Epoch Times has a youtube series dedicated specifically to China. In it I learned about their doctrine of war. To them, war is fought on all different grounds, not just the battlefield. That includes bribery of foreign officials, subversion of foreign culture, etc. Obviously the economic stuff, like them making 98% of all the antibiotics that the USA relies on.

Even if we get Trump back on office, the USA needs to get its head on straight. We need to protect ourselves and defend ourselves from these kinds of attacks. We have lost the ability to think strategically on a world scale.

America is 100% asleep to the point of absurdity. Anyone with half a brain can see that.

I read it. Everything we see in the media can be attributed to much of what was written in that book.

Know your enemy, know yourself, 1,000 battles 1,000 victories

I was a CNC machinist making turbine parts for Berry Amendment compliant DoD contracts. People have no idea how junk China's steel is (I know because I know what good metals are) and how hard it is to get a casting done in the US. While this steel won't show up in a Navy ship or a Corps of Engineers dam it is all throughout your cars and commercial buildings.

I'm not going to give the publisher or authors any of my money but I do want to read the book. Here's a link for those of you interested, I use this site to keep abreast of all the leftist trash: https://b-ok.org/book/3687985/16ab06

A LEADER WILL RISE!

legal, economic, moral, educational, cultural, etc. We've been attacked and lost battles on all these fronts. This is our last stand.

Only two years later, 9/11 happened. Waitaminute...

Here's my write-up on this from previous posts. Thanks, OP. This is important stuff.

Why COVID-19, why CHY-NA, and why now?

Global hegemony, and unseating the United States as the worlds premiere country.

his is CHY-NA's goal, and has been for a long time... global hegemony, replacing the United States as the world's ba( (effectively, tyrant, or leader). The plan is to systematically destabilize the US, both in terms of internal political, and in global reputation.

CHY-NA goes about this in many ways. They are following a playbook outlined by two 2 Chinese scholars, both of them, at the time of publication of the book I will soon mention, Colonels in the CCP PLA - Qiao Liang (乔良) and Wang Xiangsui (王湘穗).

The Book is titled -

• Unrestricted Warfare

The thesis of this book is based upon a question - how do you effectively fight the world's preeminent superpower (with the hidden goal of replacing them on the global stage)? The colonels propose a very devious strategy, which has been advocated by the rising faction of "hawks" within the CCP. This is a faction that believes CHY-NA's rightful place is at the head of the table of nations, although they pretend they just want a seat at the table. Xi Jinping has been heavily influenced by this plan, this faction, and has made remarkable inroads into making it a reality. Remember, CHY-NA has 5,000 years of history, and they play the long game. The ultimate goal is for a type of 'global harmony', but harmony in this case doesn't mean what it sounds like. It means a world pacified to Chinese (CCP) 'leadership', where everyone plays according to CHY-NA's rules, and submits to their dictates.

Diplomat and China scholar Michael Pillsbury does an excellent job laying out this grand strategy in his book -

• The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

The interesting thing is, and to your point OP, one of the main tactics mentioned in 'Unrestricted Warfare' is the use of tools and mechanisms that will help one defeat a much stronger and superior foe. Those who point out CHY-NAs relative weakness vis a vis the United States, militarily, are missing the crucial point. Yes, they cannot engage in a toe-to-toe battle with the US using conventional weaponry (currently). But this is not the issue. CHY-NA is aware of this. (Although if things keep proceeding along the current trajectory, this will not be the case for much longer.) CHY-NA is essentially playing possum right now. They do not want to incur the wrath (or attention) of the existing ba.

Consider this parable -

One of the most famous stories from the Warring States period begins with a tale of two neighboring kingdoms, one rising, one falling in relative power: Chu and Zhou. As the leader of Chu reviewed his troops with a member of the declining Zhou dynasty along their mutual border, he couldn’t resist asking the size and weight of the cauldrons in the Zhou royal palace. The purpose of the meeting was for the rising leader of Chu to pledge fealty and forswear any imperial designs, but when Chu asked the weight of the emperor’s cauldrons, the perceptive Zhou representative chided him. “Each time a dynasty loses the mandate of heaven, the cauldrons are moved,” was the reply. “The king of Zhou has the cauldrons. His ancestor hoped to rule for thirty generations, or seven hundred years, with the mandate of heaven. Although the virtue of Zhou has declined, heaven’s mandate has not yet changed. It is too soon to ask about the weight of the cauldrons.” By asking about the cauldrons, Chu had inadvertently revealed his intent to challenge Zhou.

