The One Is Indivisible
The Truth Is The Whole
Background:
I wrote here that The CCP is throwing a snit fit over having been forced by POTUS Trump, through trade agreement, to abandon fleecing Americans. Dynamics we see today follow upon that snit fit but also precede it, as discussed in the following.
Caveat:
Most of what follows is posited. It is written as if all is fact because that is the most direct way of expressing the posits. The reader is on notice to treat most of what follows as posited, to discern for themselves whether some or all of the posits also are factual, and to discriminate for themselves between what in that which follows is posited and what is patented fact.
ChiCom AI, groomed to commend ChiCom lines of march which align with traditional Chinese as well as modern ChiCom hegemonic geo-strategic ambitions and war-fighting predilections, offered The CCP bioweapon attack as long-range artillery fires, bombardment, preliminary to a total-force, blind-side strike to conjure confusion, indecision, and fear in The USA, thus incapacitating Americans’ ability to self-defend.
Red China’s paramount geo-strategic problem is a multi-nation envelopment. She is mewed up by multi-domain force latent more than patent but mewed up nonetheless. Her Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — aka One Belt, One Road — is Red China’s attack against powers enveloping her, to cut a way out, to break out of her encirclement.
Red China herself does not see her encirclement as such. She sees her situation — even militarily, even in geo-strategic terms-of-art — as temporary consequence of being de-centralized by illegitimate powers, the which she can and must throw down so as to re-centralize herself as world-center sole authority and ruler of history.
“We’ve approached the center of the world stage like never before, but we still don’t have full grasp of the microphone in our hands,” said Hua Chunying, the foreign ministry’s chief spokeswoman. “We must assert our right to speak.”
It is observed here, but not exposited upon, that military and geopolitical thought characteristic of either Latin or Greek culture — thrusting and slashing, or, thumping, respectively — cleaves closer to reality, observes developments more accurately, than does that of classical or modern (Red) China. Von Clausewitz, Napoleon, and B. H. Liddell Hart are better guides in war and geopolitics than are Sun Tzu, Zhou Enlai, and Peng Dehuai. Then, of course, there are the Great Captains Mac Arthur and Lee.
China is indeed encircled, enveloped as in classic Roman-German conceptuality, and her geo-strategic problem is, how to cut their way out of that actual restraint and potential immuration. China is not the dethroned God of History on His way home to history’s central habitation. The stupidity of that thinking, informing as it does both Chinese and Red Chinese military, strategic, and geopolitical activity, is the ChiCom nemesis. Greek tragic theatricals observed the irony of pride occasioning its own destruction.
BRI is praised by The CCP’s fellow Globalists as a brilliant economic surge signaling a new order of geo-political power and power relationships. By the latter is meant an avaricious fantasy UN and NGO minions worship with the phrase Global Governance. However, BRI is an all-of-government, multi-domain attack against the sovereign national freedom of every nation except the Chinese Communist one. Globalists’ love for The CCP is a moth’s love for fire.
BRI exhibits the traditional Chinese war-fighting predilection for entrapment, netting, poisoning, slavery, and ruling, in preference to thrusting, slashing, pacifying, and governance. Provide finance and engineering to national and sub-national authorities who can afford neither, and when they default, declare ownership of the authority. Alternatively, provide executives of national and sub-national authorities considerations in exchange for quartering and contracts and expose them to scrutiny if they threaten to become not-forthcoming, argumentative, or otherwise difficult.
Swarm warfare, a central feature of ChiCom war-fighting doctrine, also expresses classical Chinese war-fighting predilection for entrapment, netting, instead of thrusting, pin-point accuracy, which is typical of Roman-German battle doctrine permeating armed forces engendered by The Latin Church. (Battle doctrine of armed forces engendered by The Greek Church favor pummeling over thrusting and slashing.)
To be expected now, following Red China’s battle-opening bombardment by bioweapon, is a swarm attack at USA hard assets with the purpose of removing USA ability to self-protect by causing intellectual paralysis consequent upon a conjuring of confusion. A moment between now and the USA national elections in November 2020 would be optimal for success in that endeavor.
ChiCom AI — again, groomed to commend ChiCom lines of march which align with traditional Chinese as well as modern ChiCom hegemonic geo-strategic ambitions and war-fighting predilections — commended the aforementioned scenario to The CCP and their General Staff at the same time it commended the preliminary, confusion cum panic-conjuring, artillery barrage by bioweapon.
