The Evolution of Operational Art. From Napoleon to the Present

Moreover, according to leading strategists at the People’s Liberation Army’s
(PLA) Academy of Military Sciences—China’s most important military research
institution—the country is home to an extensive array of ancient writings on
strategy reportedly numbering in the thousands. 4 There are also a good number
of novels and histories that contain considerable discussion of warfare and
strategy and these are widely read by many Chinese to learn more about the
military art. These include two novels dating from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644):
Romance of the Three KingdomsandThe Water Margin(also calledOutlaws of the
MarshesandAll Men Are Brothers). Mao Zedong (also transliterated as Mao Tse-
tung), Chinese Communist leader and strategist, for example, remarked that in his
youth he read and enjoyed famous works of Chinese literature, including these two
novels. These books in particular, with tales of resourceful rebels and heroic
generals, clearly influenced the evolution of military thinking, among not only
the founding generation of Communist leaders, but subsequent ones as well. 5
Those who insist upon the uniqueness of Chinese strategy point to certain
putative cultural proclivities, such as a preference for harmony and peace over
discord and conflict and an aversion to the use of force. Typically, these tendencies
are attributed to the pervasive influence of Confucianism. 6 Despite this purported
pacifist core in China’s strategic tradition, this has not made the Chinese any less
likely than any other ethnic group to wage wars or fight battles. According to
statistics cited in an authoritative volume on strategy published by the PLA’s most
important research institute on military thought, China has witnessed ‘more than
6,000 battles in 4,000 plus years since 26th Century B.C....to the end of the Qing
dynasty (1644–1911). This figure was more than one-third of the total numbers of
battles that had happened around the world during the same period’. 7
Others contend that Chinese strategy and warfare are strongly predisposed to
the use of deception and stratagem. In fact, two analysts have dubbed the Chinese
approach as ‘strategy by stratagem’. 8 These tendencies are often associated with
Sun Zi but can also be found in other writings, including tales about the legendary
Chinese strategist Zhuge Liang (see below). Despite Sun Zi’s widely cited prefer-
ence for ‘subduing the enemy without fighting’ (The Art of War, chapter 3), this
seems to be an ideal for which to strive rather than a realistic option for most
military commanders. This point is underscored by the vast amount of advice in
tomes on strategy, includingThe Art of Waritself, on ‘how to win by fighting’. 9
The rest of this chapter will be divided into three parts. The first part will
discuss the asymmetric dimension of Chinese military doctrine in the contempo-
rary era. The second part will examine five widely assumed hallmarks of China’s
operational art. The third part will attempt to draw some tentative conclusions
from the analysis and discussion.

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE: WEAPONS OF THE WEAK

Some contemporary observers in the United States and elsewhere write as if the

Chinese invented asymmetric warfare and that somehow this was the unique

product of the ‘inscrutable’ Oriental mind. 10 What these observers tend to

196 The Evolution of Operational Art