Publishing Disclaimer: In all of its publications and products, Military Review presents professional information. However, the views expressed therein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Army University, the Department of the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

---

 

China’s Unseen Traps of War

How Critical Gaps in Imagination Enable China’s Total Societal Warfare

 

Lt. Col. Aaron Hirschi, US Army Reserve

 

Download the PDF

 

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) differs from the United States in its approach to strategic thinking. The PRC’s rulers in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power with a vastly different ideology, system of governance, and goals for their nation. This creates an additional layer of complexity in trying to anticipate how the PRC could fight the West in a future war. However, the PRC’s strategic thinking and perspectives are not well studied in the Department of War (DoW) outside a relatively small number of subject-matter experts, planners, and leaders. This is creating a vulnerability gap for America’s defenses. The PRC intends to wage “national total war” against the United States to achieve victory in a possible future conflict; this means attacking every facet of American society.¹ Yet, we have not sufficiently educated either the general population or most Armed Forces personnel on these PRC concepts and their implications. This lack of awareness creates systemic weaknesses and limits the potential creativity that the DoW could use to anticipate PRC war actions. In this article, a hypothetical war game is presented to demonstrate how unconventional the PRC’s strategic approach could be to ensure victory even before the first kinetic battle begins. To counter such actions, the DoW needs greater emphasis on educating everyone down to the lowest echelon possible on America’s greatest potential foe.

Before walking through the war-game scenario, it is important to understand the context that makes the proposed scenario plausible. First, one must understand the driving factors of the CCP, the rulers of China, to know why “national total war” is their preferred concept to defeat the United States. The relevant factors include the psychological influences driven by CCP ideology, the CCP’s basis of political legitimacy, the PRC’s extensive cultural and economic entanglement with the United States, and how Taiwan is crucial for the CCP to retain power.

The psychology of CCP members is molded by the party’s tumultuous history of trying to balance the ideological justification to rule with the practical requirements to maintain control. Under Mao Zedong, ideological purity was the dominating mantra that included a doctrine stating that the West’s political systems contributed to China’s decades of chaos, and that the West is in an overall superior position to China. This created a default rationale that outside enemies are the source of China’s problems, but China cannot destroy them directly and must preferably turn their enemies’ strengths against them to win.² So, the CCP can rationally reject Western culture, ethics, and political concepts but readily take the West’s science, technology, and money.³

Concurrently, Maoism conditioned the party members to believe the PRC was the best equipped to achieve collectivist utopia but only if led by Chairman Mao himself, creating a near religious cult of conformity to the party and its leaders.⁴ Deng Xiaoping revised the CCP’s justification for legitimately ruling China in the 1980s because communist economics failed to improve the country. However, economic reforms created ideological contradictions, so the CCP reverted to a practical argument: prosperity was best achievable using some market reforms managed by the CCP’s enlightened technocrats who would avoid the messy uncertainties of the West’s free-market system.⁵ Despite the contradictions of using elements of a capitalist system while still retaining communist ideological frameworks, the CCP thrived as it shifted its priority of global Marxist revolution to the simpler realist goal of maintaining and expanding the power of the party.

In the 1990s, the CCP analyzed how to get foreign investment to grow China’s economy without the cost of undermining the party’s power. The solution was devised by then vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, Chen Yuan, and then vice premier of China, Zhu Rongji. The CCP would allow private enterprises to exist, but the party could dictate who led any business, whether officially state owned or not.⁶ This enabled the CCP to control the economic development of the PRC while also creating an opportunity to exploit the strengths of the West. The West would fund the PRC’s growth, teach China their skills, and sell their technology while allowing the CCP to establish a presence within the West’s societies. All this would be done without giving the West reciprocal access to the PRC’s society.

There are numerous examples of the PRC building up dominant positions within global economic markets using the West to either fund PRC investments or offshore industries into China itself. For instance, semiconductors are the life’s blood of modern economies, and in the 1990s, the PRC was completely reliant on Western imports. The PRC supported Richard Chang, a semiconductor engineer trained in the United States, in building a domestic semiconductor industry. Chang used Western investors to build China’s first semiconductor corporation, which then aggressively poached Taiwanese and American engineers and purchased Western tooling for manufacturing. The PRC succeeded in breaking into the chip market and used its cheaper labor to rapidly expand its presence in the global market.⁷ This has been replicated many times in many markets such as China’s dominance in critical minerals.⁸