The optimal time to strike would be before recovery from the barrage could be completed and during a phase of distraction from self-defense essentials, requirements, and capabilities. A few months before an artificially induced national hysteria facing inexorable national elections would serve the purpose.
AI would get that right. So where would the swarm land? At Guam as primary target and Palau and its island state Peleliu as secondary target.
It would be easy to think the swarm should land on Taiwan. However, ChiCom AI is not commending that march-out of the actual, if less than patent, encirclement of Red China. Taiwan is a choice too obvious to be profitable in geo-position or propaganda.
Attacking Taiwan would be a frontal attack against a heavily fortified position, not impregnable but capable of inflicting heavy cost on an attacker assaulting frontally. Taiwan is a flanking problem, not a main-force strategic objective.
Neither Mac Arthur nor Nimitz desired to invest in capturing Taiwan, and rightly so. Neither did. Taiwan is too small to be a major problem for Red China and too large to be a negligible factor in her flank and rear. In addition, her coastline and interior pose significant problems for amphibious and follow-on assault. Thus, Taiwan is not a significant target for the purpose of waking America to a life of confusion and conquest by Red China. Note that, for all their decades of bluster, The CCP is not governing from Taipei. That fact has a geographic ground more extensive than a political one.
Mac Arthur and Nimitz were right: Formosa is not worth the cost of capturing by direct invasion. Taiwan is perhaps the world’s arable land least worth the cost of subjugating and therefore relatively, although not absolutely, impregnable.
Moreover, at this time, assault on Taiwan would be a strategically attenuated movement — similar to Mac Arthur’s having moved on Daejeon instead of Inchon — measured against ChiCom hegemonic geo-political ambitions, and insufficiently satisfying to Chinese war-fighting predilections, which run to entrapment, nets, and slavery, as in fishing.
Taiwan would be an indirect poke at USA, not a Chinese way of war. Swarming on Guam, Palau, and Peleliu would be a direct net over USA’s head, classical Chinese battle MO. In addition, that line of march-out from China’s encirclement would push westward the pivot of the ChiCom line of battle deep into the Central Pacific Ocean, into position to defend/offend both north and south. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force would be bottled up at Hawaii, Japan and South Korea, at least theoretically, and paralyzed more each day indecision cultivated by confusion reigned in Washington D.C.
The Pacific Ocean is a logistician’s happiness or grief, opportunity or impossibility, depending on their attitude contemplating Her.
ChiCom AI told The CCP this months if not years ago.
Suppressed shreds of reporting that Kim Jong Un is critical in an ICU argue that he is dead, victim of ChiCom poison, presumably, for becoming friendly with POTUS Trump. (Related.) Several days ago brief report had Kim’s sister in charge in Pyongyang. PLA/N is moving to occupy North Korea under guise of protecting her nuclear weapons. This is a flanking movement supporting the swarm attack westward against Guam, Palau, and Peleliu.
All the more reason to enact Three Brothers Doctrine and Pacific Pathways and to emplace full-spectrum, multi-domain assets on the flanks of Chinese lines of march north, east, southeast and south. Pacific Pathways is both access to and line of battle astride the flanks of the ChiCom lines of march westward and to other points of the compass.
The game is afoot. Following her softening-up barrage, by bioweapon, against The USA, Red China is coming to Guam, Palau, and Peleliu. Next stops: Wake, Midway, Hawaii, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The latter two, their AI assures, are a walk-over as far as local authorities are concerned and so long as federal assets are paralyzed by ideological/political division and indecision in the elephant walk of crooks that is Washington D.C.
Finally, what in these conditions are Red China’s decision points?
Strategically, Red China’s decision points are in her Chinese past, in her self-image as the unfairly deposed and gloriously restoring world-ruler. In this respect, Red China is like Asharite Islam and Mormonism: a notorious gang of a-historical visionaries. Everything goes to concretize the vision, all the time, what ever.
Tactically, Red China’s decision points are trade agreements. Because she is not supposed to get bested and because she has been bested — in her mind, but actually just made to play fair with The USA and, potentially, with other nations — Red China’s deepest impulses and well-groomed AI outputs congrue: make the bastards pay and that right thoroughly, right now, and forevermore.
Roman-German war-fighting concepts take The CCPs activities in the South China Sea (SCS) as salients of a reconnaissance in force pushed ahead of a line of battle, in this case the Asian littoral.
