Expanding from "victory" to "victorious"
——Talk about the way to win by competition and cooperation in today's era
【Lecture Wutang】
The innovation of strategic thinking has always been the key to breaking the predicament and opening a new situation, and this often requires finding a breakthrough in the transformation of the times. As globalization enters a new stage of competition and cooperation, the diversification of the means of military games makes the strategic vision not only limited to winning a war with a single order, but also emphasizes the proactive promotion of the strategic posture in peacetime to add winning weight.
1. The view of winning by relying solely on wartime wins has become increasingly narrow
The historical experience handed down from the years of revolution and war is no better than the complete solution of the problem with the decisive battle. From the three major battles of the Liberation War to the five battles to resist US aggression and aid Korea, it is undoubtedly correct with historical experience. However, in the current era, facing There is no doubt that the historical conditions of great changes have limitations.
The high threshold of war has made the strategic conditions for accomplishing a single battle increasingly stringent.
The opening of war is never random, it is conditional.
The first is about strength, and the growth of strength takes time.
Secondly, war is about timing and constraints. Under the globalization environment, domestic and foreign political and economic factors have an increasingly greater impact on wars, and the constraints on large-scale wars have increased significantly. In particular, just wars emphasize policy and war windows. It's actually shrinking, and it's a last resort.
In the spring of 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a motion to restrict the president's power to initiate wars. This is the first time in the history of American wars. Even the United States, which believes that its military risks are low, needs to put a curse on wars. Be cautious.
War spoilers increase the risk of losing control of the war.
The so-called mantis hunts cicadas and oriole, wars between countries are mostly contests between big countries.
Under the conditions of informationization, external military intervention can quickly intervene and subvert the war.
Before the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam sent Kuwait with no intention of killing a U.S. army; in 1999, the Yugoslav Federation encircled and wiped out the Kosovo guerrillas, but did not want to be interfered by NATO.
Facts show that the powerful enemy’s “anti-rejection”, “forced entry” and “air-sea battle” are specifically designed to disrupt the situation at critical moments when other countries are fighting.
Especially at present, in the period of strategic competition when development opportunities are fleeting, wars are easily exploited by opponents, gang up and set up stumbling blocks, and thus lose strategic initiative or even overturn.
The once-and-for-all victory experience is no longer effective.
The long tail phenomenon of modern warfare is prominent, and it is easy to start and difficult to end.
While demonstrating high-tech and high-efficiency, information-based warfare also brings historical burdens that are violent, destructive, and left-over problems, thus weakening the traditional effect of a final battle based on a war.
Throughout the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, the United States went to war very quickly. It took a few billion dollars to win the war, but the stable reconstruction after the war cost trillions of dollars and turned into a war debt sheet.
It can be said that the burden of war is getting heavier and heavier, and the negative effects of war may drown out the achievements of military victory.
Facts show that the effect of the use of military force depends on the degree of relevance to the theme of the times.
The way of military game conforms to the times, it will get twice the result with half the effort; otherwise, it will get twice the result with half the effort.
Today, victory in war is still the cornerstone of invincibility, but it is the last resort.
Military victory cannot take care of everything. Therefore, it is not enough to consider victory alone. It is necessary to explore ways to win with low risk, low cost, low constraints, and small sequelae, and push victory from wartime to normal.
2. The real purpose of the strategy is to seek a favorable situation
Since ancient times, victory and victory have been two ways to win, and the distinction between primary and secondary differs from time to time.
The way to victory is more explicit, simpler, and easy to grasp, while winning by power is more hidden, more complicated, but more fundamental.
In the final analysis, winning by war is to win a favorable peace situation, not to win itself.
As Liddell Hart said: The real purpose of strategy is not so much to seek combat as it is to seek a favorable situation.
In today's era, the value of Shisheng is increasing as never before and needs to be explored vigorously.
The co-opetition relationship expands military relations and opens up a vast space for potential victory.
The prominence of victory during the Cold War was mainly due to the simplification of the relationship between the enemy and the enemy, and the military game mainly relied on the means of war. However, after the end of the Cold War, since the world entered economic globalization, the relationship between major powers is no longer a dualism of friend or enemy, but non-enemy or non-enemy. Friendship, enemy and friend, time enemy and time friend, this complexity and dynamics provide a stage for the operational situation.
