philosophy chinese military culture

The Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture

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The Philosophy of Chinese Military CultureShih vs. LiWILLIAM H. MOTT IVAND

JAE CHANG KIM

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHINESE MILITARY CULTURE

William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim, 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martins Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1403971870 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mott, William H. The philosophy of Chinese military culture : shih vs. li / William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1403971870 1. Military art and scienceChinaPhilosophy. 2. China Civilization. I. Kim, Jae Chang. II. Title. U43.C6M68 2006 355.001dc22 2005054744

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: April 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface 1 Strategy and Culture 2 The Idea of Shih 3 Ancient Chinese Wars 4 The Chinese Civil War 5 The Korean War 6 The Sino-Indian War 7 The Sino-Soviet War 8 The Sino-Vietnamese War 9 Chinese Strategy: Shih-Strategy Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

vii ix x 1 15 45 73 103 131 161 185 215 233 241 279 295


List of Illustrations

Tables2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 6.1 7.1 8.1 9.1 Comparison of Shih and Li Indicators of Shih or Li in rulers national strategies Indicators of strategy based on intent or on forces Chronology: Liu BangXiang Yu Chronology: Liu BeiCao Cao Chronology: Chinas Civil War Sun Tzus 14 principles Maos eight rules Chronology: The Korean War ChronologySino-Indian War Chronology: Sino-Soviet War Chronology: Sino-Vietnamese War Comparison of strategic dimension of Shih or Li 32 36 44 52 60 76 79 91 106 146 172 200 227

Figures2.1 Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy 2.2 Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy in Wei-Chi game 34 35


Acknowledgments

While it is certain that readers will find weaknesses or omissions in our perceptions, presentation, or conclusions, it is just as clear that they would have found many more without the kind and patient help, understanding, and support of our colleagues, families, and friends. We acknowledge the active contributions of Professors Richard Shultz, Robert Pfaltzgraff, and Alan Wachman who waded through various versions of each chapter. Professor Shultz raised perplexing questions of scholarship, focus, military science, and philosophy. Professor Pfaltzgraff kept the work within a proper theoretical context with his guidance and encouragement. Professor Wachman inspired the structure of the thesis and the theme of the work. We owe special gratitude to Dr. Byong-Moo Hwang who kindly expanded our understandings of Shih and Dr. Sung-pyo Hong who greatly assisted the research. Dr. John Endicotts concern in guiding General Kim to the Fletcher School brought us together in the idea of developing Shih as Chinas Strategic Culture. General Jack Galvins persistent encouragement as both friend and dean gave much needed support and confidence as we explored the implications of Chinas Shih-strategic uses of force for modern peoples. Over the years spent in developing the book, many colleagues military, Chinese, and academichave listened and argued with us, and have provided additional references and new ideas, as well as much-needed criticism and focus. Our families tolerated months of endless papers, reference books, notes, musings, Internet searches, conferences, and e-mail discussions as we tried to organize our impressions around some coherent meaning. Their understanding support through the genesis and difficult birth of this book was inspiring and essential. Our familiessons Ji Hyun and Seok Hyun Kim and William H. Mott V and daughters-in-law Hae Young Kim and Laurie Mottwere encouraging observers. To our patient, tolerant, and understanding wives, Donna and Jung Ja, in particular, we dedicate this book.

Preface

The people of ancient China existed in moral, psychological, and physical circumstances so different from our own that we can only imagine their thoughts and feelings. Qualities of conduct and thought in modern Chinas use of force, which Euro-Americans may find odd, anomalous, or novel, reappear in the alien surroundings of ancient China as familiar and permanent elements of Chinas strategic culture. Certain patterns of strategic thought and behavior, certain reactions to space and time, and certain approaches to the enemy and fate link the ancient past through the urgent present to the eternal future. The interval of nearly four millennia permits modern strategists to identify what is strategically significant in these patterns as Chinas strategic culture. In the recent, topical reaction to orthodox technological determinism and Euro-American pragmatism in war and strategy, many analysts have rediscovered cultural factors in explaining and conducting war. Although this interest is certainly not new, the current revival focuses explicitly around China, why Beijing uses force as it does, and how soon Chinas modernization will develop its uses of force into predictable patterns. In parallel, the recent trend of expeditionary interventionism reminds EuroAmerican strategists of the effects of diversityor asymmetryon military operations and the inherent challenges to defining, achieving, and preserving victory. Perhaps unconsciously, this cultural approach to strategic thinking construes global military experiences through Euro-American understandings of war, power, technology, and force primarily as instruments of decisive victory. Culture-based strategic thought comfortably finds the apogee of military art and science in Euro-American doctrines, force structures, and practices, while those of primitive, non-Western opponents are simply asymmetric or aberrant. Recognizing historical Euro-American military success, the cultural approach presumes and expects a weak opponent to recognize its weakness, learn the methods and doctrines of victory, and adopt them in strategies to increase its own power. Weakness forces an asymmetric opponent to develop an anti-strategy, anti-operational methods,

Preface

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anti-tactics, and anti-weaponry to overcome its powerful opponents advantages. To achieve decisive victory, weaker commanders must learn from powerful commandersnot to adopt their methods, but to defeat them. Euro-American military experience suggests that in some way, technology is a dynamic, absolute force to which people must adapt doctrine, strategy, and force structure. A pragmatic emphasis on efficiency, costeffectiveness, and rationality comfortably subsumes strategic tasking in the self-evident truth that the military task is victory, which goes to the most powerful, best equipped, and best prepared battle force. Drawing on EuroAmerican cultural and spiritual values, cultural orthodoxy suffers from presupposing the imperative to decisive victory as a common standard against which all states canand shouldbe judged. Although every soldier recognizes the need to seize and develop every advantage that new weapons can bring, a narrow focus on forces and technology carries the risk of indifference to other factors. History has focused Chinas strategic cultural developmentlike those of several other culturesalong the path of weakness confronting strength. Understanding technology not as an absolute force but as an instrument of human will, Chinese strategists have historically drawn their power more from the people and from natureChinas culturethan from military superiority or technical prowess. When unable to achieve decisive battlefield victories over superior forces, commanders learned to defeat an enemys intent, frustrate the commanders will, erode the troops moral, and destroy a rulers determination. From positions of weakness, Chinese generals developed strategies, campaign plans, operational concepts, and tactics to win wars without the need for decisive victory in every battleto win without fighting. Rather than the orthodox, modern Euro-American forces-based strategies, Chinas ancient strategic culture developed strategies based on intentdefeating an enemys intent with the friendly intent. In recognizing cultural diversity and asymmetry, the cultural approach exposes the historical development of particular cultural patterns in using force. In contrast to the relatively brief history of modern Euro-American strategic thought, Chinas strategic culture has emerged over more than three millennia. A major hazard of any journey into ancient history is the uncertainty and contradiction in reports of dates, numbers, and facts especially motives, perceptions, and feelings. Dates are fundamental because they establish sequences of what precedes and what follows that allow some inferences not only of cause and effect but of the evolution of strategic thinking. Numbers are basic in indicating the significance of events to contemporary populations. The chronic exaggeration of ancient numbersarmies and casualtiesdoes not allow any understanding of ancient war as analogous to modern war. Modern analysts realize that

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Preface

ancient chroniclers routinely exaggerated figures for military forces, battle casualties, populations, or any massive groups of refugees by several times. Chinese chroniclers did not use numbers as data but as a literary technique to convey impressions. Discrepancies of fact were inherent in sequences of oral reports or misreading of illegible manuscripts. It is axiomatic that any fact about ancient China may confront a statement of the contrary fact or a different version. Ancient China changes color as different people in different ages perceive it through different cultural filters. Historians perspectives, inherited wisdom, and prejudices have changed repeatedly over three millennia. Even with the wealth of ancient chronicles, inherited wisdom, and modern analyses, empty spaces remain in the saga of ancient Chinese use of force. To fill the spaces, one must rely on what seems the likely or natural explanationthe probable rather than the certain. The impossibility of empathy, of genuinely understanding the mental processes and emotional feelings of ancient China, is an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps the closest that modernity can ever approach ancient thought is the creative effort that ancient thinkers have deliberately recorded as fiction, poetry, novels, or art, based onbut not constrained byhistorical fact. While few people would deny that studying the past can enlighten the present, many often find in the past a mirror that reflects only so much light as they direct into it. The authors concede that the past generates light of its own in complexities that illuminate not only the intersection between past and present, but also the hazy avenue into the future. The authors intend this work less as a historiographic case study than as an interpretation of apparent patterns in the gross details of modern Chinas use of force through the lens of Chinasrather than the Euro-American strategic culture. Chinas strategic culture is a story with a beginningthe speculations of Tai Kunga middleLiu Bangs doctrinal Shih-strategy and an endingMao Tse-tungs Peoples War. The storys important relevance lies in Chinas still unfolding role as a modern great power and the questions that only the future can answer.