The PRC also replicated this in communications and domestic American services. At one time, PRC companies gained large-scale access to American critical telecommunications infrastructure with companies like Huawei. This not only allowed the PRC to undercut American firms within the United States but also provided numerous opportunities for espionage.⁹ The threat was sufficient to motivate stronger regulatory controls over Chinese investments in critical industries and businesses in the United States.¹⁰

The efforts to use the West to develop the PRC’s economy and technological prowess while gaining economic and social influence within the West also fulfilled the CCP’s concept of defeating a stronger opponent with their own strengths.¹¹ Over time, the PRC intends to build strength to the point of becoming the global hegemon by draining the wealth and industry of the West. This grew out of the concept devised by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) experts on how future warfare would be waged across all facets of society, not just the domains of military warfare.¹² Domestically, such strategy also protects the CCP’s legitimacy as economic prosperity is linked to the continued rule of the CCP. The CCP tells the PRC populace that China’s existence and success can only occur under CCP rule. The party contends any alternative is guaranteed disaster.¹³ As a further hedge against being overthrown, the CCP utilizes the psychological conditioning of its Maoist roots by promoting jingoist nationalism within the framework that all of China’s ills are due to foreign actors, not a corrupt CCP.¹⁴

As the CCP views its strategic position as weaker than the United States, the party chose the national total war concept to mobilize all state and societal capabilities at once to increase the odds of success against the United States if war ever comes. As the PRC has embedded its influence in the United States through economic and culture endeavors, the CCP knows the United States’ weaknesses are not military in nature but economic and societal. National total war is not just the PRC mobilizing its whole society, national total war also means targeting every aspect of the opponent’s society. The United States is at risk of focusing too exclusively on planning how to defend military capabilities and critical national infrastructure during a time of war and protect economic security during times of peace.¹⁵ This is neglecting the potential threat actions between times of open war and official peace, the period where the PRC could attack via its “soft” power of economic and social entanglement with the United States to cripple its institutional strengths before the shooting starts.

Ian M. Sullivan, in his Military Review article “Three Dates, Three Windows, and All of DOTMLPF-P,” warned of a similar risk in the DoW’s approach to studying the PLA. In his article, Sullivan recommends understanding the PLA goes beyond just knowing the materiel improvements of its forces. He argues the DoW must study every institutional domain using the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTMLPF-P) framework to grasp the full-scale of the PLA’s ability.¹⁶ This is crucial for war analysis because DOTMLPF-P is an effective tool to help understand the capability and intention of a military organization. All aspects of an organized group must be understood to accurately gauge one’s opponent. On a strategic level, the PRC’s society must be holistically studied as well to identify all its potential means of attack, just like the PRC studies the United States’ weaknesses as a society.¹⁷

To wage national total war, the PRC has several institutional advantages. The totalitarian principle of CCP governance allows them to use any element of the government for any purpose the party deems fit regardless of official law.¹⁸ For instance, the party can compel various state-owned enterprises or civilian agencies to budget items on behalf of the PLA. The party can also task civilian ministries, private companies, and CCP organizations like its United Front Work Department to conduct espionage, subversion activities, lawfare, and information operations on behalf of the Ministry of State Security without any formal guidance or regulatory mandate.¹⁹ Furthermore, the party can also commandeer any state-owned enterprise while also seconding all state ministries, private enterprises, and nonprofit organizations to assist in national security activities.²⁰ The CCP’s ability to exert authority over every aspect of life and informally dispense with distinction between public and private institutions, distinctions between levels of government, and the distinct roles within the bureaucracy allows them to more rapidly deploy resources against a foe in every possible way than Western governments.

Why the PRC Is Willing to Exploit America’s Weaknesses for Taiwan

Open war with the PRC is unlikely because the economic and political costs, especially if the PRC loses, are severe enough to risk the fall of the CCP from power. Although war is unlikely, there is one circumstance that makes it possible—Taiwan. As stated earlier, the CCP must balance its legitimacy to rule with ideological indoctrination and practical governance. Part of the narrative of the CCP’s legitimacy is the party is the only champion that can safeguard China and reverse all humiliations imposed on it by outside powers. One of those most glaring humiliations was ceding territory to foreign powers: Taiwan (Formosa) and Manchuria to Japan, Hong Kong to Britain, parts of Siberia to Russia, and various ports to European powers. Taiwan was part of China under the Qing Dynasty, and the CCP has stated for decades it is part of China proper.