The CCP, following traditional Chinese war-fighting concepts, understand their activities in the SCS as weaving intersections, junctions, of the threads of a forces-control force-organizing net. The net in this case comprises multi-domain and multi-dimensional forces. It purpose is to subdue, control, and absorb forces not its own which can be found in its area of operations (AO).
Her new island properties are not Red China’s outposts. They are her meeting-points of defensive/offensive assets, points at which threads of multi-domain/multi-dimension forces knot to form tie-points of a force-capturing net. Wander into the net’s AO and be subjected to force superior because it is omni-directional. Then be eaten.
Think of a butterfly caught in a butterfly net. Only in this case, the net absorbs the butterfly, using its energy to grow and strengthen the net. Think of a spider devouring an insect caught in its web then spinning that insects’ vitals out into more web for the spider’s benefit.
China is doing that in the SCS and other waters.
This also is the conceptuality of BRI and Huawei’s 5G. While they looks like roads, rails, cables, pipes, and such, hosting items moving linearly and bi-directionally, simple transportation arterials, their strategic significance and value, derived by The CCP from classic Chinese war-fighting thought, is force absorption and redirection (item switching) at the network nodes where lines of movement (force) intersect.
Mombasa becomes China. Djibouti becomes China. Ecuador becomes China. Nicaragua becomes China. Los Angeles becomes China.
A net’s strength is the points at which its threads intersect and knot, not the threads themselves. The threads of a net are dumb transmission corridors for some force or other. The intersections of the threads of a net however, each one of them (!), are decision points allowing forced surveillance and redirection (switching) of forces arriving thereat.
China’s island formation, BRI, and Huawei’s 5G are war-fighting, not civilian, modes of thought, capabilities, and geo-strategic assets. Weapons, not business tools. Their purpose, in CCP thinking, is netting operations, stealing and digesting others’ vitalities, the signature Chinese war-fighting kinetics. Red Chinese institutions are intersections, routing/switching facilities, of forces-control networks. Think theft. Think spider. Or, in their cultural memory, dragon.
Two conversations follow, both comprising comments at a post by Glenn Reynolds to his blog Instapundit. These conversations further illumine doubts regarding Red China’s geo-strategic conditions and intentions with respect to The Pacific Ocean and The USA.
First Conversation
David R. Graham
Swarm, Guam, before November 2020.
Unknownsailor to David R. Graham
They’d have to reduce US forces on Okinawa, first, and neutralize the rest of 7th Fleet before they even get close to Guam.
Taiwan is what I think they want to do, but they still don’t have the sea lift to do it, and what navy they do have is mostly just pretty hardware that I don’t believe is well maintained, or near as effective as they like to tell the world it is. Hardware is just a target without trained crews to run it, and China is still the third world low trust society it has always been.
David R. Graham to Unknownsailor
Your first paragraph relies on primitive strategic doctrine. Main battle forces are rendered impotent by maneuvering around them to an objective in their rear: in this case Guam.
Your second paragraph relies on assessment of ChiCom military doctrine as Roman-German-like: thrust at a weak point with well-trained multi-domain force. ChiCom military doctrine is Chinese-like: swarm and entrap an enemy to gain morale elevation over them. Again, heads up, Guam. (Napoleon: The moral is to the material as three is to one.)
There is no strategic or propaganda value in storming Taiwan at this time. Instead, and in pursuit of their hegemonic geo-strategic ambitions, confirmed by their well-groomed AI outputs, The CCP has conducted a bioweapon barrage to soften up USA — aka destroy morale, ability to self-defend — in preparation for a main attack east of — i.e., in the rear of, and athwart their comms — US Far West Pacific assets. Also, they will move into North Korea soon — to protect the nukes they will call it — as flank-protecting to neutralize South Korea, Japan, and Russia as well as USA’s Far West Pacific assets. They intend to establish a line of battle on a north-south axis facing Hawaii and with its pivot at Guam, Palau, and Peleliu. Battle with the U.S. Navy would be defensive only, if at all, not offensive, ChiComs calculate. No need to rattle the buggers directly.
Their thinking is flawed, and their ambitions are unattainable, but that is another matter altogether. I believe my construction of their thinking is accurate, at least in main, and also that its predictive value is high.
Michel Maiorana David R. Graham
The problem with the Guam scenario is three US bases and the fact Guam is a US territory. The people are US citizens.
David R. Graham Michel Maiorana
Indeed, and that is what makes it a worthwhile/desirable strategic target. And recall, Chinese military doctrine eschews thrust and slash in favor of entrap and enslave, nets instead of bullets. Guam, Palau, and Peleliu are ideal targets for swarm (net) attacks.
