People’s Republic of China People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s Aircraft Carrier, Type 001A Shandong (Hull 17), the PLA Navy’s second aircraft carrier, but the first built domestically (above). In War Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination (Sentinel, 2022), retired US Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding discusses China’s military concept of unrestricted warfare. Spalding points out the concept may also include the use of armed force with its arsenal of weapons as the Type 001A Shandong, it is a military concept designed for the use of non-military forms of warfare: psychological, media, information, technology, cyber, financial, political, social, and espionage. The aim of unrestricted warfare is to weaken the US internally and to exploit its vulnerabilities. Spalding says there can be no doubt that the ultimate goal of the Communiet Party of China is world dominance. From his perspective, that does not bode well for the US.

People’s Republic of China President and Communist Party of China Party Secretary Xi Jinping promises the Chinese people that China will supplant the US as the world’s dominant power in every sector. (Surely, it would be out of character for Xi to assure the Chinese people something as mundane as French King Henry IV declared one day in 1598 as France was just beginning to emerge from its ruinous religious wars: “Je veux que chaque laboureur de mon royaume puisse mettre la poule au pot le Comanche.” (I desire that every laborer in my realm should be able to put a fowl in the pot on Sundays.). Reference is commonly made to that statement with the phrase, “poulet au pot.”) One might imagine that some similitudes of the romanticism á la the French Revolution, megalomania, or some bizarre combination of both, perhaps in concert with others, have driven the zeal of Communist Party of China’s leadership over the years to achieve this goal. Xi will very likely have a lot of other unsettling things to say as time goes on. As attaining the dominant position in the world has been a long sought goal but never reached, some experts, scholars, and policy practitioners still look askance at the whole idea. China’s ambitions and capabilities as they concern attaining this lofty goal no longer sit in the realm of the theoretical or left to philosophical meanderings. Xi is clearly determined to achieve it under his leadership. If China were ever to make the dream of dominance come true, it would not be so willing to relinquish that position. Beijing would doubtlessly do whatever it took to stay on top.

Although the idea of China being the world’s dominant power may be a pleasurable thought in Beijing, the moral and ethical implications are remarkably overwhelming. The idea of China achieving that goal is a frightening prospect, terrifying leaders in other countries whether its friend or foe. The subject of this review is Robert Spalding’s War Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination (Sentinel, 2022). In his book, Spalding says there can be no doubt that the ultimate goal of the Communiet Party of China is world dominance. From his perspective, that does not bode well for the US. A retired US Air Force Brigadier General, Spalding, in War Without Rules, expresses his most recent meditations about China’s efforts to achieve dominance overseas and even greater control at home. He offers more answers on how the US and its allies might respond to that effort. Spalding states in his “Introduction”: It is not enough to know what your enemy wants. One needs to understand his strategy. In this regard, Washington has been, to use Spalding’s words, “really confused.” He says the US is “primed to fight in one way-all-out war-and see aggression through the same lens.” The indications and implications of this is that the US over the years has failed to discern and accept the Chinese are doing something very different and thereby, Washington has failed to act appropriately. To that extent, War Without Rules is a further attempt by Spalding to get the word out to US political leaders about what China is doing. Yet, more than a book about China’s concepts, intentions, and actions to knock the US off its perch as the dominant power in the world, greatcharlie found that War Without Rules is a book that stirs the reader’s curiosity. The reader is caused to inquire further into the author’s judgments and give greater consideration of their own views on the matter. Such books are figurative catnip for greatcharlie.

Robert Spalding retired from the US Air Force as a brigadier general after more than 25 years of service. If US Air Force officers were listed by achievements–perhaps they are somewhere in the Pentagon, Spalding would surely be among the luminaries. His Air Force biography provides the best picture of the experience and knowledge he possesses. Spalding is a former insider, who worked within the deepest points, most grave points of the US military and other national security bureaucracies. It must be noted that as a former flag officer and B-2 Stealth bomber pilot and unit commander, he was among a him in unique, elite caste of military officer, not quick to speak out, does not lightly show emotion, at least publicly or react because of it, not the type to fret over a perception without the full facts, and whose views when expressed should be taken very seriously.

Overview

In War Without Rules, Spalding frames the problem in getting Washington to understand how China has been steadily moving in the direction of achieving dominance in his Introduction by stating: “From our standpoint, we use military force to achieve a political outcome.” To that extent, he continues: “So they’re constantly in a state of war, they never exit time to peace. And that means they’re always fighting for advantage, they’re always fighting . . . to gain an advantage over their opponent, and . . . are willing to do whatever means necessary.” Spalding states that over those years he came to two key realizations: first, the number one goal of the Chinese Communist Party is the survival of the Chinese Communist Party; and, second, the number one threat to achieving that goal is American democracy. Spalding observes that although there may not be full agreement in the US that China is an enemy, China certainly views the US as its enemy, an existential one. Much as with Spalding’s preceding work, Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept (Portfolio, 2019), which greatcharlie reviewed in its November 30, 2021 post, Wat Without Rules is not about moving from choppy waters to calmer times. It is about preparing the US, using all tools of its power, to best handle what is happening with China and the worst that will most likely, or will eventually, come from its direction.

Unrestricted Warfare: the Playbook 

The central element of Spalding’s discussion on China’s efforts to dethrone the US as the world’s dominant power is the concept of “unrestricted warfare.” That concept is laid out in a 1998 book entitled Unrestricted Warfare authored by two People’s Republic of China People’s Liberation Army (PLA) colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. Spalding essentially uses War Without Rules to parse out the text which was once relatively unknown in the West. In each of the chapters of War Without Rules, Spalding presents excerpts from Unrestricted Warfare along with his interpretations and assessments of the text.

Spalding explains the concept of unrestricted warfare, or what the two authors call a “cocktail mixture of warfare” and define as “warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits.” Spalding points out that while China’s version of unrestricted warfare may also include the use of armed force, it is a strategy that prioritizes the use of non-military forms of warfare: psychological, media, information, technology, cyber, financial, political, social, and espionage. (The espionage element will be considered in greater detail later in this review.) The aim of unrestricted warfare is to weaken the US internally and to exploit its vulnerabilities. (Spalding would call unrestricted warfare in War Without Rules as “beyond-limits combined war.” As the term seems to best reflect the flavor of strategy’s meaning in Chinese, greatcharlie shall hereinafter refer to the strategy of unrestricted warfare more thoroughly as “beyond-limits combined war.”) Since under what was a new concept in 1998 the battlefield is everywhere, for the PLA, everything can be weaponized. On a short list of things weaponized, Spalding includes computers, drugs (fentanyl), financial markets, viruses (COVID-19), social media platforms, universities, scientific organizations, NGOs, trade, and media outlets. To create a foundation for the conceptualization of their new approach, Spalding explains that the two PLA colonels “pulled together centuries of Chinese thinking about warfare and made it relevant in a modern context.” To that extent, Spalding goes as far as to state that the book, Unrestricted Warfare, preached a new version of a very old Chinese formula for victory first set down in print thousands of years ago by Sun Tzu, who wrote in Art of War (c. 5 B.C.), which focused on military organization, leadership, and battlefield tactics, that the acme of skill was to defeat an enemy without fighting.

Spalding insists Unrestricted Warfare is “the main blueprint for China’s efforts to unseat America as the world’s economic, political, and ideological leader.” He states further, it is “the key to decoding China’s master plan for world domination.” Spalding points out that the two colonels wrote the book at a time when the US was enjoying its brief “unipolar moment,” having recently achieved victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and won a one-sided military victory in the First Persian Gulf War. And China had not yet attained economic and military superpower status. Much as their superiors in the Communist Party of China, the sense of ardor of the two PLA colonels were respectively inflamed by what they witnessed in the Gulf War and they became more determined than ever to find a way to enhance their country’s capabilities and raise its status globally. Given what Spalding says Unrestricted Warfare endows, it is a wonder why its two authors were allowed by their masters to publish, nonetheless write such a piece in an unclassified context. There must have initially been some nervousness in China’s Ministry of Defense and the Communist Party of China over security concerns. Some time and effort was presumably put into parsing out how the US and its allies would react if a copy got into their hands.

Cynics and conspiracy theorists would doubtlessly go as far as to say Unrestricted Warfare may be a false document, a piece of disinformation, generated by one or more national governments wanting to create a picture of a virulent, predatory China hellbent upon dethroning the US as the global superpower in any way possible. To that extent, they ostensibly insinuate that Spalding has taken the bait and run with it to an extreme. They would perchance offer a caveat to the effect that readers not allow themselves to be bewitched by Spalding the “dream-weaver” or the “teller of tales”. Other detractors of Spalding’s opus would hypothesize that if political leaders were sufficiently impressed by the length and breadth of Chinese activities depicted in the book, it would open the door to greater overwatch and responsibilities for counterintelligence services in the US Intelligence Community and federal law enforcement. Thereby, the document was very likely created within the intelligence industry to influence political support for enhancing their respective powers, broadening their respective missions, and increasing their respective resources. That would be quite a judgment on the character of the men who run the intelligence services and federal law enforcement organizations in the US. Anything is possible from an industry in which many of its professionals as a practice must deny their own names and concealing their accomplishments and contributions is de rigueur. So many “capers” are still kept close to the vest by top executives and managers. Then again, some could say conversely that any effort to create second thoughts on Unrestricted Warfare could possibly be the work of the opposition, a misinformation campaign of some sort.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Having said that, it might be helpful to remind such cynics that Spalding in part resolves the provenance of Unrestricted Warfare by laying out the manner in which events have unfolded and continue to unfold and how Chinese activities “follow the script” of Unrestricted Warfare practically to the letter. Spalding notes that Unrestricted Warfare has been used at China’s military academies. It would be unusual for a “misinformation tool” to be placed on syllabi in such educational institutions. Surely, that evidence alone should help carry his argument well-outside the realm of conjecture and settle it down into reality for most. All that being stated, greatcharlie reckons that diving any deeper into such matters, would be counterproductive, and that it would be best to “stay on mission” and discuss the good readers will find in War Without Rules.

