Unrestricted Warfare

The essence of the Unrestricted Warfare (UW) strategy is that you need to employ the full spectrum of national power, such as economic theft, disinformation campaigns, terrorism, cyber operations, and spies, for strategic advantages. The warfare landscape is shifting and you cannot only rely on traditional playbooks to counter indirect tactics that are increasingly becoming important. 

Last week, Taiwan has jailed four soldiers convicted of spying for China. Three of them were members of a military unit in charge of security for the Presidential Office while the fourth was a member of the defense ministry’s information and telecommunications command. According to the court, these four received payments from $7,000 to $20,000 in return for taking photographs of sensitive information. The four received jail terms ranging from five to seven years. To be honest, it is quite a generous disposition for those who betray the country at will. 

Taiwan recently reported that 64 people were prosecuted for Chinese espionage in 2024, which has sharply increased from 48 in 2023 and 10 in 2022. Surely, there must be thousands, or even more, recruited spies who are engaged in spying on Taiwan as we speak. As an old Chinese saying, every war is won before the battle is ever fought. 

This must be a wake-up call to other countries as well. Sending student spies, hacking social security numbers of federal employees, bribing overseas experts to steal technology, spreading fake news, and luring public officers by boosting their political ambition or personal greed... all these threats have proven to be real.

The tactics outside of the traditional military strength are becoming vital in today’s interconnected world. If you fail to implement mitigation plans and counterstrategies, then you could be left behind no matter how powerful your conventional weapons are.