China’s recent global initiatives signal a new phase in international relations, where authoritarian frameworks are increasingly challenging the liberal international order.
President Xi Jinping’s introduction of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the UN General Assembly in September 2021 highlights China’s strategic vision for leading the Global South, promoting growth that is “balanced, coordinated, and inclusive.”
This has garnered considerable support among developing nations, but it marks just the beginning of a broader agenda.
Shortly after the GDI, Beijing unveiled the Global Security and Civilization Initiatives (GSI and GCI), expanding its influence beyond mere economic concerns to security and governing norms.
These initiatives are more than a rebranding of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); they represent a concerted effort by China to redefine international norms and rules.
Together, they are set to form the backbone of China’s ambitious strategy aimed at achieving “national rejuvenation” by 2049.
Instead of engaging in outright conflict, China is focused on superpower status through dependence-building, extending military influence discreetly through dual-use infrastructure, and promoting authoritarian norms to reshape international perspectives.
In the backdrop, Russia’s hybrid warfare tactics in Eastern Europe and Africa, Iran’s influence through regional proxies, and the flourishing of transnational violent extremist groups further strain the already fragile liberal international order.
This urgent situation serves as the foundation for “Winning Without Fighting: Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition in the 21st Century”—a thought-provoking book by Rebecca Patterson, Susan Bryant, Ken Gleiman, and Mark Troutman.
The authors present a critical assessment of America’s conventional strategic mindset and advocate for a paradigm shift.
They argue that irregular warfare (IW) should not merely be a peripheral tool but must emerge as the United States’ principal strategy for outcompeting its rising adversaries.
IW, as defined by Seth Jones, encompasses “activities short of conventional and nuclear warfare designed to expand a country’s influence and legitimacy, as well as to weaken its adversaries,” suggesting a more holistic view of competition.
Thus, the book advocates for a whole-of-government approach that integrates various instruments of national power, reminiscent of the broader strategic framework the U.S. employed during the Cold War centered on political warfare and influence operations.
In contrast to today’s focused strategic culture that views IW narrowly as military activity, the authors emphasize the need for a framework that considers non-kinetic tools which are resurfacing among global adversaries.
For national security policymakers and leaders across the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) spectrum, “Winning Without Fighting” is not only timely, but essential.
Although the 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex stresses that irregular warfare should be considered a core competency for all defense personnel rather than an exclusive capability for special operations forces, the United States is still hesitant to adopt a coherent, long-term strategy for modern irregular warfare.
The authors of “Winning Without Fighting” highlight how American strategic thinking is dangerously misaligned with the contemporary competition that is largely defined by activities below conventional conflict thresholds.
They contend that the U.S. outlook on IW must evolve beyond just kinetic military actions and address the multidimensional strategic environment we currently inhabit.
Achieving that requires U.S. security practitioners to broaden their understanding of IW, aligning it with adversaries’ approaches to encompass a whole-of-government strategy that jointly employs military, economic, and information tools of statecraft to enhance national resilience.
Drawing parallels to the Cold War—a period where America engaged near-peer competition using multiple national power instruments—the authors question why the U.S. appears hesitant to embrace a broader IW spectrum despite prior successes employing such strategies.
This resistance is often due to the inertia created by entrenched bureaucracy and an unadaptive service culture within the U.S. national security apparatus.
“Winning Without Fighting” calls for a foundational reorientation in how American strategists conceptualize IW, especially considering the frequency of crises.
The U.S. military has been relied upon for traditional dominance; yet, the ability to employ nuanced political and irregular warfare strategies that characterized its historical competition with the Soviet Union has diminished.
America’s strategic culture often compartmentalizes irregular and unconventional warfare tactics from engaging in declared war.
Conversely, adversaries like Russia and China perceive their competition with the West as an ongoing struggle, employing integral IW tactics to erode the American-led international order over time.
The authors emphasize the need for America to recalibrate its competitive posture, with a specific focus on strengthening its use of IW in ways that acknowledge changing modes of conflict and competition.
President Trump’s administration revitalized the “peace through strength” concept, aligning it with an “America First” foreign policy reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s focus on military modernization necessary to counter the Soviet threat.
This reemergence of “peace through strength” offers a framework for integrating IW practices across America’s national security machinery, enhancing strategic coordination between military and non-military national power instruments.
This integration aims to bolster America’s capacity to withstand external shocks while intelligently responding to fluid environmental demands.
The disconnection between the United States’ military reliance and the dynamic requirements of the operational environment limits its ability to compete effectively in an era characterized by irregular competition.
According to “Winning Without Fighting,” this disconnect stems largely from American strategic culture’s preference for decisive kinetic conflict and its over-reliance on military means at the expense of other statecraft tools.
To realign American strategy with IW demands, the authors propose to rejuvenate the IW capabilities that have waned since the Cold War.