As a book concerning the course of China’s implementation of beyond-limits combined war, War Without Rules, to an extent, is a book about both the past and present. Yet, more importantly, it is an argument concerning the type of future the US and the rest of the world’s industrialized democracies really want. Spalding leaves doubt that he believes the idea of Chinese dominance is unacceptable given the nature of China’s totalitarian government. He feels the growing concern about China within Washington and the capitals of its allies is warranted. Spalding insists that much more must be done by those capitals to convince China that the matter of it becoming the world’s dominant power is simply out of court. In his view, too many mistakes have been made already by them, especially by Washington, that have allowed China to advance quite a bit in that direction. Spalding makes considerable reference to the political leaders, business leaders, senior government officials, and distinguished scholars, academics, and technical experts who exercise the lion’s share of authority within their countries. Western elites called themselves keeping an eye on Beijing, but Spalding explains for far too long have assumed the military is China’s main weapon in a war. To his amazement, he observed they somehow or another failed to realize that money can be a stronger weapon. To the detriment of the interests of their own respective countries, through interactions with China, particularly economic through commerce, finance, and trade, have lavished Beijing with enough money to wage a beyond-limits combined war against them which the Communist Party of China fully intends to win! 

In Act II, scene iv, of William Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of Richard the Second, a Welch captain speaks these words of doom and gloom to the Earl of Salisbury: “The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d / And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth / And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change; / Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap, / The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, / The other to enjoy by rage and war:” Rest assured, War Without Rules is not a manifestation of a sense of doom and gloom concerning China held by Spalding. War Without Rules does not present a “scare story”, pour employer une phrase populaire. Spalding certainly is not whining about China in War Without Rules.  From what greatcharlie is aware of, operating with such a mindset would hardly be Spalding’s way of thinking or doing things. Despite his strong feelings, his discussion is more intellectual than overtly emotional. Afterall, he is a consummate professional from the US foreign and national security policy realmand for warriors such as Spalding, “strength of character consists not only of having strong feelings, but maintaining one’s balance in spite of them!” Spalding has a mind and will to win.

In a 1978 October 13, 1978 Wall Street Journal article entitled, “U.S. Monetary Troubles” by Lindley H. Clark Jr., Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue. “When my information changes,” he remembered that Keynes had said, “I change my mind. What do you do?” Spalding admits initially having been somewhat dismissive, himself, about the Unrestricted Warfare and viewed the precepts revealed by the two PLA colonels as somewhat fanciful or lofty. Spalding notes in the Introduction of War Without Rules: “When I first read the Chinese war manual Unrestricted Warfare in 1999, I thought it was wacky. I was flying B-2 Stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri and reading a lot about war. As an Air Force officer, I thought it was part of my day job to understand the bigger picture–even though the prevailing attitude in the military was ‘Just fly the planes.’ ” Torah Lishmah! Spalding’s whole perspective changed once he discerned China was putting everything he read into motion, and doing it well. Spalding spoke truth to power at the Pentagon and the White House then, and speaks of only what he knows to be the truth in War Without Rules now.

At the time of this review, a 212 page translation of Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, Reprint ed. (Echo Point Books & Media, 2015) has been made available for purchase on Amazon.com. The description provided for the book on Amazon is as follows: “Two colonels in the People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang (乔良) and Wang Xiangsui (王湘穗). Its primary concern is how a nation such as China can defeat a technologically superior opponent, such as the United States.” Having examined Unrestricted Warfare, greatcharlie would wholeheartedly agree that the audience best situated to parse it out in the round would be academics, other scholars, and practitioners in the province of foreign and national security policy. Any level-best effort by those somewhat unfamiliar with these matters, which would be laudable. Still, Unrestricted Warfare is made more easily understood through Spalding’s lens, colored by his expertise and experience. Spalding’s examination of the book via War Without Rules better enables readers with the chance to gain knowledge on a matter that would essentially be limited to those thoroughly steeped in China policy, Chinese defense issues, Chinese military culture, and military science. To that extent, his book will remain an important resource in every personal, public, academic, and institutional library.

The Roman historian Titus Livius (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), known as Livy, provided in Greek, a history of Rome that begins with the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 B.C. through the reign of Emperor Caesar Augustus during his own lifetime. In Book XLIV, sec. 15 of that history Ad Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City) (c. 28 B.C.), he writes: “Plerumque ipsam se fraudem, etiamai initio cautior fuerit, detegere.” (A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.) Increasing sunlight has been shone upon China’s activities, not just on the coronavirus disaster or in the domain of foreign and national security policy, but the totality of its malign actions. Included among those actions would be: predatory investment scams directed against trusting governments of often small and less industrialized countries; intrusions into sovereign waters for mass fishing; intellectual property theft from companies and research labs that have invested millions in research and development into; and, demands of censorship insisted upon of those in any arena who have received funding from, or are doing business with, China, Beijing must accept that as a result of such actions, impressions of China have not generally been positive worldwide. Communist Party of China leaders have doubtlessly come across the many statements made internationally about Chinese government spokespersons, diplomats, and other officials. To that extent, the Communist Party of China can hardly be happy about the damage being done worldwide to China’s reputation through books such as War Without Rules. Spalding’s voice is surely one that is looked upon as something better than annoying by the Communist Party of China. Spalding is among an ever growing group of China specialists who are determined to uncloak the fraudulent intent of China established decades ago. They put China’s intentions in full view of the world to see. Perhaps what specialists as Spalding present on China might be perceived as nothing less than affront or rebuke. It could only have been worse it his voice emanated from Taiwan. Then Beijing would have considered his act of writing and publishing the book as one more betrayal.

Spalding holding up copies of War Without Rules (left) and Stealth War (right). Although packed with excellent suggestions, War Without Rules, as with his preceding work, Stealth War, is not about moving from choppy waters to calmer times. It is about preparing the US, using all tools of its power, military, diplomatic, economic, political, and information (media) power, to best handle what is happening with China and the worst that will most likely, or will eventually, come from its direction. Given the success of Stealth War, Spalding was undoubtedly pre-empted to write another work of such magnitude. Surely, he was not lumbered by that task, and welcomed the opportunity to gnaw further at the issue of China ambitions and maligned actions and intentions. War Without Rules is every bit as brilliant as its predecessor. It is another superb exposition of Spalding’s pragmatic thinking.

The Author

In War Without Rules, readers are presented with the perspectives and insights on US-China relations through the lens of a man with years of experience on such matters. While hesitant to rewrite the biography of the author from its aforementioned November 30, 2021 post in which it reviewed Stealth War, greatcharlie believes that only by presenting his singular education and military experience in that way can the reader get a true sense of qualifications to inform readers on the subject matter.

Robert Spalding retired from the US Air Force as a brigadier general after more than 25 years of service. If US Air Force officers were listed by achievements–perhaps they are somewhere in the Pentagon, Spalding would surely be among the luminaries. His Air Force biography provides the best picture of the experience and knowledge he possesses. Excluding his list of educational accomplishments, it reads as follows: “General Spalding received his commission through Fresno State University’s ROTC program in 1991. He earned his doctorate in economics and mathematics from the University of Missouri at Kansas City in 2007. The general attended undergraduate pilot training in 1993, and was subsequently assigned as a B-52 Stratofortress co-pilot in the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. He subsequently transitioned to the B-2 Spirit at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. In 2001, he was selected as one of three Air Force Olmsted Scholars, and was a distinguished graduate of Mandarin Chinese language training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Afterward, the general attended Tongji University in Shanghai as a graduate research student. He then returned to Whiteman AFB as a B-2 evaluator pilot and assistant director of operations for the 393rd Bomb Squadron. The general was then assigned to the Office of Secretary of Defense’s Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office as the military assistant for the deputy assistant secretary of defense. During the Iraq surge in 2007, General Spalding deployed to Baghdad and directed the Personal Security Coordination Center. After a stint at the Air War College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, he was reassigned to the B-2 at Whiteman AFB. While at Whiteman AFB, he was the chief of safety, operations group commander and vice wing commander. He was then selected as a Military Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. General Spalding then served as the chief China strategist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, Washington DC. His next assignment led him back to China as the Senior Defense Official and Defense Attache to China in Beijing, China. Prior to his current assignment he served at the White House as the Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council, Washington D.C.”

Spalding is by no means an outsider, with special access, looking in on the situation. He is an erstwhile insider, who worked within the deepest points, most grave points of the US military and other national security bureaucracies. It must be noted that being a former flag officer and B-2 Stealth bomber pilot and unit commander, which placed him in unique, elite caste of military officer, not quick to speak out, does not lightly show emotion, at least publicly or react because of it, not the type to fret over a perception without the full facts, never speak idly, and whose views when expressed should be taken very seriously. 

On Stealth War

Spalding’s Stealth War was promoted as a book which discusses how China has quietly waged a six-front war on America’s economy, military, diplomacy, technology, education, and infrastructure, and has been winning. It might be enough for greatcharlie just to describe Spalding’s exceptional achievement with Stealth War as providing piercing judgments, a novel-like reporting of actual events, and a clarity that allows him to cast a cold eye on China policy analysis and intelligence analysis and its practitioners, both past and present. However, Spalding, even more, has interestingly taken his own dissatisfaction, disappointment, and anger over how badly the US has handled China, placed his country in some considerable degree of danger, and safely expressed it on paper, turning it into a positive force to better understand how things have taken shape and how atrocious events are unfolding right before the eyes of every US citizen.