During the period of strategic competition and cooperation, the national military posture has expanded from a single defensive posture to a comprehensive posture of military struggle, military competition, and military cooperation. The middle zone between peace and war has become a major stage for military competition. The Black Swan incident is a good opportunity to improve the situation. We make improvements every day and make changes in the strategic environment that are beneficial to me. It not only provides the most favorable conditions for the victory, but also can even be defeated without a fight.
Therefore, based on controlling the situation in a relatively peaceful environment and forming a favorable competition and cooperation situation, it is more effective to win.
Potential victory shows the way to victory in competition and cooperation.
Specifically, it is to expand the winning mechanism from surgical strikes to internalization and externalization.
In modern warfare, the pursuit of technological superiority is correct in terms of combat tactics, but there is the problem of addressing the symptoms rather than the root cause in strategy.
Analyzing the mechanism, the method of "victory" is like Western medicine, striving to destroy the opponent to gain absolute victory, but for tumors, surgical operations are incisive and also bring the spread of the virus. The greater the trauma, the faster the recurrence, and even multiple diseases.
Al-Qaida and the Taliban were disbanded by the US military and spread rapidly from Afghanistan to the world. They also mutated into a more wicked "Islamic State", which shows that the US military's "winning" is out of political and economic considerations, and the result is too much.
"Victory power" can avoid the disadvantages of "victory", just as Chinese medicine grasps the root cause of the disease and treats it according to the symptoms and signs to resolve conflict.
The way to victory in Sun Tzu's Art of War is the ideal state of victory. The so-called "The law of military use is the country first, and the country is second; the whole army is the first, and the army is second; the whole brigade is the first, and the brigade is second. "Here, "all" means to preserve, and "to break" means to defeat.
Therefore, Shisheng pays attention to the combination of internalizing its mind and externally controlling its behavior, strengthening its own internal cohesion and dividing the cohesion of its opponents, strengthening the external use of military operations, thereby regulating the opponent’s military behavior, specifically, political struggle. Military squeeze, diplomatic negotiations, public opinion guidance, and economic sanctions have comprehensively promoted the development of the strategic situation in a direction that is beneficial to us.
Therefore, Sun Tzu said that the higher realm of war is that those who are good at war seek the situation and do not blame others.
The basic point of Mao Zedong's "Protracted War" is to establish a united front for the resistance of the whole nation and the support of the whole world. This is the trend, and this trend is decisive. No matter how many battles the Japanese invaders can win locally, they will definitely lose.
Today, creating a winning situation is more decisive and more feasible than simply obtaining the advantage of military strikes.
In the past, the index for evaluating victory was to expose the number of annihilated enemies, but in the era of competition and cooperation, the number of annihilated enemies needs to be subject to the formation of a favorable situation.
For example, the continuous increase in the number of annihilation of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan does not mean victory. On the contrary, it shows that the more the enemy is fighting, the US military is caught in endless battles.
Because of this, the criteria for winning are first of all stronger initiative than the opponent, more favorable position and more vigorous popularity, as Sun Tzu said, "like a person who turns a cobblestone in a mountain of Qianren".
Shisheng pays attention to dismantling and venting its strength, venting the advantage of its opponents with the ingenuity of the "four-two-strike", creating conditions for victory; paying attention to small fights instead of big fights, pursuing non-invasive or minimally invasive treatments to avoid serious damage to the societies of the conflicting parties; more The important thing is to win "people and harmony."
The Iraq War is the most classic. The U.S. military’s rapid overthrow of Saddam was precisely the result of the cooperation of the Iraqi people’s non-resistance; however, the U.S. military relied on its hegemonism and met with resistance from the Iraqi people. This is "winning" but "losing" .
In ancient and modern times, in China and abroad, the "power" of war is hidden after the battle of war power and played a decisive role. The strong power is the strong power. In history, the law of defeating the strong by the weak is the strong power. People's war uses power, and potential energy is transformed into power to make the weak weak. The power of is immortal and consumes the power of the strong.
Conversely, if the potential loses, the strength is poor, and the potential has retreated and the strength is still forward, which will reverse the overall situation and turn from victory to defeat.
