opinion studies, in fact, have shown that the 

American public is not casualty averse but is keenly aware of the ends-andmeans aspects of military intervention taking their cue from military leaders 

and policymakers. The myth of risk aversion results from a misinterpretation 

by the national security leaders who mistakenly believe that the public is 

risk averse and will not support use of force except when vital interests are 

at stake.64 More important than the myth of casualty rates is the relationship 

between fiscal reality and the way Americans have waged war. With the 

federal debt at 100 percent of GDP and trillion dollar deficits, the profligate 

tactical approach to warfare where, 

for instance, expensive missiles 

are launched against single 

individual terrorists (“attacking 

birds with golden bullets”) needs 

reconsideration. Since the days of 

George Washington responsible 

leaders have known that our 

economic power is the cornerstone 

of military power, and there is a need 

for a national strategy establishing 

a rational relationship of ends and 

means for the appropriate exercise 

of military power in an era of 

financial austerity.65

Taiwan 1995-1996 Missile Crisis

The Chinese colonels’ emphasis on U.S. concern with casualties seeks to 

highlight the differences in strategic culture between the U.S. and China. 

An example of the strategic cultural divide appeared during the 1995-1996 

Taiwan missile crisis. To intimidate Taiwan, prevent a March 1996 election, 

and press for “reunification,” on 21-26 July 1995—after giving advance 

notice—China fired six short range missiles to an area within 40 kilometers of 

Taipei. (Figure 3). The effect was immediate as Taiwan’s stock market fell by 

33 percent and the air and sea lanes around the island were closed to traffic. As 

part of the operation, China deployed short-range ballistic missiles opposite 

17

Since the days of George 

Washington responsible leaders 

have known that our economic 

power is the cornerstone of 

military power, and there 

is a need for a national 

strategy establishing a rational 

relationship of ends and means 

for the appropriate exercise 

of military power in an era of 

financial austerity.
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Taiwan and announced in 

public that it had stolen 

the design for the neutron 

bomb from the United States 

and successfully tested a 

device in 1984.66 Chinese 

General Xiong Guangkai, 

then Assistant Chief of the 

General Staff of the PLA 

at the time of the crisis 

and later chief of military 

intelligence, created an 

uproar when he publicly 

said to Assistant Secretary of 

Defense Chas Freeman that the U.S. “cares more about Los Angeles than 

they care about Taipei.”67 At a time when China was a weak second-rate 

power the officer believed that the U.S. would stand by if China were to 

attack Taiwan because China had the ability to annihilate Los Angeles and 

was willing to absorb millions of casualties in case of a nuclear exchange. 

It was an instance of Chinese “management of perception” tactics that was 

widely and erroneously reported as a direct threat to attack Los Angeles with 

nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, it remains generally true that democratic 

societies like the U.S. do seek to avoid unnecessary casualties while in 

authoritarian countries the rulers don’t seem to care as much about them. 

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union reportedly was considering a preemptive strike against China’s nuclear program.68

During the Vietnam War, differences in strategic culture were overlooked 

as the U.S. adopted the Robert McNamara metric for war-winning, namely, 

counting and comparing the number of casualties we inflicted on the Viet 

Cong and the North Vietnamese. The infamous body counts were a clear 

example of mirror imaging that fully exhibited the limitations of the “garbagein, garbage-out” problems of system analysis, as well as a reflection of the 

technocratic mind at work. In McNamara’s words, 

The body count was a measurement of the adversary’s manpower losses; 

we undertook it because one of Westy’s [General Westmoreland’s] 

objectives was to reach a so-called crossover point, at which Vietcong 

Figure 3. Taiwan Strait.
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[sic] and North Vietnamese casualties would be greater than they could 

sustain ... We were wrong. Indeed, the crossover point never arrived 

because the enemy did not think like us.69

During the 1995-96 Taiwan missile crisis the U.S. sought to show strong 

resolve by sending the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its battle group 

through the unusual route of the Taiwan Straits in December 1995, but it did 

not stop China from scheduling large-scale military maneuvers in FebruaryMarch 1996.70 Then, on 8 March 1996, China fired three ballistic missiles—

one over Taipei and two near port cities. The failure to deter China from 

its coercive activities against Taiwan prompted then Secretary of Defense 

William Perry, first, to warn a visiting Chinese military official of “grave 

consequences” should any missiles hit Taiwan and soon thereafter to send 

two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Taiwan area in the largest U.S. naval 

deployment to Asia since the war in Vietnam. While Chinese Premier Li 

Peng warned the U.S. not to make a show of force by sending the Navy 

again through the Taiwan Strait, Secretary Perry responded by boasting that 

“Beijing should know, and this U.S. fleet will remind them, that while they 

are a great military power, the strongest, the premier military power in the 

Pacific, is the United States.” The fleet did not enter the strait, however.71

URW: Lessons Learned and Different Thinking

The main strategic assumption of Chinese URW is that the United States 

is currently unmatched in conventional weapons and cannot be defeated 

through direct confrontation. But it can be defeated indirectly through 

what the authors call the “principle of addition” which is the method of 

combination.71 An adversary does not have to match U.S. power one to one 

since the principle operates as a holistic approach based on a process of 

combining resources and capabilities at all levels and across all dimensions. 

In addition to or in lieu of military force, combat would take place with 

electronic, diplomatic, cyber, terrorist, proxy, economic, political, and 

propaganda tools to overload, deceive, and exhaust the U.S. “system of 

systems.” The principle of addition works together with the side-principal 

rule, the golden rule that is the dominant strategy of “evading enemy 

frontal attacks and weakening the enemy momentum.”72 An example of the 

application of the side-principal rule and the American bandwidth gap is the 

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor where the Americans refused to believe that 
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Hawaii would be the point of attack even after receiving intelligence before 

the operation. Japanese Admiral Yamamoto “won a victory with surprising 

moves by hitting side targets.”74

Mind games lie at the core of URW since it integrates non-war and war 

actions and transcends all boundaries and limits. URW is not synonymous 

with hybrid warfare, unconventional warfare, insurgency, guerrilla war, 

or any of the concepts bandied about. It is in fact a holistic meta-concept 

comprising the totality of life—“all the means will be in readiness, the 

information will be omnipresent, and the battlefield will be everywhere. ... 

All boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military 

and non-military, will be totally destroyed.”75 That is why new thinking is 

needed regarding war and weapons, too, because in the 21st century anything 

can be a weapon—from a computer virus to a rumor or scandal. As the URW 

colonels put it, 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.76

Whether we like it or not, whether we accept or reject it, it is a widely 

accepted notion among our adversaries that they are engaged in a total war 

with us. There was a time when the Vietnam War was described in the West 

as a limited war. But for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese bombed by our 

B-52s the war was anything but limited; for them it was probably total. This 

is useful in understanding the contemporary practice of suicide bombing 

by violent extremists. Whether they volunteer, are coerced, or radicalized 

through the Internet, the fact remains that they are difficult to deter, effective 

weapons to kill people and sow fear. The suicide bomber is engaged in a 

total war to the point of self-destruction. Unlike the South Vietnamese or 

Tibetan Buddhist monk who acting alone sets himself on fire to immolate for 

a cause, the suicide bomber’s religious beliefs direct the focus of destruction 

on the dehumanized ‘other’ (target/victims). Suicide bombing is martyrdom 

in Islamist jihad and operationally it is the result of a combination of human 

(bomb maker, bomber, handlers, and trigger-puller who might detonate from 

afar) and non-human elements (the device) seeking to destroy the ‘other’ for 

his own salvation. State and non-state actors using a URW strategy can hide 

their hand through combinations of increasing opaqueness. 
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In his book On China, Henry Kissinger states that the Chinese are shrewd 

practitioners of Realpolitik or political realism and follow a different 

strategy than the West.77 The differences are reflected in the intellectual 

games favored by each civilization. Following David Lai’s study that uses 

the ancient game of Weiqi (Go) as a metaphor for the Chinese approach 

to strategy, Kissinger argues that while the United States and the West 

approach great power politics as a game of chess where the purpose of the 

game is checkmate or total victory, the Chinese play Weiqi.78 Weiqi has been 

around for centuries and it is a popular game in China where the opponent 

is defeated by limiting his movement options. The chess player aims for 

total victory. The Weiqi player seeks relative advantage. In chess, the player 

always has the capability of the adversary in front of him; all the pieces are 

fully deployed. The Weiqi player needs to assess not only the pieces on the 

board but the reinforcements the adversary is in a position to deploy. Chess 

teaches the Clausewitzian concepts of “center of gravity” and the “decisive 

point”—the game usually beginning as a struggle for the center of the board, 

Weiqi teaches the art of strategic encirclement.79

Kissinger also sees differences in military theory where Chinese strategic 

thinkers follow the tradition of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and his emphasis 

on the psychological and political rather than just the military dimension. 

In a belated self-reproaching statement Kissinger notes, “One could argue 

that the disregard of his [Sun Tzu] precepts was responsible for America’s 

frustration in its Asian wars.”80 Our continued disregard is obviated when 

U.S. policymakers travel to Beijing to inquire about the reasons behind their 

military buildup demanding more transparency and less opaqueness, for 

in doing so we are engaged in chess playing. To the Chinese and Iranians 

playing Weiqi it must appear naïve to be asked to show all the pieces in a 

game they are not playing. We live in a democracy where the demand for, 

and expectation of, transparency is our modus vivendi. Our government, 

media, think tanks, and oversight committees are a constant source of 

valuable information about all aspects of our country’s life. Leaked or 

stolen classified and confidential military, technological, and scientific 

information is allegedly posted on the Internet. Sources and methods as 

well as the identity of our operators and their units have been imprudently 

disclosed to the public to score political points. Legally, under the Freedom 

of Information Act hitherto sensitive material is obtainable by friend and foe 

alike. But no amount of military-to-military relations pleading will bring 
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about the transparency that we seek from adversaries and competitors. They 

play by other rules or by none. Why should we expect them to give their 

game away? 

 In his 2005 “Future War Paper” Van Messel dismisses the Unrestricted 

Warfare text because the authors do not provide specifics on “how to do it.”81 

But why should they make it easier to countermeasure? We want transparency 

because we give it all away with our own transparency. They do not feel 

obligated to play by our rules (transparency v. opaqueness) since after all 

they are proponents or practitioners of war without rules. Van Messel also 

claims that since URW is almost similar to Clausewitzian total war China 

would be constrained by increased globalization in its use of indiscriminate 

acts of warfare. But globalization has not constrained the militant jihadists 

and radical extremists in their indiscriminate suicide bombing behavior, or 

the nation-states that provide them sanctuary. Globalization per se would not 

be a deterrent to a state actor engaged in an opaque URW combination with 

state and non-state actors.

Means and Methods of URW 

For the authors of Unrestricted Warfare, territorial boundaries, lines of 

demarcation, tripwires, battlefields, sovereign spaces, and the like are no 

longer as relevant in the conduct of 21st century warfare. The reason is that 

there is no “non-battlespace” because virtually every space has battlefield 

significance—“All that is needed is the ability to launch an attack in a certain 

place, using certain means, in order to achieve certain goals.”82 Likewise, 

the soldier of the future is more likely to be “a pasty-faced scholar wearing 

thick glasses” than a strong and brave lowbrow with bulging biceps.83 In 

a digitized world, as Mao Zedong theorized, every citizen can in fact be a 

soldier. For example, a computer hacker without military training or status 

could “easily impair the security of an army or a nation in a major way 

by simply relying on his personal technical expertise.”84 As a result, the 

battlefield of the future is omnipresent; it is everywhere.85

In an omnipresent battlefield how does one fight? After identifying 

and analyzing the four forms that future wars would take according to the 

United States—information warfare, precision warfare, joint operations, and 

military operations other than war (MOOTW)—they recognize that except 

for joint operations the other three forms of war fighting are the product of 

“new military thinking.”86 However, none is able to capture the true nature 
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of URW which is the concept of “non-military war operations.” While the 

U.S. focuses on MOOTW as a sort of residual category for “missions and 

operations by armed forces that are carried out when there is no state of war,”87 

URW as a meta-concept of grand strategy establishes what “constitutes a 

state of war” itself. The unconventional means of URW include those that 

seem totally unrelated to war. Fifteen types of non-military warfare domains 

or lines of operation and their defining means and methods are listed by the 

authors of Unrestricted Warfare with the caveat that there are others too 

numerous to mention:88

1. Trade warfare: using trade measures such as embargoes, domestic 

trade law, tariff barriers, most-favored nation status, et cetera.

2. Financial warfare: a hyperstrategic weapon because it is concealed 

and highly destructive by relying on currency, banking, and stock market 

manipulation, use of foundations.

3. New terror warfare: terrorism using high technologies and weapons 

of mass destruction against humanity as a whole.

4. Ecological warfare: employing modern technology to influence the 

natural state of rivers, oceans, the crust of the earth, the polar ice sheets, the 

air circulating in the atmosphere, and the ozone layer.

5. Psychological warfare: perception management of strength and 

capabilities to intimidate and breakdown the will of the enemy.

6. Smuggling warfare: throwing markets into confusion with illegal 

goods and counterfeit products.

7. Media warfare: media manipulation to influence opinions, attitudes, 

and images; intimidation of journalists and media outlets.

8. Drug warfare: profiteering from illicit drug sales used to destabilize 

and weaken other countries.

9. Network warfare: conducting non-attributable cyber attacks.

10. Technological warfare: monopolizing critical nodes.

11. Fabrication warfare: deception, lying, and perception and narrative 

management to conceal one’s true weakness and project false strength.

12. Resources warfare: plundering the stores of natural resources by 

controlling access to them by other countries.

13. Economic aid warfare: providing aid to control and create dependency.

14. Cultural warfare: influencing and shaping foreign cultures, values, 

and practices into accepting, absorbing, and integrating your own; leading 
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cultural trends so yours will be adopted.

15. International law warfare: controlling the legal and regulatory 

environment; using the judicial system to advance your own agenda and 

defeat your adversary.

The authors predict that any future war would lead to the use of 

what has been labeled a “Beijing cocktail,” a mixture of the above nonmilitary means with the use of force. In such a war, the goal should be 

“to use all means whatsoever—means that involve the force of arms 

and means that do not involve the force of arms, means that involve 

military power and means that do not involve military power, means 

that entail casualties and means that do not entail casualties—to force 

the enemy to serve one’s own interests.”89 The strategy seeks to achieve 

the proper combination of means and methods by using “ten thousand 

methods combined as one: combinations that transcend boundaries.”90
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3. The Role and Functions of Combinations

To achieve victory, the URW strategist must learn to combine means and methods using a Machiavellian approach of going beyond limits by 

transcending ideology. The masters of warfare like Alexander the Great and 

the kings of the Zhoud Dynasty were great cocktail mixers who combined 

weapons, means, battle arrays, and stratagems. Unlike the 21st century 

master, however, their combinations were limited to the military domain. 

The new method of warfare is called “modified combined war that goes 

beyond limits.”91 It does not mean that there are no limits but rather that one 

goes beyond the box to achieve a particular objective. Modified combined 

war has four expressions: supra-national, supra-domain, supra-means, and 

supra-tier combinations.

