China, US and the MOOTW strategy.

A report titled 'Military Operations Other Than War in China's Foreign Policy' published by America's Stimson Center and authored by James Siebens and Ryan Lucas provided a detailed analysis of China's military activities abroad. This extensive report gives us an exhaustive overview of aims and objectives and overt and covert future milestones.

The report says that President Xi Jinping of China approved the trial guidelines to provide a specific, 'legal underpinning for non-war military operations'. Such operations are more commonly known as Military Operations Other Than War i.e. MOOTW.

According to the public outline of President Xi's order, its primary objectives are to prevent and neutralise risks and challenges to China's interests; to maintain national sovereignty and regional stability; and to standardise and regulate the People Liberation Army's (PLA) planning and conduct of non-war military operations.

Two points about the report are very important: one, the timing of its publication; and two, the last paragraph of its executive summary. This paragraph states, 'It is essential for analysts and policymakers in the US, and globally, to discern between Chinese MOOTW that threaten regional peace and stability and those that have the potential to strengthen and contribute to the rule-based international order.'

I could have my reservations about whether or not this report is useful for policymakers, but I am certain it could be used in communication classrooms as a comparative propagation.

It is no secret that the US had, since the Cold War days, started massive military ops across the globe and made hundreds of US military bases worldwide. US's MOOTW are quite an old phenomenon. We perceive that it is obvious for non-US to have US military bases in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, as we have seen in the above-mentioned report, the US does that 'for regional peace and to strengthen and contribute to the rule-based international order'. These great words provide a psychological licence for the US to hover around, but an impartial observer like me could not stop probing into the metaphor of 'regional peace and rule-based international order', if US military activities, war or MOOTW have brought regional stability...