the book is worth reading, but it looks like a pirated book.

reason:
1. the author would never endorse such subtitle, which distorted the theme of the book totally (as other reviewers also discussed)
2. i can't find the publisher and other info in this page
3. a pdf download can be find if you google, or through, e.g. this site (...)

Scary reading. This book should be mandatory reading for all. I learned of this book while spending time in Taiwan and have seen China's plan in action.

Scary reading. This book should be mandatory reading for all. I learned of this book while spending time in Taiwan and have seen China's plan in action.

The book is a translation of the very interesting work published in February 1999 by two PLA colonels, namely qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui and the first thing that strikes the reader is the clear mind and the scope of reading that these officers have as a background. Following Martin van Creveld's groundbreaking work "The Transformation of War" (1991), the authors consider the 1991 Gulf War as a crucial turning point in the history of warfare and declare that war between states will be the exception rather than the norm in the future. The target of the book was obviously to warn China (and PLA particularly) that it's not prudent to prepare for a conventional fight against the US military might (regarding the Taiwan issue for example) but to seek new methods by whom "the inferior can defeat the superior". The book's subtitle "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" is not absolutely justified and the reader will not find any clue that China has any connection with the islamic extremism (although the insurgency in Iraq suits her nicely). There are indeed some points inside the book which are really chilling, such as "whether it be intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidth understood by the American military... This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means". The great part of the book is its emphasis on future "non-military warfare" and the warning that "soldiers do not have the monopoly of war". It is unknown whether PLA's top leadership hes endorsed these views or not but there is a troublesome condemnation of the race for superior weapons technology without paying attention to the changing principles of war. The emphasis on non-state opponents like Osam bin Laden is really amazing given that 9/11 wass more thatn two years ahead when the book came out, but currently PLA does not invest only on hackers or financial warfare (althoug this last is a strong dimension of its foreign policy) bying instead modern Su-30s, "Sovremeny" destroyers and "Kilo" submarines for use in a possible war with Taiwan and its allies.

The new kind of warfare which some people call "Fourth Generation War" or "Asymmetric War" has yet to prove its validity and despite some deaths that terrorists caused in the USA, Spain, Britain, Egypt (and more than 25.000 in Iraq) they have not achieved anything of lasting importance, thus their innovative tactics have been proved (for the time being) far less dangerous than classic conventional warfare of World War II type. I found very interesting the authors' suggestion of new principles of war (Omnidirectionality, Synchrony, Limited Objectives, Unlimited Measures, Asymmetry, Minimal Consumption, Multidimension Coordination and Adjustment and Control of the entrie process) but I don't know why they forgot to mention the old but crucial principles of "surprise", "security" and "unity of command". Overall it is an important study which seeks to find new ways to confront or negate the US military superiority but the theory has not proved decisive so far. Probably, the crucial turning point for the ascendancy of this theory will be the use of WMD at the hands of terrorist groups ot other non-state elements. As for PLA, it is rather impossible to conquer Taiwan without firing a shot. On the negative side of the book is the problematic translation of names, hence "Aegis cruisers" become "Zeus shield cruisers" and MacGregor's book "Brealing the Phalanx" becomes Maigeleige's book "Break the Factional Position". Many other names have been changed almost beyond recognition!

For the reader who does not wish to receive such a heavy dose of theory though, I would strongly recommend Peter Howarth's excellent new book "China's Rising Sea Power" instead, which is full of data and a fine operational and strategic analysis of the Chinese goals and means in Western Pacific. It is rather expensive but it worths its money!

The book is a translation of the very interesting work published in February 1999 by two PLA colonels, namely qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui and the first thing that strikes the reader is the clear mind and the scope of reading that these officers have as a background. Following Martin van Creveld's groundbreaking work "The Transformation of War" (1991), the authors consider the 1991 Gulf War as a crucial turning point in the history of warfare and declare that war between states will be the exception rather than the norm in the future. The target of the book was obviously to warn China (and PLA particularly) that it's not prudent to prepare for a conventional fight against the US military might (regarding the Taiwan issue for example) but to seek new methods by whom "the inferior can defeat the superior". The book's subtitle "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" is not absolutely justified and the reader will not find any clue that China has any connection with the islamic extremism (although the insurgency in Iraq suits her nicely). There are indeed some points inside the book which are really chilling, such as "whether it be intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidth understood by the American military... This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means". The great part of the book is its emphasis on future "non-military warfare" and the warning that "soldiers do not have the monopoly of war". It is unknown whether PLA's top leadership hes endorsed these views or not but there is a troublesome condemnation of the race for superior weapons technology without paying attention to the changing principles of war. The emphasis on non-state opponents like Osam bin Laden is really amazing given that 9/11 wass more thatn two years ahead when the book came out, but currently PLA does not invest only on hackers or financial warfare (althoug this last is a strong dimension of its foreign policy) bying instead modern Su-30s, "Sovremeny" destroyers and "Kilo" submarines for use in a possible war with Taiwan and its allies.