A supra-national combination is the most powerful that a country can 

use and has been the trend since the Gulf War. It is a cocktail combination 

of national, international, transnational, and non-state organizations that is 

used to solve problems and achieve objectives. One example would be the 

European Union (EU) and its adoption of the euro as a common currency to 

achieve unity. The current crisis in the Eurozone with the almost bankrupt 

economies of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain threatens the 27-member EU 

with disunity as the value of the euro as a common currency is in jeopardy. To 

reset the group, Germany and France, the economically strongest European 

countries, must succeed in cooperating in sustaining restabilization policies. 

One issue in the Franco-German relationship, however, is that French 

Socialist President Francois Hollander was elected on a political platform 

of opposition to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s austerity and 

euro stabilization program. The ability of the leaders of those two countries 

to protect the Eurozone will have global consequences beyond the EU’s 

own stability by forcing domestic changes in the weak European states or 

hastening departures from the EU at a time when the U.S. is reducing its 

NATO involvement as it pivots to Asia.92

The United States has used supranational combinations very successfully 

to advance its interests and the authors underscore it by noting the success 

of the coalition of the willing organized by President George H.W. Bush to 

fight the Gulf War. China, for its part, is moving to combine supra-nationally, 

too, as shown by its involvement in the Association of South East Asian 

Nations (ASEAN) and particularly the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 
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(SCO). The Shanghai Five was founded in 1996 by members China, Russia, 

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to resolve border disputes between 

China and the former Soviet Union by demilitarizing their borders. With the 

addition of Uzbekistan the organization was renamed SCO and has expanded 

its activities into the areas of military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and 

counterterrorism training exercises. Its six members occupy 60 percent of the 

landmass of Eurasia and one third of the world population. Several countries 

including Iran, India, and Pakistan have observer status. The SCO has called 

for the U.S. to set a timeline to withdraw its military from Central Asia, and 

it believed that despite bilateral frictions between China and Russia it is 

being used as a supranational mutual security combination to counter NATO 

and oppose an American presence in the strategic Central Asia.93

The second type of combination is the supra-domain where, for example, 

trade warfare, media warfare, 

cyber warfare, and cultural 

warfare constitute the domains. 

The supra-domain is beyond the 

domain of the battlefield because 

it combines across nonmilitary 

and military domains to achieve 

its objectives. The Western 

powers and Israel suspect that despite its denials Iran has been seeking an 

atomic weapons capability under the cover of a civilian and space program. 

The U.S. and its allies have thus far deferred overt military domain operations 

by focusing mostly on nonmilitary operations. Economic sanctions (e.g. oil 

embargo, no sales of airplane spare parts), financial pressure (e.g. freezing 

assets), weapons inspections by the IAEA, diplomacy, media campaigns, 

and so forth are being combined in the 21st century equivalent of warfare to 

compel Iran to change direction. In this bloodless conflict the outcome might 

be decided by political, economic, diplomatic, cultural, technological, and 

other nonmilitary factors in a supra-domain combined operation.94

A still unclear aspect of the confrontation is the role of covert operations 

in the combination against Iran such as the assassination of nuclear scientists 

and the cyber worm attacks. On 15 May 2012, Iran’s official IRNA news 

agency reported the execution of Majid Jamali Fashi, a man convicted as an 

Israeli spy responsible for the 2010 assassination of nuclear scientist Masoud 

Ali Mohammad, a particle physics professor at Teheran University.95 The 

The supra-domain is beyond the 

domain of the battlefield because 

it combines across non-military 

and military domains to achieve its 

objectives.
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Islamic Republic of Iran has blamed Israel and the United States for the 

killing of four nuclear experts including the more recent killing in London 

of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on 11 January 2012. The U.S. has condemned 

the attacks and denied responsibility.96

In late 2009 and early 2010 a cyber weapon attack is said to have destroyed 

as many as 1,000 Iranian nuclear-fuel centrifuges or more than one-tenth of 

the 8,692 installed centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.97 

According to computer antivirus firm Symantec, a computer malware named 

“Stuxnet worm” by security experts targeted industrial control systems of 

a critical array of centrifuges with certain specific brands of frequency 

converters—a piece of equipment that governs centrifuge motors and controls 

a centrifuge’s rotational speed. The failure of the centrifuges would be a major 

setback to the Iranian nuclear program. Iran by 2011 replaced the centrifuges 

increasing the number of operating centrifuges to about 4,800. However, on 

1 September 2011 the Duqu or “Son of Stuxnet” virus, a computer worm 

related to the Stuxnet but with data stealing capabilities useful in attacking 

industrial control systems, was discovered in Iran’s nuclear sites. While the 

Stuxnet virus destroyed the systems it infected, the Duqu secretly penetrated 

them, and created vulnerabilities for future exploitation.98 The attribution 

issue is significant since it is officially unknown who unleashed the Stuxnet 

and the Duqu cyber weapons to undermine the Iranian program. The list 

of suspects ranged from Israel to China, Russia, and the United States. 

According to a RAND Corporation report the U.S. and Israel allegedly 

created the virus for two purposes—to deter Iran from developing nuclear 

weapons and to keep Israel from launching a preventive military strike—

and “in the end, a pair of first-rate cyber powers carried out cyber sabotage 

against a facility belonging to a third-rate industrial culture causing more 

than a hiccup in the production of enriched uranium.”99 It has been noted that 

if it could be officially attributed to the U.S. “countries hostile to the United 

States may feel justified in launching their own attacks against U.S. facilities 

perhaps even using a modified Stuxnet code.”100

The Stuxnet attack was indeed a harbinger of emerging warfare capabilities 

in the cyber space domain because on 30 March 2012 a group calling itself 

“Anonymous China” stood up a twitter account and began to deface Chinese 

government websites. In May 2012, after a new series of attacks, the Iranian 

Computer Emergency Response Team announced the discovery of another 

more complex virus named “Flame” This last discovered cyber weapon 
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was capable of “password and data stealing, sniffing network traffic, taking 

screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and 

so on.”101

Harvard professor Gary King and his co-researchers Jennifer Pan and 

Margaret Roberts conducted a large scale, multiple-source analysis using 

a system devised to locate, download, and analyze the content of millions 

of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400 different social media 

services all over China before the Chinese government could remove them 

from the Internet in order to study censorship by the PRC. China with over 

550 million Internet users—38 percent of the population—is engaged in, 

according to King, “the largest effort to censor human expression in history.” 

It is a “huge manual effort” involving hundreds of thousands of people. 

Surprisingly, they discovered that the Chinese censorship program rather 

than stopping access to the Internet, or censoring criticism of the state and 

its policies, seeks to prevent, curtail, and eliminate collective action by 

“silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, 

regardless of content.”102 The Chinese government like other authoritarian 

regimes in Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Myanmar rather than ignoring 

the demands of the population, a mistake that triggered media and cyber 

combinations during the Arab uprisings, have learned to control popular 

opinion by creating a “controlled space” for freedom of speech, dissent, and 

open commerce.103

The third combination in URW is the supra-means combination where all 

means available—military and non-military, lethal or non-lethal—are used 

in operations. Means are relative and complex because their use depends on 

the level. What is a means at one level might be an objective at another level. 

For example, a non-state actor like the mafia or a transnational criminal 

organization may combine assassination, kidnapping for ransom, and illegal 

drug trade in order to get rich while a nation-state providing sanctuary may 

allow it to operate as a means to the objective of destabilizing a neighbor 

country. In choosing means to combine the guiding principle is the question, 

is it “the best way to achieve the desired objective?”104 Max Manwaring 

has listed examples of combinations that have been used around the world 

by practitioners of URW: Conventional war/cyber war/media war (e.g., 

Georgia, 2008); Surrogate or proxy war/intelligence war/psychological war 

(e.g., Lebanon, 2006); Narco-criminal war/financial/war/psychological war 

(e.g. Mexico, to date); Diplomatic war/media war/conventional war (e.g. 
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Algeria, 1954-62); and Guerrilla war/psychological war/narco-criminal war 

(e.g. Peru, to date).105

The fourth kind of combination is the supra-tier combination that combines 

all levels of conflict into each campaign. This type of combination seeks to 

break through all stages of a campaign by linking and reassembling actions.

The Unrestricted Warfare authors believe that four levels are sufficient for 

combining based on their respective functions. The first level is grand war 

comprising military and nonmilitary actions from the supranational level to 

the national level. At this level the main function is to establish a war policy 

or grand strategy. The second level is war strategy or national-level military 

and nonmilitary actions where the main function is strategy or stratagems of 

war. At the third level one is engaged in operational art combining combat 

actions lower than war but higher than battles. Finally, at the fourth level one 

is engaged in battles where the function is tactical actions. An example of a 

combination at the supra-tier would be the act of terror by Osama bin Laden 

on 9/11. Those attacks combined tactical and operational level actions like 

recruiting, financing, hiding, and transporting terrorists through Europe to 

the U.S. in order to link up with terrorist sleeping cells, as well as sending 

terrorists to flying schools to learn how to steer airplanes to their targets. The 

overall operation was meticulously planned to inflict maximum damage and 

achieved strategic objectives by destroying or damaging major symbols of 

American power, threatening national security, and fomenting fear among 

the population. It was an 

example of what “goes beyond 

limits thinking.”

To summarize, the 

importance of combinations 

of military and non-military 

elements in the theory and 

practice of URW is derived 

from the conclusion that no 

matter when a war took place, 

all victories or failures have 

one common denominator, 

namely, the winner is the best 

organized to implement a multidimensional combination. Nonetheless, in 

a combination-prone strategic environment one must not ignore the power 

... the importance of combinations 

of military and nonmilitary 

elements in the theory and 

practice of URW is derived 

from the conclusion that no 

matter when a war took place, 

all victories or failures have one 

common denominator, namely, 

the winner is the best organized 

to implement a multidimensional 

combination.
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that can be exercised by one single actor or lone wolf in today’s digitally 

connected world as the Robin Sage caper reminds us. On 18 July 2010 the 

Washington Times reported about Robin Sage, the “Mata Hari” of cyberspace 

who according to her profile on Facebook and other social-networking 

websites was an attractive, flirtatious 25-year-old woman working as a “cyber 

threat analyst” at the U.S. Navy’s Network Warfare Command. Within a few 

weeks she was able to establish nearly 300 social-network connections with 

security specialists, military personnel, and staff at intelligence agencies, 

and defense contractors. Her connections ranged from men working for the 

nation’s most senior military officer, to the National Reconnaissance Office, 

one of the most secret government agencies. She gained access to e-mail 

and bank accounts and learned about secret military units. But Robin Sage 

did not exist; she was a fictional cyber analyst created in December 2009 by 

Thomas Ryan, a security specialist and hacker from New York who took her 

name from a training exercise of the U.S. Army Special Forces and created 

several accounts in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media 

networks. His purpose was to conduct a short Red Team experiment that 

proved how people entrusted with sensitive information would be willing 

to share it with third parties through social networks. His conclusion was 

that terrorists using a similar approach could obtain valuable information 

affecting our national security.106

Anti-Access/Area Denial Combinations in Asia and the Middle East

Will rebalancing our “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific help deter China, North 

Korea, violent extremists, prospective adversaries, or emerging challengers 

from future war and conflict escalation? Former Defense Secretary Robert 

M. Gates said in 2011 that if it continues on its current path, North Korea 

could be a “direct threat” to the United States in five years or less.107 For 

years, the North Korean government has defied the international community. 

It has challenged and taunted the United States and its allies South Korea and 

Japan with a combination of asymmetric actions and provocations ranging 

from cyber attacks, kidnappings of foreign citizens, attacks on fishing vessels 

in international waters, and currency counterfeiting to nuclear proliferation, 

long-range missile launches, and threats of nuclear war. In particular, North 

Korea has continued to seek a nuclear capacity to deliver long-range nuclear 

weapons to the United States.108

It has been reported that according to a North Korean defense white paper, 
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North Korea’s special forces had “grown by 20,000 reaching about 200,000 

in total and increasing the so-called asymmetric threat the country poses to 

the South.” In addition, the North has: 

... consistently boosted its special warfare capabilities, deploying a 

light infantry division under an Army corps stationed on the frontline 

and adding a light infantry regiment to an Army division there. ... 

The number of North Korean special forces, the world’s largest, was 

120,000 in the 2006 defense white paper and about 180,000 in the 2008 

white paper. By 2010, they accounted for 17 percent of the North’s 

1.19 million soldiers—1.02 million in the Army, 60,000 in the Navy 

and 110,000 in the Air Force.109

How does North Korea intend to use them and against whom? The 

special troops are primed to carry out combined operations such as attacks 

on major facilities in South Korea, assassination of very important persons 

by the special combat group known as the “Storm Corps,” infiltrating the 

South using underground tunnels, and AN-2 aircraft capable of low-altitude 

infiltration.110 Following the logic of URW they could also be used as proxy 

forces in a nation-state and/or non-state combination against the U.S. and 

Japan.

In response to North Korea’s erratic behavior the U.S. has relied on a 

combination of incentives and disincentives engaging them diplomatically, 

providing food and oil supplies in exchange for restraint, more transparency 

about its nuclear program, and cooperation with nuclear inspectors of the 

IAEA. Since North Korea is highly dependent on China for cash flows and 

subsidies the U.S. has prompted China to get more involved bilaterally and 

through the Six Party Talks (i.e. North Korea, China, Russian Federation, 

South Korea, Japan, and the United States) in changing the North Korean 

government’s behavior. At the same time the U.S. continues to support and 

strengthen its key allies South Korea and Japan by maintaining, among other 

things, close political and military cooperation with sufficient American 

bases and troops, joint exercises, and expanding trade and commerce. 