Chapter 1 Strategy and Culture

War is the focused use of coercive force in extreme conflict. Modern Euro-American thinking about war converges strategy with politics in Aristotles instrumental distinction between ends and means. War is seen as an instrument for obtaining a specific end, usually one that is political. Chinas strategic culture has regarded war as an inescapable, unpredictable evil that disturbs universal harmony. When war occurs, rulers must manage it carefully. Whereas European strategists have sought to use maximum force in decisive battle, Chinese commanders have sought victory through minimum force. Chinese strategic culture has consistently rejected the Western way of warfare, with [its] obsession with successful campaigns and engagements, many of them hollow, or ensuring tactical success often at the price of strategic ruin.1 Recognizing rationality as dominant in human affairs, Euro-American military philosophers esteem the human ability to control their warlike passions and use war for political ends. Wars horrors when passions overcome rationality are less wars nature than peoples failures in managing war. In contrast, Asian philosophical traditions question the power of instrumental rationality to control human behaviors. Chinas strategic culture commands rulers and generals to use only the force that is necessary to restore domestic order and universal harmonyto control specific means within explicit ends. Facing periodic military crises along Chinas long land borders and coastlines, Chinas many neighbors have unsurprising concerns about Beijings approaches to using force in managing disputes with them. In drawing implications from Chinas emergence as a great power, most analyses and comments emerge within a narrow Euro-American basis of Clausewitzian, rational strategic thought. Some analyses indifferently deem China a developing country and draw conclusions accordingly.

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Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture

Interdependence theories predict that the economic and political costs of using force will constrain Chinas behavior as the Chinese economy becomes dependent on foreign trade and investment. Legal and cultural normative theories suggest that China will increasingly comply with liberal rules of good global citizenship. Some China experts, however, remain skeptical about Chinas convergence to Euro-American norms and recognize the profound differences between Chinese society and politics and those in the Euro-American world. Chinas supernationalism, hypersovereignty, and obsession with national economic growth seem to blend French Gaullism, radical U.S. Republicanism, and the worlds various isolationist fashions. A realpolitik strategic culture still colors the worldviews of many of Chinas senior security policy decision makers, a worldview in which military force is a potentially useful tool, among others, for the pursuit of traditional power and prestige maximizing national interests in a competitive and relatively dangerous world.2 While superficially similar to Euro-American fears that international institutions encroach on national prerogatives and autonomy, Chinas strategic culture is both deeper and broader than Clausewitzian realpolitik. Chinas use of force has not concentrated on either the EuroAmerican security dilemma or traditional national security expanded through complex interdependence. Although most Chinese wars have involved territorial integrity and political legitimacy, neither alone has justified Beijings decisions to use force.

The Dominant ViewMost Euro-Americans, and many Chinese, share a loose, shallow, orthodox understanding of Chinas strategic mentality in the historical tendency of the Chinese to use coercive diplomacy for limited objectives, while avoiding offensive campaigns. Relegating force to a last resort, the Confucian rejection of violence formed a solid foundation for Chinas reluctance to use force, which had become the pacifist bias of the Chinese tradition.3 For Euro-American analyses, this inherent antimilitarist bias has explained Chinese preference for psychological warfare over weaponry and firepower, victory without fighting, nonviolent stratagems, and deception.4 Some scholars have found an instinctive Chinese aversion to violence or a cultural conviction that war was aberrant. Sociologists have stressed the Confucian ethic that could not justify more than minimal and necessary war and inferred a systematic denial of belligerence.5 Political theorists have noted the absence of any ideological basis in Chinas ancient culture for total war.6

Strategy and Culture

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Beyond recognizing Chinas reluctance to use force, Euro-American orthodoxy suggests that Chinese strategic thought has historically preferred to use force in defensive and limited roles. Since China has rarely used wars of annihilation to exterminate states, occupy territory, or massacre enemy citizens, Chinas small battles or engagements of annihilation seem at best anomalous and perplexing. China has been historically successful in combining limited wars or campaigns constrained within well-defined geographic boundaries, periods, or levels of violence with cooperative diplomacy to achieve political aims. Increasingly since the rise of liberalism and capitalism, orthodox analysis remains puzzled by Chinas apparent disconcern for high casualties and costs (Korean and Sino-Vietnamese Wars), while readily absorbing enemy defectors. Anomalies in Chinas wars have been Beijings acceptance of high risk (Korean and Sino-Soviet Wars) and disjunctions between military action and political results (Sino-Indian and SinoVietnamese Wars). Although this dominant, orthodox view of Chinas strategic thinking enjoys consensus, few analysts, China watchers, or East Asian countries have high confidence in predicting Chinas next use of Force.

Clausewitzian OrthodoxyWatching the raw force of Napoleons armies pushing to the corners of Europe, Carl von Clausewitz (17801831) found the essence of military strategy in destroying enemy forces to achieve political objectives. Clausewitz and his successors stressed the physical use of forceprimarily militaryeither to gain success by destroying a defending armycoercive forceor to deny success by destroying an advancing armydenial force. In both cases, however, the direct approach was to destroyor defeat the enemys military force. While stressing the importance of chance and confusionthe fog of warClausewitz understood them as problems to overcome, rather than opportunities to exploit. Whether through coercion or denial, wars aim was to alter positional advantage between the contending forces and the balance of power between their respective political sponsors. Since the ultimate aim was permanent change in the balance of power, time and intangible factors lost relevance. Fixating on the imbalance and the physical and human resources available to change it, commanders and political leaders became obsessed with losses and costs. Politicians and generals struggled with dwindling resources, sunk costs, and political will, as people absorbed losses and suspected their leaders of undervaluing their sacrifices. Still facing the enemy, troop commanders struggled to husband the more important factor: whatever was left after their battles.7

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Although rooted in the Clausewitzian, conventional battlefield, Sir Basil Liddell Harts (18951970) indirect approach brought strategic thinking legitimately into the political domain. The Cold War found the Clausewitzian direct approach inadequate and demanded a patient, indirect strategy, since mutual deterrence precluded any direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. By integrating all elements of powermilitary, economic, political, cultural, technological, idealist, and negotiation from strengthin a continuous concentration of pressure, the Reagan administration exhausted the overextended, fragile Soviet Union. In recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Euro-American strategists have rediscovered more-than-military, intent-based strategy by combining diplomatic isolation with air, land, sea, and psychological operations. As the star of Clausewitzian strategic thought and direct, decisive action ascended, Euro-American strategists convinced themselves that Clausewitz had exposed a body of enduring immutable principles of war. Liddell Harts indirect approach was a useful method and technique that applied to special situations. Methods change, but the principles are unchanging, . . . independent of the arms employed, of times, and of places.8 Despite unpredictable, unorthodox enemies, Euro-American strategists preserve their respect for the Clausewitzian, forces-based principles of war and the ability to seize territory and destroy hostile military forces.

The Problem of the UnexpectedThe Peoples Republic of China has used force against its neighbors at least 12 times since 1949.9 While Euro-American analysts have attributed Chinas foreign wars to ideology, preservation of sovereignty, or territorial defense, the Chinese Civil War was also a departure from Clausewitzian forces-based war. Few expected Mao Tse-tungs nondescript million-man peasant army to defeat Chiang Kai-sheks three million soldiers armed with modern, heavy weapons.10 In 1950, Mao committed his people to fight the United States, not because of any threat to Chinas survival but to resist U.S. expansion on Chinas periphery.11 Neither U.S. planners nor U.N. diplomats expected China to intervene in Korea. After concentrating poorly armed troops in five persistent campaigns against superior U.S.U.N. forces, with an indecisive ceasefire, Beijing unilaterally withdrew and unexpectedly left U.S. forces intact in South Korea.12 In the early 1960s, Chinas difficult domestic situation left the Chinese in no position to address anything beyond resolving their own internal affairs.13 In 1962, after minor clashes between Indian border troops, Chinas


