Generational theory, international history and current events
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From 2013.Higgenbotham wrote:Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/op ... z18LPbfFgUIndeed, back in 1999, the Chinese literally wrote the book on how to use economic asymmetries as a blunt instrument, entitled "Unrestricted Warfare."
It draws no meaningful distinction between military, economic and political force (including using cyberspace) as means to defeat an enemy. Instead, it shows how a nation can dominate its opponents not with planes, ships and soldiers, but with foreign exchange rates, trade embargoes and armies of computer hackers.
Suppose that in retaliation for some slight China decides to stop buying Treasury bonds, forcing our debt to cost us even more. A furious US Congress hits back with trade sanctions. China then responds by driving up the price of the dollar, crippling US exports -- or, alternately, it crashes the dollar by dumping its foreign reserves, even as Chinese computer hackers slow down our banks' ability to respond to the crisis.
No one will call this a war. But it will certainly fit the classic definition of war as politics by other means. And the Pentagon knows it.
Last March, the Pentagon held its first-ever economic-warfare war game, with China as the putative opponent and with economists and bankers (including from UBS) helping out.
Details of what unfolded are still classified. However, sources told Fox Business News that the scenario played out as planned. That was the good news.
The bad news is that China won.
From a 2011 conversation with Lily about the "when".Higgenbotham wrote:A few pieces of the article are quoted - there's lots more at the link.Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash
Pentagon study sees element
The Washington Times
Monday, February 28, 2011
"The new battle space is the economy," he said. "We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered.
Regardless of the report's findings, U.S. officials and outside analysts said the Pentagon, the Treasury Department and U.S. intelligence agencies are not aggressively studying the threats to the United States posed by economic warfare and financial terrorism.
"Nobody wants to go there," one official said.
Because of secrecy surrounding global banking and finance, finding the exact identities of the attackers will be difficult.
Asked by The Times who he thought to be the most likely behind the financial attacks, Mr. Freeman said: "Unfortunately, the two major strategic threats, radical jihadists and the Chinese, are among the best positioned in the economic battle space.
The third phase is what Mr. Freeman states in the report was the main source of the economic system's vulnerability. "We have taken on massive public debt as the government was the only party who could access capital markets in late 2008 and early 2009," he said, placing the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status at grave risk.
"This is the 'end game' if the goal is to destroy America," Mr. Freeman said, noting that in his view China's military "has been advocating the potential for an economic attack on the U.S. for 12 years or longer as evidenced by the publication of the book Unrestricted Warfare in 1999."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ash/print/
http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdfSupposing a war broke out between two developed nations already possessing full information technology, and relying upon traditional methods of operation, the attacking side would generally employ the modes of great depth, wide front, high strength, and three-dimensionality to launch a campaign assault against the enemy. Their method does not go beyond satellite reconnaissance, electronic countermeasures, large-scale air attacks plus precision attacks, ground outflanking, amphibious landings, air drops behind enemy lines ... the result is not that the enemy nation proclaims defeat, but rather one returns with one's own spears and feathers.
However, by using the combination method, a completely different scenario and game can occur: if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent's computer system in advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis.
There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein "the other army is subdued without fighting." However, it can be considered to be "subduing the other army through clever operations." It is very clear who was superior and who inferior when comparing these two methods of operation. This is, however, only a thought. However, it is certainly a feasible thought. Based on this thought, we need only shake the kaleidoscope of addition to be able to combine into an inexhaustible variety of methods of operation.
From Unrestricted Warfare, p. 145.
We have now reached the "when it stops working point" and I think what comes next is the economic attack.Higgenbotham wrote: Here's what I wrote again:
"In keeping with that idea, I believe China realizes any struggle is likely to be quite protracted and complex. China, I believe, sees the US as more vulnerable economically and strategically than militarily. For now (5 years let's say), I believe they want to get as close to equality militarily as possible just in case while continuing to bleed the US economy out very slowly so as to not collapse it and provoke a military struggle. I believe the chess game they are playing would be the equivalent to what Bobby Fischer called gaining "an accumulation of small advantages" because that's what will work best for them at this time. I don't think that's going to work, but I don't know how soon it will stop working. The when it stops working part is pretty critical as far as knowing what happens next, I think."
The Chinese are far better off in my opinion chipping away at us economically as long as they can do so while approximating asymmetric military parity; it's the same thing the Russians tried (by stealing our technology) but the Chinese have the ability to make it work better.