Moreover, the U.S. has pushed the two countries into bilateral cooperation 

culminating in an unprecedented set of symbolic military agreements to 

share military intelligence and mutually serving in UN peacekeeping and 

humanitarian missions.111
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In dealing with North Korea, however, the U.S. must also take into account 

that both countries have divergent interests in the Korean Peninsula and the 

PRC’s current and long-term strategic objectives. As the DOD annual report 

to Congress puts it:

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is pursuing a long term, 

comprehensive military modernization program designed to improve 

the capacity of China’s armed forces to fight and win “local war under 

conditions of informatization,” or high intensity information-centric 

regional operations of short duration.112

What is the most likely “local war” in which China might become 

involved? The DOD’s answer is clearly reflected in the analysis of the 

PRC’s strategy to defeat Taiwan should Taiwanese leaders move toward 

independent status.113

At issue is the situation that “prospective adversaries are developing and 

fielding, or have ready access to, military capabilities that will place U.S. 

forces operating from large, fixed forward bases, and in the littoral regions, 

at increasing risk.”114 As a point of comparison, both Iran in the Persian Gulf 

and China in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are respectively 

seeking to create “no-go” zones to thwart U.S. military power. The 2005 

National Defense Strategy of 

the United States of America 

established as a key operational 

capability “projecting and 

sustaining forces in distant 

anti-access environments” but 

as former Defense Secretary 

Gates put it, while U.S. naval 

and air forces have been 

shrinking, countries in places 

where the United States has 

strategic interests have been 

building “sophisticated new 

technologies to deny our 

forces access to the global 

commons of sea, air, space, Figure 4. China’s island chain defense.
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and cyberspace.”115 The weapons being deployed by China are part of antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) strategies grouped in “assassin’s mace” defense 

strategies. The assassin’s mace is a combination of conventional military 

and network warfare dimensions with means such as air defenses, ballistic, 

and anti-ship missiles, minefields, submarines, and naval vessels together 

with anti-satellite and cyberwar weapons to put U.S. aircraft carrier groups, 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and command-and-control 

networks at risk. In addition, they are building a blue-water navy to project 

power eastward across the Pacific toward Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, and south 

into the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.116

Anti-access strategies will be used to prevent U.S. forces from entering 

a theater of operations (e.g. Taiwan Strait, Persian Gulf) while area-denial 

strategies seek to prevent U.S. air, land, and sea joint operations in their 

defensive battlespace. In particular, A2/AD capabilities being developed 

by China seek to prevent U.S. power-projection within the island chains’ 

defense perimeters.117

According to a RAND study of Chinese doctrinal writings, in a future 

conflict with the United States, China could employ several types of antiaccess strategies. These may include: pressuring such countries as Japan to 

limit or deny the United States the use of forward bases; striking or jamming 

information systems to delay the deployment of U.S. military forces or 

to deny the United States access to information on enemy whereabouts; 

disrupting U.S. logistics systems, thereby preventing the timely delivery of 

supplies and delaying the arrival of additional forces; attacking air bases 

and ports to prevent or disrupt the deployment of forces and materiel; or 

attacking naval assets such as aircraft carriers to limit the United States’ 

ability to launch aircraft from the sea.118

Iran’s A2/AD combination, in turn, is composed of coastal and inland 

missile batteries, ballistic missiles, mines, submarines, and missile boats 

together with non-state actors like Hezbollah. The Iranians’ drive to develop 

a nuclear capability seeks a winning combination to deter U.S. power 

projection in the Persian Gulf and achieve regional hegemony.119

The pivot to Asia-Pacific, while hedging-in-the-Persian Gulf strategy 

proposed by retired General Barno and his collaborators, is a geopolitical 

response to the fact that the “U.S. military’s ability to preserve military 

access to two key areas of vital interest, the western Pacific and the Persian 

Gulf, is being increasingly challenged.”120 The U.S. military response to A2/
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AD strategies and China’s military buildup is to prepare for the challenges 

to our power projection capabilities by relocating a number of U.S. forces 

stationed in Okinawa and South Korea to Guam, Hawaii, the Mariana 

Islands, and Australia—from the first island chain to the rear of the second 

island chain—under the Air-Sea Battle Concept (ASBC) described in the 

Department of Defense Joint Operational Access Concept of 17 January 

2012. The main driver behind the development of ASBC is the proliferation 

of anti-access/area-denial capabilities. Accordingly, both in the Persian 

Gulf and in the Western Pacific the United States military seeks to sustain 

freedom of action by establishing networked and integrated air-sea forces 

to attack in depth. The naval strategy is one of fleet-in-dispersal where 

the dispersed force will be composed of self-contained joint elements that 

would be expected to disrupt, destroy, and defeat the command, control, 

communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

networks of an adversary; destroy their weapons-delivery platforms; and 

defeat incoming weapons and platforms.121 Concerned that the United States 

Figure 5. Iran and its Persian Gulf Arab neighbors.
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“does not understand China’s nuclear release decision process, Hammes 

argues for the need of an “offshore control” strategy rather than just a 

concept of operations and tactics like Air-Sea Battle.122 While the public 

disclosure of the ASBC may reassure our friends and allies that the U.S. will 

continue to provide them with a security umbrella it is also likely that it has 

alerted our adversaries and they will continue to “modernize” their military 

to neutralize it.

The DOD 2012 Annual Report to Congress on China indicates that 

China’s current leaders are not likely to move in the direction of using 

force on Taiwan unless the Taiwanese leaders were to seek independence 

and also because the Chinese leaders view the current modernization of the 

PLA as “An essential component of their strategy to take advantage of what 

they perceive to be a ‘window of strategic opportunity’ to advance China’s 

national development during the first two decades of the 21st century.”123

The DOD annual report further notes that China needs to foster a positive 

external environment in order to gain the strategic space needed to focus on 

its economic growth and development. To do so during this period it seeks 

to avoid “direct confrontation with the United States and other countries.”124 

To maintain that strategic space, at the January 2011 summit China’s former 

President Hu Jintao committed to work together with President Barack 

Obama to build a cooperative partnership. China is therefore following 

a two-track approach combining a fast-moving military modernization 

program financed by double-digit economic development that they seek to 

sustain for the next decade. The DOD’s hope is that within that framework it 

can build a better military-to-military relationship that “is a part of shaping 

China’s choices.”125 The operative words in this approach are “shaping 

China’s choices” to be a more cooperative and responsible major power in 

the management of the global commons. The question is why should a fast 

emerging and more powerful China allow itself to be “shaped” by its main 

competitor into its own status quo international order? 

On the eve of former President Jintao’s January 2011 state visit to the 

United States the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper boasted that 

“China’s emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world 

will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S.”126 

This replicated the 2010 bold statements of senior PLA Colonel Liu Minfu, 

a professor at the elite National Defense University in his 303-page book 

entitled The China Dream, that China should “abandon modesty about 
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its global goals and sprint to become world No. 1. ... China’s big goal in 

the 21st century is to become world No. 1, the top power.”127 In the short 

term, to avoid a direct conflict with the U.S. it is in China’s best interest to 

continue to selectively play by the rules of the global system established 

by the dominant power (chess playing). But in the midterm and long term 

the Chinese leaders are more likely to show that they have been playing a 

different game with different rules Weiqui or no rules at all (URW).

Are We Already At War But Don’t Know It?

On 5 July 2011 the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Arms Control, 

Verification and Compliance requested that the International Security 

Advisory Board (ISAB) undertake a “study of policy options the United States 

could pursue to ensure a stable U.S.-China strategic relationship over the 

next 20 years to pursue its regional and global interests against a backdrop of 

expanding Chinese economic, 

political and military power.”128 

One reason behind the request 

is that “China’s expanding 

international footprint, its 

military modernizations, and 

related lack of transparency 

regarding its projected military 

capabilities and intentions 

present challenges for U.S. 

policy in East Asia and 

globally.”129 The results of the study remain classified but the set of questions 

the ISAB was asked to address reveals a growing concern for the absence 

of a U.S. strategic approach to China and the lack of transparency about its 

intentions. 

American efforts to engage China in a cooperative and more transparent 

relationship have continued unabated, however. For example, beginning on 

7 May 2012, General Liang Guanglie, China’s Minister of National Defense 

and the highest-ranking military official to visit the U.S. in recent years, was 

welcomed at the Pentagon and various military installations (e.g. Southern 

Command, Fort Benning, Camp Lejeune, West Point). The visit was similar 

in motivation to the one hosted by former Secretary Gates in October 

2009 for General Xu Caihou, China’s second ranking military officer—to 

China’s expanding international 

footprint, its military 

modernizations, and related 

lack of transparency regarding 

its projected military capabilities 

and intentions present challenges 

for U.S. policy in East Asia and 

globally.
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demonstrate American openness and transparency, assuage China’s concerns 

regarding the pivot to Asia, understand China’s rapid military expansion, and 

establish a military-to-military relationship that is “healthy, stable, reliable, 

and continuous.”130 When then Secretary Gates welcomed Chinese general 

Xu Caihou it had been two years since his last official visit to Beijing, and 

China had not yet reciprocated with a visit by Secretary Gates’ counterpart. 

Whether the visit with Secretary Panetta will be reciprocated or turn into a 

one-way street exchange with China was yet to be determined at the time of 

this writing.131

A revealing 2008 study conducted by the ISAB for former Secretary of 

State Condoleezza Rice has been disclosed to the public by the Federation of 

American Scientists (FAS), a Washington, D.C., think tank originally founded 

by many of the scientists who built the first atomic bomb. Entitled “China’s 

Strategic Modernization,” the ISAB task force highlighted several themes. 

In relation to goals, in particular, it reported that “The communist leadership 

in Beijing seeks three primary and interrelated goals: (1) regime survival; 

(2) dominance in the Asia/Pacific region, together with growing influence 

on a global level; and (3) prevention of Taiwan’s de jure independence.”132 

The report considered it essential that the U.S. understand and respond to 

the connection between these goals and the theme of China’s comprehensive 

approach to strategic rivalry, as reflected in its official concept of “Three 

Warfares.” Three Warfares is a URW combination of the dimensions of 

psychological warfare (propaganda, deception, and coercion), media warfare 

(manipulation of public opinion domestically and internationally), and legal 

warfare (use of “legal regimes” to handicap the opponents in fields favorable 

to him).133 China’s military modernization was considered as being inspired 

by growing nationalism and pride, and its strategic motivation was the 

“established goal of becoming a global power through dominance in the 

Asia/Pacific region.”134

The ISAB report also focused on China’s military offensive nuclear 

capabilities that provide the context within which A2/AD are expected to 

operate. In particular, it warned about the “emerging creep toward a Chinese 

assured destruction capability” and recommended that the U.S. make clear 

that it is unacceptable for China to create a “mutual vulnerability” or MAD 

(mutually assured destruction) relationship with the United States.135 This 

warning is puzzling, however, because since China developed its nuclear 

program in the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. and its Pacific allies have been 
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vulnerable to nuclear attack. What is unclear is how the U.S. would respond 

if China were to deploy a missile defense system aimed at implementing a 

MAD strategy. In a scathing analysis of the report, the FAS chastised the 

ISAB for its military focus, lack of policy recommendations for arms control, 

and for recommending policies that “will deepen military competition and 

an adversarial relationship with China.” In short, the FAS accused the ISAB 

task force of drawing up a very effective plan for a new Cold War with 

China.136

Some analysts argue that a new Cold War has already begun between 

China and the United States and that in addition we face a troubling security 

dilemma. For example, Robert D. Kaplan, writing in 2005, addressed the 

issue of how we would fight China.137 Kaplan sees China’s re-emergence as 

a great power as being inevitable. China’s investment in both diesel-powered 

and nuclear-powered submarines is seen as a clear signal that China seeks 

to expand its sphere of influence beyond the Pacific. It is developing a bluewater navy in order to safeguard sea lanes through which needed resources 

travel from the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. These are 

legitimate interests that will result in a military conflict, either a big war with 

China or a series of Cold War standoffs. The functional substitute for a NATO 

military alliance in the Pacific, according to Kaplan, is PACOM. China will 

continue to spend more money on its military in the coming decades and 

“our only realistic goal may be to encourage it to make investments that 

are defensive not offensive, in nature.”138 Kaplan quotes Michael Vickers 

as saying that “Getting into a war with China is easy... But the dilemma is, 

How do you end a war with China? ... Ending a war with China may mean 

effecting some form of regime change, because we don’t want to leave some 

wounded, angry regime in place.”139

Because China’s navy and air force will not match those of the United 

States for decades they are not going to engage us in conventional air and 

naval battles. Rather, “the Chinese will approach us asymmetrically, as 

terrorists do. In Iraq the insurgents have shown us the low end of asymmetry, 

with car bombs. But the Chinese are poised to show us the high-end of the art. 

That is the threat.”140 By high-end Kaplan mostly means A2/AD strategies 

and demonstrations of strength. Kaplan predicted one demonstration of 

strength that might occur would be “During one of our biennial Rim of 

the Pacific naval exercises the Chinese could sneak a sub under a carrier 

battle group and then surface it.”141 In fact, such an event took place on 26 
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October 2006, when a 160-foot Song Class diesel-electric Chinese attack 

submarine surfaced undetected near the USS Kitty Hawk. The extremely 

quiet Song Class sailed within range for launching torpedoes or missiles 

at the 1,000-foot super carrier with 4,500 personnel on board. The Chinese 

display of strength and sophistication sent a shockwave through NATO 

and demonstrated China’s growing military capability to the world. It also 

demonstrated the threat that they presented to the U.S. Navy.142 Then in 

early January 2007 China followed by using a ground-based missile to hit 

and destroy one of its aging satellites orbiting more than 500 miles in space. 

It was the first anti-satellite missile test by any nation in two decades and it 

sent message to the U.S. that its satellites and space-based missile defense 

systems were vulnerable.143 

Kaplan’s proposed solution to the threat posed by Chinese tactics of 

warfare in the 21st century is for the United States to create three separate 

navies:

One designed to maintain our ability to use the sea as a platform for 

offshore bombing (to support operations like the ones in Iraq and 

Afghanistan); one designed for littoral Special Operations combat 

against terrorist groups (based in and around Indonesia Malaysia, and 

the southern Philippines, for example); and one designed to enhance 

our stealth capabilities (for patrolling the Chinese mainland and the 

Taiwan Strait).144

The second type of navy, the SOF navy, is of particular interest to the 

SOF community since in Kaplan’s view at the time was that it had to be 

further developed. The SOF navy would require lots of small vessels such as 

the littoral-combat ship (LCS) being developed by General Dynamics and 

Lockheed Martin. The LCS is a 400-foot long, fast, shallow water operable 

craft, with a small crew that would be used to deploy SOF. Another critical 

component of the SOF navy would be the Mark V special operations craft.145 

This naval approach reflects the analysis by Undersecretary of the Navy 

Robert O. Work on naval transformation to deal with anti-access networks 

by using long-range unmanned systems and the role of small combatants 

like the LCS.146 When it comes to the Navy’s surface combat fleet, Navy 

Undersecretary Work favors LCS over frigates for Air-Sea Battle operations 

because they are multi-mission ships. In fact, at a Cato Institute policy forum 
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in May 2012, he announced that the Navy would eventually have eight LCSs 

based in the Persian Gulf operating from Bahrain.147

In general, these viewpoints represent a one-dimensional, purely military 

approach to the challenges presented by a rising China and adversaries like 

Iran while the nonmilitary elements of URW are not given full coverage. 