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surprise attack with massed troops and artillery penetrated deep into the Sino-Indian border area and occupied dominant strategic positions. Immediately after their decisive military victories, Chinese soldiers collected all the Indian weapons abandoned on the battlefields, cleaned them, and returned them to the defeated Indian troops. China unilaterally withdrew its troops without demanding any political concessions. Orthodox Euro-American strategic analyses have offered various, fashionable, innovative explanations of the Sino-Soviet War in 1969. Most explanations rely on local commanders misinterpretations and zeal as the natural result of increasing border tensions. Conventional understandings of Chinese strategic thought as rational pursuit of national interests, however, require Mao Tse-tung to accept the unacceptable risk of Soviet escalation. If Mao had used Clausewitzian rationality, the unexpected incidents at Zhenbao would not have occurred! Even by invoking error and human nature, orthodox explanations of Chinese behaviors in 1969 return ultimately to paradox and unanswered questions. A similar pattern of confusion, paradox, and dilemma appeared in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. After announcing its intent to do so, China invaded Vietnam, a former ally, not because of vital interests but to recall the Vietnamese to their proper place in the world. When Chinese troops had finally seized Lang Son, at great cost, Beijing unexpectedly announced a unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam and recalled its forces to China. Euro-American Clausewitzians could explain neither why China needed to occupy Lang Son with massive casualties nor why it withdrew from decisive terrain without any political concessions from Vietnam. In these modern Chinese uses of force, Clausewitzian strategy has not credibly explained the beginnings, motives, processes, or termination of wars. In the Chinese Civil War, despite Chiangs clear military superiority, Mao accepted that the weak could defeat the strong without fighting, while Clausewitz recognized the dominance of vigor and tension.14 In Korea, Clausewitzian strategists could interpret the U.N. advance north as a threat to Chinese security, and explain Beijings intervention as a strategic response. This logic, however, did not support the unilateral withdrawal in 1958 that left the threat intact in South Korea. Neither could Clausewitzians explain Chinese wars with India, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam as military means to political ends. These anomalies in Chinas uses of force raise troubling questions about the foundations of modern Chinese strategic thinking. Conventional analyses have not compellingly explained Beijings declining use of force since 1979 beyond adducing globalization, liberalization, and the demise of ideology as a basis for war. Chinas peaceful settlements of territorial disputes and economic liberalization have allayed fears of

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Beijings use of Chinas growing military power in aggression. Implicit in such analyses is the comfortableperhaps naveassumption that the Chinese are really just like us: peace-loving people forced into war by realpolitik. Chinas distinctive strategic culture has developed from the philosophies of Tai Kung, Sun Tzu, and Mencius and continues to influence Chinese strategic thought about using force. Any understanding of Chinas use of force must include some familiarity witheven understanding ofthe strategic culture that dominates Beijings strategic thinking.

Rational-Choice AnalysesContemporary Euro-American scholarship often interprets Chinas strategic behavior as rational decisionmaking using twisted logic to achieve irrational objectives. Through the comfortable lens of rational choice, scholars and strategists alike try to analyze Chinese use of force as a relationship between action and plausible calculation.15 Within the scope of rationalchoice analysis, various observers of Chinese uses of force find different explanations. One simple explanation is that China, like other governments, merely responds rationally to external stimuli.16 Another common approach analyzes Chinese strategic and operational behavior through the lens of realist theories of international relationsrealpolitik. With no recognizable pattern, realists readily infer that modern Chinese strategy is broadly the result of pragmatic reactions to changing factors in a crisis.17 Yet another rational explanation lies in deterrence theory, which suggests that China has used force only when deterrence has failed.18 Despite their persistence, these rational-decisionmaking approaches could not explain Chinas strategies of initiating war while accepting its own weakness against powerful U.S. and Soviet enemies. Nor could they illuminate the recurring Chinese pattern of terminating war by unilaterally withdrawing without political demands for concessions in India (1962) or Vietnam (1979).

Cultural ApproachesFew people would deny that Chinas culture developed its own world order and attitudes toward warfare over nearly three millennia.19 Through its history of survival, evolution, domestic conflicts, and defenses against foreign aggressions, Chinas distinctive culture has shaped and limited strategic choices and profoundly influenced Chinas interactions with other states. Some scholarsEuro-American and Asianrecognize that the traditional


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Chinese approaches to warfare have differed sharply from the rational doctrines adopted by modern Euro-American cultures.20 They recognize that the orthodox rational-choice model cannot fully explain Chinese strategic behavior, and stress culture as an explanation of any countrys use of force. Cultural theories categorize cultures around sets of ranked strategic preferences that are consistent across national strategies as they change over time.21 Strategic preferences do not follow directly from changes in threat, technology, or organization, but from patterns of successful campaigns in a societys history, geography, economy, and politics. The resulting strategic culture aggregates the political elites behavior patterns, the military establishments doctrines, the principles of cultural values, and the flows and fashions of public opinion.22 Just as rational choice dominates EuroAmerican strategic preferences, Chinas strategic culture continues to dominate not only Chinas use of force but also Chinese public life. Like the rationalists, in seeking to explain modern Chinese strategic behavior most effectively, culturalists differ on the proper focus along a broad spectrum. A focus on the Ming dynastys brutality against the northern tribes suggests aggression as a prominent strategic-cultural pattern for Chinas use of force.23 While this pattern is compatible with Chinas use of force toward Tibet, India, and Vietnam, it does not fit the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, or the Sino-Soviet War. Another cultural focus finds the roots of modern Chinese strategy in Maos military romanticism in believing that men could defeat weapons.24 For many Asian analysts, Maos experiences and his dramatic success in the Chinese Civil War remain the best explanations of the modern pattern in Chinas use of force. Several generations of Maoist students have refined much of his thoughtpeoples war, protracted war, or peoples powerin patterns for modern Chinese strategy.25 Arising in his romantic ideals of Marxism and Confucianism, many broad principles in Maos thought do not, however, resolve smoothly into strategic actions or decisions. Another insightful, cultural analysis of Chinese wars since 1840 explains Chinas military adventures as symbolic use of force. Chinese elites have used force not to pursue rational interests but as a symbol of their national images of China. While this pattern clearly supports a cultural explanation of Chinas strategic behavior, symbolism covers a range of national imagery too broad to be analytically useful.26 Despite Euro-American readiness to equate any national imagery with nationalism, Chinese national images are both deeper and broader than ideological nationalism. Although rationalchoice analyses can accommodate romanticism and symbolism, discrete cultural interpretations are too broad to explain Chinas uses of force or to predict Chinese strategic behavior with any confidence. Only the lens of

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Chinas strategic culture brings Chinas use of force into focus with both Euro-American rational choice and Chinas distinct culture.

Chinas Strategic CultureInstead of either culture or rational choice, a strategic-cultural approach is helpful and necessary for understanding Chinese use of force. More than two millennia before Clausewitz, Jomini, and Liddell Hart, Sun Tzu (541?482? BC) recognized that warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Way [Tao] to survival or extinction.27 Within this perspective, Chinas strategic culture has kept the need for moderation and harmony uppermost in Chinas strategic and philosophical minds. Well beyond any principles of war, Sun Tzus thought absorbed the Taoist canon of universal harmony of all under heaven. To avoid releasing the chaos, destruction, and death that accompanied war, leaders had to follow Tao: the universal principle of all thingsthe one way. Beyond its philosophical meanings, Tao expressed the idea of path or road, not only in a physical sense but with a moral-ethical notion of right or the proper way. Instead of legalistic rationality or Euro-American liberalism, moral conduct for Chinese was to follow the right way within the Taoist order of all under heaven. Within Tao, moral fulfillment of an individuals personality emerged from living as a man among men, in proper relations with other individuals.28 Since war, fighting, anger, and weapons were outside Tao, the one who has the way has no concern with them. . . . Only when forced to do so [the noble man] bears them, and peace and quiet he sets above all. When forced into war, a skillful (general) is resolute. That is all. He dares not use violence in seizing (an objective). . . . A good captain is not impetuous. A good fighter is not angry. A good conqueror (ruler) does not engage his adversaries. . . . This may be called the virtue of not striving (noncompeting), . . . the acme of conformity to heaven.29 The Taoist term wu-wei (nonaction or noncompeting ) did not mean doing nothing but implied refraining from activity contrary to Tao. Only in harmony with nature could humans achieve their own aims. By nonaction, everything can be done.30

Abolishing Use of ForceConvinced that people were naturally good, Mencius (372?289? BC) placed the people at the center of public affairs. Like his Greek


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contemporaries, Mencius sought the good life and hoped to establish government by good people. Calling for abolition of war, Mencius challenged the good ruler to wage war against the poverty that brought crime and disorder. Denouncing war by the state as a crime against the people, he recognized the peoples right to revolution against a ruler who had earned their enmity. His brave doctrine rested on the ancient Confucian-Taoist principle of harmony between ruler and people. The ruler who alienated the people through his laws and misused their power in war had lost the mandate of heaven. For Mencius, as for Confucius, the strength of the state lay in the harmony between ruler and people.31

Controlling Use of ForceRecognizing the people as the ultimate source of power, Sun Tzu limited and controlled the use of force within Tao in harmony with the people. To achieve harmony, leaders either had to renounce all use of force or had to make all uses of force total by involving the entire society. By controlling all uses of force tightly within Tao, Sun Tzus paradox explained Tao, while urging rulers to use economic wealth, social power, and politics as alternatives to wars. By the Warring States period (403221 BC), when war involved literally everyone, everything, and all under heaven, Sun Tzus thought had begun to converge Chinas strategic culture around Tao.Six or seven different powers competed with each other. Each could raise an army comparable in size to the entire armed forces of the Roman Empire, although their strengths included conscripts who were involved in logistic support for armies at the front. Even though they were not engaged in fighting, they were mobilized to transport grain along specially built walled supply routes running hundreds of miles.32

In contrast to Clausewitzian campaigns of denial and destruction, Sun Tzu preferred not to destroy enemies but to subjugate them without fighting. Preserving the [enemys] state is best; destroying their state capital second best. Preserving their army is best, destroying their army second best. Preserving their battalions is best; destroying [them] second best. The preservation of the enemy, in a word, is essential to success.33 While defeating an enemy force or political movement was legitimate and valuable, the object of a war could not be absolute security, which required destroying the enemys society. Instead, a victorious society should live with the erstwhile enemy in stable, controlled insecurity. The wise ruler encouraged even those enemy societies that remained unconquered and hostile to resolve their differences.

