Chapter 4 China’s Hybrid War and Its Implication
3. Assessment
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legitimacy on war, paralyzing the enemy’s capabilities indirectly and securing supporters with blames against U.S.
3. Assessment
In political perspective, the ASB doctrine ignoring the potential enemy’s doctrinal principles would escalate security dilemma continuously, causing unstable military balance with China. Contrary to the American war-fighting style concentrating on direct confrontation, the China’s hybrid warfare is aiming at the weak points of U.S. The threats will constantly generate insufficient elements unless the U.S. military sight changes whereas U.S. sticks to the conservative perspective by repeating process for American hegemony in East Asia. In addition, the regional U.S. allies could change regional power dynamics unstably under the security, reappraising China’s national abilities. And, China will try to expand its influence by unthinkable military threats.
As a strategic means for achieving political goals, change of security environment by technical advance and globalization is now requiring ‘synergy power’ integrating comprehensive elements in non-military realms into the military realms, not only depending on military power. Accordingly, a military doctrine has to be developed toward the direction adjusting the change and the ASB doctrine should, in fact, reflect more broaden threats in the respect. On the other hand, China has supplemented military alternatives to overcome its inferiority through the indigenous war philosophies. In terms of balance of power theory, the China’s choice is practically right because of their hybrid warfare considering comprehensive elements.
In the military perspective, assessment of the ASB doctrine has to be progressed with more calm yardsticks. The conservative context has only pursued the concept of regular war as well
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as high-tech war concept although, but it is nothing more than a lack of military effectiveness against the hybrid threats. Contrarily, the weak China must survive by all means and the
‘blurring’ threats between regular and irregular war will make the ASB doctrine nominal, fooling U.S. military forces.
The ASB doctrine based on a massive war has an operation concept to access toward main-land China and its near waters, and it cannot escape from typical decisive confrontation of the industrial-age. However, China is one of great powers and it doesn’t have poor military forces like Iraq and Afghanistan. In the situation, the reckless frontal attack would cause tremendous damage whereas Chinese troops would exhaust the U.S. military by deception and stratagem, incurring chaos in other regions including the homeland. The geographic condition isolated by seas offers China a role of breakwater, so the ASB doctrine to break through the sanctuary should pay enormous costs and the exposed weaknesses of U.S. will require more costs.
‘Concentration of force’ is an important factor to determine war situation. However, victory cannot be guaranteed if failed the concentration, even though the military force has good weapons and well-planned operations. In the respect, the ASB doctrine has to concentrate its powers in the air and in the waters for not only establishing favorable conditions but also unfolding steady following operations, but Chinese threat could disperse the joined U.S. military forces by diverting the enemy’s attention away from the wrong place while denying enforcement of U.S. forces from other regions. With it, Chinese PLAs would force themselves into the occupied operation areas of U.S. when the weakened force status comes, so the ASB doctrine is a restricted operation concept.
Because increasing costs of war results in serious discontents, the ASB doctrine has high-priced military powers and massive-scaled war-fighting patterns would make a different limitation. When China’s war concept is to break enemy’s will to fight by the hybrid threats,
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the Chinese forces would threaten the opposite by elusive patterns anyway and, by doing so, the expensive doctrine would find no supports from people with raising the costs astronomically.
Returning back to its operation range, the doctrine abandons defensive operation phase in other regions like the continental U.S. because it just adheres to eliminate the adversary within the East Asian region. If indiscriminate attacks appear in other places, shock and fear in America society would be very serious while people raise a question about effectiveness of the ASB doctrine as well as possibility of a recurrence of the asymmetric threats. So, the doctrine and its operation range are not only narrow-minded but also inflexible.
The Chinese hybrid warfare has a lot of asymmetric patterns to stimulate the enemy’s intangible characteristics, so if it incurs agitation and disturbance in the American society, its objective would be accomplished. Nonetheless, policy makers of the U.S. military force are still neglecting to develop proper alternatives, but they also disparages it as a subservient stuff of outside the military even though there are some actual cases suffering those intangible threats. As the result, the ASB doctrine is never able to work fully in the military conflict against China. And, it cannot be a proper alternative as a representative operational doctrine to counter-act China.
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