Regarding our efforts in the Vietnam War, Robert F. Turner has reminded 

us that the biggest differences between our actions in Korea in 1950 and 

Vietnam 15 years later were that the communist armed aggression was 

covert and Hanoi ran a truly brilliant political warfare campaign to mislead 

the American people into believing our cause was dishonorable.148 The 

new thinking of ASBC is in terms of an arms race triggered by the security 

dilemma in a new Cold War between China and the United States. But while 

Kaplan and others think about how we would fight China using our military 

capabilities, Robert Bunker warns us that URW guides their strategy; David 

Shambaugh that we are dealing with a conflicted China; and Aaron Friedberg 

that China wants to win without fighting.149

To Bunker, the publication of Unrestricted Warfare had the effect of 

creating a “perceptional trauma” among U.S. analysts and policymakers. That 

is, “Every time Beijing engages in an economic, political cultural, business, 

media or other form of foreign activity, we are now forced to ask ourselves 

if this is a component of China’s unrestricted warfare tactics—because we 

have been informed...that there are no rules and nothing is forbidden.” In 

turn, this had created a “disruptive targeting” situation comparable to that 

created by al-Qaeda affiliates and radicalized individuals because there is 

ambiguity in determining whether incidents and events are well-planned 

action components of a grand strategy.150 Therefore in dealing with China 

and other rivals or adversaries, ambiguity will be a large component and we 

“need to respond or create some form of countermeasure to the perceptional 

trauma created by the ambiguity.”151

In order to better determine the threat potential of China, Dr. Bunker 

proposed a modification to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 

threat categories. The QDR threat categories are in the form of a 2x2 table 

or four-square box with irregular challenges in the upper left quadrant and 

moving clockwise the catastrophic, disruptive, and traditional challenges 

in other quadrants (See Figure 6). The view in the QDR diagram is that 

the threats are moving from the traditional challenge to the other three 

quadrants. However, Bunker believes that the URW practitioners present 
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dynamic threats that move along a time continuum and the proper analysis 

should resemble the diagram in Figure 7. This modified model takes into 

account the multidimensional, multimeans combinations, and it makes room 

for the blending or “cocktail” mixes characteristic of the URW model.152

One reason for the ambiguity created by China on our analysts and 

policymakers is that its own leadership is conflicted. David Shambaugh 

summarized the gist of the situation when he said:

What the world is witnessing in China’s new power posture is in part 

the product of an on-going intensified internal debate, and represents a 

current consensus among the more conservative and nationalist elements 

Figure 6. Threat diagram from Department of Defense, 2006 QDR.
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to toughen its policies and selectively throw China’s weight around. 

Although there seems to be domestic agreement at present, China 

remains a deeply conflicted rising power with a series of competing 

international identities. ... Understanding these competing identities 

is crucial to anticipating how Beijing’s increasingly contradictory and 

multidimensional behavior will play out on the world stage.153

The Chinese elite groups are divided along a spectrum of global identities 

ranging from isolationist/nativism, realism, major power, Asia first, Global 

South, selective multilateralism, to globalism. According to Shambaugh 

and confirmed by Henry Kissinger, realism “with Chinese characteristics” 

is popular among the military and university elites, and they are now the 

dominant group.154 This group is driven by a certain “element of retribution 

in their thinking. Many Realists harbor a strong sense of aggrievement from 

China’s long period of weakness, and believe that now that China is strong, 

Figure 7. Bunker’s Fig 2. Beijing Threat Potentials. Modified 2006 QDR Threat Challenges/

Image courtesy of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
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it should retaliate against those countries that have done China wrong in the 

past.”155 One must also recall that the authors of Unrestricted Warfare wrote 

the book after feeling humiliated by the U.S. intervention during the 1995-

1996 Taiwan missile crisis. 

Because the Chinese are adopting a realist posture the U.S. has begun 

to view them in realist terms, too. The strategic “pivot” is therefore the 

logical counter to a rising military/economic power aspiring to regional 

or global hegemony. Shambaugh suggests, however, that adopting such 

a posture will “contribute to an inexorable action-reaction cycle” and the 

U.S. needs to devise a more complex strategy.156 Such a strategy has been 

proposed by Aaron Freidberg who believes that following Sun Tzu’s dictum, 

China wants to win without fighting.157 China “seeks to displace the United 

States as the dominant player in East Asia” he writes, “and perhaps to 

extrude it from the region altogether, while at the same times avoiding a 

potentially disastrous direct confrontation.”158 To accomplish its objective 

China’s strategic approach has combined four elements: (1) cultivate the 

“appearance” of good relations and close cooperation with Washington; 

(2) build alternative new regional institutions designed to exclude the U.S. 

(e.g. Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN Plus Three) and weaken 

the foundations of the American regional alliance system; (3) stabilize its 

continental “rear areas” in Central Asia and the Russian Far East to establish 

a “land security environment”; and (4) focus on threats and opportunities 

in the maritime domain.159 The latter is the most challenging and important 

element in the strategy since “China must find a way to bring Taiwan back, 

and push America out, while keeping Japan down.”160 In the near term, 

China’s objective is not to peel away U.S. allies but rather a URW line of 

psychological, diplomatic, cultural, and economic operations seeking to 

“diversify their interests, complicate their calculations, blur their loyalties, and 

set the stage for further erosion in what were once rock-solid, diplomatically 

monogamous relationships.”161 Interestingly, for Freidberg “it is Japan, not 

Taiwan, that will increasingly become the focus of Chinese strategy” and the 

Sino-Japanese summer of 2012 dispute over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands 

seemed to confirm it.162 In this high stakes great game of Weiqi, two possible 

outcomes are possible—an Asian region where the U.S. and Chinese spheres 

of influence would overlap, or a new Sino-centric order in East Asia with 

the U.S. island of Guam as the westernmost outpost of American Pacific 

power.163 Assuming China continues to grow economically and militarily 
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without a domestically 

generated regime change 

toward liberal democracy, what 

strategy best serves the security 

interests of the United States? 

Americans recoil from the idea 

of ceding power to a repressive, 

secretive, undemocratic system 

led by realist hardliners with 

hegemonic aspirations. Freidberg’s recommendation is to engage China 

diplomatically and economically, while containing it by preserving a favorable 

balance of power for military deterrence based on tightening cooperation with 

our regional partners, defeating the anti-access/area denial capabilities of the 

Chinese PLA, adopting the Air-Sea Battle concept with its dispersal, hardening, 

and reinforcing approach, concealed platforms, long-endurance unmanned 

vehicles, and arsenal ships with precision weapons. In this “congagement plus” 

(containment + engagement + enhanced military) strategy the greatest advantage 

would be the U.S. “command of the global commons and, in particular, of 

the world’s oceans” mainly because it is where China is most vulnerable to a 

prolonged naval blockade. American experts like Freidberg support what the 

U.S. Government (USG) has begun to do in recent years, namely, tighten its 

bilateral ties with democratic treaty allies, semi-allies, and friends like South 

Korea, Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as with Taiwan, 

Mongolia, Indonesia, Singapore, and most importantly India.164

In this U.S. combination, however, our former adversary Vietnam is also 

set to play a complex role due to its prior violent encounters with China 

and its long-standing relationship with Russia. Thus, on 3 June 2012, then 

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta became the highest U.S. official to visit 

Vietnam since the end of the war. His visit was officially motivated by 

the desire to encourage Vietnam to help find the remains of about 1,200 

unaccounted for U.S. military servicemen. But Secretary Panetta probably 

also discussed with Vietnamese officials the topic of Vietnam allowing 

the U.S. military to use the deep water facilities for refueling and forward 

deployment of equipment, troops, and supplies, in support of the strategic 

pivot. However, Vietnam appears to be playing both the United States and 

Russian navies’ interest in using the port.165

It is possible that the ongoing pivot to Asia-Pacific might help reduce 

Assuming that China continues to 

grow economically and militarily 

without a domestically generated 

regime change toward liberal 

democracy, what strategy best 

serves the security interests of the 

United States? 
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tensions in the larger area by reassuring our allies and friends, but it may 

also lead to more tension and conflict if Chinese leaders see it as an offensive 

move to encircle China and prevent it from fulfilling its national destiny. 

It has been suggested that China could counter the pivot, for example, 

by following a combination of initiatives including: breaking the semicontainment ring by dropping North Korea and drawing South Korea into its 

orbit; encouraging India to continue to hedge its position vis-à-vis the U.S. 

in solidarity with the other three members of the five BRICS (e.g. Brazil, 

Russia, China); following an access-denial approach in the medium term but 

switching from building a blue-water navy to building missiles and drones 

that could swarm U.S. carriers; buying European debt to gain leverage 

since it would drive up U.S. interest rates; keeping the U.S. distracted and 

dissipating its treasure and energies in the periphery by propping up global 

troublemakers like Sudan, Zimbabwe, and others (e.g. North Korea, Syria, 

Iran, Cuba, Venezuela) as we seek to enforce “the responsibility to protect” 

principle.166

Additionally, as China expert Kenneth Lieberthal notes, one must 

remember that pivoting might be easier said than done.167 As the U.S. 

begins to implement its strategy of playing a leading role in Asia it will 

find itself drawn into a plethora of issues and occurrences, some centuries 

old, ranging from: terrorism and nuclear proliferation to state versus state 

conflicts involving territorial and maritime claims, wars, ethnic and religious 

rivalries, contending multilateral organizations, vast open maritime and 

ocean areas extending from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific West Coast to 

guard and protect against piracy; tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural 

disasters; displaced populations and vast migration; and humanitarian crises 

due to poverty, disease, and social problems. The effectiveness of the SOF 

in the global war against violent extremism particularly in the Middle East 

and Africa, is due to being well coordinated with conventional forces and 

properly employed in a campaign used for strategic effects, not just for 

isolated raids.168 Thrust into the vortex of the Asia-Pacific, SOF might run 

the risk of exhaustion by becoming the regional first respondents of choice, 

the 911 point-of-contact of the Asia-Pacific. In brief, regarding China’s 

military buildup and the pivot to Asia, PACOM and USSOCOM both must 

heed Nathan Freier’s insightful warning: 

It might be useful to recognize that the purely military aspects of 
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hybrid, high-end challenges, e.g. a hostile state’s armed forces, may 

be peripheral to the actual conflict or competition. Instead, these 

components might be diversions or foils employed by adversaries to 

increase U.S. risk calculations or capture U.S. attention while the real 

“war” occurs in other domains—politics, economics, social action, 

etc.169

As the United States pivots to Asia-Pacific, the leadership must note that 

in addition to the issue of having sufficient military and economic resources 

for implementation, we must counter the multidimensionality of the URW 

strategy. As previously noted, URW comprises several domains including 

one where a war might already be occurring, namely, the dimension of 

lawfare. It is possible that like our adversaries in the Middle East, their Asian 

counterparts may already be at war with us by using international lawfare to 

gain advantage, holding us in check while working to balance. 
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4. Lawfare

The United States is committed to the rule of law as a foundational principle of its political system. As such, it is considered a source of our 

strength and stability. Establishing the rule of law is also a major component 

of our foreign policy as shown in our effort to establish modern judicial 

systems during our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legalization 

of global politics through international human rights law, for instance, seeks 

to establish the rule of law on a global basis as an alternative to the use 

of force. Our commitment to the rule of law is also a vulnerability when 

our enemies use it against us, however. For instance, on 31 March 2004, 

four Blackwater Security Consulting private military contractors were part 

of a convoy ambushed by insurgents in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. The four 

were killed and their mutilated and burned corpses were hung from a bridge 

crossing the Euphrates. One of the most wanted Iraqi terrorists, Ahmed 

Hashim Abed, codenamed “Objective Amber,” was suspected of being the 

mastermind of the operation and was captured in September 2009 by Navy 

SEALs from Seal Team 10. Following the capture and interrogation of Abed 

he filed charges against three of his captors claiming that they mistreated him 

by punching him and had also made false statements. The three SEALs faced 

assault charges but refused non-judicial punishment (“a captain’s mast”) 

and requested a court-martial for violation of the Uniform Code of Military 

Justice.170 The decision to court martial the SEALs was consistent with the 

U.S. military’s concern about detainee abuse in the wake of the strategic 

military disaster known as the Abu Ghraib scandal.171 But many objected 

by pointing out that captured al-Qaeda documents like Manual 137 showed 

that terrorists were being trained to understand and manipulate the U.S. and 

other Western-style legal systems; it was an example of how terrorists used 

litigation in courts as a tactical weapon against the United States—that is, 

how they engaged in the dimension of URW known as lawfare.172

Defining Terms

Litigation is a battle of words and wills that can be expressed in Clausewitzian 

terminology as the continuation of business carried out by other means to 

impose your will on the opposition (the enemy).173 The term lawfare is not 

found in the Oxford English Dictionary but in the contemporary context 

it was first introduced and made popular by retired U.S. Air Force Major 
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General Charles J. Dunlap Jr. in a 2001 essay where he defined it as “the 

use of law as a weapon of war” in order to describe “a method of warfare 

where law is used as a means of realizing a military objective.”174 The 

term generated a growing body of literature both in support and opposition 

prompting Dunlap to defend and refine it to mean “the strategy of using—or 

misusing—law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an 

operational objective.”175 In a subsequent piece he almost apologetically 

clarified that the purpose of using the concept in the national security context 

was “to provide a vehicle that resonates readily with non-legal audiences, 

particularly in the Armed Forces ... conceiving of the role of law in more 

conventional military terms has its advantages. Understanding that the 

law can be wielded much like a weapon by either side in a belligerency is 

something to which a military member can relate.”176 A report by legal experts 

recently asked whether lawfare was worth defining and noted that unlike 

Dunlap’s original conception it has been “used most commonly as a label 

to criticize those who use international law and legal proceedings to make 

claims against the state, especially in areas related to national security.”177 

Dunlap, after addressing the concerns of critics, concluded that “lawfare is 

still a useful term, and is optimized when it is employed consistent with its 

original purpose of communicating to non-specialists how law can serve 

as a positive good in modern war as a nonviolent substitute for traditional 

arms.”178 

Colonel Mark W. Holzer, U.S. Army, argues that there are three definitional 

branches to lawfare. General Dunlap’s definitions present the negative or 

defensive view of lawfare framing it as a tool used to abuse legal ideals 

and processes as the U.S. and 

its citizens have been the target 

of numerous legal actions in 

European and domestic courts 

aimed at negatively impacting 

the U.S. ability to fight Islamic 

extremists.179 On the other 

hand, the “nexus” approach 

frames lawfare as activities with a legal nexus that are undertaken during 

times of armed conflict rather than a strategy of America’s enemies. The 

third or neutral approach does not ascribe negative or positive connotations 

to the term, nor does it suggest a road for policymakers.180 He concludes that 

... the “nexus” approach frames 

lawfare as activities with a legal 

nexus that are undertaken during 

times of armed conflict rather than 

a strategy of America’s enemies.
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the U.S. needs a comprehensive and holistic offensive warfare approach to 

the subject.181

The authors of Unrestricted Warfare saw the importance and utility of 

law as a component part of their comprehensive strategy when they included 

international law warfare as one of their 15 lines of operation.182 The DOD 

2008 ISAB report highlighted Chinese offensive lawfare as one of the “Three 

Warfares” in China’s grand strategy.183 The logic behind focusing attention 

on the law is obvious since in the United States and Western democracies 

the center of gravity is their commitment to the rule of law and access to this 

vulnerability is facilitated by open and transparent political systems which 

allow fair access to the courts. In former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s 

words: 

Lawfare uses international and domestic legal claims, regardless of their 

factual basis, to win public support to harass American officials—military 

and civilian—and to score ideological victories. Each legal action is a 

thread. The cumulative effect binds the American Gulliver. Enemies who 

cannot score military victories can nevertheless impair our defenses by 

litigating warfare. Lawfare is particularly effective against the United 

States, because it exploits America’s laudable reverence for the law and 

uses our own finest instincts and institutions—our very respect for law—

to make us vulnerable to enemies who have nothing but contempt for 

those very instincts and institutions.184

Characteristics

Lawfare as a form of warfare is consistent with Carl von Clausewitz’s 

notion that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Lawfare is not 

as deadly as war in traditional ways with guns, tanks, cannons, or ballistic 

missiles, but it can be as effective. As noted above, lawfare can be offensive 

and defensive in nature and it is used against both domestic and foreign 

opponents. Paul Williams notes that “the recent case by Serbia against 

Kosovo in the International Court of Justice on the question of the legitimacy 

of Kosovo’s declaration of independence is a prime example of how a party 

switched to an offensive lawfare tactic after losing on the battlefield.”185 On 

the other hand, Kosovo engaged in defensive lawfare for almost a decade 

as it prepared against the legal attack that they knew would follow after the 

Serbian military attack. Thus, Kosovo, “working under the supervision of 
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the international community, developed standards before status, protected 

human rights, created a court system, and had numerous elections that met 

international standards. These actions were Kosovo’s version of siege walls 

and trenches to defend its own right of self-determination.”186

As the trial of the SEALs involved in the Ahmed Hashim Abed case 

illustrated during the Global War on Terror, terrorists have relied on lawfare 

as part of their operational plans. Under the Bush and Obama administrations 

the United States response to lawfare has been mostly defensive, however. 

