If China should engage in warfare sometime in the future, should it employ Western methods of war and should it be bound by Western “rules of war”? The highly provocative answer from two Chinese military officers is “no.”

In the 1990s, high-tech weapons seem to have reshaped the way wars will be fought in the future. The Gulf War in 1991 against Iraq and NATO's air war earlier this year against Serbia demonstrated the power of a new generation of Western weaponry and theory. Western methods of war–often called the “Revolution in Military Affairs”–seem to have triumphed.

But two senior Chinese air force colonels are not so sure. In early 1996, Qiao Liang and Wang Xianghui participated in the massive Chinese military exercises aimed at intimidating Taiwan during the runup to that island's first presidential elections. In turn, the exercises prompted the United States to send two aircraft carrier groups to the area as a demonstration of military might.

Later, the colonels met in a small town in southeastern China's Fujian Province and pondered China's military weakness compared to the United States. How could China defend itself against a nation that powerful–if it ever needed to?

The result: a co-authored book, Chao Xian Zhan: Dui Quanqiu Hua Shidai Zhanzheng yu Zhanfa de Xiangding (Warfare Beyond Rules: Judgment of War and Methods of War in the Era of Globalization), published by the People's Liberation Army Art Press in February. The central premise: If China ever has to defend itself, it should be prepared to conduct “warfare beyond all boundaries and limitations.”

The existing rules of war, according to Qiao and Wang, include a body of international laws and agreements developed over the decades by Western powers. As for methods of war, there is a kind of worship in much of the developed world of high technology and new weapons, areas in which the United States has a clear lead. But what is “right” for the United States, the authors say, may not be appropriate for China.

Western commentators, who generally have not read Beyond Rules because it is in Chinese, have focused on such matters as the authors' advocacy of terrorism, should China find itself in dire straits. And yet, the most controversial aspect of the book is perhaps its critique of–and challenge to–current U.S. military doctrine and strategy.

Qiao and Wang begin by arguing that–paradoxically–as more weapons are invented and deployed, each particular kind of weapon will play a lesser role in actual combat. No single kind of weapon can be decisive except nuclear weapons in “total” war, an unlikely event.

But because of ever-higher costs, the authors say, cutting-edge weapons made for national defense may at some point cause a national economic collapse. They argue that the United States may be following in the “dust” of the former Soviet Union by plunging into the costly Revolution in Military Affairs.

The authors cite the extraordinary sums invested in the B-2 stealth bomber program and the even greater amounts being spent on the F-22 fighter program. The financial burden of national defense is heavy for the United States, and even more so for other countries.

Only a nation as rich as the United States can afford extremely expensive weapons and then use them on inexpensive targets, say the authors. But even for the United States, there are limits. The collapse of the Soviet empire did not come with loud thunder but rather with the hiss of leaking air. That may be the eventual fate of the United States.

The driving force behind the costly U.S. weapon programs and its strategic thought is the notion of “zero casualties,” the authors say. The United States balances its strategic goals against the possibility that it might have casualties in achieving them. The United States is increasingly unwilling to risk lives to achieve its goals. That is a mistake, the authors assert.

But a more serious mistake, they add, is the perception that international disputes can be definitively resolved, if necessary, on the battlefield. Thus, the United States focuses on the goal of maintaining the capability to fight and win two regional wars at roughly the same time. In fact, the kind of battlefield-type war that characterized so much of the twentieth century is not nearly so likely in the twenty-first century.

The Chinese military should avoid that trap. It should not spend itself into bankruptcy to fight battlefield wars with high-tech weapons. Rather, China should be prepared to fight with whatever means it has on a variety of fronts. What the authors are getting at is summed up in the common Western phrase, “Thinking outside the box.”

Following the Gulf War, Chinese military leaders were so impressed by U.S. weaponry and strategy that they almost completely accepted the new U.S. definitions of war, the authors say. But by the end of the 1990s, they started to have second thoughts, largely because of the huge expense.

The authors examine the Revolution in Military Affairs from defense strategy to force structure to military doctrine. They acknowledge that the United States is the leader in imagining new types of warfare, including information warfare, precision warfare, joint-forces warfare, and non-war military action.

Non-war military action is particularly creative, they say, because it points to the possibility of using military forces in a variety of roles, such as peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and counterterrorism.

But the colonels insist that there is still no complete “revolution” in U.S. military thought, because U.S. theory lacks the concept of “non-military war action.” When contrasting “non-military war action” with “non-war military action,” the authors are not merely playing a language game. Rather, the term attempts to expand the definition of warfare beyond commonly accepted bounds.

Military action should not define the complete meaning of “war”; it is just one dimension of war. According to the authors, the American Revolution in Military Affairs comes close to constituting a revolution in military thinking, but it is too focused on military technology. The revolution cannot halt at the level of new technologies and system reforms or other material changes. Genuinely new thinking must lie at the heart of a revolution–and in that, the Chinese must not fall behind.

