17 November 2019 - strategic concepts

The most central concept in American strategic thinking is deterrence, looking so tough that nobody wants to fight you. When deterrence fails, see Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.; theories of actual warfare are less important. The most central Chinese strategic concept is winning without fighting, which most closely corresponds to the Western concept of preparing the battlefield, except that winning without fighting applies not only to the battlefield, but to every level of analysis from the political on down. That’s a problem with taking analysis seriously; stovepipes are analytical.