That is, government officials like former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, for 

instance, felt the need to protect themselves after being targeted as defendants 

in frivolous lawsuits and, among other things, opposed participation in the 

International Criminal Court out of fear that American leaders or soldiers 

serving overseas would be accused and tried for implementing U.S. foreign 

policy.187 Colonel Kelly D. Wheaton, U.S. Army, has emphasized that legal 

advisors to strategic leaders must consider and provide both proactive and 

responsive legal advice and support in lawfare, noting the need for the U.S. 

military to employ legal support more aggressively to address strategic-level 

concerns.188 Likewise, Kittrie advocates a more offensive oriented lawfare 

policymaking approach against terrorists and states sponsoring terrorism by 

relying on tools like the strong sanctions used against the Gaddafi regime in 

Libya.

In exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed by the United Nations 

and United States, Libya halted its support for terrorism, paid $2.7 

billion to the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing victims, and 

allowed a team of British and U.S. government experts to enter Libya 

and dismantle its weapons of mass destruction infrastructure.189

The current threat presented by Iran’s program to develop a nuclear 

capability, coupled with its violation of UN Security Council resolutions, 

its sponsorship of terrorism, and its abuse of human rights, presents an 

opportunity to use against the Iranian regime similar tools of lawfare. 

However there is an asymmetric balance of law between non-state actors, 

who do not tend to follow international norms, and nation-states who are 

held both by international law and binding treaties. The conduct of lawfare 

against the United States relies on this asymmetry.

The Burmese (Myanmar) junta presents an example of what is called a 
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multi-tiered offensive approach to lawfare within the domestic sphere.190 

Accordingly, the Burmese junta engaged in lawfare operations against 

opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the National 

League for Democracy, through the filing of a string of personal lawsuits 

against her. As a result, she spent 15 years either under house arrest or in 

detention while defending herself against the legal assault from the military 

government. She became one of the world’s most prominent political 

prisoners living as an exile in her own country and won the Nobel Peace 

Prize in 1991 and the Raoul Wallenberg Medal in 2011 in absentia for her 

non-violent struggle. When the international community through the UN 

called for her “immediate and unconditional release” the junta shifted tactics 

by seeking engagement with the international community and announcing 

that it was moving to change the constitution and restore democracy. This 

tactical move raised the prospect of free and fair elections at home and 

abroad allowing the military junta to gain more time to remain in control 

of the government while avoiding international economic sanctions. 

Eventually, suspicion that the junta was engaging in lawfare led to the threat 

of economic sanctions and the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry 

to investigate war crimes. In 2010, just before UN special envoy Tomas Ojea 

Quintana was to arrive in Myanmar to evaluate the state of human rights, 

the junta released opposition leader Tin Oo and on 13 November 2010, Aun 

San Suu Kyi herself.191 On 16 June 2012 in Oslo, Norway, Suu Kyi received 

the Nobel Peace Prize she had won 21 years earlier. Not surprisingly, given 

the steadily growing international pressure and the parallel revolts against 

authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the Myanmar junta is learning how 

to deal with the opposition in the digital age and did not “just change from 

uniforms to business suits” but relaxed censorship, legalized trade unions, 

and released political prisoners bringing about a marked change in the 

political atmosphere.192

While the Burmese example describes the misuse of law by a repressive 

regime against its domestic opposition, in the United States the use of lawfare 

for URW purposes presents a national security threat associated with its 

expeditionary power projection and the use of force beyond its geographic 

borders. 

Lawfare On the Docket

The 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States clearly identified 
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exposure to lawfare as one of our nation’s vulnerabilities: “Our strength as a 

nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy 

of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.”193

In the United States, the most significant social, economic, and political 

controversies eventually become legal issues before the courts. The legal 

strategy of the weak or lawfare is what URW is all about to such an extent that 

Charles Dunlap considers it a decisive element of 21st century conflicts.194 

As the United States pivots to Asia-Pacific the forthcoming decline in general 

purpose forces means that the SOF operational tempo may increase—and 

so will their potential exposure to lawfare. For instance, an enemy might 

use a personal lawsuit against the USSOCOM senior leaders in order to 

harass and distract them from their mission. This “decapitation strike” using 

legal briefs, depositions, requests for discovery, and other legal tools are the 

current and effective non-lethal substitutes for precision munitions.195

A movement is gestating to mobilize weak countries of the geopolitical 

South to use lawfare against the countries of the developed North and in 

particular the United States. The rationale is that as an underutilized tool, 

lawfare allows nation-states like Pakistan, for example, to use international 

law to challenge the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in their 

territory. The need to mobilize is due to several limitations found in weak 

states. One is a lack of trained international lawyers; another is the domination 

of the principles and processes of the field by the “global North;” a third is 

the undervaluing of international law as an effective instrument reflected in 

a failure to invest resources in developing legal capacity.196

In the meantime, nation-states, terrorist networks, and individuals have 

turned to human rights litigators or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) 

and volunteer legal counsel to gain access to the court systems while also 

supporting the expansion of the jurisdictional operation of the International 

Criminal Court. In fact, some American lawyers welcome and embrace 

lawfare as a substitute for more destructive forms of warfare. As Carter puts 

it, 

First, lawfare has the obvious advantage of being safer than 

conventional warfare ... lawfare rarely generates the collateral damage 

of conventional warfare. Second, our nation has developed safeguards 

to protect against the malicious use of its court processes. ... In short, 

our legal system today is far more sophisticated than the simplistic 
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tactics of our enemies, and we should have more faith in its ability to 

protect us.197

But Carter oversimplifies the nature of the threat presented by the 

development of a lawfare capability. William G. Eckhardt writes:

Although the United States is not likely to lose militarily in the 

battlefield, the United States is far more vulnerable in the world of 

public opinion. Knowing that our society so respects the rule of law 

that it demands compliance with it, our enemies carefully attack our 

military plans as illegal and immoral and our execution of those plans 

as contrary to the law of war.198

In the last two decades, due to the war against radical extremists lawfarerelated issues both on the offensive and defensive sides range from detention, 

rendition, extradition, and interrogation of enemy combatants to the use of 

military commissions; state secrets privilege; lawsuits against supporters 

and financiers of terrorist networks as well as banks holding accounts linked 

to terrorist organizations (e.g. Hamas); and predatory lawsuits to intimidate 

and bankrupt counterterrorism experts, law enforcement personnel, and 

media personnel disseminating information about terrorist networks and their 

sources of financing.199 As discussed in the next section, a hot international 

legal issue is the use of UAVs to track and eliminate terrorists and other high 

value targets.

To Drone Or Not To Drone

In the book Unrestricted Warfare, the authors assert that changes in weaponry 

precede revolutions in military affairs.200 The most recent such change is the 

use of the non-physical domain to conduct information warfare in the form 

of cyber attacks (e.g. Stuxnet), targeted killings with robotic weapons like 

UAVs (see Figure 8) or the autonomous SGR-A1 robot sentry used by South 

Korea to patrol its border with North Korea. They have changed reality 

by facilitating the conduct of warfare in undefined territory.201 Their use 

has shifted the focus of attention of lawfare practitioners since technology 

continues to stay ahead of law and policy. In particular, they point to the use 

of UAVs to affect targeted killings by the United States against sub-state 

actors in uncontrolled areas of sovereign states not at war with the United 
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54

States—e.g., Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen—and the killing in Northern Yemen 

of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula.

Anwar al-Awlaki

On 30 September 2011, the global media reported that U.S. forces in Northern 

Yemen acting under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

had conducted a UAV strike against a car containing al-Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula leader Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, an American born in Saudi 

Arabia and editor of al-Qaeda’s English language web magazine Inspire, and 

two other al-Qaeda members. At the time, al-Awlaki was a U.S. Treasury 

Department “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” also included in the 

UN Security Council Resolution 1267 list of terrorists, and considered the 

“most dangerous man in the world” by the New York Police Department 

Counterterrorism Division.202 The al-Awlaki case raised one important 

question, however: was he a true belligerent or a civilian who transformed 

himself into a legitimate target by threatening the interests and security of 

the United States by his actions?

The targeting of al-Awlaki, an American citizen, became a magnet for a 

combination of media and lawfare activity because prior to his demise the 

Figure 8. An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle lands at an airfield in 

Afghanistan. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson. 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

55

New York Times had reported on 6 April 2010 that with the approval of 

the National Security Council, President Obama had authorized his targeted 

killing.203 Soon thereafter, on July 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union 

and the Center for Constitutional Rights both had been contacted by alAwlaki’s father and on 30 August the two organizations filed a “targeted 

killing” lawsuit against President Obama, then CIA Director Leon Panetta, 

and then Defense Secretary Robert Gates, seeking an injunction.204

The United States Constitution separates, grants, prohibits, denies, and 

distributes power but it does not specifically mention “foreign affairs” or 

“national security,” thus presenting an invitation to the three branches of the 

federal government to struggle for the direction of American foreign policy.205 

Nonetheless, as Robert Turner notes, “through most of our history Congress 

has been deferential to the President in matters of diplomacy, intelligence, and 

the conduct of war, there has not been a lot of litigation in this area. But cases 

have made their way to the Supreme Court from time to time, and the Court 

has traditionally been deferential to presidential power in these areas.”206 On 

19 February 1976, President Gerald Ford had issued Presidential Executive 

Order (EO) 11905 banning political assassination for the first time. This 

EO was superseded on 24 January 1978 by President Carter’s EO 12036 

which closed some loopholes. Then, on 4 December 1981, President Ronald 

Reagan issued EO 12333 providing that “No person employed by or acting 

on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to 

engage in, assassination,” and prohibiting indirect participation in that “No 

agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any 

person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order.”207 Unfortunately 

for al-Awlaki and other terrorists, all this had changed after the 9/11 attacks. 

As the 9/11 Commission noted, in 1998 the Clinton Administration had 

shut down an operation based in Afghanistan that was targeting Osama bin 

Laden with cruise missiles, due to the high amount of collateral damage and 

low confidence level of actionable intelligence. It was not until November 

2001 that the first armed UAV succeeded in targeting al-Qaeda military 

commander Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan.208 Beginning in 2002, the U.S. 

began to target high-value targets beyond Afghanistan. One such operation 

was successfully conducted in Yemen against one Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harithi 

and five other terrorists traveling together including American citizen 

Kamal Derwish. Al-Harithi was the mastermind behind the 12 October 2000 

bombing of the USS Cole.209 In light of previous precedents of executive 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

56

actions in the conduct of military operations against U.S. enemies, the 

federal district court in the Nasser Al-Aulaqi v. Barack H. Obama, Leon C. 

Panetta, and Robert M. Gates case deferred to the president, in his capacity 

as commander in chief, by denying the injunction and dismissing the case on 

the grounds that al-Awlaki’s father did not have standing (i.e. the legal right 

to initiate the lawsuit) and because under the “political question” doctrine 

the targeting was not a legal question but a political decision for the political 

branches—i.e. Congress and the president.210

In a 30 March 2012 report the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial 

Executions alleged that the USG has continuously engaged in targeted 

killings in the territory of other states and that there has been “a dramatic 

increase in their use over the past three years” drawing his conclusions 

from published studies and a database on drone strikes.211 The al-Awlaki 

takedown reflected the increased use of UAVs in kill-or-capture missions 

against terrorists and highlighted the legal and moral issues associated with 

the role of terrorists and other non-state actors in modern warfare. Nonstate actors exploit the “asymmetric balance of law” by using the laws of 

war themselves as weapons, as exemplified by the use of human shields. 

Under international law, “nation-states must differentiate between civilian 

and military targets and must keep collateral damages to a minimum. ... 

Aware of this obligation, non-state actors may respond by sending civilians 

to the military site in order to discourage the attack” by doing so the state 

must either abandon the operation or risk causing a great number of civilian 

casualties.212

From Harsh Treatment To Targeting

The increased reliance on targeted killing began in 2008 after the USG lost 

a string of judicial cases—e.g. Rasul v. Bush, Padilla v. Rumsfeld, Hamdi 

v. Rumsfeld (2004); Boumediene v. Bush (2008)—involving the right 

of unlawful or unprivileged enemy combatants and detainees held in the 

Guantanamo Bay detention facility and foreign lands to gain access to the 

U.S. court system.213 They did so by challenging the denial of habeas corpus, 

attacking the legality of military commissions, and the right of the USG 

to imprison them without trial until the conclusion of hostilities. In those 

and other cases, NGOs, human rights groups, detainees, their families, and 

supporters sought to limit the USG’s ability to wage war by denying it the 

use of harsh measures to obtain credible and reliable intelligence from the 
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57

Guantanamo detainees and enemy combatants held outside U.S. territory. 

This legal attack was a blowback consequence of the 2004 abuses at the 

Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the use of enhanced interrogation techniques 

in Guantanamo prison, but the unintended consequence was to reduce the 

number of people captured and detained as the USG sought to avoid a “catch 

and release” legal game with terrorists. 