The new kind of warfare which some people call "Fourth Generation War" or "Asymmetric War" has yet to prove its validity and despite some deaths that terrorists caused in the USA, Spain, Britain, Egypt (and more than 25.000 in Iraq) they have not achieved anything of lasting importance, thus their innovative tactics have been proved (for the time being) far less dangerous than classic conventional warfare of World War II type. I found very interesting the authors' suggestion of new principles of war (Omnidirectionality, Synchrony, Limited Objectives, Unlimited Measures, Asymmetry, Minimal Consumption, Multidimension Coordination and Adjustment and Control of the entrie process) but I don't know why they forgot to mention the old but crucial principles of "surprise", "security" and "unity of command". Overall it is an important study which seeks to find new ways to confront or negate the US military superiority but the theory has not proved decisive so far. Probably, the crucial turning point for the ascendancy of this theory will be the use of WMD at the hands of terrorist groups ot other non-state elements. As for PLA, it is rather impossible to conquer Taiwan without firing a shot. On the negative side of the book is the problematic translation of names, hence "Aegis cruisers" become "Zeus shield cruisers" and MacGregor's book "Brealing the Phalanx" becomes Maigeleige's book "Break the Factional Position". Many other names have been changed almost beyond recognition!

The subtitle of the translated work, "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" is added by the translator. If this book were indeed China's master plan to destroy America, would the Chinese military authority be so stupid to publicize its master plan?

The Chinese edition, published in 1999, is not at all anti-America. The United States is indeed a major focus of the book simply because the United States is militarily the most powerful and advanced nation in the world, and it is the only nation that has fought in several major wars, particularly the Gulf War, with significant innovations in weaponry, military strategies and tactics. In fact the authors express their admirations and respects for the many innovations and accomplshments of the Amercian military in the Gulf War, and for the "father" Bush's wisdom of forming an international alliance to fight Saddam Hussein.

As any analysis would do, the book does post questions on some U.S. post Gulf War military thinking. For instance, the authors are puzzled by th fact that the U.S. military still gave so much attention to tanks while in the Gulf War helicopters were proved to be the deadly weapon of destroying the tanks....

On fighting the terrorist war and the future conventional warfare, the two authors are very much indebted to the ideas developed in Alvin Toffler's book, THE THIRD WAVE, and, particularly , in Alvin and Heidi Toffler's WAR AND ANTI-WAR. To illustrate the feasibility of their views, Qiao Liang, the first author of the book, published a novel MORI ZHI MEN or GATE OF ARMAGEDDON in 1995. In the novel, helicopters defeat tanks, and a war between two major powers ends without casualty (a prediction made in Toffler's WAR AND ANTI-WAR).... In the novel, The U.S. is a decisive player in the very delicate and complex international politics, but the novel's hero a Chinese colonel helps defeating the terrorists who attempt to destroy the world not by means of suicide bombers but by using computers (another Toffler's prediction). In CHAOXIANZHAN (UNRESTRICTED WARFARE), the authors are surprised to see that the West and the U.S. are so ill-prepared to defend themselves against terrorists.

As the orginal Chinese UNRESTRICTED WARFARE or CHAOXIANZHAN was published in 1999, the cover of the translated English version shows the imgage of the horrifying destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. This is a very unfortunate mis-representation either for some political purpose or for monetary gains.

By the way, the two authors of the UNRESTRICTED WARFARE were not educated and trained as professional military men. Colonel Qiao Liang, for instance, received his B.A. degree in Chinese literature, and has published several notable novels. He is employed in the Creative Writing Departament of the Air Force, a Chinese military tradition of believing the power of literature, and was promoted to the rank of colonel because of his literary accomplishment.

Did China have a hand in 9/11?

"Unrestricted Warfare" means exactly what it says: that modern-day Communist China is dedicated to any means available to destroy its rival for the status of global superpower, the United States---and excerpts suggesting asymmetrical warfare against high-profile, high-casualty civilian targets not only suggest our own conflict against international terrorism, but ups the ante---the book even mentions Osama Bin Laden by name, and notes the destructive effect of an "explosion in the World Trade Center".