Although packed with excellent suggestions, Stealth War, as with War Without Rules, is not about moving from choppy waters to calmer times. It is about preparing the US, using all tools of its power, military, diplomatic, economic, political, and information (media) power, to best handle what is happening with China and the worst that will most likely, or will eventually, come from its direction. Given the success of Stealth War, Spalding was undoubtedly pre-empted to write another work of such magnitude. Surely, he was not lumbered by that task, and welcomed the opportunity to gnaw further at the issue of China ambitions and maligned actions and intentions. War Without Rules is every bit as brilliant as its predecessor. It is another superb exposition of Spalding’s pragmatic thinking.

If you were fortunate enough to have read Spalding’s Stealth War, you are certainly primed and ready to approach the heady revelations of War Without Rules with an open mind. However, if you have not had the chance to read his preceding work, you can still jump right in War Without Rules. If Spalding had written War Without Rules solely to communicate with professionals within the US foreign and national security policy bureaucracies or the respective bureaucracies of US allies, his target audience still would have been somewhat sizable, and in of itself a market satisfying enough for his publisher. 

However, knowing the considerable level of interest in China across an array of issues is presently high, the targeting of a larger general audience was very likely insisted upon by his publisher. Of course, publishers make money selling books. Spalding, himself, was evidently willing to reach a far greater audience with his work, but his priority in writing this book apparently went beyond turning a profit. As Spalding explains in his “Introduction”, in attempting reach a larger audience, his intention was  to make average citizens, particularly in the US, better aware of China’s malign aims and objectives and tactics. An attendant benefit of that would possibly be mobilizing them to get their representatives in the US Congress and especially the White House to mitigate its creeping influence.

As part of his effort to reach a greater audience with War Without Rules, Spalding intentionally presents his discussion in a way as to coast the most interested China policy wonk as well as someone who has not read a book on China beforehand comfortably through the subject matter. Spalding does not take for granted how much the reader can absorb from what he teaches. As part of his effort to control that process, he carefully apportions how much of the story he feels would be appropriate. When he feels the reader should be ready for more, Spalding ratchets up the complexity of discussion and his anecdotes. Spalding surely accomplished that presumed mission, as his text is informative, lucid, challenging and accessible.” One can only imagine an individual with his richesse connaissances is holding back considering how much more he could have potentially ruminated upon. To that extent, while all should find War Without Rules a browsable, satisfying meditation, Spalding’s lack of profundity might disconcert some.

Previous Reviews

As Beijing pushes ahead with its varied malign efforts, books as Spalding’s War Without Rules surely deserve a look from the eyes of many. In most reviews readily available online, appreciation is shown toward Spalding’s willingness to share the meditations of his praiseworthy exploratory mind. Reviewing War Without Rules for the New York Review of Books, Francis Sempa, who at the time was Assistant US Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, explains that China, according to Spalding, is the enemy of the US, and its statesmen and strategists to “know” the enemy better and to appreciate the enemy’s strategy. Sempa points to Spalding’s view that the aforementioned US statesmen and strategist need to appreciate that we are at war with China, though not yet “a shooting war”, and suggests it is uncertain whether they will recognize that reality. Sempa notes Spalding’s evidence that China is waging war lies in the tactics and strategies set forth in Unrestricted Warfare. Citing what Spalding gleaned from that text, Sempa similarly explains that unrestricted warfare, or what the Chinese authors call “beyond-limits warfare,” includes psychological, media, information, technology, cyber, financial, political, social, and espionage warfare. to. Revealing even more from the text of War Without Rules, Sempa explains Spalding believes that China’s practice of waging war with non-military means lulled the US into a false sense of security after the Cold War by convincing US elites that China was liberalizing politically and that the US could benefit financially by “engaging” China rather than containing or confronting it. Sempa notes that a lot of American elites did (and still do) benefit financially from engagement with China. Overall, the review was favorable. Yet, Sempa notes, too, that Spalding failed to mention another factor that imperils US security–the gradual formation of a new Sino-Russian strategic partnership, which developed and expanded while the US was distracted by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He says additionally that China has also engaged in a massive military build-up and has extended its influence throughout the Indo-Pacific region via its Belt and Road Initiative. Sempa declares: “Unrestricted warfare also includes geopolitics.“

Reviewing the book for the journal of the US Naval Institute, Proceedings, a Lieutenant Cregge states that War Without Rules is “no doubt a blistering critique of the Chinese Communist Party.” Cregge cites Spalding’s explanation that two Chinese PLA colonels, Unrestricted Warfare, provide the playbook for a broad, undeclared Chinese war against the US. Beyond a translation of the two colonels concepts to English, War Without Rules seeks “to explain the challenging prose, logic, and colloquialisms” of Unrestricted Warfare that remain. Through his own description, Cregge notes that the colonels reflected on, among many other topics, how the face of war “would change”, given the US preeminence demonstrated both in its coalition victory in the First Persian Gulf War and its commanding position in the international economic and diplomatic orders. Cregge states that for those interested in examining an array of examples of Chinese coercion against the US-led international order, War Without Rules provides such cases “in spades.” He also notes that for more skeptical China doves, it may be less convincing. Criticizing the War Without Rules, Cregge proffers the book’s compelling argument suffers for two reasons. He explains that many modern examples of Chinese unrestricted warfare against the US rely on seemingly arbitrary citations. He further asserts the book’s partisan perspective is evident throughout, which may further estrange some policymakers or voters, despite a desire, quoting Spalding, that “we should all be China hawks.” Cregge admits that these particular critiques do not argue that the information asserted is necessarily wrong. Cregge additionally criticizes the book saying that given the weight of accusations against Chinese and US organizations and even named individuals, a comprehensive citation regime and bibliography would have greatly reinforced War Without Rules.

Providing a review of War Without Rules for The Epoch Times, that also makes use of quotes from an interview Spalding provided Epoch TV’s “China Insider” program, journalists Hannah Ng and David Zhang report his book walks readers through the principles outlined in the Chinese publication, revealing the regime’s belief that there is no sector of life outside the realm of war. Spalding, they note, determined that this approach stemmed from a doctrine laid out by two Chinese colonels back in 1999 in their book, Unrestricted Warfare. Seeking to boil the matter down further, Ng and Zhang state that according to Spalding, the notion of war espoused by the Chinese communist regime is completely different from ideas in the West. Citing Spalding, the reviewers note that from the Western standpoint, military force is used to achieve a political outcome. However, the “Chinese Communist Party” sees the outside world as always in a state of war. Thus, China is constantly in a state of war with it. That necessitates always fighting to gain an advantage over their opponent, and are willing to accomplish that through any means necessary. To push back against this unconventional war imposed on the US, Ng and Zhang say Spalding called for the country to decouple from China. Quoting Spalding once more, the reviewers write: “If we can decouple from China . . . get them out of our economic, political, academic and natural systems and begin to reinvest in our own citizens, reinvest in infrastructure and manufacturing in science and technology and STEM [science, technology, engineering, maths] education, you’re going to start to see opportunities arise that haven’t been there for decades in the United States.”

Interestingly enough, more than just reviews exist of Spalding’s book. As of the time of this writing, a couple of unofficial “study guides” for War Without Rules have been made available for purchase on Amazon.com at prices oddly not far short of the cost for the book itself! The study guides are in effect synopses of a synopsis of a book. (Without pretension, greatcharlie hopes readers will not find that its review of War Without Rules should be placed within that category, too.)

The August First Building in Beijing, Headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army (above). The central element of Spalding’s discussion on China’s efforts to dethrone the US as the world’s dominant power is the concept of “unrestricted warfare.” That concept is laid out in a 1998 book entitled Unrestricted Warfare authored by two People’s Republic of China People’s Liberation Army colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. Spalding essentially uses War Without Rules to parse out the text which was once relatively unknown in the West. In each of the chapters of War Without Rules, Spalding presents excerpts from Unrestricted Warfare along with his interpretations and assessments of the text. Spalding insists Unrestricted Warfare is “the main blueprint for China’s efforts to unseat America as the world’s economic, political, and ideological leader.” He states further, it is “the key to decoding China’s master plan for world domination.”

The Chapters of War Without Rules

War Without Rules is 256 pages in length, and has 11 chapters. The chapters are well-arranged and titled as follows: Chapter 1: “Know Your Enemy”; Chapter 2: “A New Way of War”; Chapter 3: “The Magic Shoes of Technology”; Chapter 4: “The Weapons of Revolution”; Chapter 5: “The War God’s Face Has Become Indistinct”; Chapter 6: “Desert Storm: ‘A Military Masterpiece”; Chapter 7: “America’s Weakness”; Chapter 8: “Weaponizing the International Order”; Chapter 9: “Deploying All of the Above”; Chapter 10: “Calling It War”; and, Chapter 11: “Fighting Back with New Rules”. One might figuratively call each chapter a “deep penetration strike” against what the former B-2 Stealth pilot presumably views as Washington’s record of willful ignorance and to a degree, political apathy.

With the aim of not spoiling the readers’ own experience reading War Without Rules, greatcharlie will not provide a sizable review covering chapter by chapter. Instead greatcharlie delights to simply peek, to gaze therein on those parts of his admirable work that it found fascinating and captivating. The same approach was taken in its review of Stealth War. At the same time, Spalding has done a more than admirable job at breaking down the blueprint for China’s effort to attain dominance, Unrestricted Warfare, in order to allow all readers to grasp the work. There was concern in writing this review that an unintended consequence of summarizing his effort would be to gut Unrestricted Warfare to the point that its essence would be significantly obscured to readers. Thus, with a focus on keeping the discussion to the more significant lessons learned from the Gulf War by the two PLA colonels, greatcharlie presents a somewhat fulsome discussion of what it has determined to be its “top 3” chapters. They include: Chapter 4: “The Weapons Revolution”; Chapter 7: “America’s Weakness”; and, Chapter 11: “Fighting Back with New Rules”. Of course, greatcharlie believes every reader will best select for himself or herself, the chapters that content them most.