Michel Maiorana to David R. Graham
Attacking Guam would be a horrible blunder. Even the leftists would have to respond to a direct attack on American territory and military. It would also involve Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. While most wouldn’t respond France and England would since they have interests in the pacific. Plus it would bring in Australia and probably New Zealand. Vietnam and the Philippines would join in to take out the artificial islands that threaten them. And Voila WW III. Tactically I agree with you. However strategically it would be a bad move. Lastly it is an unwritten law you never directly attack a major nuclear power. Especially one that has used them before. Maybe if Joe wins in November but not if Trump wins.
David R. Graham to Michel Maiorana
Point taken. However, there is a discrepancy in the axis of your assessment:
1- even Lefties would have to respond to an attack on US property;
2- if Biden were POTUS, he might not respond to an attack on Guam, which is US property.
I think CCP takes your points and assesses them as less compelling than the opportunity to create confusion in USA prior to this year’s election, thus ensuring, they think, Biden or another POTUS unwilling to respond to a swarm on Guam, Palau, and Peleliu. They know they have lost the virus PR war, disregard any law that suits not their purpose of the moment, need a domestic nationalism-builder, are exploring for oil in everyone else’s SCS waters, etc.
They do not think of themselves as we think of ourselves. They are the unjustly deposed and only legitimate world-ruler restoring themselves to glorious universal and absolute authority, to include replacing foreign populations with their own, however they wish to do that, not a nation state working her own sovereign national freedom among other nation states who enjoy the same status, which is how we think of ourselves.
Moslems think of themselves as Chinese think of themselves in this regard. One reason for the millions-men reeducation camps in CCP’s west: who’s got the means to be the top dog, Moslem minions?
Second Conversation
David R. Graham
Most commenters here who considered possible ChiCom targets pick Taiwan. I think that is too obvious, strategically attenuated measured against ChiCom hegemonic geo-political ambitions, and insufficiently satisfying to Chinese war-fighting predilections, which run to entrapment, nets, as in fishing. Taiwan would be an indirect poke at USA, not a Chinese way of war. Guam would be a direct net over USA’s head, classical Chinese battle MO.
Onsecalme David R. Graham
Taiwan may not be the end goal for them, but it’s a hell of a first step
David R. Graham Onsecalme
Yes, a hell of a first step, with zero strategic or propaganda importance. Which is why they will not do it. They will move into North Korea to protect the nukes, but that is only a flanking move, to neutralize South Korea, Japan, and Russia. The main swarm, the force majeure, goes west to establish a line of battle on a north-south axis facing Hawaii and with its pivot at Guam, Palau, and Peleliu.
Onsecalme David R. Graham
I disagree with your analysis. First, there is plenty of strategic and propaganda importance to taking Taiwan. This would signal very clearly both internally and externally China’s ascendance, and would serve to convince doubters that China is really destined to be the preeminent world power. This in itself is persuasion to accept China’s other moves yet to come, so serves the same purpose as other propaganda – to prepare the battlespace for other large conflicts, and to neutralize resistance on the international scale.
Second, of all the expansionist moves you list, only reclaiming Taiwan is defensible along the lines of it was ours anyway. Moving on other countries, universally recognized as independent and sovereign, would be dangerous without the first (Taiwan) step having been completed first. Once Taiwan is taken, and China’s strength and military prowess have been established on the world stage in that legitimate taking, other countries and world opinion in general are less likely to oppose later moves. This is similar to Nazi Germany starting with the Sudetenland and the like, and only later moving to Poland. They’ll move on the most plausible and defensible claim first, then subsequently move on from a position of strength to the less reasonable claims using the momentum they already have from prior victories. This is why Taiwan remains very much on the table, even though it’s hardly a major geostrategic goal in and of itself as you point out.
Lastly, they will do as much as they can through threats and shifting of world opinion through Finlandization of neighbors and the like, and similar persuasion on more distant enemies and bystanders. Once it becomes a shooting war, their advantage and leverage is hugely diminished. So I simply don’t see a line of battle in geographical terms as you do. If they can’t win through geopolitical coercion punctuated by occasional sharp conflicts (that they win, of course), I don’t think they can win at all. Their dominance would have to emerge from beating us in our own minds rather than in a protracted physical war.
Of course, our Democrat and MSM friends may well lose this war of the spirit for us too, through their feckless anti-Americanism, just as they gave away South VietNam in the past.