The CCP as a totalitarian entity relies on its reputation of strength for legitimacy as there is no democratic mandate. If a leader of the CCP loses Taiwan to independence or the PRC public gets the perception that Taiwan is sufficiently under Western control to effectively be independent, then that leader cripples the CCP’s authority.²¹ This would likely result in that leader being deposed or killed for the party to save face. Maintaining Taiwan as part of China is a critical mandate for the CCP to stay in power and, it will therefore risk much to prevent the loss of Taiwan. This is why in PRC official declarations and policy statements, the CCP is intractable on the point of Taiwan being part of China and reunification is an inevitable outcome.²² The CCP’s existence depends on this, and CCP leaders will risk the PRC itself if it means preserving their power.

How can it be certain that the CCP would risk the PRC to preserve power? There is precedent. Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 as means to purge his political enemies within the Communist Party because he risked being ousted for the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Mao directed the Great Leap Forward, an economic program that was intended to rapidly modernize China in the 1950s but failed spectacularly, leading to the largest famine in human history.²³ This undermined Mao’s authority, so he blamed counterrevolutionaries in the party and used the Cultural Revolution to purge the party of anyone who defied Mao. This action was so destructive that it almost collapsed the PRC into civil war, but it preserved Mao’s reputation and authority.²⁴ This behavior arose from the organizational culture of the CCP, which has not fundamentally changed since the 1950s even as the PRC has changed. Deng Xiaoping’s attempt to prevent another strongman ruling China was only through establishing an administrative tradition, not by changing the structure of the party. If the CCP had done so, Xi Jinping would not have come to power. The CCP prioritizes its power above all else, including China. If it is threatened with losing face or legitimacy, the CCP will take drastic risks.

This doesn’t mean that the CCP will not try to minimize all risks, including during a war. The CCP’s national total war concept means maximizing the PRC’s chances of victory by mobilizing all resources while simultaneously shaping the battlespace before open hostilities. If war over Taiwan does happen and the CCP can accomplish its military objectives quickly, then the risk to the regime would be reduced.²⁵ If the PRC can delay or paralyze America’s ability to mobilize to assist Taiwan for a few weeks, then the PLA chances of success drastically improve. If America is paralyzed for weeks, the PLA could carry out its missions with far less opposition and operational friction to establish beachheads and entrench itself in Taiwan. In such a scenario, by the time America reorganizes its forces, the PRC could present to the world the conquest of Taiwan as a fait accompli, forcing the West to cede before major combat operations even begin between the major powers. Attacking America’s critical infrastructure kinetically is likely to escalate into nuclear retaliation, so more complex, less permanent means of disrupting US infrastructure is required. Utilizing the PRC’s access to America’s society, economy, and institutions would enable the CCP to wage total national war within the United States, culminating in total societal paralysis of the United States just before the PLA overtly attacked Taiwan.

National total war, along with the concepts of unrestricted warfare, means attacking every aspect of a society all at once, using all means at once, with most actions carried out by nonmilitary actors. To illustrate the potential threat of the PRC using unrestricted warfare against the United States prior to initiating large-scale combat operations (LSCO) against Taiwan, the following is a brief overview of hypothetical actions the CCP could take to surprise, distract, and paralyze the United States. In this scenario, the goal of the CCP is to render the United States impotent against the PLA’s actions against Taiwan while minimizing the risk of nuclear escalation.

Culminating National Total Warfare within the United States Scenario

For the sake of simplicity and to highlight the capabilities of the PRC, the following describes a hypothetical attack on a United States that is completely complacent and has done nothing to implement any countermeasures whatsoever. The actions of the culminative attack would occur over a period of weeks to months right up to the day the PLA launches LSCO against Taiwan. The day of open kinetic LSCO will be represented as Day Zero, and the time of actions before culminating on Day Zero will be represented by day minus (D-) the number of days the CCP would most plausibly conduct the actions. The CCP would have to balance the need for secrecy and the need for impact of surprise, making contextual circumstances the ultimate deciding factor on time, so nothing in the following overview is attached to a fixed timeline.