Chapter 4: “The Weapons Revolution”

In Chapter 4: “The Weapons Revolution”, Spalding explains when Unrestricted Warfare was written China did not have Stealth bombers, am adequate Navy. He notes that the colonels saw promise in what China did have in abundance. Those resources include: a billion people, computer programmers, devious hackers, financial speculators, currency reserves. Spalding, himself, adds what would be recognized as the issue de jure doctors studying exotic viruses. Spalding says the colonels explained all of these, organized and tasked to maximize their potential, could be used as weapons and must be seen as such. Effecting the possible disruption, destruction, and potentially gaining control all areas of the opponents society would be possible to the degree that the opponent’s ability to fight wars in the standard way would be broken. The opponent would be destroyed from the inside similar to an erstwhile healthy individual struck by an unseen virus. The colonels explain that with the weaponization of its abundant resources, China could strike at the very hearts of its opponents. To that extent, the two colonels suggest that fully accepting such ideas requires one to adopt “a new way of thinking about warfare.” Spalding remarks that unlike ships and planes, these weapons needed no upgrades as a result of being suited for the last conflict. The colonels write: “In the past, all that was needed was the invention of a few weapons or pieces of equipment, such as the startup and the Maxim machine gun, and that was sufficient to alter the form of war, whereas today upwards of 100 kinds of weapons are need to make up a certain weapons system before it can have have an overall effect on war. However, the more weapons that are invented, the smaller any individual weapons role in war becomes, and this Is a paradox that is inherent in the relationship between weapons and war . . . Other than the all-out use of nuclear weapons, a situation which is more and more unlikely and which may be termed nuclear war, none of the weapons, even those that are extremely revolutionary in nature possess the right to label future warfare. . . .”

Interestingly, Spalding does not delve too much into the idea that such claims by the two colonels seemed more than just skance as an effort to justify the state in which the Communist Party of China had left their country’s defense, its security. After reading the above passage, greatcharlie thought that perhaps the two colonels overlooked, or worse, dismissed an important aspect of the human element of warfare as it concerns the way weapons are often innovatively used to the extent one could call their influence on the battlefield revolutionary. Imaginably, in the PLA, the sort of go-ahead mentality that has led to innovation in the use of weapons in Western armies, does not fit well. That is doubtlessly the case in all the bureaucracies of China’s totalitarian, Communist government system. The ability of research and development teams, commanders, and soldiers, sailors, and marines to find new ways to exploit available high-tech and information warfare technologies in often absolutely brilliant ways, cannot be discounted, or worse, dismissed so readily. 

In World War II, the decision by German Army commanders to level their long range, high velocity firing, 8.8 cm Flak 18, an 88mm anti aircraft gun, at opposing forces in the North African desert in 1941 changed the picture concerning artillery range, speed, and destructive effort through the war. Batteries of 88s were successful at supporting movement of tank and infantry units and breaking up attacks by opposition forces. In terms of weapons systems as a category, airplanes were initially used in observation and reconnaissance roles. The two colonels mention the contribution of the renowned Italian air war theorist General Giulio Douhet relatively in passing in Chapter 4: “Desert Storm: A Military Masterpiece”. They do not discuss just how genuinely revolutionary his precepts on potential use of the airplane in war were. Spalding surely would have included any comments by the two colonels on US Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell if they had deigned to mention the contribution of his ideas on air power and the need to make airplanes an integral part of US defense in preparation for the next war. It took an impressive degree of inner strength it took for these commanders to subject themselves to being “the voice crying in the wilderness,” a phrase that perhaps alien to the ears of the two colonels (Certainly not to Spalding!). The impact of the airplane was multiplied exponentially when it was eventually used as an asset for tactical and strategic attacks against an enemy. They can destroy enemy positions along the forward edge of the battle area, provide close air support for troops in contact with an opponent or move to a point deep in an opponent’s rear. When attacking an opponent’s units in depth, diverting, disrupting, or destroying attacking forces before they are even in contact with friendly troops, and destroying command, control, and communication centers and lines of supply. In a strategic attack role, airplanes can disrupt and destroy an opponent’s ability to even wage war, affecting the opponent’s ability to produce weapons, train troops. Further, airplanes can serve in an air defense role, friendly forces on the ground and at sea, and provide air cover for other airplanes in strategic attacks.

The two colonels sort of obedient, lock-step, short-sighted thinking on sophisticated weapons systems was further apparent in their statements about high-tech and information warfare. In another quote from Unrestricted Warfare provided by Spalding, it was explained: “Even if in future wars all the weapons have information components embedded in them and are fully computerized, we can still not term such war as ‘information warfare’ . . . because, regardless of how important information technology is, it cannot completely supplant the functions and the roles of each technology per se. For example, the F-22 fighter, which already fully embodies information technology is still a fighter, and the “Tomahawk” missile is still a missile, and one cannot lump them all together as “information weapons” nor can a war that’s conducted using these weapons be termed information warfare. Computerized warfare in the broad sense and information warfare in the narrow sense are two completely different things. The former refers to the various forms of warfare which are enhanced and accompanied by information technology, while the latter primarily refers to war in which information technology is used to obtain or suppress information. . . .” 

Spalding explains the two colonels believe huge investments in cutting edge weapons was a misallocation of funds and a dangerous distraction from what really matters in international conflicts. To that extent, Spalding looked at US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the administration of US President George W. Bush falling into what the colonels saw as a self-made trap as his focus was on constantly improving US weapons systems in terms of accuracy and lethality, an approach called the Revolution in Military Affairs. Intriguingly, on this point, politics seems to be playing more of a role than some sort of singular military thinking. Lending support to the idea that the Communist Party of China has the country on the right course militarily, better than imagined, because it has not heavily invested in weapons technology as the US, could have simply been a manifestation the two colonels belief, trust in, and loyalty toward the decisionmaking of China’s leadership. L’élan de générosité des croyants. On the other hand, China has always lagged behind a bit with the US in terms of its own research, development and deployment of its “big weapons”. It appears the two colonels have gone a bridge too far in suggesting that China would only need to innovate and adapt by exploiting nonmilitary resources to surpass the US and drive it from the top of the world order. Under a totalitarian, Communist government system in which even the commas of a text would be repeatedly scrutinized, placating the leadership and Communist Party of China’s military thinkers by pandering would surely be de rigueur especially if one hopes to have a position in a bureaucracy, advance in it, or even more, stay healthy and safe. Robust expressions of appreciation and optimism over the decisionmaking of the Communist Party of China’s leadership are expected. Speaking truth to power is just not the norm in China. To that extent, as alluded to earlier, it is likely the two colonels were once more taking on the role of “justifiers” in that last passage.

The US Air Force F-22 “Raptor” Stealth Fighter (above). Spalding explains the authors of Unrestricted Warfare believe huge investments in cutting edge weapons as the F-22 was a misallocation of funds and a dangerous distraction from what really matters in international conflicts. To that extent, Spalding considers the idea that Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense in the administration of US President George W. Bush fell into what the colonels saw as a self-made trap because his focus was on constantly improving US weapons systems in terms of accuracy and lethality, an approach called the Revolution in Military Affairs. On this point, politics seems to be playing more of a role than military thinking. The two colonels could possibly be lending support to the idea that the Communist Party of China has the country on the right course militarily, better than imagined, because it has not heavily invested in weapons technology as the US. China has always lagged behind a bit in its own research development and deployment of its big weapons.

Further criticizing the US weapons acquisition process, according to Spalding, the authors of Unrestricted Warfare further explain there is a general unwritten rule that an army fights the fight that fits its weapons. They assert that very often it is the case that only after a military acquires a weapon does it begin to formulate tactics to match it. They go on to say, with weapons coming first, there is a decisive, constraining effect on the evolution of tactics. However, as the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus was quoted as saying: “Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.” One only need consider how the thinking of commanders as Heinz Guderian on the use of tanks, or panzers in his case, impacted German military strategy and tactics through World War II. In 1937, when he was a relatively obscure officer in the German Wehrmacht, Guderian wrote Achtung-Panzer!: The Development of Armored Forces, Their Tactics and Operational Potential. It was a seminal text that pointed out that in the next war, the importance of the tank with the very crucial addition of motorized infantry had to be recognized by the German Army. After carefully studying armor for 15 years, he insisted through Achtung-Panzer! [Beware the Tank!] that if tank forces were “full of verve” and “fanatically committed to progress” they would “restore the offensive power of the army.” Such ideas were adopted by the German Army, the result of which would be laying the foundation for the German Blitzkrieg. Such was the revolution on the battlefield Guderian had envisioned. He was given the opportunity to put his ideas into effect. Guderian commanded the XIX Corps during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and France in 1940, and commanded Panzergruppe Guderian during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia in 1941.

Similar thoughts were espoused by other military thinkers in the West between the world wars who influenced the way World War II fought and won. then US Army Colonel George S. Patton published a piece entitled,“Tanks in Future Wars”, in the Cavalry Journal (May, 1920), pages. 342-346, in which he explained the War Department must focus on tanks as an armored force and not place them piecemeal among infantry and artillery. He concluded, “The tank corps grafted onto infantry, cavalry, artillery, or engineers will be like the third leg of a duck; worthless for control, and for combat impotent.” Reportedly, Patton was immediately told to cease and desist by the powers that were if he wished to have a career in the US Army. Patton famously led the US 3rd Army on its armored and mechanized rampage through France in 1944 and its drive into Germany in 1945. Captain Dwight Eisenhower, wrote a piece for the Infantry Journal entitled, “A Tank Discussion,” (November 1920), pages 453-458, in which he sought to make the case for keeping tanks as part of the equipment of the infantry units. Eisenhower became the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and great say in how the war was fought in Europe. In the United Kingdom, Captain B. H. Liddel Hart and Brigadier J. F. C. Fuller also mused about a revolution in armored warfare after World War I recognizing how the nature of warfare had changed with the introduction of the airplane, poison gas, and longer range artillery, and that machinery was stronger than wool. The British Army was experimenting with armored units under General Percy Hobart beginning in the 1920s. (In 1926, Fuller who served in the Tank Corps in World and participated in both the Battles of Arras and Cambrai, was given command of an Experimental Force (Tank)  brigade at Tidworth, on the Salisbury Plain. He ran into some difficulties while there.)