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Sun Tzus Confucian-Taoist premise that power dwelt among the people focused a states true strength less in strong forts and powerful weaponry than in its peoples morale and its soldiers moral stamina.34 Since coercive force could affect peoples thoughts, intentions, and feelingsnot only forces and resourcesstrategists should apply force selectively across the entire enemy society, not just its army. While denial force destroyed an enemys hope of victory by preventing something from happening, coercive force persuaded by suggesting what is about to happen: prospective damage, possible inducement, and probable pressures. Instead of using uncontrolled denial force to destroy, Sun Tzu taught commanders to control coercive force to convince opponents to surrender or withdraw without enduring the destruction of battle. With lower costs and losses than denial campaigns, coercive force included a full panoply of persuasive relationships from threats, inducements, bribes, and gifts to unrestricted violence and brutal destruction. Inducements were less persuasive than violence, since an enemy often absorbed inducementsforeign aid, loans, promises, and other economic benefitsand developed expectations of continuing and more inducements. Threatening by itself might work if the stakes were not too high and the threat were credible, but more likely, the combined effect of hurting and thereby reinforcing the threat will be more successfulparticularly if the threat is also accompanied by an inducement. [Near the other end] of the range is pure punishment. Often this appears a revenge or [stubbornness], and may [generate] the same reaction in the foe.35 Anticipating the Euro-American idea of deterrence, the Chinese notion of controlled punishment has included conspicuous destruction of an enemy as warnings to other foesbattles of annihilation. The art and science of using coercive force to persuade, instead of denial force to destroy, and defeating an enemy without fighting are the heart and soul of Shih-strategy.

Four Cultural Faces of StrategyChinas strategic culture has converged around Tao three additional important ideas that emerged from prehistoric Confucian thought and belief: Shih, Hsing, and Li. Any analysis of Chinas strategic culture and uses of force must begin with an understanding of these four faces of Chinese Shih-strategy.

ShihCongealing over several centuries around Sun Tzus thought Chinas strategic culture that has formed solidly around the ancient Chinese


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abstractionShihand its paired oppositeLi.36 Several generations of strategistsTai Kung (1212?1073 BC), Sun Tzu (541?482? BC), Wu Tzu (440?381 BC), Wei Liao Tzu (ca. 318 BC) and their successors developed and taught Shih as a coherent body of strategic thought.37 The defining theme in Sun Tzus The Art of Warfare, the essence of Shih was the dynamic power that emerged in the combination of mens hearts, military weapons, and natural conditions.38 Strategic thinking focused on Shih was Shih-strategy, which converged Shih along three broad dimensions of warfare: the people, the context, and the enemy. Shih-strategy concentrated the power of the people in the soldiers and their weapons. The power of context appeared in opportunity, timing, and logistics. The enemys power lay in the relative skill, competence, and will of the opposing force. Since men and their hearts were critical to Shih-strategy, commanders and rulers needed to understand how to mobilize them. A rulers adherence to the right wayTaobrought the people into accord with the ruler in internal harmony. The ruler with a great Tao gained the deep, sincere, heartfelt support of the people. The ruler who had or created Tao could build a strong Shih for his people and his army. Without Tao, even the best commanders could not build or rely on Shih.

HsingSun Tzu understood Hsing as the outward appearance of an object or situation. As a military term, Hsing described the deployment and employment of forces. In war, commanders could transform equipment, weaponry, and troops into Shih through Hsing. Although some scholars and historians interpret Shih and Hsing as near synonyms, Hsing is explicitly the tangible, visible, and determinate shape of physical strength. Shih also includes intangible factorsmorale, opportunity, timing, psychology, or logisticsthat are often dynamic and always difficult to ascertain. In contrast to Hsing, which is static, Shih changes in some predictable pattern as flourishing and fading succeed each other in battle.39

LiThe counterconcept of Shih with its forward-looking perspective, Li refers to self-interest or material gain and carries a definite priority for the present. Arising from materialistic thought and theory, Li-strategy does not recognize intangible human factors as important elements of power. Instead it focuses on visible, material assets and enemy forces.

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Cultural Premises beneath StrategyChinas use of force has always embodied legacies from Shih-theory, which students, successors, and clients of Tai Kung, Sun Tzu, and Wu Tzu developed into tactical, operational, and strategic doctrines and policies. From two basic cultural premises, Shih-theory has influenced and molded Chinese strategic thinking. In marked contrast to Euro-American emphases on technology, weaponry, doctrine, or policy, Shih-strategists are unequivocal in their conviction that power dwells among the people. Chinese strategic thought embodies the Confucian worldview that man was the center of the universe and the ultimate source of power.40 To be strong, one must be able to employ the strength of men. To employ the strength of men, one must gain their hearts.41 Although Confucian thinkers gave little significance to military machines and weapons, the heartsthe will, morale, and loyaltyof the men who used them were determining factors of power. Whereas Clausewitz abjured deception and even Sir Basil Liddell Hart advocated deception only as one technique among many, for Shih-strategists, deception is the essence of military strategy. Embedded solidly in Taointernal harmonyShih-strategy expands these two premises to a grand purpose beyondor even instead ofsimply achieving victory in battle. Just as Clausewitz recognized that victory was not an end in itself, Shih-strategy uses force to bring the people into ultimate harmony and accord with the ruler in Tao. Chinas Shih-strategic culture concludes that, if possible, it is best to win the war without fighting.

Operational ArtShih-strategy focuses the commanders operations on the enemys intent and plan rather than his military forces. When battle is necessary, the aim is to deceive the enemy by creating confusion in the commanders mind, confounding his intent, and fragmenting his forces. The Shih-strategic general can then easily exploit the situation and achieve battlefield victory. Sun Tzu emphasized winning without fighting and destroying the enemys will to fight while not destroying his troops.42 Shih strategy avoids a direct approach. The initial movements of a commanders Shih-strategy do not expose, or even indicate, its final objective. The best strategy, for the Shih-strategist, is not the approach that the enemyor even an allyrecognizes but the one that no one expects. Shih strategy is the indirect, circuitous approach to both military victory and the national political objective. Chinese Shih-strategists believe that the


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Shih-detour is more effective than the direct route to the objective, since Shih-strategy converges people and ruler on the Tao.

Grand StrategyThe final aims of Shih-strategy lie in the modern notions of national interestspolitical ends not military results. At a grand strategic level, military resultsvictory or defeatare means to an end, not ends in themselves. While directing generals to avoid strength and attack weakness, Chinese Shih-strategy admonishes national leaders to cooperate with a far country to strike a near country. Beyond any battlefield, Shih-strategy advises diplomats to use barbarians to control barbarians in indirect political relationships.43

Shih as a Strategic CultureHistory suggests that Sun Tzus insights about Shih have clearly influenced Chinese strategic thought and use of force. While ancient strategists experimented with Shih, modern, Chinese strategists have used force through Shih-strategy throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to the EuroAmerican focus on the threat facing a country as the foundation of doctrine and strategy, Chinese strategic thought begins with the people as the source and domain of national power. Chinas strategic culture of Shih and Tao values defeating a threat only as a meansLito the ultimate end of building Shih within Chinas proper Tao. A Chinese national Shih-strategy might include winning a battle, fighting a war, or defeating an enemy as a functional, local, Li, not as a strategic aim. Within Chinas proper Tao, generals applications of Shih-strategic principles in campaign plans, operational concepts, or tactical battle schemes fit smoothly into the national Shih-strategy. Resisting threats to territory, defending borders, or protecting other tangible national interests are not the ultimate purposes for using force. Only when these threats menace Chinas Shih or challenge proper Tao do they justify the use of force. While building national Shih, Beijing has complacently ignored or deferred territorial challenges and border disputes. When faced with what Euro-Americans understand as trivial incidents or normal international relations, Beijing has sometimes sensed vital threats to Shih or Tao. Beijings surprising reactions with overwhelming force and even accepting unacceptable casualties and costs have perplexed orthodox Euro-American analyses.