D-30 to D-8. If the CCP decides its own situation is dire enough that action against the United States is inevitable, then the CCP would likely task its nonmilitary elements first to initiate chaos within the United States. The PRC elements are positioned in advance to cause maximum damage and disruption without being noticed. This will likely take days to weeks to complete. During this time, the CCP covertly invokes its National Security Law and its National Intelligence Law to compel PRC enterprises, organizations, and civilians to submit to the instructions of the CCP’s Central Military Commission (CMC).²⁶

Preparatory activities include having private PRC businesses disclose all network information regarding US-based subsidiaries and relevant contracts and subcontracts with US customers to help identify cyberattack vectors to deliver malware. Instead of malware designed to acquire information, the malware is now configured to destroy, deny access, or modify critical information to damage or destroy key functions within the US economy and infrastructure. This preparation also includes identifying Chinese nationals in the United States with key placement and access to intranets, industrial control systems, and other operational technologies to task them with uploading malware in their workplaces. As the National Security Law includes the ability to penalize relatives of PRC citizens overseas, the CCP can easily intimidate those who are not nationalistic enough to cooperate willingly. Other targeted services and people are ones who provide support to systems of communication and transportation such as satellite tracking services for cars or scheduling software for freight rail and trucking services. As these attack vectors are mapped out and the insider threats prepared to execute sabotage operations, the CCP tasks other organizations to prepare their actions against American society.

One such organization, the United Front Work Department, starts to frontload millions of US dollars to various front companies, charities, and nongovernmental organizations in the United States to fund US-based groups and persons tasked to cause disruption on the days closer to Day Zero.²⁷ Additionally, years of records collected by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) on senior people in US government, industry, entertainment, and media that identify embarrassing or criminal behavior are compiled for use by the PLA’s and other state entities’ cyber operations in preparation for information warfare.²⁸ Finally, millions of bots are prepared for spreading stories, both real and false, on social media in support of psychological and information operations as Day Zero nears.

As the preparation nears Day Zero, the CMC, through state ministries and unofficial backchannels, instructs private PRC businesses linked to critical global supply chains to prepare to cause widespread disruption within supply chains to US clients. Most preparation is done outside of the PLA and MSS bureaucracies, minimizing the risk of early detection as PRC civilian organizations become adjusted for wartime disruption of their former American clients and customers. The next stage is escalation of political and economic warfare that will gradually grow more severe, but each event will appear unrelated at first.

D-7 to D-1. The PRC reaches out to transnational crime organizations in Latin America and Russia to conduct large-scale cyber operations against US-based entities that include cybertheft, ransomware, and other various activities.²⁹ As the rise in criminal cyberattacks occurs, many of the targets are random and relatively small—such as school districts, businesses in smaller towns, or less prominent infrastructure—to keep federal and state responders distracted while preventing them from noticing a coordinated pattern. As sophisticated foreign criminal mercenaries escalate cyberattacks, the MSS and third-party proxies of the United Front use recruited criminals or PRC nationals to carry out physical attacks that cause chaos, especially in states that house US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) assets.

The best times of year to invade Taiwan are in May to July and then October due to the monsoon seasons which, ironically, provide CCP-backed proxies an additional opportunity.³⁰ California fire season also occurs during these months, so a half dozen proxies initiate arson in multiple locations near Camp Pendleton, San Diego, the Los Angeles Mountains, and San Mateo County.³¹ Similar actions could be repeated in many states, including Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado, to tie up emergency services and water resources, and to distract local and federal governments.

Simultaneously, PRC-controlled merchant ships with modified hulls covertly drop specialized containers to the ocean floor near major US ports such as Long Beach that contain sophisticated sea mines that remain dormant until timed activation on Day Zero.³² Alternatively, modified yachts could do the same near Zuniga Point in San Diego or near Seattle. On land, between one hundred to two hundred PRC nationals and proxies begin emplacing dormant unmanned aerial drones near airports, major highway junctions, and military facilities in discreet places like warehouses, building rooftops, and parked vehicles.

As these escalating actions against the critical infrastructure and government occur, the United Front and its proxies funnel money through third parties to radical activist and extremist organizations within the United States. The intention is to instigate socially disruptive actions that lead to large-scale demonstrations, riots, or other activities that paralyze major cities and their political leadership. If the elected officials must contend with key elements of their voting blocs being disrupted with radical, especially violent, social events, then they are distracted away from larger national events. Either the PRC proxies exploit an active situation or they instigate one with a false flag incident. This could range from assassinating a key figure within a radical group to exploiting a socially sensitive situation by bombing or burning multiple sites of worship, or having proxies dress up as police and randomly murder someone associated with a political cause while filming with body cameras.