After examining in the round the situation of US and NATO Allies in Western Europe which faced a massive Warsaw Pact force in the East and thoroughly reviewing the US military experience in Vietnam, in the late 1970s and early 1980s US military theorists and planners sought to move away from the notion of fighting a battle of attrition, hoping to hold the line against an armored and mechanized heavy surges across the. Inner-German Border into the North German Plain, the Fulda Gap, and the Hof (Hessian) Corridor. They developed the Airland Battle concept which included an emphasis on maneuver, the operational art, high-mobility, high-tempo operations, innovation, flexibility, agility, capabilities, and military acumen, leadership, intimate knowledge of the battlefield, enhanced command, control, communication, and intelligence, the attack in depth, firepower, greater lethality, and the better use of existing weapons systems and the introduction of new, more capable weapons systems with the belief that they would have a considerable multiplier effect on the battlefield.  Notable among those weapons systems were the F-15 Eagle fighter, F-16 Falcon fighter, A-10 close support fighter, M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, the M2 and M3 Bradley fighting vehicles, the HMMWV (Humvee), and many more pieces of impressive gear. Later would come rather exquisite weapons systems such as the F-117A “Nighthawk” Stealth fighter and the E-8A Joint STARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System). Special operations forces would be better developed in order to successfully engage in direct action behind opposition lines and alongside allied forces, and provide security for critical facilities and equipment and engage in other sensitive missions. The Airland Battle concept was manifested in the US Army’s formidable FM 100-5 Airland Battle Strategy.

For all of the advanced military thinkers mentioned and beyond, it was more often not an easy route to establish a strategy-resources match. They, too, were voices crying in the wilderness in the beginning. However, they managed to get the right attention. Through research, testing, and applying lessons learned from every failure, their theories were validated, the right weapons were procured, and the result was success in its use, though not completely successful for some as Guderian, fortunately for the world, given the politics of his country and the off-kilter way higher authorities prosecuted the war in which they were used. The renowned poet of Ancient Rome, Publius Ovidius Nāsō, known as Ovid (43 B.C. – 17 A.D.) wrote: Cui peccare licet, peccat minus. (Who is allowed to make mistakes, makes fewer mistakes.) In the environment in which the two colonels functioned, it is apparent that creating a theory on war then hoping funds would be  appropriated for their development was unheard of. It is hard to imagine some burgeoning, truly innovative military thinker in China leaping up to suggest ways of fighting wars that were beyond what was immediately understandable to superiors, required the use of weapons systems China did not have, and would have called for massive expenditures on defense.

General Heinz Guderian (top) in a half-track modified for use as a mobile command center during the Battle of France, 1940. According to Spalding, the authors of Unrestricted Warfare explained the general unwritten rule is that an army fights the fight that fits its weapons. They further assert that very often it is the case that only after a military acquires a weapon does it begin to formulate tactics to match it. They go on to say, with weapons coming first, there is a decisive, constraining effect on the evolution of tactics. One only need consider how the thinking of commanders as Heinz Guderian on the use of tanks, in his case, panzers, influenced German military strategy and tactics. In 1937, when he was a relatively obscure field officer in the German Wehrmacht, Guderian wrote Achtung-Panzer!: The Development of Armored Forces, Their Tactics and Operational Potential. It was a seminal text that pointed out that in the next war, the importance of the tank with the very crucial addition of motorized infantry needed to be recognized by the German Army. His ideas were adopted, they would serve as the foundation for the German Blitzkrieg. Such was the revolution on the battlefield Guderian had envisioned.

Spalding repeatedly remarks that in this chapter of Unrestricted Warfare, the two colonels rebuke the practice of developing weapons to meet the requirements of a theory for a new tactic, doctrine, or grand strategy. The two colonels began to sound more as cynics as Spalding quoted their reflections on US weapons systems design. It seemed more of the same self-serving perspectives seemingly aimed at placating the Communist Party of China. Perhaps coming across weapons systems then being forced to find ways to use them is a problem faced by the armed forces of countries which “garner” foreign military technologies and research, development, and plans by clandestine means.

There are points on which Spalding apparently fully agrees with the two colonels’ assessments. He stated that in Somalia, for the first time in history, unilateral access to superior weapons technology stopped conferring a big advantage to the dominant power. Spalding quotes from Unrestricted Warfare: “Customizing weapons systems to tactics that are still being explored and studied is like preparing food for a great banquet without knowing who is coming, where the slightest error can lead one far astray. Viewed from the performance of the US military In Somalia, when they were at a loss when they encountered Aidid’s forces [the ragged gunmen of warlord Mohammed Aidid, who tried to force foreign troops out of Somalia in the early 1990s], the most modern military force does not have ability to control public clamor, and cannot deal with an opponent who does things in an unconventional manner.” Far be it for greatcharlie to serve as an ideal apologist for the US armed forces over Somalia, Afghanistan, or Iraq–it lacks the faculty, but casting ones mind back, one might recall the outcomes of those campaigns were determined more by resources made available, how resources were utilized, and how those campaigns were fought, than by the nature of the varied resources of the US armed forces themselves. Spalding goes on to say the US nuclear arsenal would be useless in small-scale deployments as Somalia and in the counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cutting edge conventional weapons developed via Rumsfeld’s Revolution in Military Affairs would also have little effect according to Spalding.

However, looking at the matter realistically from the two colonels’ position, applying China’s abundance of certain nonmilitary resources much as weapons was,  for so long, the only prospect China had for possibly defeating a larger, more powerful, more advanced industrial power as the US. The US had choices concerning the development of weapons system and strategies, China really did not. Interestingly enough, if the matter were considered forthrightly, those resources in abundance which are discussed in Unrestricted Warfare were resources already in existence. Thus, the beyond-limits combined war concept was developed around those abundant resources. As with any theory, the colonels could hardly have been certain that the application of these resources would yield all the desired results.

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying: “You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.” Spalding notes in this chapter that through beyond-limits combined war, China has been acquiring technology without paying a cent toward developing it, carefully taking control of the world’s shipping businesses, infiltrating US corporations and scientific laboratories, using US investor dollars to finance its factories and companies-and then insisting that any profits stay in their country. However, in War Without Rules, Spalding has spotlighted China’s ongoing open and clandestine efforts to implement beyond-limits combined war. To that extent, the prospect that China might quietly succeed completely as originally envisioned ostensibly no longer exists. There is time for the US and other industrialized powers to put things right, but no time to waste. An array of defenses can be further organized and calibrated to thwart China’s beyond-limits combined war.

As War Without Rules was written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Spalding writes about nuclear weapons arsenals without knowledge that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin now speaks of using them to respond what he perceives as the US and NATO’s attempt to conquer Russia, rob it of resources and squeeze it to death, much as its was outlined in what is known commonly as the Gerasimov Doctrine. The US faces the real prospect of having to use its nuclear weapons in response to a strategic attack from the Russian nuclear triad. Spalding writes that for superpower as the US, the only real value of the nuclear triad now is as a deterrent. China understood this early on and mostly stayed out of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. Until recently, the Communist Party of China chose to maintain a minimal nuclear arsenal, just enough to deter any other nation’s potential nuclear strike. By keeping its stockpile modest and its nuclear budget limited, the Chinese avoided the massive expenses that helped bring down the Soviet Union. However, as their wealth has grown, the Chinese have added to their nuclear stockpile, creating alarm and some confusion among Western analysts. 

Spalding, laying his thinking process bare for the world to read, asks the following questions: Are new silos and warheads just a deepening of their deterrence or is this a change of strategy  in creating an offensive nuclear capability? Is it perhaps a ruse, with empty silos or hollow missiles meant to provoke the US and others to waste yet more billions? Mais dans nos cœurs, nous n’y croyons pas complètement. From the colonels perspective in 1998, nuclear war is obsolete, but this may be an area in which the Chinese leadership has moved beyond that notion.” Spalding then adds, “And even if they are simply increasing their deterrence, does that mean we have to increase our lethality.”

Earlier in this very same chapter of Unrestricted Warfare, Spalding notes how the colonels warn against making statements and acting in ways concerning weapons systems development and deployment which can up the ante with an opponent and result in unforeseen negative consequences. Spalding includes the following passage from Unrestricted Warfare: “Marshal [sic] Olgarkov, the former chief of the Soviet General staff [Nikolai Olgarkov was chief of staff from 1977 to 1984], was acutely aware of the trend of weapons development in the “nuclear age” and when, it an opportune time, he proposed the broad new new concept of the “revolution in military technology,” his thinking was clearly ahead of those of his generation. But being ahead of his time in his thinking hardly brought his country happiness, and actually brought about disastrous results. As soon as this concept . . . was proposed, it further intensified the arms race which had been going on for some time between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was just, at that time, no one could predict that it would actually result in the break up of the Soviet Union and its complete elimination from the superpower contest.” It does not appear China will disintegrate as a result of increasing its nuclear arsenal. However, from what the colonels emphasize here, it is unlikely the Communist Party of China is bluffing, playing some game, by investing in the construction of nuclear missile silos, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a far greater sea launched ballistic missile capable submarine fleet.