Historically, Napoleon and Hitler both fought in Moscow and thought they had achieved a decisive victory, but they both lost quickly and miserably. The vision of "victory" obscured the danger of "defeat".
Therefore, the strategic evaluation of winning requires not to pay attention to the gains and losses of one city and one place, but to pay attention to the general trend of winning deep into the social and psychological level.
3. From "preparing for the enemy" to "using power to transform the enemy"
The global outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020 has opened a historical window to reconstruct the strategic pattern.
The U.S. military in Syria was blocked by Russia and Iran, which were weak in overall strength. Economically, it launched a trade war to disrupt the economic order and took its own harm. It was not effective in fighting the epidemic and it broke its trust.
It can be said that the United States has lost one after another in succession. Although its military and scientific and technological capabilities are strong, its global hegemony has declined. The hastily withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is a strong signal.
As a result, the general trend of a decline in the "one super market" and a stronger "multi-strong" set the tone for the era of competition and cooperation, which provides an opportunity for potential victory.
The growth of military power does not directly improve the situation. The improvement of the situation depends on the effective use of power.
Therefore, it is necessary to open up a new route to victory: break through the victory framework of "preparing for war-proceeding to war", and create a winning framework of "gathering momentum-building momentum-seizing momentum".
The traditional route of victory emphasizes preparations for military struggles in peacetime, emphasizing "preparing for the enemy" and strengthening preparations for military struggles internally; while the route of victory is outward-looking, emphasizing "using power to transform the enemy" and focusing on going out and actively defusing the enemy. The threat of the threat reached "will not come without help."
The three-stage theory of "gathering momentum-building momentum-gaining momentum" is the essence of traditional Chinese strategy of winning power. It corresponds to the three realms from hiding one's capacity and biding time to making a difference, and then to setting the universe. The essence of keeping one's capacity and biding time is to build up momentum and make a difference. The essence is to build momentum, and the essence of Ding Qiankun is to seize the momentum and form a victory.
For this reason, the post-war strategy emphasized by the Chinese strategic tradition is not a passive response. It is not that the enemy takes one step first and then I deal with it one step later. It is a more forward-looking and larger pattern than the opponent.
Therefore, the main purpose of active defense is to build momentum for "invincible first", raise the military's external construction to maintain national security to a strategic height, and form a strategic chain of trial-forecasting-forging-forging-forging-forging power.
Taking advantage of the situation, accumulating small victories into a big victory, avoiding wars under unfavorable situations, and avoiding falling into the quagmire of wars, is the way to overcome the strong with the weak in the era of competition and cooperation.
The stronger the opponent is, the more we need to overcome the enemy's "victory" with our "victory".
The main idea is to prepare for wars and fight small battles, transform the ability to fight wars into diversified strategic effects, and release them externally.
Specifically, it is to apply the war capabilities of precision strikes, global maneuvers, intensive logistics, and all-dimensional protection to the diversified strategic functions of deterrence, contact, shaping, control, and cooperation, and implement them into key areas and deny opponents. Enter, intercept, contain, control, disaster relief, counter-terrorism, escort, peacekeeping and other diversified military operations, and expand the high-tech of hard destruction to soft strikes in cyber, space, electromagnetic and psychological space, and the intensity can be adjusted; Actions, diplomatic actions, and economic actions are coordinated and mixed to play games.
To highlight the use of non-zero-sum strategies, it is necessary to contain the opponent's war risks and give the opponent room to step down.
The so-called "sages who do not cure the disease and cure the disease, the incurable disease has been treated without chaos", the focus of "victory" is in wartime, and the focus of "victory" is in peacetime. This requires military work in the era of competition and cooperation to shift from capacity building to operation. as a center.
Looking forward to the future, globalization will continue to experience ups and downs, and new situations and challenges will emerge one after another. It requires military work to break away from the role of responding to changes in the strategic landscape, and instead engage in the initiative.
Carry forward the spirit of self-centeredness, observe and flexibly perform military games in response to new political and economic forms, and perseverely regard the development of the situation as the basis of active defense.
Always give full play to the backbone of military power, and do not slacken off due to temporary strategic easing, let alone rely on economic and diplomatic games in peacetime, and then put the major tasks on military one-off deals in times of crisis.
(Author: Lin Dong, a professor of the National Defense Security Institute, doctoral tutor)