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Modern China has perceived continuing threats from its neighbors since Mao declared that the Chinese stood up in 1949.44 Chinas strategiccultural perspective presented any political neighbors as friends, but recognized them also as potential enemies. For Beijing in the late 1940s, the most dangerous potential enemy was the Soviet Union, which shared a long border with China. Despite the 1950 Sino-Soviet friendship agreement and Maos declaration of unbreakable friendship with Stalin, Shih-strategic principleslike Clausewitzian realpolitikled Chinese strategists to recognize the Soviet Union as a potential threat. The same Shih-strategic principles obviated any conclusion that the United States would be an everlasting enemy simply because of the Korean War. Having always been politically subordinate and militarily inferior to China, the occasional noises and flourishes in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and even India were not credible as threats to Chinas Tao or Shih. Only the Mongols, the Europeans, and the Japanese have ever invaded China. The Mongols are now Chinese themselves, the Europeans have gone home, and the United States defeated the Japanese. This unique geostrategic history has formed the context and content of Chinas cultural heritage. Any understanding of Chinas use of force must take a broad perspective across both space and time and look beyond any immediate threat. Perspectives on Chinas use of force cannot focus on the direct target, the visible present, or the immediate future. Instead of this narrow view, the Chinese perspective extends into antiquity, across the broad range of Chinas several peripheries and neighbors, through many interests, and into the eventual future. This is the perspective of Chinas Shih-strategic culture.

Chapter 2 The Idea of Shih

Sun Tzu (541?482? BC) said, Seek victory through Shih, not reliance on men.1 Sun Pin (380316 BC) urged his king to build Shih for national defense.2 Lin Wu (third century BC), a Zhao general said, What is valued in military affairs is strategic advantage (Shih).3 Instead of using military force to subjugate another society or to defeat an enemys army, Shih operates to convince an opponent to yield without battle. Instead of using weapons and strength to destroy an enemy, Shih prefers to threaten, manipulate, or deter. Shih can cause an enemy to accept compliant terms without fighting. Sun Tzu famously taught that to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemys resistance without fighting.4 Shih, an intangible power, encourages people who enjoy it and discourages those who lack it. Neighbors willingly joinwithout dominationa country with strong Shih, while enemies with lower Shih withdraw or surrender without coercion. Although political theorists and military strategists alike emphasized Shih as a nucleus of military affairs, they explained the concept through metaphors and left no explicit definitions of the term. With deep roots in both political theory and also Chinese daily lives, the Chinese word, Shih, carries many meanings distinguishable within Chinese culture largely from the context. The most familiar meanings are power, force, or influence. Another common usage refers to a situations natural features or a persons circumstances. Some Chinese use the term to suggest a tendency, trend, or series, or even peoples gestures. The Chinese use Shih in political theory, military strategy, the Wei-Chi game, and daily life to express a special form of power or influence.5 In a military context, Shih refers to power or influence. Military Shih may reside within the army, the general, the people, and

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the rulerendogenous Shihor in the external conditions, terrain, weather, weaponry, and timeexogenous Shih.

Foundations of Chinese ThoughtPhilosophical development in ancient China culminated during the late Zhou period (500221 BC) in its dual understandings of existence. The practical Chinese mind developed into a sophisticated social consciousness of human relations, moral values, and government. The complementary, mystical Chinese soul insisted, however, that the highest purpose was to transcend the prosaic, everyday world into a higher consciousness above the individual and beyond society. Uniting intuitive wisdom with practical knowledge, the few enlightened persons, like Platos philosopher-guardians, became by their stillness sages and by their movement, kings, one with universal Tao in harmony with nature.6 By the sixth century BC, the two sides of Chinese thought had developed into two distinct approachesConfucianism and Taoism. Celebrating common sense and practical experience, Confucianism emerged in the teachings of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius (551479? BC), who undertook to transmit Chinas cultural heritage to his disciples. Going beyond his teachers, Confucius interpreted the Six Classics of the holy sages within his own moral values as the Lun YConfucian Analectscompiled by his disciples. Although Confucius taught self-protection and self-control, only during the Song period did Wang Anshi expand them into Chinas hierarchic social organizationauthority, etiquette, and educationbuilt around the familybaojia. Taoism congealed in Lao Tzus teachings (sixth century BC), Tao Te ChingThe Way and Powerlater refined by Chuang Tzu (369? 286 BC) into a coherent Taoist doctrine. Taoists observed nature to discover the Way, the Tao. People achieved happiness when they followed natures Way by acting spontaneously and trusting intuitive knowledge. Chinas culture accepted these contrary ways of understanding as poles of a single human nature embodied in both the individual and in society.

Tao: The Universal WayConfucians and Taoists alike recognized an ultimate, undefinable, universal reality that supported, contained, and unified all things that people observed and the events that they experienced. There are three terms complete, all-embracing, and the whole. These names are different, but the

The Idea of SHIH

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reality sought in them is the same: referring to the One.7 This was the Taothe Way of the universe, the universal principle of all things, natures essential order, or moral law. Unlike Hinduist Brahman, Buddhist Dharmakaya, or theist visions of Olympus, Valhalla, or Heaven, Tao was intrinsically both eternal and dynamic. The Yellow Emperor obtained it and . . . followed the process of change in nature, but in keeping to the One, he knew that the One was eternal and changeless.8 Continuous change within Tao occurred in changeless patterns that revealed individual Tao to people who recognized them and directed their actions and thoughts toward, into, and within the patterns. The rulers Tao was ruling, inspiring, and indulgent benevolence. The peoples Tao was following, loyalty, and filial piety. If the ruler ruled through Tao, people would obey through Tao. He who conforms to the course of the Tao, following the natural processes of Heaven and Earth, finds it easy to manage the whole world.9 The predominant pattern within Tao was the cycleexpansion and contraction, victory and defeat. Returning is the motion of the Tao and going far means returning. Every situation, being, and thing developed to its extreme, reversed, and became its own opposite, not as the result of some force or will, but consequent to its own existence. The cyclic reversal patterns in the Taos eternal motion reflected the eternal pairing and interplay between yin and yang, the intellectual leitmotif that penetrates every dimension of Chinese living. The yang having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yin; the yin having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yang.10 That which lets now the dark, now the light appear is Tao.11 Tossed between yin and yang, human Tao was not to subdue nature, but to act in harmony with the cyclical current and the local environment. People did not need to force themselves or things into events, but merely to adapt their actions to the patterns and directions of Tao. It was better to move slowly in the right direction than to hurry along the wrong way. By the third or fourth centuries BC, Confucianists and Buddhists had deepened Confuciuss moralistic interpretations into Tao as the right way to moral living. As Plato (429347 BC) was developing similar ideas into The Republic, Confucianists imposed on peoplerulers, sages, generals, and ordinary men and womena positive moral responsibility to discover their Tao and contain their lives within it. By harmonizing or clashing with nature, people could enhance or diminish their Tao. In contrast, the Taoists had expanded Tao into eternal time and universal space with little moral content. From the eternal pairing of opposites, Taoists deduced that the best path to anything lay through its oppositethe indirect approach. To weaken, one will surely strengthen first. To overthrow, one will surely exalt first. To take, one will surely give first. The best security for anything lay in preserving its oppositedeception. Be bent and you will remain straight.