Whatever action the PRC proxies decide, the PRC’s cyber and information warfare elements will then use their AI-managed media bots on social media to circulate videos, both real and fake, to news media, activist forums, and radical sites to instigate violence, especially within city centers.³³ The news media are financially incentivized to embrace sensationalism and societal chaos to garner greater viewership. Far more likely than not, the media organizations will enthusiastically, if unwittingly, assist with spreading the PRC-instigated narrative, which will further exacerbate social tensions.

As all these actions unfold, certain PRC-based companies or their subsidiaries in Canada, Mexico, and the United States will announce safety recalls of products ranging from foods to medicines to car parts. Other announcements could include sudden shutdowns of factories, faulty equipment, or other excuses to halt their portions of US national supply chains. As this will raise suspicions, this will likely be one of the last actions before Day Zero.

Day Zero. As the PLA readies itself to attack and blockade Taiwan, the other nonmilitary elements of the CCP will initiate their final tasks, culminating in violent actions that signal the transition from peacetime unrestricted warfare to kinetic open warfare and overt LSCO. On the day of open warfare, the CMC and its proxies would likely initiate their final attacks in waves that strike specific facets of American communication, power, and transportation networks. This will be done in a sequence that maximizes surprise and shock, and disrupts mobilization and force generation within the United States.

The first actions will focus on creating the final steps of financial and economic chaos. PRC directed firms and investment companies are ordered by the CCP to dump or sell all American assets at once to cause immediate panic and the shutdown of both the stock and commodities markets. Next, the PRC firms in the United States associated with physical goods will halt or redirect deliveries of all orders, refuse to pay invoices, and lay off workers en masse. For a few hours, which is all that is required, the government and society at large will be confused and uncertain as to what exactly is transpiring.

The next series of actions, almost simultaneously, will target the transportation infrastructure of the United States to paralyze all major internal lines of communication. The PRC cyber actors, in combination with insider threats, target scheduling, maintenance, and payment software at shipping ports, freight yards, and inland distribution centers.³⁴ Activities include changing schedules to send trucks to the wrong locations, missing pickups, delaying refuelers, and cancelling transactions. Repeatedly done at dozens of locations across the country, this paralyzes much of the civilian transportation backbone, which in turn severely degrades homeland mobilization.

At the seaports, the covertly laid sea mines become activated and, using magnetometers, target larger hulled ships to damage near critical entry-exit waterways to bottleneck and halt port operations, specifically in Hawaii, California, Alaska, and Washington states. To maximize chaos and panic at these key ports, the first wave of unmanned aerial attack drones is activated and strikes the most conspicuous targets for maximum attention and psychological effect rather than material damage. Examples could include fuel storage tanks, bridges, or anywhere workers congregate in large groups like canteens. This will exacerbate disruptions at the ports, further hindering mobilization efforts.

A second wave of attack drones is activated near major highway interchanges, striking into high-volume traffic to shut down critical highways to prevent further movement of commerce and people. This wave is also launched against civilian airfields and airports that could support USINDOPACOM in the western United States. Targeting only one or two planes will shut down these airports. Concurrently, PRC AI-managed bots distribute pictures and videos showing these attacks, causing the rest of the United States to cancel flights and shutdown airports.

The next set of actions target communications—not just by damaging infrastructure but also by setting and shaping narratives to further destroy morale and spread confusion. Using social media forums, the PRC discloses the collected personal information on select politicians, flag officers, business leaders, and entertainers that will embarrass or metaphorically destroy these persons to disrupt communications between institutions and leaders. Examples of possible information disclosure could include things such as infidelity, financial irregularities, tax evasion, soliciting, assisting criminal enterprises, or other nefarious actions. If nothing else, these individuals will retreat from interacting with other people, rendering them impotent during a crisis. If derogatory information is not found, the PRC can use AI to fabricate images, videos, and false screen captures of documents to implicate innocent people. It is irrelevant if these false accusations lead to any legal actions; the only thing that matters are that these actions now force those targeted individuals to focus on themselves and not the PRC-directed attacks on the United States.

In follow-on attacks after targeting high-value individuals, other PRC cyber actors use AI-created voices to anonymously call in bomb threats to schools and hospitals, and to call the police to instigate swatting on Chinese political dissidents to send a message as well as to tie up emergency service resources.³⁵ Other PRC units use AI-cloned voices of people close to key personnel within USINDOPACOM to torment, terrify, or confuse units’ chains of command. Commanders and senior NCOs, ranging from division level down to the battalion level within USINDOPACOM, are a relatively small number; the PRC-based cyber actors can build detailed profiles to target these people.³⁶ As these targeted individuals are critical to the chains of command for their units, building thorough profiles enables the PRC to send sophisticated tailored attacks to induce panic and false alarms, or fake instructions by family members, friends, or subordinates.