Targeted killings in warfare are not unusual, however, as the shooting 

down of the plane carrying Admiral Yamamoto during World War II 

exemplifies; nor do they need to rely on advanced technology weapons like 

the UAVs since they can take place with a knife, a bullet, poison, or even by 

asphyxiation with a pillow. The argument advanced in favor of the strategic 

use of UAVs against an elusive and networked enemy is that terrorists 

cannot easily be arrested and brought to justice, while the use of highly 

sophisticated precision weapons and munitions is economical, reduces 

collateral damage (i.e. civilian deaths), and falls within the international 

legal principle of proportionality in the use of force. Generally, as far as the 

latter is concerned, in the UN system the jus ad bellum, or law on the use 

of force, is codified in the UN Charter Article 2 (4) that prohibits the use 

of coercive force against other states. Article 51 of the charter provides an 

exception to the use of force as a countermeasure to an armed attack. Use of 

force in collective security action is also allowed under Chapter VII of the 

UN Charter. In those instances, the use of force must be proportional to the 

unlawful aggression. In the jus in bello, or Law of Armed Conflict under the 

Geneva Conventions, proportionality traditionally means that in the conduct 

of hostilities belligerents do not have an unlimited choice of means to inflict 

damage on the enemy and the countermeasure must be proportionate to the 

attack and the needs of self-defense. The problem is that terrorists and other 

non-state actors are not parties bound by these treaties and conventions nor 

are they likely to abide by them. So as far as the use of UAVs as the weapon 

of choice, “the principle of proportionality is generally held to govern the 

extent to which a provocation may be lawfully countered by what might 

otherwise be an illegal response.214

Potential or actual practitioners of lawfare against the United States 

and its allies have criticized and sought to restrict the use of UAVs for 

targeting terrorists, combatants, guerrillas, as well as transnational criminal 

organizations and drug cartels acting in concert on a global scale. The UN 

Rapporteur, for instance, naively derides the lack of transparency regarding 
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58

the legal framework governing targeted killings and requested the USG “to 

clarify the rules that it considers to cover targeted killings.”215 The USG 

responded by referring him to a speech by Harold Hongju Koh, Legal 

Advisor of the U.S. Department of State, in which Koh had clarified that 

the USG was acting in self-defense and was engaged in an “armed conflict” 

against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, that all of these entities 

were not included in the state-based UN system but were legitimate targets 

when it comes to the use of force under international humanitarian law. But 

the Rapporteur deemed it an unsatisfactory response.216

It is hard to believe that the UN Special Rapporteur truly expects the USG, 

or for that reason any self-respecting government, to disclose to the world 

its secret sources and methods—i.e. how it goes about finding, confirming, 

and establishing its classified threat matrix, the location and capabilities of 

its enemies, and the order of priority for disposing of threats to its national 

security. Suffice it to say that a careful search of the Internet would reveal 

to any observer that the U.S. follows strict protocols in the conduct of its 

UAV operations. This is evident in an unclassified video of an actual strike 

that was shown by a U.S. Air Force legal advisor to an audience at Arizona 

State University.217 What is believable is that in international organizations 

like the UN Human Rights Council, the United States faces legal challenges 

to its power and leadership in not so subtle ways. The objective is to use 

international law itself to web constraints on the use of force.

UAV Concerns

In addition to the United States there are now about 40 countries that operate 

UAVs for military use. The unmanned aerial vehicles are not unmanned and 

those of the U.S. are operated by a joint forces team of specially trained 

flight operators and pilots together with intelligence analysts and lawyers 

who participate in the targeting process.

The equivalents of “burnout” and the possibility of developing a callous, 

wargame mentality are two of the things that should be of concern in the 

use of UAVs. Faulty intelligence leads to tragic mistakes in targeting as the 

complaints from President Karzai should remind. The mistakes may occur 

in the identification of the wrong target, in failing to minimize collateral 

damage, or in ignoring cultural aspects of the battlespace. For SOF operating 

in target rich places in the Middle East and soon in the Asia-Pacific there 

will be a need for more Judge Advocate General-trained lawyers keen on the 
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59

need to protect the team against aggressive lawfare action by opponents and 

their supporters. The lawyers would need to provide counseling on when and 

where the laws of war apply given their targeting criteria.
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JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

5. Conclusion: Retooling for the Future

The 21st century special operator faces not only enemies who can kill with high-velocity bullets, suicide bombers, and improvised explosive 

devices. He confronts an array of non-kinetic weapons of comparable 

lethality—ranging from a computer worm or virus that might misguide 

the global positioning system in an aircraft tracing its trajectory, to a false 

charge of rape by an unknown local, to a legal deposition about his role in 

a nighttime raid resulting in the loss of innocent lives. Under conditions 

of URW his battlefield is now everywhere and anywhere, but particularly 

inside his own head, for that is where he is most vulnerable. If the latter 

sounds farfetched one should check the military suicide rates since the 9/11 

attacks because the URW opponent is unquestionably examining it too as he 

plans his next move. The attack could be in the form of a honey trap aimed 

to destroy the operator’s effectiveness by disrupting his family stability or 

the hacking of his financial record to ruin his credit and deprive him of a 

security clearance. In a war with no rules how do you live by the rules? Such 

is the mind game challenge presented by the URW model and such is the 

“perceptional trauma” that we must overcome—what is real about URW?218 

How are we going to confront it as we pivot to the Asia-Pacific region where 

the strategy was best enunciated?

At the core of the URW model is the conception of integrated attacks 

along many lines of operation—from cultural, financial, and psychological 

to terrorist networks, media, and as noted above lawfare. To counter this 

combined array we must develop a grand strategy directed at the same 

dimensions and component elements in an interlocking but dynamic fashion. 

We are best advised to recognize that we are engaged in a total war in the 

grandest of forms and for the most indefinite period of time. The enemy is 

not one but an amorphous and opaque supra-combination of states and nonstate actors that relies on deception and that is global in reach and objectives. 

It seeks to avoid a direct military confrontation because it seeks to win 

without fighting. One can see the strategy operationally manifested at the 

state level in the diplomatic and military moves, for example, of the current 

Iranian regime, as well as those in North Korea and Venezuela. Another 

contributing challenge is the transforming combination of terrorist networks, 

transnational criminal organizations, and drug cartels into a cooperative but 

non-integrated global set of mega-networks that threaten failing states like 

61
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

62

Yemen or occupy ungoverned spaces in failed states like Somalia or the triborder area of South America. They also defy the international legal order by 

using the international legal system to their benefit. 

Lawfare is a real and growing threat to countries guided by the rule of 

law. The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was prescient 

when he wrote:

It would be difficult to devise more effective fettering of the field 

commander than to allow the very enemies he is ordered to reduce to 

submission to call him to account in his own civil courts and divert 

his efforts and attention from the military offensive abroad to the legal 

defensive at home.219

To counter this set of challenges the SOF community must also learn to 

prepare the legal battlespace as the U.S. pivots from the Middle East to the 

Asia-Pacific region. Lessons learned in dealing with legal tactics used by 

Jihadist detainees and combatants in the Middle East and North Africa must 

be taught to the new generation of operators and adapted for the new security 

environment they will encounter in Asia. The al-Qaeda manuals on how to 

manipulate the legal system must be introduced, explained, and studied by 

the SOF operators. One crucial step will be to engage human rights NGOs, 

opinion makers, and cultural leaders in the area of operation. A region-wide 

narrative as well as simplified local narratives explaining the whys and how 

of the American “return to Asia” should be widely disseminated to avoid 

exploitation by enemies and opponents wishing to trigger anti-American 

nationalism by reviving negative memories of Western colonialism and 

racism. Allies and indigenous friends in the region should be trained and 

included in indirect approach operations. 

In the last three decades the world has been visited by a “flock of black 

swans,” those highly improbable, hard to predict, rare events of very highimpact220 ranging from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 11 September 

2001 terrorist attacks, the world-historical transformation of the Middle 

East,221 the financial collapse of 2008, the Eurozone crisis, the growing 

challenge to national sovereignty and the convergence of terrorism, narcotrafficking, and transnational criminal organizations, to the rising challenge 

of an aggressive, nationalist, economically powerful China. Throughout this 

period the United States has sought to maintain its global leadership to the 
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63

point that it is now viewed as a “weary policeman ... in an age of austerity.”222

This study has sought to establish that understanding China’s URW 

strategy and recognizing the challenges presented to our operatives by our 

double-edged commitment to the rule of law is crucial to a successful pivot 

to Asia. As Robert Martinage noted in testimony before the Congress, in 

the new security environment one major challenge for SOF is that China, in 

particular, is displaying characteristics as “a more aggressive political-military 

competitor of the United States.”223 The operational implications include 

shifting from “an episodic deployment force to a persistent-presence force—

with more forces forward, in more places, for longer periods of time.”224

SOF will need to place increased emphasis not only upon unconventional warfare 

and foreign internal defense, but also upon working more closely with the CIA’s 

National Clandestine 

Service, 225

cooperating through, 

for example, the 

flexible detailing of 

SOF personnel to 

the CIA, enabling 

and encouraging 

more individuals to 

have careers with 

assignments in both 

organizations, and 

routinely creating 

interagency task 

forces to conduct integrated operations in specific regions/countries.226 In fact, 

the need to marriage intelligence and operations is the main driver behind 

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn’s new Clandestine Service inside the 

Defense Intelligence Agency.227

To hedge against the emergence of China as a more aggressive military 

competitor, SOF will also “need to acquire a few niche capabilities, such as 

a stealthy airlifter, and expand current capacity in a handful of areas, such 

as clandestine undersea SEAL delivery and support platforms.228 Likewise, 

“more language proficiency will be needed in Chinese dialects (as well as in 

the languages of neighboring states such as Kazakhstan and Mongolia).”229 

Two options for expanding SOF proficiency in relevant foreign languages 

Figure 9. Special operations forces members of a 

detachment of the Sichuan Contingent of the Chinese 

People’s Armed Police Force train in their new combat 

uniforms. Photo courtesy Ministry of National Defense, 

People’s Republic of China.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

64

are (1) expanding the number of slots at the Defense Language Institute 

and providing significant financial bonuses to operators who successfully 

complete a new course of instruction; and (2) increasing targeted recruitment 

of native speakers through the 18-X (special forces candidate) program or 

other mechanisms.230

The pivot to Asia-Pacific will also require preparing for air defense threats 

that will seriously challenge the efficacy of the current fleet of Combat 

Talons/Spears because, despite all the planned upgrades in electronic counter 

measures and self-protection systems, they might fall short in clandestinely 

infiltrating, resupplying, and ex-filtrating SOF in many areas of the world.231 

Therefore, Air Force Special Operations Command is encouraged to 

accelerate acquisition of a stealthy SOF transport. While the development 

and fielding of a stealthy M-X will be expensive, the strategic benefits would 

be immense.

... an M-X for conducting unconventional warfare, information 

operations, special reconnaissance, and direct action against future 

adversaries armed with advanced “anti-access” capabilities and 

possessing significant strategic depth. ... A stealthy M-X would, for 

example, provide the only practical option for inserting SOF to conduct 

special reconnaissance and direct action missions in the interior of 

China where known offensive space control sites, ballistic missile 

garrisons and hide sites, and other high value targets are located.232

As USSOCOM retools for the future and prepares for global operations 

in an era of austerity, its intelligence requirements must include a thorough 

knowledge of the capabilities and practices of its rivals’ and potential 

adversaries’ special forces. In particular, the status of Chinese special 

operations forces must be closely monitored and scenarios for their likely 

use in the Pacific region and beyond analyzed to establish the proper 

countermoves. In 2006, China passed a National Defense White Paper 

identifying “improving special forces capabilities as one of the Army’s major 

military modernization priorities.”233 As recent reports on live-ammunition, 

anti-terrorism joint training exercises by Chinese special forces with 

Pakistan (24 November 2011) and Indonesia (3 July 2012) indicate, the PLA 

is actively mimicking USSOCOM’s partnering strategy.234 Significantly, the 

establishment of special research task forces by China suggests that the main 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

lesson learned by China 

from analyzing the role 

of American SOF in the 

Balkans, Afghanistan, 

and Iraq is the value of 

using SOF as a force 

multiplier to attain 

strategic objectives.235

All levels of 

command should be 

exposed to a short but 

intense U.S. civics 

course and instruction 

on the legal principles 

of the U.S., the Law 

of Armed Conflict, 

and relevant local 

laws. Simulations and 

training exercises on 

the application of these 

laws and real-time 

legal advice should be 

made available during 

operations. Strategy, 

operations, and tactics need to be balanced against pertinent law; not to further 

over-lawyer warfare but to make sure that operations and plans are conducted 

because they are necessary not because they happen to be legal. The end goal 

is to act wisely not just legally.

65

Figure 10. Special operations forces from the 

South China Sea Fleet do a beach landing during 

an exercise. Photo courtesy of Ministry of National 

Defense, People’s Republic of China.
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67

1. DOD, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” Washington, D.C. Department of Defense, January 2012.

2. Hillary Clinton, “America’s Pacific Century” Foreign Policy, November 2011, http://

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?.

3. Remarks By President Obama to the Australian Parliament, The White House, 

Office of the Press Secretary, November 17, 2011http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament.

4. Ibid.

5. Jim Garamone, “World Faces Strategic Inflection Point, Dempsey Says,” U.S. 

Department of Defense, November 28, 2011, <http://www.defense.gov/news/ 

newsarticle.aspx?id=66258> Can Kasapoglu, “The Cold War Between 

Turkey and Iran,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, June 18, 2012 http://www.frpi.

org/enotes/2012/201206.kasapoglu.cold-war-turkey-iran.html.

6. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Interview with Jeffrey Brown, PBS, Thursday, 

January 5, 2012; <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june12/ 

panetta_01-05.html.

7. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, “The US Rebalance Towards The Asia-Pacific,” 

The 11th IISS Security Summit, The Shangri-La Dialogue, International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, IISS, Singapore, June 2, 2012.

8. Mark E. Manyin et. al., Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s 

“Rebalancing” Toward Asia, Washington, DC, Congressional Research Service, 

R42448, March 28, 2012.

9. Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy— China, America, and the Struggle for 

Mastery in Asia, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,2011, p.28] and the United 

States did not even recognize the PRC as a legitimate government for thirty years 

until 1979. 9 [On”Ping-Pong Diplomacy” see Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Ping_Pong_Diplomacy> On the PRC see Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy— China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia, New York: 

W.W. Norton & Co., 2011, p. 28.

10. “Winston Lord and Leslie H. Gelb: Nixon’s China Opening, 40 Years Later,” The 

Daily Beast, Feb. 20, 2012 < http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/20/ 

winston-lord-and-leslie-h-gelb-nixon-s-china-opening-40-years-later.html.

11. Dianne E. Rennack, China: U.S. Economic Sanctions , Washington D.C., 

Congressional Research Service, May 30, 1997, pp. 27-29.

12. Aaron L. Friedberg, “Arming China Against Ourselves,” Commentary, July-August, 

1999, p. 29; James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship 

With China, From Nixon to Clinton, New York, Vintage Books, 2000.

13. David M. Lampton, “China,” Foreign Policy, Vol. 110, Spring 1998, pp. 13-28.

14. Manyin et.al. CRS- R42448, Summary, March 28, 2012.

15. Mackubin Thomas Owens, “The President’s Risky Defense Strategy,” The Wall 

Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, January 7-8, 2012, p. A15.

16. “China’s military rise—The dragon’s new teeth,” The Economist, April 7, 2012; http:/

www.economist.com/node/21552193.

17. See for instance Tony Corn “Peaceful Rise through Unrestricted Warfare: Grand 

Strategy with Chinese Characteristics,” Small Wars Journal, 2010 at http:// 

Endnotes
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68

smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/449-corn.pdf.

18. A.F.K.Organski, World Politics, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2nd ed. 1969; Robert 

Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, London,UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1981; Ronald L. Tammen, Jacek Kugler (Editor), Douglas Lemke (Editor), 

Carole Alsharabati, Brian Efird, Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century. 

Seven Bridges Press, 2000.

19. Admiral Mike Mullen: ‘National Debt Is Our Biggest Security Threat’’ Huffington 

Post, 6/24/10, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/adm-mike-mullennational_n_624096.html.

