A key insight or dreconceptualization
Koncepcja wojen nieograniczonych

The doctrine of unrestricted warfare

Chinese scholars of ancient military thought have found remarkable similarities in the geopolitical situation of the ancient Chinese world and the multipolar order, or rather disorder, that began to emerge in the late 1990s.37 Both periods witnessed a protracted process of erosion of the authority and prestige of the sole hegemon of the "universal" civilization. One could therefore hypothesize that the rules of survival, building power, and engaging in conflict will also be similar in both eras.

It was on such semi-philosophical foundations that two contemporary Chinese analysts, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, based their short pamphlet "Unrestricted War" in 1999.

"Unrestricted war" is one in which the parties engage in struggles in all spheres of the functioning of the hostile homeostat. The goal is to uncouple all the influence-prone mechanisms of ultra-cooperation. This includes political life, and therefore the connection between citizens and the ruling elite, diplomacy, economics, technology, religion, and cultural life. Hostile military actions are to occur only sporadically.
The authors, colonels of the Chinese PLA, state that terrorism and destabilizing activities in the spheres of influence of Western powers are just one of many instruments used by various entities, implicitly including China, to wage war against the United States.
One Polish analyst, Mirosław Banasik, states that the visions of Chinese specialists go beyond the traditionally understood dimensions of warfare described in Western doctrines. Of course, we are talking about so-called hybrid warfare or fifth-generation warfare (5GW, spiritual warfare). Banasiak formulates the following exceptionally pertinent thesis:
Victory should not be sought in the physical dimension, as the struggle takes place outside the traditionally understood battlefield.
The concept of unrestricted warfare is based on any influence (including financial support) for any activity, such as corruption or criminal activity—in short, anything that is intended to paralyze networked social relations. At the same time, "the level of provocation should be kept below the threshold at which the attacked state could lose all its capabilities. […] Influencing those elements of the state's functioning that the adversary does not expect [to attack] and which are particularly sensitive to this type of activity."
In other words, understanding the conduct of unrestricted warfare requires a shift in mentality and a shift away from the traditional understanding of how armed conflicts are fought. In an analysis of the activities of non-governmental organizations, I state: "The defense mechanisms currently available to Western countries, such as civil and criminal law, secret and uniformed services, as well as the customs and perception of threats by the population, are defensive instruments that have no point of contact with acts of hybrid warfare."

This stems from the fact that hostile actions (i.e., those that weaken social cohesion, erode trust between the government and citizens, etc.) are designed so that they cannot be classified as actions of an officially identified geopolitical adversary. An example of this perceptual helplessness is undoubtedly the ongoing media campaign shaping the mentality of women in Poland, but also in other Western countries. A user of the Wykop portal juxtaposed the fact that there is a deficit of single women in Poland, reaching a controversial figure of one million, with the general tone of Onet's articles, which seem to promote marriages with foreigners, promote hypergamy and promiscuity, and simultaneously devalue Poles as potential spouses. The second case, well documented by US government agencies, is the discovery of funding for extremist climate organizations by Chinese foundations.