As far as the Chinese moving the peg on their currency or selling US Treasuries, I didn't say they would do both (I just said they would threaten to sell US Treasuries and it would be if the US retaliated). What they would do is weaken their currency and take other measures consistent with the effects of that. However, let's say the US ratcheted things up by taking counter measures to weaken the dollar. It would be at that point as the dollar trended weaker that the Chinese could unleash a deluge of US Treasury selling and crash the dollar.Higgenbotham wrote:As an example, if China decides that Sunday night would be the opportune time to ratchet up the economic war and crash our markets, 34% bulls and 56% bears (or whatever the similar figures are that are being quoted) probably means the market is too optimistic.
Why would somebody think China would do that? Well, a few days ago China reset their currency peg over 7, the US labeled them a currency manipulator, then the next day they reset it back under 7 (something like that). And everything went back to looking pretty good. Most breathed a sigh of relief and said all is well.
I looked at it differently. In my opinion, what China did was see how much they needed to move the needle to get how much bang in terms of a stock market crash. So let's say they moved the peg 0.05 and they got the S&P to go down 5% the next day. Now they may figure if they move the peg 0.20, and threaten to sell $500 billion worth of long term US treasuries, and sell so may billion worth of stock index futures in the dark of the night, maybe they could get a crash out of it.
In that case, 34% bulls did not accurately reflect reality. While sentiment was net negative, it wasn't negative enough.
Higgenbotham wrote: > It draws no meaningful distinction between military, economic and
> political force (including using cyberspace) as means to defeat an
> enemy. Instead, it shows how a nation can dominate its opponents
> not with planes, ships and soldiers, but with foreign exchange
> rates, trade embargoes and armies of computer hackers.
Most of America IS using unraveling era behavior right now. Regarding the well-advertised coming trade agreement, only very slowly and one by one have a few Americans realized there will be no trade agreement and there was never going to be one. But it's still almost unanimous that the economy and stock market have plenty of room to run because a recession is at least a year away.John wrote:** 17-Aug-2019 China - Unrestricted Warfare
Higgenbotham wrote: > It draws no meaningful distinction between military, economic and
> political force (including using cyberspace) as means to defeat an
> enemy. Instead, it shows how a nation can dominate its opponents
> not with planes, ships and soldiers, but with foreign exchange
> rates, trade embargoes and armies of computer hackers.
Yes, it's true that China "draws no meaningful distinction between
military, economic and political force (including using cyberspace) as
means to defeat an enemy." But neither does the West in a
generational crisis war.
The material you've quoted assumes that America would use Unraveling
era behavior, while China would use Crisis era behavior. This is a
fundamental kind of error that mainstream analysts use in order to
support an ideological point of view.
But if you're going to play the Sun Tzu card, then you have to play it
all the way. Sun Tzu would never approve of using the "sell
Treasuries" weapon in isolation. That weapon would only be used as
one part of a massive military attack on the US and West. In that
case, the news would not be the China is selling Treasuries. The news
would be that China has fully launched World War III.
The Crisis Era began in 2003, and with the Silent generation gone, weHiggenbotham wrote: > Most of America IS using unraveling era behavior right
> now. Regarding the well-advertised coming trade agreement, only
> very slowly and one by one have a few Americans realized there
> will be no trade agreement and there was never going to be
> one. But it's still almost unanimous that the economy and stock
> market have plenty of room to run because a recession is at least
> a year away.
> That was kind of where I started when I said the message boards
> this weekend are pointing to sentiment readings and saying the
> stock market is going to go to a new all time high. But that will
> quickly change if China launches an economic attack and the stock
> market drops somewhere around 20% in one day.
That's the Regeneracy. That's also World War III.Higgenbotham wrote: > But that will quickly change if China launches an economic attack
> and the stock market drops somewhere around 20% in one day.
That's another thing that crossed my mind as I was typing. This is a time when sentiment is likely to swing wildly day to day or even hour to hour. So quoting sentiment figures as if they mean something in relation to future stock market prices is most likely bogus anyway. Probably the better indicator is the herd thinking these sentiment indicators they are quoting actually mean something.aeden wrote:Your flutter theory covers more than a few concrete points H.
I think it's important to highlight this because a lot of what I posted today was noise in relation to this. This is already occurring and it is serious.John wrote: A far bigger problem than the trade sanctions is the unrest in Hong
Kong. The unrest is occurring along the same north vs south fault
line that led to the last two generational crisis civil wars -- Mao's
communist rebellion, and the Taiping rebellion.