Unrestricted Warfare

July 8, 2005 3:48 PM

Unrestriced WarfareQiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, two colonels in the People's Liberation Army of China published this back in 1999. It is a striking and trenchant attempt to describe the transformations that warfare has undergone since the first Gulf War, and suggests that the boundary between war and its opposite may be on the move. "We have no reason for optimism. This is because the reduction of the functions of warfare in a pure sense does not mean at all that war has ended. Even in the so-called post-modern, post-industrial age, warfare will not be totally dismantled. It has only re-invaded human society in a more complex, more extensive, more concealed, and more subtle manner. " Short interview posted by the Uyghur American Association, here.
posted by derangedlarid (4 comments total)

I would be interested in reading this if they could get a better translation. But I can't bring myself to trudge through sentences like "We discovered that, from those wars which could be described in glorious and dominating terms, to the aftermath of the acme of what it has been possible to achieve to date in the history of warfare, that war, which people originally felt was one of the more important roles to be played out on the world stage, has at one stroke taken the seat of a B actor." I'm assuming that's less painful to parse in Chinese.
posted by scottreynen at 4:38 PM on July 8, 2005

Very interesting stuff.... It looks as though China has it's own theorists in Fourth Generation Warfare.
posted by Grimgrin at 5:10 PM on July 8, 2005

Fascinating stuff. The convergence of the PLA and Paul Virilio. Any idea where to get it in Chinese?
posted by alexwoods at 7:43 AM on July 9, 2005

Here is a bilingual version, with pictures of the authors.
posted by alexwoods at 7:47 AM on July 9, 2005