This approach emphasizes the coordinated use of all national power instruments to counter non-kinetic threats and regain a strategic initiative.
The renewed focus on IW would expand the strategic toolkit available to U.S. policymakers, allowing military statecraft to also include allied force capacity building, foreign internal defense, and professional military education on an international scale.
Economic statecraft tools should encompass both incentives and coercive measures—including development finance, asset freezes, export controls, and sanctions.
Information statecraft, likewise, must engage in counter-disinformation strategies alongside public diplomacy and information operations.
Such practical applications of the IW toolset are crucial in regions like the Indo-Pacific, currently transformed into a front line for strategic competition.
Rather than relying on conventional military might alone, the United States must prioritize non-military approaches as its primary means of engagement with China.
In this context, IW should not be viewed only as a supporting component of deterrence but as its foundational strategy.
Strategic dominance at critical chokepoints—such as the First Island Chain and the Strait of Malacca—will depend increasingly on Washington’s capability to leverage the full array of statecraft tools.
This would involve maintaining influence, safeguarding digital infrastructure, and shaping dominant strategic narratives.
The logic applied in the Indo-Pacific can be observed globally, suggesting that to regain initiative, the United States must compete in domains where its advantages have eroded, such as cyber and information realms, political warfare, covert action, and strategic messaging.
“Winning Without Fighting” crystallizes this reality, serving as a wake-up call to the national security establishment regarding the evolving landscape of IW that now dictates competitiveness and influence integrity.
To balance this equation, the U.S. must enhance its IW arsenal while shoring itself up from within, treating resilience as a critical pillar of power essential to its continued relevance.
In a context increasingly fraught with cyberattacks, disinformation, hybrid warfare, economic manipulation, and impending climate crises, resilience emerges not merely as an element of defense, but rather as a strategic necessity.
The authors posit that building resilience across different levels—individual, community, national, and international—creates a deterrent effect.
Resilient societies are better equipped to recover from crises more swiftly than their less adaptive counterparts.
In the realm of irregular warfare, resilience displays a fundamental asymmetry; authoritarian regimes like China’s can quickly pivot and recalibrate their statecraft due to their centralized governance models.
However, such regimes remain inherently brittle, characterized by paranoia and internal vulnerabilities that can lead to significant failure.
In stark contrast, democracies, despite their bureaucratic challenges, benefit from decentralized networks of strength, innovation, and legitimacy that authoritarian structures often cannot match.
While the U.S. currently possesses an asymmetric advantage in its statecraft toolkit, China has successfully positioned itself ahead through civil-military fusion and a growing global presence.
This complexity is not simply an infrastructural concern at strategic points globally; it also underscores that resilience against malign foreign influences must encompass not just domestic fronts but also extend to allied nations, international institutions, and the broader rules-based order.
The authors assert that resilience not only empowers the United States to weather disruptions but also offers avenues for asserting influence through the reinforcement of democratic credibility and coherent strategic messaging.
Resilience should thus be acknowledged as a central tenet of U.S. national security strategy, acting as a deterrence mechanism that deters adversaries from succeeding in their covert operations before hostilities arise.
In their exploration of IW, “Winning Without Fighting” provokes a critical reevaluation of how success is gauged in irregular warfare.
The authors challenge the JIIM community to select metrics that accurately reflect outcomes in terms of power, influence, and legitimacy rather than solely relying on traditional activity-based indicators.
While conventional metrics—such as targets taken, equipment neutralized, or foreign aid allocated—are quantifiable; they poorly represent success in the gray zone and invite short-sighted incentives.
A novel IW success framework emerges within the book, proposing the establishment of an “Irregular Warfare Dashboard” that prioritizes Measures of Performance (MOPs) and Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs) related to key strategic domains.
These metrics should incorporate aspects like trust in democratic institutions, countering disinformation, partner capacity enhancement, and alignment of local narratives with wider strategic messaging goals.
The urgency for this analytical framework is not merely theoretical, as demonstrated by China’s articulated array of strategic initiatives designed to reform global norms and reshape perceptions to align with Beijing’s interests.
Example metrics for gauging the effectiveness of U.S. responses would involve assessing whether partner nations are embracing China’s narrative or upholding confidence in fundamental democratic principles, transparency, and liberal institutions.
Notably, “Winning Without Fighting” refrains from recommending a one-size-fits-all IW framework.
The authors explicitly caution against the pitfalls of Goodhart’s Law, warning that setting specific measures as explicit targets can undermine their effectiveness.
Instead of offering a rigid dashboard, they advocate for a contextual, regionally-specific approach harnessing the JIIM enterprise’s versatility to promote a comprehensive view of influence and resilience.
For the United States to effectively compete and win without engaging in direct conflict, it must begin by redefining what “winning” truly entails.
This transformative process starts with identifying and measuring what holds the most significance in long-term strategic competition.
image source from：https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/14/winning-without-fighting/