The lesson is famous in China: “Never ask the weight of the emperor’s cauldrons.” In other words, don’t let the enemy know you’re a rival, until it is too late for him to stop you.

• https://iasbakra.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/how-china-thinks/#:~:text=The%20lesson%20is%20famous%20in,for%20him%20to%20stop%20you.

CHY-NA does not want to appear to be "measuring the cauldrons" of the United States. So they play weak. And this effectively turns a blind eye to CHY-NA's perfidy in international relations, and in fact, to the very nature of the warfare being waged itself.

One of the big takeaways to CHY-NA's strategy in terms of things like COVID-19 (21?) is the use of of asymmetrical warfare. Our current military and strategic thinking is locked into 3rd Generation Warfare - tanks, guns, bombs, air superiority, etc. It's Cold War era thinking. Your forward strategy is typically defined, and sadly, locked into, your last great success. In our case, being the United States, it's conventional warfare and the existing international political and economic system. People often allude to "WORLD WAR 3!" This is highly erroneous. Think of WW3 as a meme... it was started 70+ years ago in order to validate and entrench the then emerging system President Eisenhower warned us about. But CHY-NA does NOT see things as we do. To understand Grand Strategy, realize this is more akin to WW4 - a fourth turning, using fourth generation warfare strategies, within the context of a 'fourth industrial revolution.'

The emerging global landscape is a landscape of Fourth Generation Warfare. Fighting a sinister and duplicitous enemy using conventional strategies and tactics is completely ineffective. Just ask the French how well the Maginot line, and a huge standing army, worked against Germany in WW2, when the Nazis introduced combined arms, blitzkrieg, and rapid mobility not dependent on huge supply lines. Long story short - they got their shit pushed in. Why? Because France was locked into second generation warfare thinking*, after their relative success in WW1.

So, what is CHY-NA's counter to US military and economic superiority? Ah, this is where the story begins to get interesting. It's a clever thesis based upon 5,000 years of history and folklore. It's called the Assassin's Mace. The central idea behind the assassin's mace is the development and utilization of asymmetric, unrestricted means of warfare to cripple a much stronger adversary. Think of the story of David and Goliath... Goliath is the pinnacle of military technology and might for his time, yet David, a humble shepherd, uses a simple sling to exploit the weakness in Goliath's armor, thus, killing him. And chopping off his head when he was incapacitated, to boot. So, CHY-NA actively seeks methods to fight this war using tactics that a) insulate them from as much blowback as possible, and b) give them a strategic advantage in terms of economic power, international reputation, and the appearance of "harmony", as I mentioned before.

EMP weapons.

Industrial and corporate sabotage.

Espionage, especially of the scientific/technical/engineering variety.

Promotion of terrorism.

Election interference.

The list goes one and on. Which leads us, at last, to your central contention, OP -

COVID-19.

A very interesting assassin's mace, to be sure. A bioweapon, that is really an economic and political weapon. What has the unleashing of COVID-19 accomplished?

1. Honk Kong protests are now DOA.

2. The United State's economic power has been greatly wounded.

3. The political and social atmosphere of the US, domestically, is in shambles.

4. The US standing in international development and strategic deal-making is greatly diminished. CHY-NA exploits this with a CHY-NA-centric business and strategic model. While we're fighting over elections, CHY-NA is negotiating new deals internationally, taking over strategically important ports, and forming new alliances.

5. The United States is now afraid, and this has an effect on the body politic that is very hard to calculate. Sun Tzu said it best, when he claimed the best victories are the ones where you don't even have to confront your enemy directly. The goal of all warfare is, and always has been, to demoralize your opponent. That's it. Everything is directed and making your foe believe they cannot win, the cause is lost, surrender. Japan in 1945, anyone?

I'm not fan of FDR, but he said it best when he said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was the harbinger of the last great realignment, which led to 70+ years of US peace, prosperity, and global dominance.

Who will be the next leader in this emerging realignment for the 21st century?