Regarding the concept of Shi.
Col, I hope you don’t mind I start a new thread as the old one was getting OT.
Shi as I understand it is “comprehensive trend” Military action is NOT a politic by another mean but rather an element/action of a “comprehensive trend” / Shi, an initiate mechanism if you will. People who studied Shi will never start threads like FC-1 vs LCA or M1 vs Type 99, etc. Many be some examples will help to share my belief; I am no philosopher so I can be wrong.
It follows the usage of the phase Chinese comprehensive national power (CNP), Chinese leadership really don’t use the measure GNP and GDP that much, to sum up one’s position, all things much be considered, including soft power of economic, cultural, and influence. The came concept also apply to a military campaign as a subset, once an army started collapse by the trend, no among with start-of-war weaponry can revise the situation, but another good leader such as Ridgeway in the case of Korea war of 1952. The trend is like a tidal wave. Battles or military actions are some items you can help to create a tidal wave, sometimes it works, some times it does not. A great Chinese master is remembered by stratagem not by battlefield success.
Here are two examples
1. Chinese civil war. The CCP view while thier were military weak but in the grand scheme of things they were ahead of the KMT, when they launched their Manchuria campaign, or campaign of Shanyang. They considered the fact they had better leadership, greater popular support, greater troop enthusiasm, shorter logistic etc. While on paper KMT would win hands down, they had over a million troops in that area vs 250,000 regular PLA at best and most of KMT troops were well trained and equipped by US army, some of them still enjoy their fresh Burma victory, and they also have air and armor support. Sure PLA lost a few battles at first but they viewed their action not just within the battlefield and they were using events to move the trend from other directions such as by exposing the OPFORCE’s weakness and exploit it.
The OPFORCE’s weakness is the comprehensive weakness not just military related. In the case of Manchuria, in order to pay for the war, CKS had to print paper money and a lot of them. Thus a huge inflation followed and Mao and the boys were expecting it and count on it to decrease CKS's popluar support. During that time CCP located outside of the Shanghai based market system and were not affected. .
2. Counter example: The shelling of Jinmen islands, the operationally speaking it is a poltical failure not a military one as PLA was never ordered to carry out an invasion, they were asked to keeping shelling. Most historians agreed that the action was carry out as an initiate to revise the trand of a greater US involvement in defense of TW. In light of the fact after Korean war, PLA was in no condition to carry out an operation to retake the island by force.
The 1996 “military exercise” also fall into the same catalog as an effort to revives the trend, in the 1996 example, the rise of the DPP in TW politic.
Hope this helps.
Col, I hope you don’t mind I start a new thread as the old one was getting OT.
Shi as I understand it is “comprehensive trend” Military action is NOT a politic by another mean but rather an element/action of a “comprehensive trend” / Shi, an initiate mechanism if you will. People who studied Shi will never start threads like FC-1 vs LCA or M1 vs Type 99, etc. Many be some examples will help to share my belief; I am no philosopher so I can be wrong.
It follows the usage of the phase Chinese comprehensive national power (CNP), Chinese leadership really don’t use the measure GNP and GDP that much, to sum up one’s position, all things much be considered, including soft power of economic, cultural, and influence. The came concept also apply to a military campaign as a subset, once an army started collapse by the trend, no among with start-of-war weaponry can revise the situation, but another good leader such as Ridgeway in the case of Korea war of 1952. The trend is like a tidal wave. Battles or military actions are some items you can help to create a tidal wave, sometimes it works, some times it does not. A great Chinese master is remembered by stratagem not by battlefield success.
Here are two examples
1. Chinese civil war. The CCP view while thier were military weak but in the grand scheme of things they were ahead of the KMT, when they launched their Manchuria campaign, or campaign of Shanyang. They considered the fact they had better leadership, greater popular support, greater troop enthusiasm, shorter logistic etc. While on paper KMT would win hands down, they had over a million troops in that area vs 250,000 regular PLA at best and most of KMT troops were well trained and equipped by US army, some of them still enjoy their fresh Burma victory, and they also have air and armor support. Sure PLA lost a few battles at first but they viewed their action not just within the battlefield and they were using events to move the trend from other directions such as by exposing the OPFORCE’s weakness and exploit it.
The OPFORCE’s weakness is the comprehensive weakness not just military related. In the case of Manchuria, in order to pay for the war, CKS had to print paper money and a lot of them. Thus a huge inflation followed and Mao and the boys were expecting it and count on it to decrease CKS's popluar support. During that time CCP located outside of the Shanghai based market system and were not affected. .
2. Counter example: The shelling of Jinmen islands, the operationally speaking it is a poltical failure not a military one as PLA was never ordered to carry out an invasion, they were asked to keeping shelling. Most historians agreed that the action was carry out as an initiate to revise the trand of a greater US involvement in defense of TW. In light of the fact after Korean war, PLA was in no condition to carry out an operation to retake the island by force.
The 1996 “military exercise” also fall into the same catalog as an effort to revives the trend, in the 1996 example, the rise of the DPP in TW politic.
Hope this helps.
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