Three Paradoxes of the Sudden Nature of War

2023-07-13

The Three Paradoxes of "Sudden War": Liu Peng, Yu Guoqiang, and Zhang Hanxiao's Key Points: The vitality of war determines that suddenness often has a one-time effect, making it difficult to maintain long-term and continuous implementation. Suddenness arises from the "mismatch" between cognition and reality. To outsmart an opponent in future wars, one must be adept at creating and utilizing this "misplacement", find ways to overcome the enemy's perceived "impossibility", use the enemy's thinking patterns to guide the situation, and turn the enemy's perceived "impossibility" into the "possibility" of one's own intelligent victory over a strong enemy. Sun Tzu said, "Attack unprepared, surprise unexpected." Since ancient times, using suddenness to quickly achieve goals and achieve skillful victory has always been the goal pursued by all parties in war. However, in reality, there are various paradoxes of suddenness. How to recognize and utilize these paradoxes and act in the opposite direction is the key to winning the initiative in future wars. Paradox 1: The hidden factors of failure in the success of a surprise attack are full of uncertainty in the war, especially reflected in the uncertainty of the outcome of the war. The sudden advantage of the attacking party in initiating a war through deception and other means in terms of time, space, and manner will gradually be lost over time and the defensive side's counter actions, and even produce a "backfire effect" - sudden advantage initially benefits the attacking party, but in the long run, it will become the inducement for its ultimate failure. War is a continuum composed of multiple stages. During the initiation stage of the war, the attacking party has the initiative in terms of attack initiation time, space, and method, making it easier to achieve suddenness, while the defending party finds it difficult to prevent suddenness. However, the vitality and confrontational nature of war determine that suddenness often has a one-time effect, making it difficult to maintain long-term and continuous implementation. As the war continues, the defense's response will lead the war in unpredictable directions for the attacking side. If we say that at the beginning of a war, suddenness is a "multiplier" of the attacking side's strength. So, with the passage of time and the continuation of war, suddenness often becomes a "multiplier" for the defense's resistance. This paradox has been repeatedly verified by war history and war cases: in the Pacific battlefield during World War II, the Japanese army successfully attacked Pearl Harbor and was counterattacked by the US army in the Battle of Midway; In the Afghan War, the US military's sudden and decisive victory from the initial stage to the prolonged and stagnant stabilization phase is a manifestation of the sudden paradox. The extreme situation of this paradox is that suddenness is beneficial for achieving goals quickly in the short term and tactical aspects, but it leads to more serious failures in the long term and strategic aspects. In World War II, the German invasion of the Soviet Union's "Barbarossa Plan" and the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor were both lessons from the past. The entire process was like a gamble, not only losing the short-term gains of the raid, but also ultimately losing everything. This enlightens the world that the focus of preparing for future wars should be on how to enhance one's own countermeasures rather than preventing suddenness. It is necessary to maintain ideological composure and strategic flexibility, based on the principle of attacking the enemy later and striving for the latter to strike first. There are two reasons: firstly, the suddenness of the outbreak of war is difficult to prevent; The second is that high-end warfare is not a short shot, but a continuum composed of multiple stages, with uncertain outcomes. The entire process is full of room for maneuver and maneuver in dimensions such as time and space, and there is a turning point of winning the opponent's battle. Paradox 2: Sudden

Edit:wenxuan    Responsible editor:shanjia

Source:81.cn

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