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Be vacant and you will remain full. Be worn and you will remain new. Although their methods were incompatible, for Confucianists and Taoists alike, acting and being in harmony with nature bestowed great power on individuals and societies. By about the fourth century BC, Chinese had begun to refer to this special power as Shih.12

Shih: A Dynamic State of PowerNot a static power or discrete force, Shih represented a dynamic power and integrated force that combines the effects of material things, natural forces, and human factors in some action. In his famous metaphor of floating stones, Sun Tzu explained that Shih is visible in the onrush of pent-up water tumbling stones along.13 Faith in experience and physics leads to the common perception that their greater specific gravity prevents stones from floating in water. When water rushes rapidly from a reservoir, however, the waters momentum generates power, which floats the stone. Water could either float a stone or do nothing to it. The effect depended upon the rapid flow of waterShihdraining from the reservoir, which floated the stone, not upon the amount of waterLiin the reservoir, which could not float the stone. Sun Tzus water represented either the static expression of national powerpopulation or wealthor the armys specific combat powertroops and weapons. The power to float a stone was the dynamic powerShihthat the entire army or country exerted for its collective purpose. Sun Tzus strategic message was that the method of draining the water was more important than the amount of water behind the dam. Sun Tzu urged his king not to build forces or apply new technology, but to create Shih. Sun Tzus prescription for creating Shih was to achieve Tao, the state in which people are in full accord with the ruler. . . . in such a state [people] will die with the ruler, they will live with the ruler, and not fear danger for the ruler.14 Like the ruler, the strategist should assess power and design campaigns around Shih, and the general should fight wars with Shihstrategy.15 For Sun Tzu and Sun Pin, good strategy rested not on static forcesbased power but on a dynamic state of power, which was Shih. Like Sun Tzu, Shang Yang (390338 BC) depicted Shih in the imagery of flowing water. While Sun Tzu stressed flowing waters power to move boulders, Shang Yang stressed a streams nature to follow the easiest course. To achieve Shih, his legalist successors advocated generous material rewards and harsh punishments to guide individual energies through universal political participation into the populations collective strength concentrated in the ruler as Shih.16

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When soldiers introduced the bow and crossbow onto Chinese battlefields, Sun Pin took the new weapons in explaining Shih. Released from between the shoulders, they kill a man beyond a hundred paces without him realizing the path. Thus it was said that bows and crossbows are Shih.17 Aware that the static weapon itself was not Shih, Sun Pin distinguished the crossbow and arrowsvisible forcefrom the effective power created by the man-weapon combinationinvisible, dynamic Shih. By the third century AD, technology had created strong synergy in coordinated joint operationsShihbetween infantry, archers, cavalry, and navy as changing technologies made larger forces possible and sophisticated logistics essential. By the later-Han period, technology, coordination, and logistics had emerged as essentialusually invisibleforces in both an armys combat operations and a rulers national grand strategyShih. Shen Tao (360?300? BC) stressed strategic political advantage as endogenous Shih. He clarified the idea with his famous dragon metaphor: The flying dragon mounts the clouds and the teng snake wanders in the mists. But the clouds dissipate and the mists clear, the dragon and the snake become the same as the earthworm and the large-winged black ant because they have lost that on which they ride.18 With Shih, the dragon could fly on clouds. When it lost Shih, it was only a worm. It was not his superiority, morality, or wisdom that carried the dragon on clouds, but his Shih. He elaborated political Shih with the experiences of Emperor Yao (23562255 BC).19 When Yao was teaching from an inferior position, the people did not listen to him. When he assumed the throne and became emperor over the world, his orders were carried out and his prohibitions were observed.20 Ignored as a common teacher without Shih, the same man with the same character and intelligence gained authority and respect as emperor through the Shih of political status and legitimacy. Just as the dragon had become a worm, if Emperor Yao lost Shih, he would resume his former status as the miserable teacher whom people ignored. Shen Tao taught that this great, intangible, influential power was endogenous Shih.21

Political and Legal Foundations of ShihUnlike Euro-American philosophies, Chinese strategic culture has not understood the state as an abstract or legalistic notion but as an organic link between Tao and people. While Sun Tzu learned to assess the states power to wage war, legalists embodied Tao in secular, natural law, while Confucians understood human behaviors as moral reflections of Tao. Although both groups relied on baojia as the human structure and Tao as

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the universal foundation for all under heaven, they disagreed over how to develop, maintain, and justify powerful Shih within the state.

The State and the PeopleFrom antiquity, Chinas states have developed in a Confucian-Taoist culture with values of paternal responsibility and authority, filial deference, and familial devotion. As society broadened and deepened beyond the family, peoples values flowed through new organizations, which preserved harmony between people and rulerShihto the state, which united all under heaven in Tao. Modern Chinese still identify the state with particular organizations and measure its effectiveness in terms of those organizations ability not merely to maintain social order, but to mobilize the nation itself on behalf of their own political ideas.22 Between social and political extremes of local anarchy and imperial despotism, Chinese society built Tao around the Confucian family responsibility to care for itselfbaojia. Within communities, baojia collected families under a headman or chief, usually elected by heads of families. Chinese governments have drawn strength from the baojia system that made the familys head responsible for all family members within Tao. Involving a hierarchical sense of moral responsibility, which was never a part of EuroAmerican representative democracy, baojia relied on Confucian moral suasion and personal loyalty to organize society. As larger communities absorbed smaller ones, baojia became the structure for Chinas Tao and an endogenous national Shih. Rulers built the state around Shih and maintained harmony with the people through baojia and Tao.

The State, the Law, and ShihThe ancient legalists rejected the Confucian reliance upon moral suasion and loyalty and prescribed creating and manipulating Shih through rule by intimidation. The first legalist teacher, Shang Yang understood moral sentiments and efforts to improve people as dangerous distractions from managing society and regulating commerce to strengthen government and create wealth. Caustic in criticizing political and moral abstractions, the legalists respected technical, legal, or managerial innovations in an efficient, rigid administrative system that concentrated power in the state.23 The national interest required maintaining a rulers Shih through rigidly enforcing and severely executing his exclusive legal power over life and death, which created Shih. Although the rulers ministers enforced the states laws, the prince

The Idea of SHIH

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alone could establish the correct behavioral standards for the people.24 In Han Fei Tzus (280?234 BC) legalist view, rulers Shih emerged as an instrument to maintain control in the princes unique and absolute prerogative to disperse gifts, honors, punishments, and penalties.25 In a legal memorial to Qin Shi Huangdi, Chinas first Qin emperor, his chief minister Li Si (?208 BC) urged that the ruler will, by himself, control the empire and will not be controlled by anyone.26 By the mid-third century BC, the legalists regarded Shih as a necessary and sufficient condition for political control. Although they did not deny rulers endogenous Shih, Confucians rejected the legalist prescriptions for creating and maintaining Shih through the rulers exclusive power over life and death.27 Confucians understood endogenous Shih as the connection between social status and political legitimacy embodied in the baojia responsibility structure. Relying on baojia, Confucians stressed moral elevation, interpreted government as the ability to educate and enrich the people, and gave higher priority to moral improvement than to coercive control.28 Rather than relying on any state authority, as the emperors representatives, kings and dukes governed huge populations by passing directives, edicts, and moral guidance through the baojia responsibility chain.

Merging Morality and Law in ShihBroader than either law or morality Taoism embraced the Way of nature as a whole in Tao, rather than any specific way of livinglegal or moral. Within the narrow, shared legalist-Confucian focus on endogenous rulers Shih, Hsun Tzu (320235 BC) reinterpreted Shih across both legalist and Confucian thought.29 In contrast to legalist insistence on Shih as sufficient in itself, Shih without popular support was ultimately untenable.30 Effective Shih emerged from the rulers accord with Confucian moral conduct Taoas an instrument for exerting political influence through the law.31 Within Confucian morality and social purpose, Hsun Tzu redefined the state as the legalist focus for coercive power and political order as the peoples link through the ruler to Tao. To preserve legalist priorities for communal interests over individual welfare, a ruler needed special powerstrong influence, coercive force, and absolute authorityrulers Shih, which operated through baojia. As the son of heaven standing between heaven above and the people below, the ruler intervened and intermediated between mankind and nature. Confucian Tao was a necessary condition for rulers Shih. As an instrument of governance, rulers Shih depended upon the peoples supporta sufficient

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conditionthat rulers gained and preserved through their own moral conduct. Only the rulers right conduct maintained the universal harmony of man and natureTaoby doing right things at right times.32 From the Han period, Confucian influence began to refine Shih into political power based on rulers Tao.33

Tao and National ShihSun Tzu accepted that a rulers Tao determined national integrity, solidarity, and unity, which brought the people fully in accord with the ruler.34 At the national level, Sun Tzu observed that the peoples attitudeloyalty, love, fear, tolerance, or apathytoward the ruler heavily influenced national Shih. Although the advantage in rulers Tao was a critical condition for victory for the Shih-strategist, preserving and increasing Tao through good conduct of the war were as important as winning. Since the ruler who lost Taoby winning or by losingwould eventually lose rulers Shih, eroding the enemys Tao was as important as strengthening ones own Tao by building Shih. For the ruler, the most important part of national Shih was Tao, which he could directly manage, whereas the general was most concerned with his armys endogenous and exogenous Shih. Mencius (372?289? BC) recognized this dichotomy in his observation that timing is less important than geographical interest, and geographical interest is less important than harmony among the people.35 To win in war, the ruler had to preserve harmony with the people as his capacity to create rulers Shih. Exploiting battlefield advantages, building endogenous military Shih, and deceiving the enemy commander were concerns for generals.

The State and WarConfucius had extended the idea of self-interest from the individual to the state with the army as a symbol of sovereignty. The states dominant and leading military-strategic role was clearly compatible with the Taoist political ideal of unifying a states people under the ruler. Not an abstract, legalistic structure, for Chinese the state took various forms as the focus for concentrating coercive power and social purpose within a central hierarchy. Shang Yang taught thatwith agriculture and commercethe states proper aims were war and interstate relations and that the governments primary responsibility was domestic order, societys ultimate Tao.