Once all propaganda, psychological warfare, and deception messaging is conveyed and completed in a targeted area, the CMC initiates the final attack to destroy communication networks to prevent Americans from communicating with each other. This includes telephone denial-of-service attacks to overload communication networks, including for emergency services, critical internal company networks, and local government offices.³⁷ Additionally, the PRC proxies also use local assets to construct electronic warfare sites within cities to disrupt cellular communications networks with overwhelming signal interference.³⁸ PRC-company-owned phone applications upload malware into phones disguised as software updates, which in turn, “brick” or destroy the phones of the users, rendering potentially millions without means to communicate.³⁹

As multiple companies provide cloud services to the US military, these companies’ overseas assets are also targeted to maximize pressure and disruption. One relatively easy way would be targeting the European headquarters for many of these services in Ireland. Ireland is small, not part of NATO, and has limited cyber defenses. This is a soft underbelly for many international companies that could lose billions from disruptions as electric grids or their own networks are attacked in less secure Ireland. This could draw away resources from supporting international cloud network services, including US government services overseas.

Now, with other aspects of US society disrupted, the PRC proxies focus on the most direct critical infrastructure, the power grid. Using mainly cyber-based assets, with perhaps some physical attacks, the PRC activates malware and denial-of-service attacks on the various electrical grids within the United States. The PRC-linked cyber actors have a history of gaining persistent access to power-related systems in order to disrupt military, industrial, and communication capabilities while preventing the US government from mobilizing its assets to counter the PRC.⁴⁰ It is unlikely the PRC would physically attack the critical infrastructure as it would take years of repair whereas cyberattacks could be repaired and functionality restored within weeks. This would likely help avoid any nuclear escalation that the physical attacks on critical national infrastructure could cause. The same might not be true for nonstrategic US military bases.

The final act prior to transitioning to a PLA-led effort in LSCO is to use covert military means to strike at the critical USINDOPACOM supporting bases within the United States. The 330-mile-range YJ-18C land-attack cruise missiles that can be concealed within commercial shipping containers are the most likely means to launch an initial strike on the homeland.⁴¹ The concept of the PRC potentially using civilian ships to carry land-attack missiles hidden in shipping containers to conduct a sneak attack against the US mainland has been discussed for several years. In most cases, they have the PRC focus on attacking while out at sea, but there should be one more concept to consider. Unrestricted warfare is designed to disrupt as many different things at once to cause as widespread societal paralysis as possible. These concealed missile attacks could also be used to spread diplomatic chaos and extend the fog of war beyond being used to destroy US military bases within the United States. Using connections with Mexican cartels, the PLA could potentially smuggle YJ-18C missile shipping containers to container yards deeper within Mexico. Furthermore, instead of using merchant ships at sea, the PRC could also surprise launch these missiles from ports in both Mexico and Cuba, sparking greater confusion and angst amongst these countries. A war with the United States is already a life-or-death risk for the CCP, so causing diplomatic disasters and potential war-crime violations with the Latin American countries will not be relevant to the CCP. If the CCP wins, then these countries will grit their teeth and bear it. If the CCP loses, then it really doesn’t matter.

This final surprise attack is complemented with one final wave of drones that, instead of targeting critical sites on the military bases as these will be hit by the YJ-18Cs, attacks facilities that impact the service members directly to destroy morale and disrupt mobilization. For instance, drones might be used to target the schools on bases. The family members and service personnel who have children will prioritize their concerns over such an incident rather than prepare to mobilize for war, further breaking unit cohesion and readiness. Hence, unrestricted warfare means targeting the entirety of the opponent’s society while trying to avoid causing such comprehensive long-term damage that invites a nuclear strike.

Conclusion

Any war with China is going to be exceptionally risky for both sides. National total war was created to reduce the risk to the PRC as a contingency if war ever happened. War with China is unlikely but having the United States complacent and unprepared for national total war increases the risk that the CCP strategy for winning would succeed. Everything mentioned above has been discussed, war-gamed, or hypothesized individually but never in a comprehensive strategic picture of how these would directly assist the PLA leading up to an open kinetic war.