Chapter 7: “America’s Weakness”

Spalding begins Chapter 7: “America’s Weakness” explaining that in Unrestricted Warfare, the two colonels were diligent students of the US military. When they performed a post-mortem of the first Gulf War, and discovered a number of missed opportunities by the US that were considerable. What caught his attention was the view of the two colonels that US bombers were used in the war that were nothing less than “flying mountains of gold” which they also said made the US arrogant while they exposed the morbid US fear of casualties as a fundamental weakness. Spalding cites the following passage from Chapter 4 of Unrestricted Warfare: “Large-scale use if costly weapons in order to realize objectives and reduce casualties without counting costs–the kind of Warfare that can only be waged by men of wealth-is a game that the American military is good at. ‘Desert Storm’ manifested the Americans unlimited extravagance in war, which has already become an addiction. Airplanes which cost an average of US$25 million each carried out 11,000 wanton and indiscriminate bombings in a 43-day period, destroying the headquarters of Iraq’s Socialist Party with each US$1.3 million Tomahawk guided missiles, taking aim at foxhole with precision guided bombs worth tens of thousands of dollars . . . even if the American generals knew as soon as they began that they need not spend so much on this unrestrained US$6.1 billion dollar battle banquet . . . their own extravagance would still not have been prevented. An American made bomber is OK Ike a flying mountain of gold, more costly than many of its targets. Shouldn’t hitting a possibly insignificant target with tons of American dollars arouse people’s suspicions?”

Spalding states that although Unrestricted Warfare was published four years before what he calls Gulf War Two, that war’s mismanagement and heavy price in lives and dollars is something they could have predicted. He notes that it began with the same intensity of the first Gulf War, routing the overmatched army of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rapidly. However, he say what came next, an asynchronous guerilla war fought by remnants of the Iraqi Army along with what he says the colonels would call non-state actors. The mission of the US opponent was to kill US soldiers and create a body count that the US public would not tolerate.

Here once again, the colonels offer the more of the same self-serving perspectives seemingly aimed at placating their commanders in the PLA. Spalding notes as much in this chapter stating:  “These are military men, writing first to a military audience.” The two colonels also again do their level best to establish a clear pattern of purpose and consistency in everything done by the Communist Party of China. Surely, the US spends great amounts on defense. Political leaders have sought to address the problem with defense contractors. Still,, survivability of US soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines is put at a premium. Survivability of the planes they fly,, the ships in which they sail, and tanks in which they fight is an important factor in weapons system research and development. However, at the point in China’s defense development, the leadership was hardly interested in doing the same. This of course left the PLA far less advanced and in fact underdeveloped as a force. The implications would most likely have been dreadful for Chinese troops if they had been asked to fight in the army they had against an advanced industrial power or powers. More than anything else, this chapter of Unrestricted Warfare as with others, is window into the breast of two Chinese Communist military apparatchiks.

Two PRC PLA Navy Upgraded Type 094A Nuclear Submarines underway (above). Spalding writes that for a superpower as the US, the only real value of the nuclear triad now is as a deterrent. China understood this early on and mostly stayed out of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. Until recently, the Communist Party of China chose to maintain a minimal nuclear arsenal, just enough to deter any other nation’s potential nuclear strike. By keeping its stockpile modest and its nuclear budget limited, the Chinese avoided the massive expenses that helped bring down the Soviet Union. However, as their wealth has grown, the Chinese have added to their nuclear stockpile, creating alarm and some confusion among Western analysts. Spalding asks the following questions: Are new silos and warheads just a deepening of their deterrence or is this a change of strategy  in creating an offensive nuclear capability? Is it perhaps a ruse, with empty silos or hollow missiles meant to provoke the US and others to waste yet more billions? From the colonels perspective in 1998, nuclear war is obsolete, but Spalding says it is possible that China’s leadership has moved beyond that notion.

Further focusing singly upon the US military with regard to the overall picture of US national security, Spalding indicates the two colonels use beyond-limits combined war as measure to gauge the development of US theory on warfare. Spalding cites a passage from Chapter 4 of Unrestricted Warfare which says the following: “Formulation of the ‘joint campaign’ originally came from the ‘Number One Publication in November 1991 of the United States Armed Forces Joint Operations’ regulations issued by the US Military Joint Conference . . . This regulation exposes the four key elements of the ‘joint campaign’ –centralized command, equality of the Armed Forces, complete unification, and total depth while doing battle. It has made clear for the first time the command control authority of the battle zone unified commander; it has stipulated that any one military branch can 5ake a leading role based on different situations; it has expanded air/ground integrated battle’ into ground, sea, air, and space integrated battle; and it has emphasized implementation of total depth while doing battle on all fronts.” Citing the colonels further, they go on to explain: “The limitations of this valuable thinking , however, lies in that its starting point and ending point have both fallen onto the level of armed force and have been unable to expand the field of vision of ‘joint’ to all of the realms in which humans can produce confrontational behavior. Surely, this a direct reference to their idea of weaponizing almost every enterprise and endeavor in which China can come into contact with the US.

Pushing ahead, the two colonels consider total dimensional warfare, a theory bandied about in the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Headquarters concerning non-military combat operations and referenced the 1998 edition of the compendium, The Essentials of War, which emphasized “a single principle covering all types of the Amy’s military operations.” Spalding quotes them as writing: “Their practice [the US Army] is to no longer distinguish between non-combat operations and general military operations, but to differentiate battle operations into four types–attack, defense, stabilization, and support–and return the original manuscript to such responsibilities of non-combat operations as a rescue and protection and reassembling the old set of combat operations, in order to . . . altogether discard the concept of “total dimensional warfare.” In evaluating their own imperfect assessment of thinking in the US Army which they apparently conflate with thinking across the board in the US Armed forces and the US Department of Defense, Spalding further cites the two colonels as saying: At face value, this a move of radical reform and simplification by simply cutting the superfluous. In reality, however, this is . . . poor judgment. At the same time as the theoretical confusion brought by the unripe concept of ‘non-combat military operations’ was eliminated, the rather valuable ideological fruits that they had accidentally picked were also abandoned on account of the newly revised compendium. . . . Further criticizing the thinking of US military thinkers, the two colonels admonish: ” ‘Total dimensional war’s’ understanding of battle is already much broader than any previous military theorist, but as far as its innate character is concerned, it still has not escaped the ‘military’ category. For example, the ‘non-military combat operations’ concept . . . is much broader in meaning than military operations and can be placed along with comparable war realms and patterns outside the field of vision of American servicemen. It is precisely this large domain that is the area for future servicemen and politicians to develop imagination and creativity–with the result that it also cannot count as truly meaning ‘total dimensional.’ “

In evaluating what the two colonels have stated, Spalding interestingly states in agreement that just considering warfare from the point of view of the application of military force is insufficient. He points out that from his experience on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon that a US President “has numerous levers of power under his control, which can easily lead to overreliance on military options.” Going further he states: “At the end of the day, our system is still geared to leaning on the military and hard power as our best deterrent. That leaves the rest of the playing field open to the Chinese way of war.

All the ways in which that Spalding says China has engaged as beyond-limits combined war–taking every enterprise and endeavor in which one country can come into contact with another, social, political, diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, scholarly,  scientific, and informational, and weaponizing them–would be activities that fell in the province of a country’s intelligence services. Intelligence services engage in a incredibly broad array of both open and clandestine, and covert activities, using appropriated tools and available resources, to create or exploit opportunities to act in support of the policies and the interests of their countries. Legions of agents or operatives are recruited by intelligence services worldwide to work to meet collection requirements and otherwise in various fields and in a multitude of organizations too large for most services to maintain sufficiently trained staffs of professional officers and agents to cover. Recruited spies are selected for their facilities and tabs are kept on the lot of them in reasonable, undetectable ways to avoid the potential double-cross. The Roman historian and politician, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known as Tacitus (c. A.D. 56 – c. A.D. 120), remains widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. His final work, Annales (The Annals) is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, the years A.D. 14–68. In Book I, chapter 58, he writes: Proditores etiam iis quos anteponunt invisi sunt. (Traitors are detested even by those whom they prefer.)

The weaponization of the ordinary, the day-to-day, in the intelligence world has been taken to extremes in the spy genre of film, particularly with the series, “James Bond” in which a shoe would become a telephone, a pen would become a pistol, a car would become a submarine, and so on.

It is understandable that China’s state-run and private sectors would work together to act against foreign opponents and imaginably even friends. It would appear from Unrestricted Warfare  and War Without Rules they call it beyond-limits combined war. Cynics might make the case that Spalding has gone a long way in War Without Rules to make what is actually rather mundane appear novel and intriguing. On a more practical level, and to avoid unnecessarily offending any US or foreign intelligence service, the operations of the erstwhile foreign intelligence service of the Deutsche Democratische Republik (German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany or GDR) during the Cold War are discussed here to provide an example of an intelligence service engaged in beyond-limits combined war.

Generaloberst Markus Wolf, chief of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic’s (East Germany’s) foreign intelligence service, Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance). All the ways in which that Spalding says in War Without Rules that China has engaged as beyond-limits combined war–taking every enterprise and endeavor in which one country can come into contact with another, social, political, diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, scholarly,  scientific, and informational, and weaponizing them–would be activities that fell in the province of a country’s intelligence services. For instance, East Germany’s foreign intelligence service Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance), with frightening efficiency, operated against its Western opponents to collects as much information possible in preparation for any conflict in Europe between East and West, and be in position to potentially break down the societies of the Eastern Bloc’s opponents from within. Throughout the Cold War, his agents poured into West Germany and when possible countries beyond, secured key positions, and reported on, and influenced the activities of, a multitude of organizations in a broad spectrum of areas, social, political, diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, scholarly,  scientific, and informational.

For 34 years, Generaloberst Markus Wolf was the very successful head of GDR’s foreign intelligence service Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance), commonly referred to as the HVA. With frightening efficiency, he developed an array of tactics, techniques, procedures and methods for operating against his Western opponents in advance of any eventual conflict in Europe between East and West, or to break down the societies of opponents of the Eastern Bloc. Throughout the Cold War, his agents poured into West Germany and when possible countries beyond, secured positions, reported about, and influenced the activities of a multitude of organizations in a broad spectrum of areas, social, political, diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, scholarly,  scientific, and informational. 

