Throughout the book, the main principle of the Active Defense, “striking only after the enemy has struck,” is repeated and is the basis for China’s claim that it will always have the legal and moral high ground if forced to fight. However, while it stresses China’s strategically defensive posture, the chapter on “Strategic Guidance of High-tech Local War” pro-vides justification for operational or tactical preemp-tive strikes:
Under high-tech conditions, for the defensive side, the strategy to gain mastery by striking only after the en-emy has struck does not mean waiting for enen-emy’s strike passively. ‘Striking only after the enemy has struck’ in strategy is based on the ‘victory in advance’
of comprehensive national defense construction. It is
the means to win political and moral initiatives. . . .
‘the first shot’ on the plane of politics and strategy must be differentiated from ‘the first shot’ on the plane of tactics. . . . if any country or organization violates the other country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the other side will have the right to ‘fire the first shot’ on the plane of tactics. The military coun-terattacks may be taken by the following options: to drive the invaders out of the territory; or to launch the same attacks on the enemy’s homeland; or to attack the enemy’s foreign military bases, targets at sea or in the air.46 (emphasis added)
Clearly, the red line of what is “‘the first shot’ on the plane of politics and strategy” will vary according to the adversary and the issue under contention. How-ever, the key is that before firing “‘the first shot’ on the plane of tactics,” there will be some period of increased political tensions, and an adversary will have taken some sort of action that China can interpret as violat-ing its sovereignty or territorial integrity. The Chinese propaganda and legal machinery will work in concert to prove such actions were provocation for whatever steps China then takes. In other words, “striking only after the enemy has struck” does not require China to have actually suffered a physical first blow; Active Defense provides the basis for preemptive action.
The Science of Military Strategy’s final chapter takes preemption a step further by proposing an active strategic counterattack on exterior lines.47 While re-iterating that Active Defense is the essential feature of China’s military strategy, “it is necessary to adjust our way of thinking and enrich the contents of active defense on the basis of the characteristics and laws of the modern local war.” The active strategic counterat-tack differs from other preemptive actions because it
is taken at the strategic level of war and conducted at the beginning of a war. It is alleged not to be “a component of the expansive and extrovert offensive strategy, but a strategically defensive and active self-defense counterattack.” The book does not specify ex-actly how such an operation would be conducted or exactly what its main targets would be (other parts of the book detail generic target lists). Rather, this pas-sage ends by stating the PLA should “choose the un-expected time, place, and pattern of war which the en-emy finds most reluctant and difficult to deal with.”48 An historic example of active strategic counterattack might be Doolittle’s 1942 raid on Tokyo rather than the “bolt from the blue” Japanese attack on Pearl Har-bor. The PLA has not conducted such a joint attack at strategic depths in its history, with the closest example perhaps being the covert movement of “volunteers”
into Korea in the fall of 1950. Trends in PLA modern-ization over the past 15 years have greatly increased China’s options for this kind of operation with the po-tential for cyber attacks, long-range missile (ballistic and cruise) attacks against land and sea targets, and the use of special operations forces at considerable distance from China’s shores.
Finally, future military operations (including de-terrence operations) are divided into three types:
1. Preventive strategic action or operations that seek to prevent a situation from deteriorating, which may include exercises, raising alert status, establish-ing nofly/no navigation zones, or low intensity op-erations, such as use of special operations forces or small-scale joint operations.
2. Controllable operations to restore and stabilize the situation, of medium- or of medium-low-intensity, such as regional blockade, missile assault, air attack,
island attack or defense, frontier counterattack, and medium- or large-scale joint operations.
3. Decisive operations to protect the country’s fundamental national interests and are usually me-dium-large scale, medium-high intensity operations that usually are decisive and “therefore must be sure to win.”49
These classifications emphasize both deterrence and warfighting, perhaps unrealistically seek to over-come the uncertainty of war, and provide a standard-ized method for planning and training and employ-ing troops based on a correct estimate of the situation.
The Science of Military Strategy does not rule out the possibility that the goal of fighting a quick and deci-sive could evolve into a long-term confrontation or protracted war.50 This thought process emphasizes a professional attitude toward training and attaining operational readiness, but urges caution in making the decision to go to war.
Therefore, imprudent decision to use force is never permitted. . . . The reason for the existence of the army is to prevent and win a war. . . . We may not launch a war in a hundred years but we can never be unpre-pared for war for even one day. . . . Only when an army is fully prepared for war, can it be prudent to start a war and react quickly in war.51
As PLA capabilities improve, should circum-stances demand and the Party leadership so orders, the PLAN is likely to be involved in any long-range, strategic operation at the beginning of a war, along with the Air Force and Second Artillery. Therefore, the doctrinal foundation for the PLAN’s actions have become of greater interest to the world.
OFFSHORE DEFENSE—A RELATIVELY