This modern unrestricted warfare supports the national total war strategy that differs from historical total war in that the PRC would target all the weaknesses of an opponent’s society to render them incapable of conducting war rather than using military might to destroy the opponent’s society, which could lead to nuclear war in the current era. This modern method is far more complex and covert, and requires years of preparation and infiltration that we, as a country, have enabled since the 1990s. To mitigate such actions by the PRC, the United States, including the DoW, need to genuinely factor in all stakeholders, including the general public, with greater synchronization between the DoW and other government agencies at federal, state, tribal, and local levels.

The DoW is preparing its forces for LSCO using exercises such as Balikatan in the Philippines and Northern Strike in the United States to better integrate our forces into more effective combat assets in a joint effort. However, these are training scenarios with forces fully deployed and do not factor in the effects of unrestricted warfare leading up to LSCO. What happens if personnel cannot mobilize because the main routes are clogged with vehicles trapped after attacks? What happens if logistical assets cannot be contacted because the civilian networks are down? We still behave as if the homeland will be largely immune from any PRC attack. Apart from cyber threats, little attention is given to other activities such as political violence induced to disrupt local services or arson of grass and woodlands near bases or attacks on the civilian transportation infrastructure. Even if there are plans and discussions behind closed doors, it seems insufficient as individual units need to prepare and train on the possibility that the war may start with just trying to get to mobilization.

Total national war’s unrestricted warfare concept’s impact on mobilization and military readiness for LSCO can be minimized if service personnel are trained to prepare for these concepts and eventualities. Units and bases must reach out to local authorities and communities to plan alternate supply routes; alternate landing sites for aircraft; and additional prepositioned caches of fuel, food, and radios, possibly stored on nonmilitary government properties to help with mobilization. This is already done in a smaller, more focused way, with antiterrorism programs in which coordination with local emergency services occurs between civilian and military organizations. Other considerations are having units possess alternate analog means of communication, physical copies of emergency plans, and stored physical maps with planned alternate routes in coordination with local authorities, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and others.

We have learned many lessons from previous wars as well as the current war in Ukraine. However, the institutional perspective of the United States is still to separate the homeland from the battlefield. The PRC, in observing our society through economic entanglement, has identified weaknesses outside traditional military targets of bases, ports, and combat personnel. The DoW must continue to learn and understand the PLA across its domains of DOTMLPF-P, but it still must broaden its horizons to understand that the PRC sees the domains of war are to be waged against the United States across its whole of society.