Wolf described the work in his memoir, Man without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster (Times Books, 1997). In Chapter 4, he recounts the process of penetrating non-military combat targets for exploitation. He explains: “Once accepted in West Germany, agents usually began their assignments with an inconspicuous period of manual labor to help overcome the bureaucratic barriers of getting established in the West. We therefore preferred candidates with craftsman’s skills or practical experience in a profession. Almost every one of the students and budding scientists who emigrated in the early years found employment in research facilities or companies of interest to us–the Federal government’s nuclear research facilities in Julich, Karlsruhe, and Hamburg; the Batelle Institute in Frankfurt-am-Main, which had been set up by the United States; Siemens, Germany’s largest electronics company; and IBM Germany or the giant German chemical companies BASF, Hoescht, and Bayer. Because we assumed that Germany’s traditional arms manufacturers would–after the storm over German militarization died down–eventually resume military production, we also placed people in companies such as Messerschmidt and Bölkow.” With specific regard to the controllers, they were not mere handlers of spies in the West but expert psychologists who prided themselves on their close personal ties to their charges on the ‘invisible front’.” (For those interested in more on Wolf and the HVA, see the November 13, 2019 greatcharlie post entitled Book Review: Markus Wolf, Man without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster (Times Books, 1997) for a bit more detail on the matter.)

As a brief thought, perhaps some push back would have been caused in the minds of two the colonels if they had been made aware of the fact that the US Intelligence Community includes a number of organizations from the armed forces and the Department of Defense, to include the US National Security Agency, and human intelligence elements that are staffed in great measure by US military personnel and led by military commanders. From that fact, perchance they would even admit that the US armed forces for quite some time, have been engaged to some degree in beyond-limits combined war worldwide.

Chapter 11: “Fighting Back with New Rules”

In Chapter 11: “Fighting Back with New Rules”, Spalding unleashes one insight after another on how the US should respond to beyond-limits combined war. He explains the US needs a defense to meet an offensive we are only beginning to understand beyond-limits combined war. China is quite different as an opponent than the Soviet Union because it has become the factory of the US providing cellphones to toys. Through its theft, China is becoming competitive in the most high-tech areas such as super computing and artificial intelligence. They have a space program and a rapidly growing military. They have suddenly developed a nuclear arsenal that could potential match that of the US.

Taking lessons from Unrestricted Warfare, Spalding writes the US can begin to exploit a range of economic problems. China has a government of one man, one rule which has never worked. He says world opinion is turning against China due to its blatant aggression. He suggests the same principles of Sun Tzu which the authors of Unrestricted Warfare espoused, should be used to respond to the strategy: Know the face of war: it is combined, unrestricted war that seeks victory through no violent means, but does not rule out violence; Know your enemy, his strengths and weaknesses; Join your forces to meet the threat: create one-mindedness”. Focusing the many parts of our government on the single objective of stopping China is essential; and, The people must be in harmony with their leaders.

Spalding says the US needs to map out a globally inclusive strategy built on three pillars: protect, rebuild, and inspire. These three pillars would found a robust effort to reshape the international order away from the totalitarian form of government upon which China is built and wants to impose on the world and toward the promotion of human rights, democracy, civil liberty, rule of law, and economic prosperity. Exploitation of labor and environmental challenges must also be confronted as global supply chain reorient to nations that support competitive markets, strong labor protections and environmental standards. 

Protect

Refine and export tools that encourage those nations that play by the rules of fair and open markets to tighten collaboration in economic, financial, trade, and information flows. The ability of rule breakers to use the US and partner countries to exploit the free system’s near open borders to avoid tariffs and other protections. Examples Spalding provides for such activity includes: making tariffs permanent for the Communist Party of China-led economy and contingent upon an annual vote in the US Congress,  which would consider whether China is a human rights violator and if it has a market based economy. On finances, he suggests the US Department of Labor allow every person in the US who participates in a public or private pension fund to opt out of sending their investment dollars to China and designate that portion of their funds be invested manufacturing in their local communities.

Rebuild

Spalding recommends a massive movement in fiscal spending “away from guns toward butter.” By focusing on infrastructure, our industrial base, energy, STEM education, and research and development, the US will rebuild its core economic and science and technological superiority to lead the world once again. Explaining that idea, Spalding says $100 billion from the defense budget could be shifted to a massive research and development and reindustrialization effort focused on quantum computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, 5G and telecommunications, “the internet of things”, nuclear and carbon-free energy, data science, cryptocurrency, biopharma, robotics, logistics, manufacturing, and transportation. Those investments would be protected with a robust counterintelligence program designed to ensure the benefits of these investments only accrue to the US and its allies and partners.

Inspire

Spalding states that the US should join with “developed” allies and partners to create a strategic economic development plan that seeks to promote collective economic prosperity tied to democratic principles. He proposes that idea be brought to fruition via the creation of an organization able to work with like-minded developed countries to identify and promote the economic prosperity and institutional integrity of like-minded developing partners. 

Among further recommendations in this province, Spalding says a Global Development Fund for Democratic Infrastructure Investment should be developed with a mandate to analyze the global trading routes and infrastructure to invest in a robust, resilient international logistics architecture, which would promote free trade, secure and verifiable customs procedures, and the collective economic prosperity of like-minded countries. Attendant to that, he states an international data-tracking system should be developed to inform where the US, allied countries, and their respective companies are investing to assist smaller companies and institutional investors to allow them to take advantage of the accompanying economic growth prospects. Spalding feels that by linking “a resurgent economic and science and technological powerhouse” with democratic-allied and partners countries, the US will forge a new consensus, which will begin to drive positive outcomes in international institutions such as the UN and World Trade Organization. Together, this coalition of free countries with strengthened economic, financial, trade, and informational ties, girded with a robust military alliance focused on deterrence, will fuel a rebound in the growth of democracy around the world 

Spalding insists that there are many specific actions that extend from those strategic concepts that cover all aspects of US society. He concisely examines a few realms among which those actions could occur: political; economic; diplomatic; information; education; military; consumers; and voters.

As it is generally taught in US military educational institutions, for the US to achieve optimal outcomes following a military conflict–in the case with China, non-combat military operations, it must converge all four elements of national power—diplomacy, information, military, and economics (DIME)—into a cohesive, multi-domain campaign plan before, during, and following military confrontation. Here are Spaldings recommendations that concern those elements.

Diplomacy

Spalding praises the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad Alliance: US, Japan, Australia, India) As a strong deterrent to Chinese aggression. It can be strengthened and expanded. As large as Chin’s military might is, when combined with the US, the countries of Asia including South Korea and Vietnam are more than a match. He calls the Australia, United Kingdom,, US (AUSKUS) Agreement an important step in linking the US, United Kingdom and Australia in more than a mere military alliance. The sale of US nuclear submarines to the Australians is an action the Chinese colonels would admire if grudgingly. It draws a line in the sand declaring that China’s actions will be countered. Spalding believes the agreement and the sale have the effect of forcing allies who have maintained close ties economically to China to choose sides. Spalding says the decision really boils down to whether the would prefer to have the US military or the PLA defend their interests in Asia.

US President Joe Biden announcing the AUKUS pact and nuclear submarine deal on September 15, 2021. On screen for their respective announcements on the pact and deal are United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Canberra. Spalding calls the Australia, United Kingdom, US (AUSKUS) Agreement an important step in linking the US, United Kingdom and Australia in more than a mere military alliance. The sale of US nuclear submarines to the Australians is an action the Chinese colonels would admire if grudgingly. It draws a line in the sand declaring that China’s actions will be countered. Spalding believes the agreement and the sale have the effect of forcing allies who have maintained close ties economically to China to choose sides. Spalding says the decision really boils down to whether the would prefer to have the US military or the PLA defend their interests in Asia.

Information

Spalding notes one of the greatest successes of China has been the use of information warfare. To challenge that success, Spalding suggests the US government should encourage US-based social media companies to assist more robustly in countering Chinese Propaganda. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others are committed to publishing accurate information. However, a constant flood of Chinese falsehoods, intended to create political dissension should fall well outside their guidelines. In more sophisticated realms, Spalding says the US needs to protect the next generation of data. For example, one key step the US should pursue is universal encryption. By ensuring that all data in a free society are encrypted, and by developing platforms that allow for safe processing of encrypted data, the West can successfully compete with China in artificial intelligence.

Military

Spalding recognizes that while the two colonels did not envision, at least I. Unrestricted Warfare, a Chinese military thar could confront the US, that day appears to be nearing. Still, he notes that the theory of Unrestricted Warfare is that military expansion is just a ruse to provoke even greater spending by rivals. Starting with their second rate aircraft carriers and the proliferation of missile silos that may or may not hold nuclear warheads, the Chinese military may be more Potemkin than not. On this point through his words, Spalding does not connect the cause for China’s military build up as preparation for the possible invasion of Taiwan. Still, Spalding says he believes China will make a move on Taiwan soon. That would require the US to plan the evacuation of Taiwanese civilians and resupply of Taiwan’s military as well as a plan to destroy the country’s high-tech manufacturing capabilities for computer chips.

Yet, Spalding says there remains some small wrinkle in his own thinking that says under Unrestricted Warfare, that the military invasion on the ground would be China’s last option given it has quite a few nonmilitary options at its disposal. If China truly seeks to avoid a shooting war, perhaps the leadership of the Communist Party of China might attempt to find satisfaction in peace.

