China's War by Other Means: Unveiling China's Quest for Information Dominance
Masters thesis — U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2017. Full text: https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD1039548
Arguments
China's War by Other Means: Unveiling China's Quest for Information Dominance
The vulnerability the thesis names is the comprehension gap itself — Beijing plans communication strategy around its engagements in a register Western doctrine doesn't read well, which is exactly how information dominance gets built unopposed.
China executes communication strategy in ways U.S. information practitioners "may not fully comprehend" — achieving objectives through Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economic instruments of power, planned differently across three engagements: the 1979 land invasion of Vietnam, the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, and the 2007 anti-satellite missile test; the thesis frames this as China's quest for information dominance.
Why it matters
The vulnerability the thesis names is the comprehension gap itself — Beijing plans communication strategy around its engagements in a register Western doctrine doesn't read well, which is exactly how information dominance gets built unopposed.
Use when: Study the adversary's playbook in their own terms — projecting your doctrine onto their actions blinds you to what they're actually doing.