Gray Zone: China’s Political Warfare

Be sure to visit the Irregular Warfare Initiative website to see all of the new articles, podcast episodes, and other content the IWI team is producing! What are the fundamental tenets of China's political warfare? What does it look like when Beijing employs political warfare in the real world? And how is it different, in both theory and practice, from traditional Western conceptualizations of warfare and its political component? This episode explores those questions and more. It features a conversation with two guests whose deep expertise gives them important perspectives on the subject. Dr. Ross Babbage is a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, served as the head of strategic analysis in Australia’s Office of National Assessments, and is the author of the book The Next Major War: Can the US and its Allies Win against China? David Stilwell is the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a retired US Air Force officer, and former director of the China Strategic Focus Group at US Indo-Pacific Command. Together, they examine China’s practice of political warfare and how other states can counter it. Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa Outro music: "Launch" by Ketsa CC BY-NC-ND 4.0