China: even its name, Zhongghua, means "Middle Kingdom", the point at which Heaven intersects with Earth. It is the birthplace of great warrior-poet-philosophers, the cradle of gunpowder and high mathematics, for thousands of years the very bastion of civilization against a tide of barbarians.

At the end of the 19th century, in the wake of the brutal "Opium Wars", millions of its people languished in the addiction of opium brought by European traders, who staked out their markets by bringing in the gunboats of their home countries.

China became a slave nation. But only 50 years later, Mao Tse-Tung---another warrior-poet in the tradition of Sun Tzu---had mobilized the people to rise up against Western control, against the Japanese military, and finally, against the pro-Western regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

Today, China may very well want to be a global hegemon again, and if "Unrestricted Warfare"---supposedly a copy of a super-secret Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) handbook---has any credibility, then China was the shadowy hand behind supposed Islamic radical and terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden's devastating blow against the United States---China's only real rival---on 9/11.

Ask yourself this question: who *really* benefitted from the suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001?

Did Yemeni-born rich-boy-gone-bad Osama bin Laden, and his brutal Islamist terrorist group Al Quaeda? Since 9/11, Osama and his iron lung have been confined to high Afghani mountain paths or the depths of caves, tracked by Delta Force and the blackest of U.S. Black Ops. It's true that President Bush has been criticized for not bringing us the head of OBL, but let's face facts: Osama is never going to enjoy a nice chardonnay at a plush restaurant on the Champs D'Elysees again.

Was it good for the Islamist movement? With terrorist redout and Islamist paradise Afghanistan having now gone through its first elections---ever---and elected the pro-Western Hamid Karzai, with women striding the streets of Kabul without chadors or burkhas---and with Iraq's Saddam Hussein hauled up out of his spider hole and elections soon to follow---you tell me.

Who gained? In the early days of the Bush presidency, a harsh spotlight had been fixed, by the White House, on the global spectre of rising Chinese adventurism. Warnings had been issued regarding Taiwan. Congress had convened to debate China's coveted Most Favored Nation status, an economic treat the Clinton White House had always proferred to Beijing. Then in April 2001 the silent war with China took a more heated turn, when an American EP-3 spy-plane was forced by a Chinese fighter jet (destroyed in the process) to crash-land on the Chinese-controlled island, with its crew held hostage by the Chinese government for 11 days, during which relations between the two countries were tense.

The stand-off crystallized a view in the White House that China was the new global threat, and forces---and resources---were mobilized by the Bush strategy team to re-assess the U.S. strategy towards this potential global hegemon.

And then the brutal attacks on 9/11 occurred, and our view shifted over to Islamic fundamentalism. Who gained?

According to this military review meant for China's senior deicision makers, the United States may have the strongest military on Earth, but its citizenry---and its political chattering classes, best embodied by the mainstream media and the New York Times---have an aversion to body count. The writing is terse and dry---calling to mind Zen Koans or the astringent military tactics of Chairman Mao himself---but the overall meaning of "Unrestricted Warfare" is clear: hit the Enemy in his population centers, terrify his citizens, confuse and numb him, intimidate the citizenry with the prospect of thousands of flag-draped caskets riding home in military transports, and the battle for global supremacy can be won without facing a technologically superior foe on the battlefield.

This is changeless Chinese military policy, lifted from 4th century BC Sun Tzu to modern day China: strike with surprise, and strike hard. Never let the Enemy know where you're coming from. Use spies, assassins, messengers of terror.

The point here is not to disparage China: she has her own interests, as well she should, and pursues them as any great power ought to. I have great respect for China, have always been fascinated with that beguiling land, and am stunned by the rapidity with which Mao took a humiliated third-world nation and turned it into a military and economic giant. But if China has its future strategy with regard to the U.S., mapped out, we---if only to secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity---must be ready for her. "Unrestricted Warfare" is a first step in mapping out the uncertain road ahead.

Although the content of this book may not represent the view of the average person in China, it is unfortunately true that China's People's Liberation Army is itching for a fight with the U.S. The PLA thinks that it needs to bloody America's nose before it can take its place in the world as a superpower, and all indications are that the PLA is getting ready to do just that. The PLA is being specifically designed to fight a war with the U.S., and if Jiang Zemin gets his way the fight will occur in the next 3 years.

And I found more intriguing the review recently put out by zhuizhou zhou of Irvine CA.