David R. Graham Onsecalme
Thoughtful points, all, not inconsiderable, not untrue. Yet, I think, on balance not where the situation is. Two reasons, one you already mention:
1- Their dominance would have to emerge from beating us in our own minds rather than in a protracted physical war. That is the purpose of this softening-up artillery barrage, via bioweapon, meant to confuse, conflict, and demoralize Americans and others sufficiently to render them unable to self-defend. Liddell-Hart put it this way: The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.
2- Geopolitical dynamics are fleeting, as the foregoing point demonstrates, but geographical dynamics are permanent. Therefore, all military planning worthy of the name rests in geographical facts and specifics first and geopolitical ones second or later even. Old military principle: assume your enemy will do what he should do to beat you, and know what that is.
Ergo: China is going to Guam, bypassing Formosa as Mac Arthur and Nimitz did and for the same reasons.
Caveat:
Most of the foregoing is posited. It is written as if all is fact because that is the most direct way of expressing the posits. The reader is on notice to treat most of what foregoes as posited, to discern for themselves whether some or all of the posits also are factual, and to discriminate for themselves between what in that which foregoes is posited and what is patented fact.
Dake Kang: China’s diplomats show teeth in defending virus response
China Watch at Adwaitha Hermitage
Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks
Land War In China And Against China Is A Rational Problem Set
Gail Heriot: Remembering The Chinese Revolution’s Red August, building on this.
Maajid Nawaz: Is China Preparing For War?
The Chinese Communist Regime is on the Brink of ‘Disintegration,’ Says Leading China Expert
Daniel Greenfield: The Future Does Not Belong to China
Catherine Smith: Trump Proposes 21% Cut in U.S. Foreign Aid in 2021 Budget Proposal
William L. Gensert: China Is Preparing to Start a War with America
J Michael Waller: Pompeo’s warning to governors put White House anti-CCP position in context
David Axe: The U.S. Military Doesn’t Think China Is Capable Of Taking Taiwan By Force
PACOM: China Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Tests a Signal to US, World
What China’s Defence Paper Tells Us About Beijing’s Regional Ambition
Spengler: We Need Our Mojo Back Vis-à-Vis China
‘No safe harbors’: China plots to block US military from key ports, Pentagon warns
Austin Bay: The COVID-19 Debacle Previews the Chinese Communist Party’s Imperial World Order
Austin Bay: Beijing Exploits Pandemic to Probe the South China Sea
Gingrich says he was wrong on China trade, now time to demand virus reparations
Austin Bay: Chinese Communist Party Snared in a Multidimensional War
A Foreign Policy Establishment minion who comes clean about being wrong on something. Remarkable and commendable. Unlike Ralph Peters and Michael Walsh, self-promoters who resent POTUS Trump’s not kissing their ring.
Major General Wang Haiyun: I advocate putting Wutong Taiwan on the agenda as soon as possible
David R. Graham (On Kim Jong Un)
My 2c: He has genetic weakness or has experienced pulmonary paralysis before (polio?), or has been gradually poisoned by sister, distressed CCP by making friends with PDJT, poisoned by CCP and/or sister for doing that, sister currently in charge, CCP sent in cleaners, PLA/N to occupy Nork “to protect the nukes,” a flanking movement to block ROK, Japan, and Russia while CCP masses swarm attack on Guam, Palau, and Peleliu, bottling up US forces in Pacific west of Hawaii, and threatening Wake and Midway, which are next on the menu. Well, maybe my 4c.
Brutalus to David R. Graham
Will the Chinese risk nuclear war for these American properties?
David R. Graham to Brutalus
Yes, they have to. The necessity is in their self-image, demographics, and geography even more than in the geo-politics.
God is present in everyone. He resides in every heart. So do not confine God to a temple, a mosque or a church. Where a human being is, there God is. God takes the form of a human (Daivam manusha rupena). As you forget and do not realise this important fact, you indulge in criticism of others. Whom are you criticising? Whom do you adore? Enquire for yourself. God is present in all. If you criticize others, you criticize God. Whoever you salute, it reaches God (Sarva jeeva namaskaram Keshavam prati gacchati) and whoever you insult or ridicule, it also reaches God! (Sarva jeeva tiraskaram Keshavam prati gacchati). Right from this moment, embark on a new life, giving up bad thoughts and evil qualities. Purify your heart. Love all, have faith that God is present in all. Fill your heart with pure love. Let your thoughts, words and deeds be sacred. Only then will your life be blissful.
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