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Whether as a strategic target or as an economic resource, oriental and occidental strategic thought alike have divided the state into three groups: the leaders, the population, and the armed forces. Although these groups have never been mutually exclusive, Euro-American strategy traditionally targeted an enemys armed forces for destruction. Honoring Carl von Clausewitzs linkage between war and politics, Euro-American policymakers expanded their strategic focus from enemy armed forces toward threats to the states other groupsleadership and population. Strategists asked What destruction would be unbearable? Tacticians asked How can we destroy what the enemy values most? World War II taught that the key to this selection is to decide who the power broker iswho can bring the war to a close. As the Cold War stabilized into complex interdependence, however, it was not possible to influence the power broker directly. An indirect approach may be required.36 Beneath this broader Euro-American strategic approach remains a primary effort to coerce an enemy state through threat and destruction. Rather than identifying a power broker or center of gravity, Shih-strategy targeted the rulers Shih (leadership), the peoples Tao (population), and the harmony between them. Rather than destroying the state, Shih-strategy preferred deception, indirection, and confusion to engage the armed forces through their commanders intent.

Assessing National PowerFor the Shih-strategist, Tao was an instrument of war. Sun Tzu distilled the art of war into five governing constant factors: Tao, heaven, earth, the general, and organization and discipline. Firmly embedding military strategy within statecraft, he began his Art of War by assessing and comparing national power to determine whether to engage a counterpart state. Only his last two factorsthe general and organization and disciplinewere military. The first threeTao, heaven, and earthwere political, social, and natural, although they affected military operations. So important was Tao as the first among his factors that before going into war, Sun Tzu insisted on assessing the Tao between each belligerent ruler and his people. Focused on the peoples solidarity and participation in national affairs, social order, and the states unity, Sun Tzus Tao expressed the rulers Shih largely endogenous.37 Sun Tzu used two factorsheaven and earthto identify the advantages in weather and geography held by competing states as their relative exogenous Shih. Considering earth implied terrain analysis and logistical planning, while considering heaven captured the importance of night and

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day, cold and heat, or times and seasons for war.38 Expressed in two EuroAmerican principles of warmass and unity of commandSun Tzus general referred to mass only for effect, and only if mass were the best way to achieve effect. Among many effortsdiplomatic, economic, or political and even separate battles, generals Shih referred less to central command than to unity of effortpeople and army, ruler and general. When the ruler had large Shih and Tao, unity of effort occurred spontaneously, despite fragmented command within the army. To complement the general, Sun Tzu used organizations and disciplinegenerals endogenous Shihto compare contending countries military and diplomatic forces, particularly standing armies.

Military Implications of ShihThe earliest thinker to apply the Shih-idea to military strategy may have been Tai Kung (1212?1073 BC) who advised the Zhou Kings Wen and Wu. Tai Kungs Six Secret Teachings found strategic power in the people and created Shih in the ruler, general, and army to focus that power through the unorthodox in Shih-strategy. Peoples power was the foundation for stable, political governmentrulers Shihin peace and popular support for the armygenerals Shihin war. Although he prioritized the institutional statea benevolent ruler and wise generalshe taught that Tao included a strong administrative emphasis on the peoples welfare. Anyone who shares profit with all the people under Heaven will gain the world. Anyone who monopolizes its profits will lose the world.39 To create endogenous Shihthe proper way for well-ordered, prosperous, satisfied people to live in Taohe urged rulers to cultivate moral spirit and complete harmony with their people through wise governance. Sun Tzu later admonished rulers to create Tao wherever they went, and generals to preserve Tao wherever they found it, by taking the enemys country whole and intact.40 Tai Kungs technique for military conquest is to investigate the enemys intentions carefully and quickly take advantage of them, by launching a sudden attack where unexpected. To complement surprise, deception, and the unorthodox in the generals focus on enemy intent, Tai Kung emphasized the armys endogenous Shih. Success and defeat in all cases proceeded from the spiritual employment of strategic power, which is Shih. Those who attained it flourished; those who lost it perished. When the ruler preserved endogenous national Shihpatriotism, loyalty, nationalism, or communal

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pridethe army carried it to war as morale, confidence in their generals, and competence in combat skillsendogenous Shih. The generals task was to transform his armys endogenous Shih into exogenous Shih through deception and the unorthodox to defeat the enemys intent. The result was a people and army that could win without fighting by thwarting the enemys intent without necessarily destroying his forces. With Shih, the weak could defeat the strong; without Shih, war was at best uncertain, and usually futile.41

Strategic ShihRefining Tai Kungs Six Secret Teachings, Sun Tzu, Wu Tzu (440?381 BC), and Sun Pin wove Shih into Chinas strategic culture, and fashioned Shihstrategy around using force as a political instrument. In the Book of Lord Shang, Shang Yang noted the advantages in an armys superior position (morale, opportunity, and terrain) and advised manipulating themstrategic Shihto achieve victory. Like the Book of Lord Shang, the Kuan Tzu urged commanders to manipulate prevailing conditions, circumstances, and physical terrain to achieve political ends through military victory.42 In his monumental history of the Zhou dynasty, Sima Qians (?90? BC) Tao of Warfare described using force based on Tao at the national-strategic level in ways that parallel Shih-strategy.43 In his Summary of Military Strategies, Huai Nan Tzu (140? BC) developed tactical Shih as a foundation for Shih in its strategic implications.44 Chinese strategic culture never made Clausewitzs instrumental distinction between politics as a states diplomacy and warthe extension of politicsas its strategy.45 Sun Tzu regarded the ruler and the general as practicing the same profession, each with a unique expertise, a separate context, and a particular Shihendogenous rulers Shih and exogenous generals Shih. While Shih-strategy has integrated two domainsruler and generalin a single, national-strategic, collaborative art, Euro-American strategists have understood strategies as grand (global), national (politicaleconomic-military), or military (theater or regional).46 Political rulers and leaders develop grand and national strategies to focus resourcesincluding military forceson national interests defined by political policy. Generals develop military strategies to deploy and employ military forces to achieve military objectives.47 At each level, Euro-American strategists balance national political interests, military capabilities, and political aims. Shihstrategists, in contrast to Euro-American balancing, integrate all levels national, strategic, operational, and tacticalinto Shih within Tao.

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Huai Nan Tzus Shih at the TacticalOperational LevelAlthough Huai Nan Tzu was a political theorist, he analyzed Shih as tactical-operational military method. With strategic advantage (Shih) as his foundation and knowledge of the enemy as his guide, a commander could avoid his enemys strong points and attack his vulnerabilities in every operation.48 Urging commanders to build operations on dynamic power Shihrather than on static powerforce structureHuai Nan Tzu analyzed Shih with three variables. Troop morale, use of terrain, and opportunities for troop employment all changed along a spectrum of conditions and environment. Huai Nan Tzu translated his variables into three kinds of military Shih. Soldiers morale and the generals skillChi Shihbestowed intrinsic advantage and created an armys endogenous Shih. Exogenous Ti Shihthe advantage in critical terrainexpanded endogenous Shih. Exogenous Yin Shihexploiting an enemys weaknessoffered opportunities for employing troops with advantage, which created an armys greatest Shih. While morale Shih varied largely with generals, terrain Shih and opportunity Shih depended on the enemy in creating operational and national Shih. 1. Chi Shih: When the general is courageous and regards the enemy with contempt, when his troops are steeled in their resolve and are pleased at the prospect of battle, when the determination of his army, countless in number, outstrips the skies, when their morale is like a tempest and their battle cries ring like thunder, when utterly committed they fall upon the enemy with all of their might. This is called a morale advantage. 2. Ti Shih: Precipitous passes, narrows, high mountains, known strategic locations, spiraling approaches, basins, snaking roadways, places where one man can hold a thousand enemy at bay. This is called a terrain advantage. 3. Yin Shih: Taking advantage of the enemys fatigue, their illpreparedness and disorder, their hunger and thirst, their exposure to the elements, pressing in upon them where they are unsure of themselves and giving them no ground where they are most vulnerable. This is called an opportunity advantage.49 Sun Pin explained morale Shih as Chi in his Military Methods. The Sima Fa emphasized that in battle one endures with strength, and gains victory through spirit. The Wei Liao Tzu explicitly identified morale Shih, Chi, as a decisive factor: When their morale Shih is substantial they will fight; when their morale Shih has been snatched away they will run off.50 Modern Chinese still use the expression, Ti Shih, to refer to the invisible, static force created by terrainone terrains Shih is precipitous while

