Early Warning

摘要

How reminiscent is this of the contemptuous disregard with which US military thinkers contemplated Japan in the 1930s and until 1942? The PRC is not building its new "conventional" or "traditional" forces (to include nuclear) to fight wars, although their warfighting capability is key to their credibility. No: the PRC is building them to dominate a world not engaged in hot war. "Grand strategy" weapons to dominate the peace are in some ways different from weapons which are decisive in actual theater combat. And, as the US involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars demonstrated, the use of "grand strategy weapons" in tactical engagements is expensive, both in monetary terms and in the loss of prestige implied because the great power has been forced to employ symbolic weapons to defeat grit at a theater level.