Geographical security is an outdated concept, the authors argue, because threats to national security may not come from cross-border invasion, but from non-military actions. Definitions of security must now include geographical, political, economic, resource, religious, cultural, data, environmental, and near-earth space security.

The authors acknowledge that international laws and rules of war are supposed to put limits on the way war is waged. This body of laws and rules cover a wide spectrum, ranging from the requirement that armed forces operate in uniform to a prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of noncombatants to bans on chemical or biological weapons and land mines.

But whether a country actually accepts these rules regulating war, the authors say, depends on whether the laws and rules are favorable to its own national interests. Weak countries invoke rules of warfare to protect their interests. Powerful nations sometimes use the rules to control others, for instance, by banning chemical and biological weapons. But when the rules conflict with national interests, most countries sacrifice them in an effort to achieve their own goals.

In essence, the authors urge that China should feel free to fight wars in any way possible, without having some means being ruled out in advance by agreements and codes developed over the decades by the Western powers.

Chinese doctrine should embrace the principle of addition, they suggest, in which many methods of war can be–and should be–added together to reach the desired outcome. Based on this theme, they sketch the following ways in which war can be defined:

▪ Military: Nuclear, conventional, biochemical, ecological, space, electronic, guerrilla, and terrorist war.

▪ Beyond military: Diplomatic, data network, intelligence, psychological, technological, smuggling, drug, and simulated war (defined in the West as deterrence).

▪ Non-military: Financial, trade, resources, economic-aid, legal, sanctions, media, and ideological war.

The authors elaborate on many of these methods. Some methods are commonly practiced by the United States and other nations, such as trade embargoes. Others are not practiced, such as manipulating environmental conditions so as to produce, for instance, heavy rains on an enemy's territory.

Beyond Rules emphasizes “asymmetric warfare”–for instance, guerrilla war (mostly urban), terrorist actions, and cyber attacks against data networks. The idea is to strike in unexpected ways against vulnerable targets.

A true revolution in war, the authors say, combines conventional with non-war actions; military with non-military actions. “War” may include a blend of stealth planes and cruise missiles along with biochemical, financial, and terrorist attacks.

Countries have instinctively used a variety of means to defend themselves since ancient times. Combining methods of war is simple addition, familiar to all, and it produces a “magician's cocktail” of offensive and defensive strategies.

Nevertheless, the authors add, no military planners in history have ever systematically elaborated the art of “addition” in formulating military doctrine before the fact. When additional means of war have been piled on in the past, war has usually already gotten under way.

In theory, say the authors, “beyond rules” means going beyond everything–thinking “out of the box.” But in reality, it is impossible to operate without some limits. In fact, the Chinese military should set limited goals that existing means can reach. Limited goals help define the means that will be used. The actual use of nuclear weapons, for instance, cannot serve limited goals. Their value lies strictly in deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others.

Otherwise, China should not hesitate–if it should have to defend itself–to use as many means of warfare as possible, including weapons that are not “permitted” by international law and the rules of war, such as chemical and biological weapons.

Beyond Rules has received high level attention in China. Many Chinese military officers have praised it. But when a Chinese diplomat introduced the book to an international conference in Russia, American and European participants were startled.

Major U.S. media did not learn of the book until August 8, when the Washington Post carried a story and interviewed the authors. The Voice of America held a discussion of the book the following day. News stories and commentaries in the West have tended to suggest that Beyond Rules advocates terrorism and other vicious methods of war.

Although Beyond Rules is not official policy, some of the extreme methods recommended in it will cause outsiders to worry about China's commitment to the ban on chemical and biological weapons. Yet, the book does not advocate an expansionist policy for China. Although the means suggested in the book are more aggressive than the international norm, they would be employed only in national defense.

Beyond Rules is a fresh work that breaks the rigid bounds of thinking characteristic of the Chinese military. The authors take a realist view of military affairs by looking at existing laws and rules applicable to warfare, and noting that they originated in the West. China, they say, should not be bound by them when defending its interests.

Whether the authors make legitimate arguments regarding the Revolution in Military Affairs in the United States is certainly debatable. But the book is a non-Western response or challenge to American military thought, which itself makes it worth the attention of Western experts.

Beyond Rules also reflects a general trend in China toward openness. The book is straightforward compared to past studies in China regarding military methods and doctrine. Last summer, China opted for transparency and deterrence as a military posture when it declared that it possessed neutron bombs. It also announced a test launch of the DF-31, a second-generation intercontinental ballistic missile. And many new weapons from fighters to missiles were displayed in October on the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution.

Finally, it is worth pondering why a book that opposes international rules has emerged in China and has been well received by many Chinese military officers and the public alike. In its August 8 article, the Post comment-ed–correctly–that “the book is an important expression of China's feelings of powerlessness when confronted by U.S. might.”

Have the authors of Beyond Rules gone too far? Or is the book a way of suggesting that the United States has already gone too far down the road of military dominance?