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anothers is gentleas it exists, whether used or not. Deeper than this common usage, Huai Nan Tzus terrain Shih appeared when a commander combined static existence with his intent and his soldiers through using the terrain to advantage. Stressing choke points where a few soldiers could prevent a large force from passing, terrain Shih condensed Sun Tzus heaven and earth into tactical and operational advantages of weather and geography.51 At the tactical-operational level, commanders created terrain Shih by selecting advantageous locations to engage the enemy. Huai Nan Tzus opportunity Shih increased friendly Shih and decreased enemy Shih by exploiting an enemys weaknesses. Commanders created Yin Shih by deploying and employing forces to optimize battlefield conditions. More sensitive to an operations timing than to the forces static power, Huai Nan Tzu recognized that to understand conditions and calculations clearly is a strategic advantage (Shih) in the use of troops . . . The critical factor is timing at the tactical level.52

Sun Tzus Shih at the National LevelAt the national-strategic, political level, Sun Tzu invoked Shih as the peoples solidarity and participation in national affairs. The rulers Tao determined the peoples commitment and determination and created national unity under the ruler. Together, all these created harmony between people and ruler in national Shih. Although Huai Nan Tzu focused on the armys Shih and Sun Tzu focused on national Shih, both thinkers effectively combined endogenous and exogenous Shih in the ruler and the general. Instead of Chi Shih and the armys courage, Sun Tzu encompassed both in national Shih and emphasized rulers Tao as dominant in determining victory and defeat in war. At the national or strategic level, he included political and strategic timing by expanding Huai Nan Tzus terrain Shih into his earth and heaven factors. He expanded his heaven factor to capture the importance of night and day, cold and heat, and times and seasons for war.53 Sun Tzus fourth factor, the general, expressed Huai Nan Tzus opportunity Shih at the national-strategic level. To complement the general, Sun Tzu also recognized the rulers ability to create Yin Shih in national diplomacy, force structure, weapons and equipment, and economic infrastructure.

Desperation and ShihSun Tzus primary, moral method for creating endogenous Shih brought soldiers, the commander, the ruler, and the people into full accord through

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national Tao. In exceptional situations, a commander could create intense, brief, battlefield Shih without Tao by placing soldiersfriendly or enemy into a desperate situation with only two choices: fight for survival or die. With no escape from death, soldiers will fully exert their strength. Sun Tzu also reversed this logic in realizing that a defeated force faced with brutal annihilation is capable of victory. Arising spontaneously from fear, their desperation would generate an infinite desperation Shih, which could overwhelm a strong friendly Shih. To prevent desperation Shih, Sun Tzu advised always to leave a path for retreat when surrounding an enemy force.54 Even recognizing desperation Shih as real and based on dynamic power, Sun Tzu did not accept it as normal. He insisted that only through the moral methodharmony between ruler and people in national Taocould the ruler create a persistent, endogenous Shih. Although Chinas military culture has accepted it as a legitimate, although not common, command technique, Chinese commanders have generally limited its use to tactical and operational situations. Applying desperation Shih only rarely at strategic and national levels, generals and rulers recognized that building Tao was not only the preferred means to wage war but wars proper aim. Only when facing threats to national survival have Chinas rulers sought to create desperation Shih in the Chinese people.

Hsing and ShihAlthough English has commonly translated this Chinese term as disposition, Hsing presupposes a broader configuration of power.55 For Clausewitzian tacticians, disposition usually has referred to unit locations and deployments, relocating forces and materials, and positioning troops for battle. Connoting a forces open, obvious, outward appearance, in a strategic context, Hsing has encompassed deployment and employment more the modern notion of combat posture than tactical dispositions. In this broad, strategic sense, Hsing gained critical significance in transforming static, visible force into dynamic forceShih. Deepening his floating-stones metaphor, Sun Tzu explained the bursting of pent-up waters into a deep chasm as Hsing.56 The outward appearance of the pent-up waters was Hsingpeaceful and placid. Released into the chasm, the bursting of the waters became the Shih that had been invisible beneath the waters visible Hsing. Although their intimate interdependence often projected Hsing as nearly synonymous with Shih, Sun Tzu was clear that Hsing did not always appear the same as Shih.57 By deploying units on a choke point through which they expected an enemy to passvisible Hsingcommanders could create Huai Nan Tzus invisible terrain Shih.

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Usually involving the overt deception taught by Tai Kung, commanders created Hsing largely by combining the orthodox and the unorthodox for either defense or offense. The orthodox was visible combat power with obvious advantages in superiority, strength, and exogenous Shih that determined general expectations. The unorthodox relied on agile forces with inherent flexibility in selecting the time and place for tactics and operations that deception obscured. Deception was the critical link, since without deception, the exposed unorthodox was only a weak orthodox. The Shihstrategists visible Hsing comprised both the visible, expected orthodox and the invisible, deceptive unorthodox. Through the orthodox, an enemy could suppose the commanders apparent intent simply by observing its outward appearance in Hsing. The commanders true intents, however, lay hidden beneath his deception in the invisible, unorthodox within Hsing. Even after observing the commanders Hsing, the enemy would not recognize his complete intent and the form that his operations would take. The pinnacle of Hsing is to reach the formless.58 Shih-strategists often deliberately presented a tactical-operational Hsing explicitly to deceive the enemy into miscalculating strategic and national Shih. If he confused the unorthodox and the orthodox through misinformation or miscalculation, he would misjudge Hsing and misunderstand Shih. His defenses would be weak, his offense would attack strong points, or his reserves and committed forces would be inadequate to thwart the commanders operational concept. Exploiting human interpretations of a forces broad appearance and their own expectations, Hsing was visible Shih. Shih was invisible Hsing

Changes in ShihSince Shih comprised Sun Tzus five characteristic factors, any change in a single factor changed national Shih. National power changed continually not only with changes in military capability but with variations in political, economic, sociological, geographical, and technological factors, which were often more significant. Sun Tzu recognized that the army has no fixed Shih just as water has no fixed Hsing.59

Patterns, Trends, and ShihSince dual cosmic forces (Yin and Yang) were constantly changing all under heaven in typical, natural rhythmsTaowise rulers and good generals

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extended these rhythms to military operations, strategy, and governance.60 Within the strategic and national perspectives, Sun Tzu likened changes in Shih to natural cyclesseasons, the moons waxing and waning, short and long days. If one side is increasing, some other side is decreasing. . . . The able commander does not resist the rhythm of change, but finding its pulse, translates defining conditions into correlative terms as a means of controlling the situation, anticipating the enemys movements, and making his victory inevitable.61 Generals developed campaigns and selected battlefields to evade the strong and attack the weak around changes in endogenous and exogenous Shih. More critical for the ruler making national policy was selecting the natural time to fight, when the enemys Shih was at its lowest and friendly Shih was at the highest.62

Changing HsingWhile an armys morale Shih, reflecting national Tao, was stable over both time and space, terrain Shih and opportunity Shih relied heavily upon the commanders operational concept and a battles location. Across a war theater and through a long campaign, changing conditions continually strengthened Shih in one sector, while weakening it in another. Recognizing changes in Shih, commanders managed them by changing Hsing over time and space. Generals created formless Hsing to deceive an enemy as the battlefield changed, just as shrewd rulers and diplomats created it in interstate relations. Combined in Hsing, the orthodox and the unorthodox sometimes mutated into each other as the battle flowed, commanders changed their intents, and situations changed. Especially over long campaigns, commanders indirect approaches, which were invisible to the enemy, accumulated with deception to become Shih at the ultimate objective, although no changes appeared in Hsing. In the campaigns final stages, a completely new relative Shih emerged with a corresponding new Hsing.

The Idea of LiLike Shih, Li carries many meanings clear to Chinese from the context. In direct contrast to Shih, the most familiar meanings for Li referred to personal advantage, benefit, desire, or interest and to the tangible things of nature that people could accumulate. Despite simplistic parallels with modern, pragmatic realism, Sun Tzu relegated this Li of advantage to little more than a technique for building and sustaining Shih, while Confucius opposed it to virtue. A gentleman [superior person] seeks virtue; a small

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man seeks land. . . . A gentleman seeks justice; a small man seeks favours.63 Since Li would ensure that inferior persons dealt with lifes prosaic details and natural things, Li was not a gentlemans concern. Rather than seeking Li, the higher type of man, having gathered wide objective knowledge from the branches of polite learning, will regulate the whole by the inner rule of conduct.64 For both Sun Tzu and Confucius, a vague Li within Tao referred to material things that were outside the domain of superior persons, rulers, and generals. While people merged natural thingsLiwith human actions in Shih, the natural force in Li operated forever incomplete beneath and within Tao, which included both people and natureLi and Shih. By expanding Li to the state and Shih to the rulerboth within Tao Confucians transformed Li into pragmatic rites and duties of citizenship

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