---

Notes

1. Department of Defense (DOD), Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (DOD, 2025), 11–13, https://media.defense.gov/2025/Dec/23/2003849070/-1/-1/1/ANNUAL-REPORT-TO-CONGRESS-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2025.PDF.
2. Fei-Ling Wang, The China Order: Centralia, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power (SUNY Press, 2017), 207–14.
3. Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China (W. W. Norton, 1961; repr., Martino Publishing, 2014), 377–84.
4. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (Random House, 1994), 70–71, 182–86.
5. Jinghan Zeng, The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy, and Party Cohesion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 18–23, 43–48.
6. Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (HarperCollins, 2012), 36–47.
7. Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (Scribner, 2022), 177–81.
8. Heidi E. Crebo-Rediker and Mahnaz Khan, Leapfrogging China’s Critical Minerals Dominance: How Innovation Can Secure U.S. Supply Chains, Council Special Report No. 101 (Council on Foreign Relations, February 2026), 3, https://assets.cfr.org/images/CFR_CSR101_CriticalMinerals_Full_2026-02-12/CFR_CSR101_CriticalMinerals_Full_2026-02-12.pdf.
9. Jonathan Pelson, Wireless Wars: China’s Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We’re Fighting Back (BenBella, 2021), 130–48.
10. Secure Equipment Act of 2021, Pub. L. No. 117-55, 135 Stat. 423, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3919.
11. Wang, The China Order, 167–76.
12. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare (Echo Point Books & Media, 1999), 153–71.
13. Zeng, The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule, 143–51.
14. Zeng, The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule, 84–90.
15. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community (ODNI, 2025), 9–15, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2025-Unclassified-Report.pdf.
16. Ian M. Sullivan, “Three Dates, Three Windows, and All of DOTMLPF-P: How the People’s Liberation Army Poses an All-of-Army Challenge,” Military Review 104, no. 1 (January-February 2024): 15, 23.
17. Liang and Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, 5, 54, 97–98.
18. McGregor, The Party, 8–15.
19. US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States (US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 24 August 2018), 15–18, https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-overseas-united-front-work-background-and-implications-united-states.
20. “National Security Law of the People’s Republic of China,” China Law Translate, 1 July 2015, https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/2015nsl/#_Toc423592306.
21. Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (Columbia University Press, 2012), 131–36.
22. Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the State Council Information Office, “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era,” white paper (People’s Republic of China State Council, August 2022), archived 14 February 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260214110241/https://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zgyw/202208/t20220810_10740168.htm.
23. Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang, ”The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster,” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 4 (August 2005): 844–48, https://www3.nd.edu/~nmark/ChinaCourse/TheWeeks/Li_Yang_GLF_JPE.pdf.
24. Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 272–87, 290–91, 332.
25. Henrik Stålhane Hiim and Øystein Tunsjø, “The U.S.-China Stability-Instability Paradox: Limited War in East Asia,” International Security 50, no. 1 (Summer 2025): 156–61, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC.a.8.
26. “PRC National Intelligence Law (as amended in 2018),” China Law Translate, 27 June 2017, https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/national-intelligence-law-of-the-p-r-c-2017/.
27. Susan V. Lawrence and Mari Y. Lee, China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress, CRS Report No. R46977 (Congressional Research Service, 24 November 2021), 16–19, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46977.
28. Red Alert: Countering the Cyberthreat from China, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, 118th Cong., 2nd sess. (15 May 2024) (statement of William R. Evanina, CEO, Evanina Group), https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/LC72715/text.
29. “Secure Cyberspace and Critical Infrastructure,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS), updated 28 July 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/archive/secure-cyberspace-and-critical-infrastructure.
30. Piers M. Wood and Charles D. Ferguson, “How China Might Invade Taiwan,” Naval War College Review 54, no. 4 (Autumn 2001): 11, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol54/iss4/5/.
31. “California Fire Season in Depth Guide,” Western Fire Chiefs Association, updated 22 January 2025, https://wfca.com/wildfire-articles/california-fire-season-in-depth-guide/.
32. David R. Strachan, “An Unclear Present Danger: The Future of Mine Warfare Is Deception,” Maritime Reporter and Engineering News, July 2025, https://www.maritimemagazines.com/maritime-reporter/202507/an-unclear-present-danger/.
33. Tamás Matura, Sino-Russian Convergence in Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference: A Global Threat to the US and Its Allies (Center for European Policy Analysis, 30 June 2025), https://cepa.org/comprehensive-reports/sino-russian-convergence-in-foreign-information-manipulation-and-interference/.
34. Department of Transportation (DOT), Supply Chain Assessment of the Transportation Industrial Base: Freight and Logistics (DOT, February 2022), 17–22, 34–37, https://www.transportation.gov/supplychains/EO14017/fullreport.
35. DHS, “Personal Safety and Security: Swatting” (DHS, April 2025), https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-04/25_0325_fps_swatting.pdf.
36. Admin, “The Rise of Deepfake-Driven Whaling Attacks in 2025,” Facia, 16 May 2025, https://facia.ai/blog/the-rise-of-deepfake-driven-whaling-attacks-in-2025/.
37. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), “Cyber Risks to 911: Telephony Denial of Service” (CISA, February 2023), https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/Cyber%20Risks%20to%20911%20TDoS_6.4.2020%20-%20%28508c%29_1.pdf.
38. US Secret Service, “U.S. Secret Service Dismantles Imminent Telecommunications Threat in New York Tristate Area,” news release, 23 September 2025, https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2025/09/us-secret-service-dismantles-imminent-telecommunications-threat-new-york.
39. Tobias Castagna et al., Technical Security Analysis Mobile App “TikTok,” NTC-20230223-1-en (National Test Institute for Cybersecurity, 18 April 2023), https://www.ntc.swiss/hubfs/NTC-security-analysis-tiktok-v1.0-en.pdf.
40. New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell, China-Linked Cyber Operations Targeting US Critical Infrastructure (Cyber Threat Outreach and Partnerships Bureau, May 2025), 8–11, https://www.cyber.nj.gov/threat-landscape/nation-state-threat-analysis-reports/china-linked-cyber-operations-targeting-us-critical-infrastructure.
41. John Rossomando, “U.S. Cities, Military Bases Vulnerable to Enemy Cruise Missile Attack,” The Buzz (blog), National Interest, 27 February 2021, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-cities-military-bases-vulnerable-enemy-cruise-missile-attack-178983.

 

 

 

Back to Top

July-August 2026