{"id":16366,"date":"2019-05-14T01:42:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T01:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=16366"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:43:37","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:43:37","slug":"art-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/art-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"In Book: Active Defense: China\u2019s Military Strategy since 1949"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image: Taylor Fravel and Dominick Reuter <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1969, the Soviet Union moved troops and military equipment to its border with China, escalating tensions between the communist Cold War powers. In response, China created a new military strategy of \u201cactive defense\u201d to repel an invading force near the border. There was just one catch: China did not actually implement its new strategy until 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which raises a question: How could China have taken a full decade before shifting its military posture in the face of an apparent threat to its existence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really comes down to the politics of the Cultural Revolution,\u201d says Taylor Fravel, a professor of political science at MIT and an expert in Chinese foreign policy and military thinking. \u201cChina was consumed with internal political upheaval.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, through the mid-1970s, leader Mao Zedong and his hardline allies sought to impose their own visions of politics and society on the country. Those internal divisions, and the extraordinary political strife accompanying them, kept China from addressing its external threats \u2014 even though it might sorely have needed a new strategy at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Fravel believes, every major change in Chinese military strategy since 1949 \u2014 and there have been a few \u2014 has occurred in the same set of circumstances. Each time, the Chinese have recognized that global changes in warfare have occurred, but they have required political unity in Beijing to implement those changes. To understand the military thinking of one of the world\u2019s superpowers, then, we need to understand its domestic politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fravel has synthesized these observations in a new book, \u201cActive Defense: China\u2019s Military Strategy since 1949<\/a>,\u201d published by Princeton University Press. The book offers a uniquely thorough history of modern Chinese military thinking, a subject that many observers have regarded as inscrutable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne way to understand how great powers think about the use of military force is to examine their [formal] military strategy,\u201d Fravel notes. \u201cIn this respect China has not been studied as thoroughly or systematically as the other great powers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rethinking Mao<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fravel\u2019s book examines military thinking during the entire length of the People\u2019s Republic of China, dating to 1949, when Mao led the communist takeover of the country. China was not at that point regarded as a serious military power, although Fravel notes that the country\u2019s leaders were giving the idea serious thought back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think some people might be surprised to learn that China has been dedicated to building a modern military, and thus thinking about strategy, since the birth of the People\u2019s Republic,\u201d Fravel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Fravel sees it, based on a significant amount of original archival research, there are nine times in modern China\u2019s history when the government has issued comprehensive new military strategies. These formal strategic plans, he thinks, are critical to understanding what Chinese leaders have thought about military force and how to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an articulation of principles that should guide subsequent activities,\u201d Fravel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these nine strategies, Fravel finds three to be particularly significant: Those issued in 1956, 1980, and 1993. The first of these articulated a posture of forward defense meant to insulate the country from invasion by, principally, the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 1960s, however, the country had shifted toward a different military posture, one more in line with Mao\u2019s own thinking, which featured an emphasis on guerilla-style retreat and concession of territory in the face of a potential invasion. The idea, deployed by Mao in China\u2019s civil war in the 1930s, was to wear an enemy down over time while providing elusive targets for opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Soviet massing of military forces just outside China in the late 1960s raised concerns that it might be better to pursue a more \u201cactive defense\u201d \u2014 and thus the title of Fravel\u2019s book \u2014 in which China positioned its armed forces to contain enemies near the border. But given all the internal political conflict (and leadership purges) within China, this shift did not gain enough traction to be implemented in the 1970s. Moreover, as a distinct change from Mao\u2019s ideas, the notion of active defense required considerable political unity to be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn that sense it was profoundly different and perhaps challenging to pursue,\u201d Fravel says. \u201cThey had to de-emphasize one of Mao\u2019s core strategic principles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the new strategy became official policy, and remained such for over a decade \u2014 until Chinese military leaders watched the 1991 Gulf War on television and recognized that the new era of precision aerial warfare demanded another shift in strategy for them as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think in many countries, the Gulf War catalyzed a complete rethinking of warfare in very short order,\u201d Fravel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, even as this was occurring, China was experiencing yet another moment of internal political division, following the Tianamen Square massacre of 1989. It took another year or two, and a new internal political consensus, before China could develop a new, contemporary strategy for fighting high-tech wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they wanted to do was really challenging,\u201d Fravel says, noting that the new strategy requires complex coordination of different military domains \u2014 air, sea, and land \u2014 which had not previously been unified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nuclear exception<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s 1993 statement of strategy remains a guidepost for its current military thinking. However, as Fravel notes, there is one area of military force \u2014 nuclear weapons \u2014 which is an \u201cexception to the rule\u201d he postulates about policy following unity. China has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s, while always considering them a deterrent to other countries, and not threatening first use of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you look at the nuclear domain, they\u2019ve basically had the same strategic goal since testing their first device in 1964, which is to deter other countries from attacking China first with nuclear weapons,\u201d Fravel says. \u201cIt\u2019s also the one element of defense strategy never delegated by top party leaders. It was so important to them, they never let go of the authority to devise nuclear strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Fravel\u2019s part, he says that identifying the strong pattern leading to changes in China\u2019s military strategy will help as a guide to the future, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina is a country we know less about, in the study of international politics, than the other great powers,\u201d Fravel says. \u201cIf there is a significant shift in the kinds of warfare in the international system, then China would be more likely to consider changing its military strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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