With all due respect to your speaking out on this forum, your propaganda-sounding argument isn't convincing to us normal citizens of the United States. This book is a TRANSLATION of a book written by CHINESE army officers. Unfortunately your review, with all the colorful "facts" about how PRC China is "helping" our nation, oddly lacks explanation about the origin of the book. And let me warn that the way you try to make us feel indebted to PRC will sure backfire. You are almost fearlessly naive about the fact that Chinese exports to U.S. led to millions of American jobs lost and are killing middle America.

And I found a recent review by zhizhong zhou from Irvine, CA intriguing. With all the due respect to this reviewer's speaking out on this forum, the propaganda-sounding argument is not really convincing to us grass-roots Americans. First off, this book is a TRANSLATION and originally written by PRC CHINESE ARMY OFFICERS. Despite his eloquent introduction of the "facts" about how PRC China is "helping" the United States, the review oddly keeps silent about the origin of this book. About the true intent of the Chinese viewing the war with the U.S. "The Final War over Resources".

Also, the way the reviewer tries to make us feel indebted to PRC China could backfire. This person is surprisingly naive about how ordinary Americans perceive Chinese exports to the U.S. - the millions of jobs lost in the last several years, a fatal loss of Middle America. Regardless of who's winnning the election this fall, CHEAP CHINESE EXPORTS EXPLOITING SUBSTANDARD HUMAN RIGHTS CONDITIONS will be under fire for some years at least.

This book is unworthy of two college sophomores, let alone "experienced" military men like the two alleged colonels authoring it. It is pretentious beyond description.

It begins with semantic masturbation as the authors play games with the meaning and juxtaposition of words like "revolution", "new", "method" and "warfare". It is so boring I found myself skipping pages looking for some meat. I suspect the goal of this book is to have the west read it and conclude that the Chinese are a military joke. To take this book seriously would be to spend weeks microscopically examining every sentence for hidden meanings or shrewd military insight, where there is none. If this is the best military thinking to come out of China, America has nothing to fear. I suspect this is the conclusion they hope we will draw, thereby leading America to underestimate its enemy. Basically, I pronounce their attempt to be transparent propaganda. I'm sure the Chinese military has far better thinkers than the two doofus clowns who wrote this book.

Once they are done masturbating over their tricky words, they start using the word "strategy" in all its forms over and over to make the reader think they know what they are talking about and that they are qualified "military experts". They begin each chapter with a meaningless quotation in order to appear learned and profound. In fact, it is profoundly meaningless. They are merely confused and self-delusional, obviously way too impressed with their own thinking abilities.

They get into relating the exploits of Secretary of Defense William Cohen as if he was an important military expert. If they think America will continue to vote for traitors in the White House and to put incompetent bureaucrats like Cohen in the Cabinet, they are engaging in wishful thinking and misguided self-delusion. The American public is waking up to treason in our midst.

I did think it appropriate to lump Osama bin Laden and George Soros in the same category; terrorists. Osama from a blood and iron viewpoint, Soros from a financial viewpoint. At least the authors can lay claim to a non-zero shred of perspicacity.

Finally they end up playing numerology games, making tortured comparisons of military tactics to the "golden section", a Greek relationship that produces the number 0.618. They go on to "analyze" various battles and invent ways to produce the "magic" number to show why a strategy worked. As if references to classical Greece should validate their thinking and convince their readers of their premises. I expected them to start adding up numbers as they analyzed the letters of a general's name and their position in the alphabet, as having significance. They don't even make arguments for or against anything; they just ramble, ramble, ramble. This book reminded me of Mao's Little Red Book. Endless, profound sounding, boring generalities.

Mostly this book is a monument to the authors' love of pouring out ponderous, boring words and rambling on forever saying nothing. They love meaningless but weighty sounding generalities.

Their only claim to fame in predicting a useful strategy (there's that word again) is to advise modern warriors to "think outside the box". Well, duh! I think we concluded that after 9/11. They don't use that phrase but that's my one-line summary of this waste of paper. To think that trees had to die in order to publish this piece of vacuous stupidity! Granted, this book WAS written before 9/11, in 1999, so we should have heeded its advice when it came out.

If this is "China's master plan to destroy America" we can all sleep peacefully tonight. I know I will. Buy this book if you have more money than brains. I'll sell mine to you cheap.

This is a padded edition with more hype on terrorism and fear than necessary. The original text by Lang and Xiangsui is a fascinating look at the true weaknesses of the American military system. It is with this book that China identifies America as its sole predominate enemy.