20. Niall Ferguson, “America, the fragile empire,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 

2010; Niall Ferguson,”Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos” 

Foreign Affairs, March/April 2010; Scott L. Kastner and Phillip C. Saunder, “Is 

China a Status Quo or Revisionist State? Leadership Travel as an Empirical Indicator 

of Foreign Policy Priorities,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, 2012, pp. 63-

177.

21. T.V. Paul, Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers, U.K.:Cambridge, 

Cambridge University Press, 1994.

22. John T. Bennett, “Red Menace: China Poised to Join Elite Aircraft Club,” U.S. 

News & World Report, May 18, 2012; “Fiscal year 2013 Budget Estimates, Tampa: 

Fla, USSOCOM, February 2012.

23. Sun Tsu, The Art of War, translated by Thomas Cleary, Boston: Massachussetts, 

Shambhala, 1991, p. 14.

24. David W. Barno, Nora Bensahel & Travis Sharp, “A Strategy for Pivoting to Asia 

While Hedging in the Middle East,” Orbis, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2012, pp. 

158-176.

25. Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy—China, America, and the Struggle for 

Mastery in Asia, New York: W.W.Norton & Company, Inc., 2011, Chapter 4.

26. Charles Kupchan, No One’s World, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

27. “China uneasy over US troop deal in Australia,” The Guardian, Wednesday 

November, 16, 2011.< http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/china-ustroops-australia>.

28. “China warns US to be careful after Obama’s defence strategy rethink,” The 

Guardian, January 9, 2012.< http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/china-uscareful-defence-strategy>.

29. Patrick Christy and Evan Moore, FPI Bulletin: “Obama Can Cut Defense or Pivot to 

Asia—But not Both,” Foreign Policy, February 13, 2012< http://www.foreignpolicyi.

org/content/fpi-bulletin-obama-can-cut-defense-or-pivot-asia%E2%80%94-notboth-0>.

30. Christopher Preble, “Ike Reconsidered,” Washington Monthly, March/April 2011 

<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2011/1103.preble.html.

31. Joe Studwell, The China Dream: The Quest for the Last Great Untapped Market on 

Earth, Grove Press, April 2003.

32. Gordon G. Chang, “ Google and China’s Changing Economic Paradigm,” China Brief, Vol. X, Issue 7, April 1, 2010, pp. 7-9.

33. Amir Efrati and Loretta Chao, “Google Softens Touch on China,” WSJ , January 12, 

2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577155003097277

514.html?mod=technology_newsreel>.

34. “The dangers of a rising China,” The Economist, December 2, 2010 <http://www. 

economist.com/node/17629709/print.

35. Constantine C. Menges, Nashville: Tenn, China—The Gathering Threat, Nelson 
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69

Current, 2005.

36. Eric T. Olson, Keynote Address, 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium, 10-11 

March 2008, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, pp.7-23.

37. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to 

Destroy America, (URW) Panama City, Panama: Pan American Pub. Translated from 

the original Chinese Document, 2002.

38. Ibid., xxii.

39. Ibid., 95.

40. Ibid., xviii.

41. Ibid., 41.

42. President John F. Kennedy, “Remarks at West Point to the Graduating Class of 

the U.S. Military Academy,” June 6, 1962 accessible online at http://www.jfklink. 

com/speeches/jfk/publicpapers/1962/jfk226_62.html.

43. URW, pp.122-123.The authors on page 121 erroneously identify the sources at the 

SSI-USAWC as being Steven Maizi and Thomas Kaiweiti. In reality, they appear to 

be relying on the June 27, 1995 work by Steven Metz and James Kievit entitled 

“Strategy and the Revolution in Military Affairs: From Theory to Policy.” Accessible 

online at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/stratrma.pdf.

44. Ibid., 41.

45. Spencer Ackerman, “How Special Ops Copied al-Qaida to Kill It,” September 9, 2011 http:/www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/mcchrystal-network/all.

46. Unrestricted Warfare, p. 41.

47. Charles Faint and Michael Harris, “F3EAD: Ops/Intel Fusion ‘Feeds’ The SOF Targeting Process,” Small Wars Journal, Jan 31, 2011 available at <http://small warsjournal.com/jrnl/art/f3ead-opsintel-fusion-%E2%80%9Cfeeds%E2%80%9D- the-sof-targeting-process>.

48. “Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United 

States: Executive Summary.” National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the 

United States. 2004-01-27.< http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_ 

Exec.htm> Retrieved 3-10-2012.

49. See, for instance, the four volume Proceedings from the 2006-2009 Unrestricted 

Warfare Symposiums sponsored by Johns Hopkins University, the National 

Intelligence Council, the Department of Defense and the Department of State. http://

www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium/Previous.aspx.

50. Sean D. Naylor, “War Games Rigged?”, Army Times, 08-16-2002. <http://www. armytimes.com/legacy/new/0-292925-1060102.php>.

51. Thom Shanker, “Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ‘02 War Game,” The New York Times, January 12, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy. html.

52. Peterson, “How Iran could beat up on America’s superior military,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 26, 2012 <http://www.csmonitor.com/World/MiddleEast/2012/0126/How-Iran-could-beat-up-on-America-superior-military>.

53. “Iran begins naval drills in Strait of Hormuz,” Al Jazeera, 25 Dec., 2011 accessed at 

< http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/201112256111744890.html>.

54. John T. Bennett, “Red Menace: China Poised to Join Elite Aircraft Carrier Club,” 

U.S. News & World Report, May 18, 2012.

55. Sun Tzu, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, James H. Ford (ed.), Shawn Conners (ed.), 

Lionel Giles (translator), El Paso Norte Press, Special edition, March 25, 2005 ; B. H. 

Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. ed., London: Faber & Faber, 1967.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

70

56. Unrestricted Warfare, p.74.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid., 75. 

59. Ibid., 76. 

60. Ibid.

61. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military 

Strategy and Policy, Indiana University Press, January 22, 1960.

62. Edward N. Luttwak, “Dead End: Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military 

Malpractice,” Harper’s Magazine (February 2007) <http://harpers.org/ 

archive/2007/02/0081384>.

63. URW, p. 75. A Department of Defense report on Operation Desert Shield/Desert 

Storm shows 148 battle deaths, 145 non-battle deaths, 467 wounded in battle. 

Washington, D.C., “The Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Timeline,” DOD, 

National Guard Bureau, August 8, 2000.

64. Charles K. Hyde, “Casualty Aversion—Implications for Policy Makers and Senior 

Military Officers,” Aerospace Power Journal, Summer 2000, http://www.airpower. 

maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/sum00/hyde.htm.

65. See Douglas A. Macgregor “Fiscal reality and the American Way of War,” Infinity 

Journal Exclusives, Vol.2, Issue 2, Spring 2012, February 8, 2012.

66. Constantine C. Menges, China: The Gathering Threat, Nashville: Tenn. Nelson Communications, Inc., 2005, pp. 129-35.

67. Patrick E. Tyler, “As China Threatens Taiwan, It Makes Sure U.S. Listens,” The Los 

Angeles Times, September 9, 1996, p. A-1.

68. William P. Rogers, Department of State, “Memorandum For the President: Subject:The Possibility of a Soviet Strike Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities,” Washington D.C., September 10, 1969. The United States also considered military action to destroy Chinese nuclear weapons facilities in 1963-64. A Special 

National Intelligence Estimate issued in August 1964 erroneously concluded that 

China would not test a bomb before the end of 1964. In fact, China joined the nuclear 

club two months later on 16 October 1964.

69. Gabriel Schoenfeld, “In Retrospect by Robert S. McNamara,” Commentary, June 

1995. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/in-retrospect-by-robert-smcnamara/.

70. Friedberg, “Arming China,” supra. p. 30.

71. “Taiwan Strait, 21 July 1995 to 23 March 1996,” Global Security.org. at <http:// www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/taiwan_strait.htm>. See also, Douglas Porch, 

“The Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996—Strategic Implications for the U.S. Navy,” Naval War College Review, Summer 1999; Andrew Scobell, “ Show of Force: The PLA and the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis,” January 1999 http://iis-db. stanford.edu/pubs/10091/scobell.pdf.

72. Unrestricted Warfare, p. 119. 

73. Ibid., 138. 

74. Ibid., 139. 

75. Ibid., 5.

76. Ibid., 17

77. Henry Kissinger, On China, New York: New York, The Penguin Press, 2011.

78. David Lai, “Learning from the Stones: A Go Approach to Mastering China’s 

Strategic Concept,” Carlisle, PA. U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2004.
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

71

79. Henry Kissinger, On China, pp. 24-25.

80. Ibid., 25-26.

81. John A. Van Messel, “Unrestricted Warfare: A Chinese doctrine for future warfare?” 

USMC School of Advanced Warfighting, Marine Corps University, VA: Quantico, 

2004.

82. Unrestricted Warfare, p. 32.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid., 33-34.

85. Ibid., 32.

86. Ibid., 37. 

87. Ibid., 38.

88. Ibid., 38-43.

89. Ibid., 43.

90. Ibid., Chapter 7.

91. Unrestricted Warfare, p. 155. 

92. Richard G. Whitman, “The relationship between France and Germany is the 

barometer of the political health of Europe,” London, UK, Chatham House, Thursday 

May 17, 2012.

93. See Andrew Scheineson, “Backgrounder: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” 

New York: Council on Foreign Relations, March 24, 2009, http://www.cfr.org/ 

international-peace-and-security/shanghai-cooperation-organization/p10883.

94. Unrestricted Warfare, pp. 161-164.

95. Tory Starr, “Iranian Man Executed for Alleged Role in Assassination of Nuclear 

Scientist,” PRI’s The World, May 15, 2012< http://www.theworld.org/2012/05/fashihanged/>.

96. Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone, “Iran Reports killing of nuclear scientists in ‘terrorist’blast,” The New York Times, January 11, 2012, p. A1.

97. Mark Clayton, “Stuxnet attack onIran nuclear program came about a year ago, 

report say,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 2011; http://www.csmonitor.

com/USA/2011/0103/Stuxnet-attack-on-Iran-nuclear-program-came-about-a-yearago-report-says.

98. Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu, and Eric Chien, W32.Stuxnet Dossier, Symantec 

Security Response, September 2010, p. 17; “Iran Admits Nuclear Sites Hit by ‘Duqu’ 

Cyberweapon,” Fox News, November 14, 2011.

99. Martin Libicki, Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar, MG-877-AF, Santa Monica, CA, 

RAND Corp., 2012.

100. Joel Brenner, America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital 

Espionage, Crime, and Warfare, New York, The Penguin Press, 2011. Also, Mark 

Clayton, “Stuxnet Attack,” Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 2011. For an 

unofficial report on the Stuxnet see David E. Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up

Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran, The New York Times, Friday June 1, 2012, 

p. A1. See also, David Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and 

Surprising Use of American Power, New York, Crown Publishers, 2012; Andy 

Greenberg “What Stuxnet’s Exposure as an American Weapon Means for Cyberwar,” 

Forbes, 6/01/2012, www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/01/.

101. On China: see, Joel Harding, “Is this the first ‘Cyber Shot’ in a Chinese “Jasmine 

Spring?” http://toinformistoinfluence.com/2012/03/31/is-this-the-first-cyber-shotin-a-chinese-jasmine-spring.html. On Iran: Pierfuigi Paganinip, “Call it Flame, 
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Flamer or Skywiper...it’s a new cyberweapon,” Security Affairs, May 28, 2012. 

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/5858/malware/call-it-flame-flamer-or-skywiperits-a-new-cyber-weapon.html> See also, Congressional Research Office, “The 

Stuxnet Computer Worm: A Harbinger of an Emerging Warfare Capability,” 

Washington, DC, CRS #41524, December 9, 2010.

102. Gary King, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” presentation at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Palo Alto: 

California, Encina Hall, Stanford University, Wednesday, June 6, 2012. Read the 

report at <gking.harvard.edu/gking/files/censored.pdf>.

103. Fareed Zakaria, “How dictators have evolved with the times,” CNN World, June 17, 

2012. <globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/17>. See also, William Dobson, 

The Dictator’s Learning Curve, New York: Random House, 2012.

104. Unrestricted Warfare, pp. 164-68.

105. Max G. Manwaring, ‘The Strategic Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma, 

Carlisle: PA, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2011, 

p. 22. To the above list one could add, for example, as a proxy war/psychological/ 

convention combination the developing Syrian civil war of 2012, where supporters of 

the anti-Assad opposition in the Sunni Arab states are funneling weapons and fighters 

into the country as the Russian Federation provides its long-term ally Syria with 

military aid.

106. See, Shaun Waterman, “Fictitious femme fatale fooled cybersecurity,” Washington 

Times, July 18, 2010; and “Robin Sage,” Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 

Robin_Sage.

107. Jim Garamone, “Gates: North Korea Becoming Direct Threat to U.S.,” Beijing, 

American Forces Press Service, January 11, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/news/ 

newsarticle.aspx?id=62400.

108. Scott A. Snyder, “North Korea’s Missiles, Nukes, and False Promises: How to 

Respond,” Testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington, DC, U.S. 

House of Representatives, 112th Congress, April 18, 2012.

109. “N. Korea Boosts Special Forces, Conventional Arms, The Chosunilbo, December 31, 2010; accessible at http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_ dir/2010/12/31/2010123100850.html.

110. Ibid. See also a translated interview with captain Im Cheon-Yong, a North Korean 

special forces defector, “Ask a Korean! News: North Korean Special Forces,” 

Ask a Korean blogspot.com, Wednesday, March 23, 2011, http://askakorean.blogspot.

com/2011/03/ask-korean-news-north-korean-special.html.

111. John Chan, “South Korea and Japan discuss first-ever military agreements,” World 

Socialist Website, January 13, 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/ 

jpko-j13.shtml.

112. Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Annual Report to Congress— Military and 

Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2012,” 

Washington, DC, May 2012.

113. Ibid.

114. Andrew Krepinevich, Barry Watts, and Robert Work, Meeting the Anti-Access and Area-Denial Challenge,Washington. D.C., Center for Strategic and Budgetary 

Assessment (CSBA) 2003, p. i.

115. Quoted in David Wood, “China, Iran Creating ‘No-Go’ Zones to Thwart U.S. 

Military Power,” Politics Daily. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/01/china-irancreating-no-go-to-thwart-u-s-military-power.

116. Andrew Krepinevich, Barry Watts, and Robert Work, “Meeting the Anti-Access and 

Area-Denial Challenge,” Washington. DC, Center for Strategic and Budgetary 
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73

Assessment, 2003.

117. Richard Halloran, “Air Sea Battle,” Air Force Magazine, August 2010, p. 46. For 

an interactive graphic of China’s missile ranges go to the following website http:// 

www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/12/chinese_missile_ranges.

118. Roger Cliff, Mark Burless, Michael S. Chase, Derek Eason, and Kevin L. Pollpeter, 

Entering the Dragon’s Lair: Chinese Antiaccess Strategies and Their Implications for 

the United States, RAND Project AIR FORCE, MG-524-AF, 2007. The study 

recommends a range of near-term and longer term measures, new or improved 

capabilities.

