The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the official views or policies of the U.S. Government or any of its agencies.
One of the reasons that the United States and its allies have had difficulty mobilizing resources against China's hybrid warfare activities is that they often do not align with our definition of war. Our institutions are designed to manage state capabilities through the familiar DIME (Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic) framework, not against hybrid threats. The result is a growing mismatch between how we think about these challenges and vulnerabilities.
In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commissioned the "Political Work Guidelines of the People's Liberation Army," wherein they expressed their intent to wage "three warfares" (psychological, media, and legal) and outlined their intent to undermine global norms via "war by other means." In addition to the three warfares, China quietly expanded its economic spheres of influence and now leverages their capabilities for economic warfare. Over the past twenty years they have earned market share in varying domains of power through coordinated activities. Approaching them in silos is ineffective.
To simplify, these four domains have been grouped into two categories: (1) cultural domains (psychological and media), and (2) institutional domains (legal and economic). Activities in cultural domains attack beliefs, whereas activities in institutional domains attack rules of order.
China approaches hybrid warfare using a historic lens. A whole of society approach to deception, disinformation, and irregular warfare has a place in their strategic tradition; whereas seeing war as "an act of violence to compel our enemy to fulfill our will," shapes traditions in the West. Our defence apparatus is designed to fight wars with guns, tanks, planes, and ships, not with economic spheres of influence.
Despite damages that could be attributed to irregular warfare, there are often no direct casualties or destruction of property. As a result, China faces little or no consequences for what they have defined as psychological and media warfare. There is mounting evidence that China works with Russia and other adversaries to sow division between Americans and disrupt our social order. Currently there is an insufficient force dedicated to challenge the narratives that infiltrate our national discussions at the behest of our adversaries.
Institutions that offer free market benefits to the 'rest of world' have been undermined using legal and economic instruments. American defense capabilities are underprepared to defend against CCP legal and economic warfare. Pentagon attorneys have had difficulty challenging Chinese actions, such as land reclamation projects creating new islands which are used to house airfields, submarine docks, troops, and more in the Pacific. China Shipping did not adopt required environmental regulations at the Port of Los Angeles in 2002, putting the City of Los Angeles at the center of a 20 year legal battle, but still holds the lease until 2039.
China began their path to increase cultural and institutional power in the late 1990s and reinforced it with contracts. Through acquisitions of ports, mines, and critical infrastructure, China quietly made inroads into the global economy and now exerts unparalleled influence over global supply chains.
The CCP and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) have units designed to wage psychological and media warfare. Base 311 of the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) has specialized in propaganda and psychological warfare against Taiwan since 2005. The aggressive use of media to create confusion and tamper opposition has been widely used, recently to discredit the COVID-19 intelligence and elections in Taiwan. Australia and New Zealand have also been the targets of political influence, carried out by the United Front Work Department (UFWD).
After its entry into the WTO in 2001, China has used the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its predecessors, to acquire and control a number of supply chain choke points throughout The Americas and Europe. Additionally, Chinese courts have issued orders regarding foreign patent holders preventing them from litigating Chinese companies infringing on intellectual property. The CCP engages in legal warfare by changing domestic laws and pushing international laws to extend influence.
Although the Department of Defense (DoD) has undergone countless changes to better combat terrorism, it has come at the expense of preparing for a near peer conflict. Prior to COVID-19, the U.S. government had behaved as if it were blind to rising threats of Chinese mercantilism. As the US focused on the Middle East, China and Russia were quietly coming together, often unchallenged. Between 2001 and 2017, China gave over $250 million in aid to Afghanistan, cultivated a relationship with the Taliban, blamed the U.S. for causing instability, and stepped into the power vacuum.
How do we fight back? Preparing for near peer war is one of our greatest deterrents; however, our other greatest deterrent is our economic potential. Our adversaries have worked to create a tenuous environment and disrupt historic economic alliances.
We cannot control what we cannot measure. We need measures to know we are making progress and to inform the public of those measures, encouraging them to get on board. Educating the public on the dangers and actions being taken against them, with actionable steps to fight back would be a great place to start, but we need better data to make our case.
In government and defense, there have been recent efforts to fight back. However, these efforts need to be a whole of government approach and fought with the tenacity that we fight our wars with. We need empowered offices dedicated to defending against cultural and institutional attacks as the four warfares are the front lines of an irregular battlefield at the moment.
We have seen China act aggressively with their economy: coercive trade policies, industrial espionage, and more. We know China has gained control over dozens of container ports, and we believe them to be making the ports dual-purpose for their military, but more research needs to get into the hands of decision makers.
Each of the four warfares deserves its own empirical analysis followed by an aggregate study on how they complement one another as a part of a broader campaign. This article has been developed as a retrospective to inform those that are unaware, and to act as a call to action for better measures of success and failure among those that are aware.