Casting its mind back to the aforementioned Livy and his Ad Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City) (c. 28 B.C.), greatcharlie is reminded of a passage in Book XXX, section 30, in which the historian presents the exordium of the Carthagian general before Roman generals whose forces werecamp outside of the city of Carthage, itself. He wrote: Maximae cuique fortunae minime credendum est. in bonis tuis rebus, nostris dubiis, tibi ampla ac speciosa danti est pax, nobis petentibus magis necessaria quam honesta. melior tutiorque est certa pax quam sperata uictoria; haec in tua, illa in deorum manu est. ne tot annorum felicitatem in unius horae dederis discrimen. cum tuas uires tum uim fortunae Martemque belli communem propone animo; utrimque ferrum, utrimque corpora humana erunt; nusquam minus quam in bello euentus respondent. non tantum ad id quod data pace iam habere potes, si proelio uinces, gloriae adieceris, quantum <dempseris>, si quid aduersi eueniat. simul parta ac sperata decora unius horae fortuna euertere potest. omnia in pace iungenda tuae potestatis sunt. (The greatest good fortune is always the least to be trusted. In your favorable circumstances, in our uncertain situation, peace, if you grant it, will bring you honor and glory;8 for us who sue it is necessary rather than honorable. Better and safer is an assured peace than a victory hoped for. The one is in your own power, the other in the hands of the gods. Do not commit the success of so many years to the test of a single hour. Bear in mind not only your own resources but also the might of Fortune and the impartial god of war. On both sides will be the sword, on both sides human bodies. Nowhere less than in war do results match men’s hopes. You will not add so much glory, if victorious in battle, to what you can now have by granting peace, as you will lose in case of any reverse. The fortune of a single hour can lay low honors already won, and with them those in prospect. In making peace.)

Economic

Spalding says that China has been getting away with so much for so long, forcing it to play by the rules will cause a shock. From the US side, Spalding explains that there are thousands of details that the US Department of Treasury and the US Securities and Exchange Commission could enforce. Congress has been aggressive about proposing new restrictions, such as requiring companies to certify that there is no forced labor in their supply chain. Spalding believes legislation is needed that will alter the view in the corporate sector that it is in its best interest to promote a country that defies free markets and the rule of law. Spalding says the US growth strategy must be looked upon as a matter of national security. US manufacturing that has gone overseas to China must be brought back.

To an extent, top US civilian authorities and military, intelligence, and law enforcement elements of the US foreign and national security policy bureaucracies as well as other policy circles–to include businesses, universities, think tanks, and news media houses, to name a few–are now regularly discussing the matter, at least publicly, displayed concern in studies and reports and more importantly in the spectrum of policy approaches toward China. He also had a haunting suspicion that very few were aware of what was happening. Far less aware of it all was the US public, going on day-to-day believing they were safe and secure from China and every other country for that matter, and the well-being of the country was in the diligent, conscientious, and thoughtful hands of their elected leaders.

Surely the dead-enders among some elected officials, China policy experts, and business executives of firms in the US well-tied and still benefitting immensely from China’s opportunities surely would rebuff what Spalding has been saying. Imaginably, some, perhaps hurt particularly by his insinuations of failing in their respective duties to place concern for their company employees and their country as paramount, would likely look upon him–perchance given what greatcharlie after many years has come to understand about human nature– disdainfully and mock him as something akin to the character of Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), “Mr. Toad”  He writes: “The clever men at Oxford / Know all that there is to be knowed. / But they none of them know one half as much / As intelligent Mr Toad!

In more direct action, Spalding proffers in this section that the US should seek opportunities to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, through which it provides countries loans with the aim to gain political leverage. In many cases, countries that have defaulted on those loans have been left with no choice but to give China long-term access to mineral resources or their ports. Spalding calls it a form of economic colonialism which must be countered.

With regard the other 4 points in which he suggests action should be taken: political, education, consumers; and voters, Spalding says the following: 

Political

Spalding states plainly that the US Needs a single coherent team that would manage its opposition, China. He implores that it can no longer reside in twenty agencies. China comes at the US as one force, thereby, the US Needs to be one force to oppose it. He notes that ultimately, a decision on this matter must come from the US President, but the foreign and national security bureaucracies must go in on it, too.

Education

Spalding believes that there is great value in Chinese students’ coming to the US to study, but the system has been abused and needs to be tightened. However, he notes that the point of such exchanges is to encourage the Chinese to learn our values and way of life. The Chinese government has directed many instead to maneuver into positions from which they can steal US technology. Spalding feels the US government has some leverage on this matter as China does not have the capacity or quality of schools to educate the hundreds of thousands of top students that emerge from its secondary school system each year. He reports that US universities earn billions of dollars by admitting them. He insists the universities, themselves, need to do a better job of vetting who is allowed in, and the federal government probably needs to help. Spalding believes denying Chinese students access to any Chinese apps such as WeChat in the US is one solution. Those apps, he explains, are censored and curated by the Communist Party of China. Spalding says the Communist Party of China’s controlling links to the exchange students must be broken, otherwise they will end up doing its bidding without truly understanding or appreciating democracy. Subita causa, fellitur offectue. (Upon removal of the cause, the effect is removed.) 

Spalding notes that related to this is the growing number of academic espionage cases involving professors and graduate students stealing property. Although both Spalding in War Without Rules and greatcharlie earlier here noted that that US counterintelligence and law enforcement has been following China’s activities albeit all are elements of its beyond-limits combined war strategy, alas, effort to identify and neutral Chinese operatives and their networks have not gone so well. With each successful military and civilian intelligence, industrial, and private effort, and there have been far more than a few, the Chinese learn much about the US security measures and how to penetrate government bureaucracies and private organizations from defense contractors to elite universities. Through that incrementalist approach they have enabled themselves to act at will in the US, pilfering research and development and gaining access to US policy planning, contingency plans, and decision making. Some might state derisively that Beijing now knows more about what is transpiring within many US government bureaucracies, businesses, hi-tech firms, and universities than those who have worked in them for decades. The most apparent evidence of that is when equivalents planned products of sensitive and highly classified US research and development projects are constructed and almost mockingly displayed in official parades and technology fairs and conventions as China’s latest technological achievements. China is dead wrong for stealing industrial and high-tech secrets. However, the operational elements of foreign and national security policy bureaucracies of the US and its allies and partners are wrong for failing consistently over two decades to put a halt to China’s fruitful espionage efforts. Rather than reporting goose chases to headquarters, it appears some investigating agents more often press dead ends and repeatedly sift through the same dust, creating a type of self-inflicted wound to their respective organizations’ efforts. More than yielding nothing, such practices result in further darkening their powers to make headway on new cases by using lessons learned based on failures and looking at facts from new angles. 

It is difficult to discern just how much reliance Spalding would place in the US counterintelligence services and law enforcement to thwart China’s unrestricted warfare operations against the US in the various no military realms. To that extent, he rarely mentions them in War Without Rules. Perhaps something more might be read into Spalding’s final statement in this section, “Our counterespionage efforts have improved, but I suspect there is much more that can be done.” Perhaps it is useful to mention that in Chapter 3: “The Magic Shoes of Technology”, Spalding notes that in September 2021, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher Wray stated before the Congress regarding threats to the US that there were more than two thousand ongoing investigations into Chinese espionage in the US. Spalding quotes Wray as saying: “We’re opening a new investigation that’s tied back to China about every 12 hours, and it covers pretty much every sector of the economy in every state in the nation.” Spalding then writes: “The colonels who wrote Unrestricted Warfare would be proud.” (For more on the efforts by US counterintelligence services and law enforcement to fend off beyond limits combined war by China, see greatcharlie’s August 31, 2021 post entitled, “Sidelights on Nicholas Eftimiades, A Series on Chinese Espionage, Vol. I: Operations and Tactics (Vitruvian Press, 2020))”.

Consumers

Spalding says once again here that US citizens must understand their country is at war with China. It is a war China started, and citizens must avoid doing anything that would make China stronger. He notes, given the fairly common reports in the newsmedia about human rights violations, that China”s actions must be opposed. However, opposing those violations is only one weapon to use against them. Spalding suggests boycotting Chinese products, and avoiding stores that do not sell alternatives made in the US and “democracy-friendly” countries. As War Without Rules was written before current high inflation levels were reached, Spalding suggests “paying a little more and buying a little less as long as products come from the US and reputable countries.”

Voters

Spalding makes the statement highlighted by another reviewer: “We should all be China hawks.” Out of fairness, one might better understand what Spalding meant with these words by citing added to them was a discussion of his concern over what those who seek political office have on their minds about China. He notes the governors have made all kinds of deals with China where the benefits unintended went one way. Spalding feels those whose actions support China over the US interests should be viewed as unpatriotic. That would be particularly true given China’s actions and intentions via unrestricted warfare, beyond-limits combined war. Spalding urges citizens to hold their elected representatives accountable. He albeit aggressively states that China’s actions should be presumed guilty until proven innocent, which is an idea most readers of War Without Rules who adhere to the precepts of the US Constitution, as greatcharlie, would likely feel uncomfortable with. Any pressure that the Communist Party of China can put upon political leaders through corporations that have business ties in China must be thwarted.

Spalding also has a section in this chapter entitled “What Does Victory Look Like?” In it, intriguingly, Spalding does not sound much as the warrior out for blood that some have portrayed him given what is written in this chapter. Rather than explain further, greatcharlie will allow readers to discover what he says and reach their own judgments. Ex inimico cogita posse fieri amicum. (Think that you may make a friend of an enemy.)

Nicolas Malebranche was a 17th century French Oratorian priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo and René Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Reportedly, after Malebranche read Descartes’ Traité de l’homme, he turned towards a study of mathematics and physics. In his reaction to Descartes’ book is recounted: “The joy of becoming acquainted with so large a number of discoveries caused him such palpitations of the heart that he was obliged to stop reading in order to recover his breath.” Alas, greatcharlie will not go as far as to declare War Without Rules was the manifestation of Divine inspiration through Spalding. Still, as readers may have detected throughout this review, greatcharlie enjoyed reading every bit of the book. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that greatcharlie whole-heartedly recommends War Without Rules to its readers.

It is almost assured that after the first reading War Without Rules, one would most likely go back to the book and engage in that stimulating process repeatedly. There is no telling what insights and how many might be brewed up from within readers after they have had a chance to read through it. Hopefully Spalding will keep on writing books. While writing books may not be as enthralling to him as flying a B-2 Stealth bomber, he nevertheless, is damnably good at it. Vires acquirit eundo. (We gather strength as we go.)

By Mark Edmond Clark