119. David Wood, supra note 119.

120. Wood, Ibid. See also Barno et.al. op.cit.

121. U.S. Department of Defense, “Joint Operational Access Concept,” Version1.0, 17 

January 2012 <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/JOAC_Jan%202012_Signed.pdf >Also, 

Rep. J. Randy Forbes, “America’s Pacific Air-Sea Battle Vision,” The Diplomat, 

March 8, 2012. < http://the-diplomat.com/2012/03/08/americas-pacific-air-seabattle-vision/> Also, “New US military concept marks pivot to sea and air,” IISS 

Strategic Comments, Volume 18, Comment 20, May 2012.

122. T.X. Hammes, “Offshore Control: A Proposed Strategy,” Infinity Journal, Volume 2, 

Issue No.2, Spring 2012, pp. 10-14.

123. DOD, Annual Report to Congress, op.cit. p. iv.

124. Ibid.

125. Ibid., iv.

126. Michael Prell, “China: U.S. No. 1 no more,” The Washington Times, January 19, 2011, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/19/usacross-out-usa-china-1/?.

127. Chris Buckley, “China PLA officer urges challenging U.S dominance,” Reuters, 

Sunday 28, 2010.

128. Ellen O. Tauscher, “Maintaining U.S.-China Strategic Stability,” Washington, D.C., 

U.S. Department of State, July 5, 2011. <www.state.govt/t/avc/rls/170571.htm>.

129. Ibid.

130. DOD Annual Report, 2012, p. iv.

131. Chris Lawrence,” China’s top military officer visiting U.S. military installations,” 

CNN, May 7, 2012, security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/07/chinas-top-military-officervisiting-u-smilitary.

132. U.S. Department of State, China’s Strategic Modernization: Report from the ISAB Task Force, International Security Advisory Board, Washington DC, 2008, www.fas.

org/nuke/guide/china/ISAB2008.pdf>.

133. Ibid., 2.

134. Ibid., 7.

135. Ibid.

136. Hans M. Christensen, “State Department Arms Control Board Declares Cold War on 

China,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, October 2008, www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/10/

isab.php.

137. Robert D. Kaplan, “How We Would Fight China,” The Atlantic, June 2005. <www. 

theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/...we-would-fight-china/3959/> See also, 

Max Manwaring, The Strategic Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma, 

Carlisle: PA, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2011.

138. Ibid. 

139. Ibid. 
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74

140. Ibid. 

141. Ibid. 

142. Matthew Hickley, “The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy 

exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced,” Daily Mail Online, November 10, 2007. 

<www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492804/The-uninvited-guest-Chinese-sub-popsmiddle-U-S-Navy-exercise-leaving-military-chiefs-red-faced.html>.

143. Marc Kaufman and Dafna Linzer, “China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile 

Test,” Washington Post, January 19, 2007. <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ 

content/article/2007/01/18/AR20070118>.

144. Kaplan, op.cit.

145. Ibid. 

146. Robert O. Work, Naval Transformation and the Littoral Combat Ship, Washington, 

DC, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 2004.

147. See “The Future of the U.S. Navy Surface Fleet,” Cato Institute, May 21, 2012.< 

www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SNavyS>.

148. Robert F. Turner, “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans,” The Washington Times, May 

26, 2012, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/25/welcome-homevietnam-veterans/>. 

149. Dr. Robert J. Bunker, “Beijing, Unrestricted Warfare, and Threat Potentials,” 

Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 

Washington, DC, March 29, 2007; David Shambaugh, “Coping with a Conflicted 

China,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 3 #1, pp. 7-27, Winter 2011; Aaron L. 

Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, Ch. 7.

150. Bunker, Testimony.

151. Ibid.

152. Ibid.

153. David Shambaugh, “Coping with a Conflicted China,” The Washington Quarterly, 

Vol. 34 #1, Winter 2011, p. 7.

154. Ibid, p.12. Kissinger, On China, op.cit.

155. Shambaugh, “Coping,” p. 12.

156. David Shambaugh, “A New China Requires a New U.S. Strategy,” Current History

Vol.109, September 2010, pp. 219-226.

157. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, Chapter 7, “To Win Without Fighting.”

158. Ibid., 166.

159. Ibid., 167-180. 

160. Ibid., 174. 

161. Ibid., 175. 

162. Ibid. p.176. See also: Phred Dvorak and Toko Sekiguchi, “Tokyo Governor Talks Tough on Isles,” Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2012, p. A9; James R. Holmes, “The 

Sino-Japanese Naval War of 2012,” Foreign Policy, August 20, 2012.

163. Ibid., 180-181, 254.

164. Ibid., 279-80. See also, Ashton Carter’s defense of the Asia-Pacific strategy, October 

3, 2012.

165. Lolita C. Baldor, “SecDef to stop at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam,” Navy Times, June 

2, 2012. <http://www.navytimes.com/news/2012/06/ap-military-vietnam-secretarydefense-secdef-to-stop-camp-ranh-bay-060212/>. On July 27, 2012 Vietnamese 

President Truong Tan Sang announced that Russia would be building a ship 
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75

maintenance base at Cam Ranh Bay. “Vietnam: Russia Building Naval Base at Cam 

Ranh, LIGNET, July 28, 2012 at www.lignet.com/InBriefs/Vietnam-Russia-BuildingNaval-Base-at-Cam-Ranh.

166. Robert E. Kelly, “China’s Counter to the Asian Pivot,” Asian Security Blog, March 

31-April 3, 2012, <http://asiansecurityblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/chinascounter-to-the-asian-pivot-2-swarms-in-the-pacific/#more-1970>.

167. Kenneth Lieberthal, “Why president Obama’s turn to the East is easier said than 

done,” Foreign Policy, December 21, 2011, www.foreignpolicy.com/ 

articles/2011/12/21/the_american_pivot_to_asia?page=full.

168. See James Kiras, Special Operations and Strategy: From World War II to the War on 

Terrorism, London: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group Inc., December 2007.

169. Nathan Freier, “The Defense Identity Crisis: It’s a Hybrid World,” Parameters, 

Autumn 2009, www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/09autumn/freier.pdf.

170. Fox News, “Navy SEALS Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most Wanted 

Terrorist,” November 30, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576646,00. 

html.

171. Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer effect: How good people turn evil. New York: 

Random8House, 2007; Michael Clemens, The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: 

American Soldiers on Trial. Potomac Books, 2010.

172. Al Qaeda Manual 137, (translated excerpts by the U.S. Department of Justice, Dec. 6, 

2001) available at http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/aqmanual.pdf. Also, Clare 

M. Lopez, “SEALS Case Shows How Terrorists Use ‘Lawfare’ to Undermine U.S.,” 

Human Events, March 8, 2010. <http://www.humanevents.com/article. 

php?id=35934>.

173. Frederick l. Whitmer, Litigation is War—Strategy & Tactics for the Litigation 

Battlefield, NewYork: Thompson West Legal Works, 2007.

174. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian 

Values in 21st Century Conflicts,” Working Paper (Boston: Harvard Kennedy School, 

200), accessible at <www..ksg.harvard.edu/cchrp/Web%20Working%20Papers/ 

Use%20of%20Force/Dunlap2001.pdf>.

175. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Lawfare Today,” Yale Journal of International Affairs 

(Winter 2008), p. 146, accessible at www.nimj.org/documents/Lawfare%20Today. 

pdf. For the most recent overview of the legal debates over lawfare see “Lawfare! 

Are America’s Enemies Using the Law Against Us as a Weapon of War?” Case 

Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Volume 43, Nos. 1 & 2 (2011).

176. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st Century Conflicts?,” 

Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 54, 3rd quarter 2009, p. 35.

177. “Is Lawfare Worth Defining?” Report of the Cleveland Experts Meeting, September 

11, 2010, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol.43, No. 1, p. 12, 

2011.

178. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Does Lawfare Need an Apologia?” Case Western Reserve 

Journal of International Law, Vol. 43. No. 1, p. 121 (2011).

179. Mark W. Holzer, “Offensive Lawfare and the Current Conflict,” Harvard National Security Journal Features, 2012, pp. 5, 14.

180. Ibid., 4-6.

181. Ibid., 6.

182. Unrestricted Warfare, pp. 38-43.

183. U.S. Department of State, China’s Strategic Modernization: Report from the ISAB 

Task Force, International Security Advisory Board, Washington DC, 2008, www.fas.

org/nuke/guide/china/ISAB2008pdf .
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76

184. Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir, New York: The Penguin Group, 

2011, pp. 595-596.

185. Paul R. Williams, “Lawfare: A War Worth Fighting” Case Western Reserve Journal 

of International Law, Vol. 43 (2011), p. 149.

186. Ibid., 149-50.

187. Orde F. Kittrie, “Lawfare and U.S. National Security,” Case Western Reserve Journal 

of International Law, Vol. 43 (2011), pp. 398-400.

188. Kelly D. Wheaton, “Strategic Lawyering: The Potential of Military Lawyers at the 

Strategic Level,” U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA., March 15, 2006.

189. Kittrie, op.cit., p. 405.

190. Williams, supra. Note 189, pp. 147-149.

191. Williams, pp. 146-150.

192. Dominic Nardi, “Burmese Change: Opportunities for Myanmar?” II Journal, 

International Institute, University of Michigan, Spring 2012, pp. 13-15.

193. “The National Defense Strategy of the United States,” Washington, D.C., Department 

of Defense, March 2005, p. 5 <www.defense.gov/news/mar2005/d20050318nds1. 

pdf>.

194. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st Century Conflicts?,” 

Joint Forces Quarterly, NDU Press, Issue 54, 3rd quarter 2009.

195. Philip Carter, “Legal Combat,” Slate.com, April 4, 2005, www.slate.com/articles/ 

news_and_politics/.../2005.../legal_combat.html.

196. Dawood Ahmed, “Turning the doctrine of lawfare against aggressors,” The Guardian, April 25, 2012.

197. Philip Carter, “Legal combat,” op.cit, p. 2.

198. William G. Eckhardt, “Lawyering for Uncle Sam When He Draws His Sword,” 

Chicago Journal of International Law, Vol.4, No.2 (2003) p. 441.

199. For a review see, John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner, eds, Legal Issues in the 

Struggle Against Terror, Durham, North Carolina, Carolina Academic Press, 2010.

200. Unrestricted Warfare, Chapter 1, p. 7.

201. Ross Andersen, “Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun,” The Atlantic, March 22, 2012.

202. “Anwar al-Awlaki,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki.

203. Ibid. 

204. Ibid. 

205. Edwin S. Corwin, The President: Office and Powers, New York, NYU Press, 4th rev. 

ed. (1957) p. 171.

206. Moore and Turner, Legal Issues, p. 90.

207. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, “Executive Orders of the American Presidents,” The American Presidency Project, Santa Barbara: California, UCSB, www. 

presidency.ucsb.edu/executive_orders.php.

208. Micah Zenko, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Drones,” Foreign Policy, March/

April 2012, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/.

209. “Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harithi,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qaed_Salim_ 

Sinan_al-Harethi.

210. Nasser Al-Aulaqi v. Barack H. Obama, Leon C. Panetta, and Robert M. Gates, U.S. 

District Court for the District of Columbia, August 30, 2010, http://ccrjustice.org/ 
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77

files/Al-Aulaqi%20v.%20Obama%20Complaint.pdf.

211. Christof Heyns, “ Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or 

arbitrary executions,” UN General Assembly, Human Rights Council Twentieth 

session, A/HRC/20/22/Add.3, 30 March, 2012, pp. 21-22, footnotes, 121, 127.

212. “From the War Room to the Court Room: Asymmetrical Warfare and International 

Law in the 21st Century,” Post-Conference Report, Chicago: ILL., National Strategy 

Forum, October 18, 2010.

213. Honorable James Terry, “Habeas corpus and the Detention of Enemy Combatants in 

the Global War on Terror,” in Moore and Turner, eds. Legal issues, supra, Chapter 3, 

pp. 65-81.

214. Thomas M. Franck, “On Proportionality of Countermeasures in International Law,” 

The American Journal of International Law, American Society of International Law 

(ASIL), Vol. 102, No. 4 (October 2008) pp. 715-767; Judith Gail Gardam, 

“Proportionality and Force in International Law,” The American Journal of 

International Law, American Society of International Law (ASIL), Vol.87, No. 3 

(1993), pp. 301-413.

215. “Report of the Special Rapporteur,” op.cit, addendum p. 22. 

216. Ibid., 21. See also, United States Department of State, Speech by Harold Hongju 

Koh, Legal Adviser, to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International 

Law, March 25, ) 2010, www.state.gov/s/1/releases/remarks/139119.htm.

217. Pratap Chatterjee, “How lawyers sign off on drone attacks,” The Guardian, 

Wednesday, June 15, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/ 

jun/15/drone-attacks-obama-administration.

218. On perceptual trauma, see Robert J. Bunker, “Testimony before the U.S.-China 

Economic and Security Review Commission” Panel on Beijing’s Doctrine 

on the Conduct of Irregular Forms of Warfare, 29 March 2007 <http://www.uscc.gov/

hearings/2007/hearings/transcripts/mar_29_30/bunker.pdf>.

219. Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S., 763, 779 (1950).

220. Jeffrey Frankel, “A Flock of Black Swans, Project Syndicate, August 20, 2012, http://

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a-flock-of-black-swans-by-jeffrey-frankel.

221. According to Charles Hill, the Middle East is undergoing a world-historical (not 

merely regional) event” and the United States must resume steering the 

‘transformation’. See: “A New Grand Strategy,” Hoover Digest, No. 3, Summer 

2012, pp. 126-131.

222. Dana Allin, Erik Jones, Jim Hoagland, Weary Policeman: American Power in an Age 

of Austerity, London: England, Adelphi Book, International Institute for Strategic 

Studies (IISS), 2012.

223. Robert Martinage, ‘“Special Operations Forces: Challenges and Opportunities,” 

Testimony Before the U. S. House of Representatives, House Committee on Armed 

Services, March 3, 2009, p. 1.

224. Ibid., 10.

225. Ibid., 11.

226. Ibid., 11, 29-30.

227. See Jared Serbu, “General who criticized wartime intelligence gathering now leads 

DIA,” DOD News, 7/25/12, http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/2960173/ 

General-who-criticized-wartime-intelligence-gathering-now-leads-DIA.

228. Martinage, p. 11.

229. Ibid., 15. 

230. Ibid., 15-16. 
JSOU Report 13-2 Wong-Diaz: Retooling

78

231. Ibid.

232. Ibid., 26. 

233. Michael S. Chase, “Chinese Special Operations Forces: ‘Lessons Learned’ and 

Potential Missions,” China Brief, Volume 7, Issue 4, May 9, 2007.

234. “Northwest China’s special operation force ‘Sirius,’” China Military Online, 

4/10-2012 at http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/china-military- news/2012-04/10/content_4831048_2.htm; “Chinese-Indonesian ‘Edge 2012’ antiterrorism joint training starts,” DiploNews, July 5, 2012 at http://www.diplonews. 

com/feeds/free/5_July_2012_6.php.

235. Chase, p. 1.