I fully believe and support our military in any and all of its endeavors. However the book correctly points out, among other things, that the US has an obsession with human casualties. It is because of this that wars are fought from a distance, with technology, in order to minimize casualties. This is something that is very evident to anyone who's looked at the American military's history. From World War 2 to Desert Storm II, the increased use of technology and the public outcry over casualties has increased ten fold. This book, correctly so, advances the theory that in the event of a war between China and America, there will be an unconventional war sorts or rather "the war will be fought an won in a war beyond the battlefield" using terrorism, financial institutions, computer hackers, among many others.

The sale of this book is mainly a money making scheme since the CIA translation is available for free all over the internet. On the other hand, this is an excellent book for any foreign policy enthusiast, but more importantly, for those military intelligence analysts who we hope are reading it. This is what China really thinks and the truth really does hurt.

This book is written like a Chinese proverb. The writing is very pedantic in places and sounds like proverbs that were translated in to English, at first.

Yet the descriptions the writers have of the first Gulf War and the outcomes and lessons learned from there are incredible. To see the changes in our methodology in Iraqi freedom being outlined before we fought was also astonishing.

This book outlines the methods of fighting only one foe, the USA. They mention a number of times 'the myth of America's invincibility' and then describe the many methods we are vulnerable.

The list includes, economics, biological, our infrastructure, our natural resources, weather, ideological, media, information technology and our military.

China has the numerical resources to fight a multi-tiered battle with us if they choose, when the time is correct. Yet, that would be a time when they would feel that they needed to. The economics of it would not serve China's best interest, nor the worlds. If they were to attack America and attempt to be the only superpower in the world there would be another dark age. However, if another country were to use these methods, yet were able to replace the bread basket and other resources of the USA, then the war supposed in this book would be a possibility, actually, a reality.

Some who have read Sun Tzu's art of war will recognize some of his strategy in this book, feigning weakness, ideological warfare and the like. It is a slow read at first, yet, once you get through the first chapter it picks up.

You must read the footnotes, however, they are not just sources they include additional material that gives a fuller picture and essense of the book. My only question is, why do we produce so much information that our potential enemies can use it against us? China will not use this, however, other enemies, mostly rogue groups with hatred for the US will.

Wow, China wants to destroy USA, why? How?

Yes, China is rising, China is becoming stronger, Chinese people are having better standards of living...

But why should China attack US?

US is China's #1 trading partner, with annual bilateral trade near US $100 billions. If China "destroys" US, who could replace the US for doing trading? (See China section on [www address])

I have read the Chinese version of this book. It did not have the subtitle "China's Master Plan to Destroy America".

I don't understand why the translator added the subtitle; did he wish that there would be wars between the 2 superpowers?! - World War III?!

The only conclusion I can draw is that the translator is a war-lover, China-hater, or just simply a lunatic!

As a Chinese-Canadian, living and working in the USA for more than 12 years, I have many American friends and I love America!

I have found out that the majority of Americans are friendly to the Chinese people. However, due to the biased American medias on China, few Americans have developed hatreds towards China. (This book is one the very worst examples).

I just hope anyone with sane minds can see that China is not the enemy of USA.

Terrorism is the biggest enemy for the USA, China and the entire world for the foreseeable future.

Seeing is believing.

For these China-haters, please go to China, have a visit, see China with your own eyes.

You will like China! I guarantee you.

Thanks and peace on earth!

At first glance, I thought this book was about 9-11 attack. I was totally fooled by the cover instead. After reading the book carefully, I found the sub-title "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" has nothing to do with the cover at all. Not to mention that China is in alliance with US to fight terrorism. A good book should be honest and straight-forward, but NOT misleading.

I am not sure why the editors of this book chose 9-11 scene as the cover. Maybe they just felt it would attract more eye balls. What a trick!

I guess next time, I could write something like "Unbalanced Economy: Japan's master plan to control the world" and with a cover showing 9-11 scene as well.

How come to use WTC as the cover of the book since China has nothing to do with that?

The most stupid thing is that some Americans take this money-collecting book seriously as a Chinese government tactics plan. Aha, finally they found something to fit their coldwar-washed brains.

This is a book written about 3-4 years ago by a China army officer, this is a pure academic book that details the new ideas of an unbalanced warfare.
I don't understand why two country 10000 miles apart will want to destroy each other, and I don't know why author use such a misleading title. The original title is just unbalanced war, the example used in book is USA for the simple reason that US has been the one who suffers more on such kind of warfare.