The Continuation of Mao - Beyond Western Imagination

Western strategists are bound by historical traditions. This acts as an intellectual hogtie in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accepts as an invitation to instigate global perpetual havoc.^[1] The ancient Greeks argued real men used spears and shields, not archery. In 1139 the Catholic Church implemented a ban on the use of crossbows due to its effectiveness.^[2] The weapon itself reduced the value of knightly skill and honor, and many aristocrats began to consider the weapon unchivalrous and cowardly. This parallels contemporary thinking regarding Unmanned Aircraft Systems^[3]. Initially considered taboo or an, “ugly duckling of modern airpower”, now rebranded as a game-changer.^[4]

China attacks through every possible domain.^[5] They ignore western honor codes. Where Westerner strategists value surgical precision, implying one decisive strike, and one critical target, the CCP launches simultaneous and decentralized strikes. They are taking advantage of every situation and its weaknesses. Unrestricted warfare targets the entirety of a society, not limited to conventional weaponry, but employs a barrage of attacks against economy, civil institutions, governmental structures,^[6] international organizations,^[7] and actual belief systems.^[8]  Means and methods are merely suggestions for attack. Infiltration of vectors are employed to manipulate.^[9] The first rule in Unrestricted Warfare is that there are no rules.^[10] War is no longer confined to battlefields but waged through finance, media, technology, and cultural influence. Unrestricted Warfare urges for a campaign in which Hollywood^[11] scripts, university syllabi, and venture-capital flows become just as consequential as any missile. Democracies, precisely because of their openness, are uniquely vulnerable to such “soft” encroachments. Infiltration of institutions is a well known Marxist way of gaining power.^[12]

The strength lies in the assumption of peace and cooperation. The warfare becomes national ideology, where attacks on the West are simultaneously encouraged and condoned by the CCP. This is all amplified and gamified with actual social credit points. It is centralized and decentralized warfare all at once, providing the strength of both, and the weakness of neither. Then there is a big one, trafficking of fentanyl to poison the West, a manufactured epidemic covered from head to toe with the fingerprints of the CCP.^[13] Upon addressing the Chinese civil war, Monte Erfourth noted that, “Mao achieved what many thought impossible—the defeat of a vastly superior adversary”.^[14] Ask yourself this, what creates riots and revolution vs. what does not. And then ask why.

Neo-Maoism?

Chinese President Xi Jinping has reinstated hardline moves that harks back to Mao Zedong. This includes having his “thoughts” manifested in their constitution. This underscored the absolute leadership of the CCP in all areas of society. It tightens the control of the private sector, and thereby promotes state-owned enterprises. Xi imitates Mao on many of his features, his gestures, dress, and rhetoric.^[15] Understanding Mao is useful to understand China, granting birth to terms like “Neo-Maoism”.^[16]

Mao Zedong was born to parents that, owing to their dialects, barely understood each other. Mao translates “to shine on the east”. His pet name was “the Boy of Stone”, a name Mao continued to use as an adult.^[17] Steven Mosher argues that the natural structure and importance of a loving, yet strong nuclear family with its own hierarchy, counters the very essence of Maoism.^[18] That hierarchy is not there to dictate, but to warmingly guide. Maoist thought is based on the unreasonable, but nevertheless directed conviction that the tyrannical and ungracious shall prevail. Mosher further argues that Mao lacked any respect for his supportive father and elders. He hauntingly stated that, “My father was bad. If he were alive today, he should be ‘jet-planed’”.^[19] This mindset is obviously gaining exponentially traction in today's public discourse. Assassinations of political figures, with its subsequent celebration for not supporting mainstream narratives, have regrettably been proven one time too many.  ​ 

Mao opposed Confucianism because it requires that rulers must care for their subjects.^[20] No second thought was given to deploying children as foot soldiers. The “theory of the bloodline” sums it up: “The son of a hero father is always a great man; a reactionary father produces nothing but a bastard!”. The children that did not know their “hero fathers” were Mao’s real targets.^[21] Dr. Harry I. Nimon argues that Mao operated, ‘“Without hair, without sky”Culturally: “Without law, without heaven,” colloquially in Mao’s region: “Defying laws both human and divine.” Per Kissinger: “[Mao] would not be bound by ‘laws human or divine,’ not even the laws of his own ideology…warning [Chinese] doubters to get out of the way…’”.^[22]

The Devil is in the Details - Not Recognizing Mao

William Shakespeare's Malvolio is a pompous and delusional character driven by social ambition. Much like Lemuel Gulliver, Malvolio depicts human folly. Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travel by targeting the Royal Society's resistance to reality.^[23] The limitations in scientific advancements due to human nature are further captured in Arthur Schopenhauer's silver-tongued quote, “To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial”.^[24]

Western strategists seem to consider Unrestricted Warfare as mundane.^[25] Josh Baughman refutes the notion of “Unrestricted Warfare” being a master plan, not containing useful information in any meaningful way.^[26] We have previously argued that Carl von Clausewitz reflected on the stagnation of war. In this context China’s methods are perceived by Western scholars as too mundane to merit analytical attention. This form of conflict is legalistic and often bureaucratic. It is not because it is invisible, but because it is ignored.^[27]

The Athenian general and historian, Thucydydis, captured the importance of critical thinking: “Think, too, of the great part that is played by the unpredictable in war: think of now, before you are actually committed to war”,^[28] and, “Neither you nor we can see into them: we have to abide by their outcome in the dark”.^[29] There are important lessons to draw from this. Firstly, the quotes in themselves, and that Thycydides was both a general and an historian. One can not master the art of officership without considering history in correlation to ongoing events. Thucydides' notion that his work was meant to last forever,^[30] should constantly chime in the strategist mind. In order to think, one must understand what thinking is. 

Harry I. Niman contends that in order to think one must differentiate the mind from the brain. He also argues that one​`​s perception is highly influenced by cultural, religion, and set belief systems.<sup>[31]</sup> This resembles Immanuel Kant​`​s concept of the thing-in-itself which some consider so contradicting to traditional thinking that many therefore ignore.^[32] Biases and beliefs will dilute reality if thought is not executed with forethought. Nimen concludes his thesis by alluding to the words of President Harry S. Truman, “I am constantly amazed that the same people who scoff at gypsies and fortune tellers, believe economists, weathermen, and politicians”.^[33]

Elites adopting the Salamander language

In Karel Čapek’s War with the Newts (1937) humanity discovered a new species of intelligent salamander-humanoids (Newts).^[34] At first, the creatures were embraced as a convenient labor force, being docile, efficient, and apolitical. Industrialists armed them, politicians granted them concessions, and cultural elites adopted “salamander-English” as a fashionable marker of cosmopolitan affiliation. By the time ordinary citizens grasped the scale of what had been unleashed, the social contract was rewritten in the salamanders’ favor.

Čapek’s satire demonstrates naïve infiltration, one in which the intelligentsia and upper classes invested in virtue-signaling, becoming the midwives of their civilization’s downfall. There is a saying: "as goes California so goes the nation" referring to the states’ influence on trends and the direction of the country as a whole. It can be expanded to “... Europe follows”. Therefore, infiltrating entertainment, journalism, broadcasting, advertising and academia is an effective target for infiltration. Norway has experienced the influx of Chinese presence in academia.^[35]  This is a sound strategy to conduct espionage under the guise of scientific progress, and environmentalism.

Elites mistake their own accommodation for sophistication. Corporate boards censor films to preserve market access, and universities downplay uncomfortable research to maintain funding. The media adopts euphemisms that silence legitimate criticism of authoritarian states.^[36] These are not conspiracies, but incentives: the lure of access, profit, and prestige produces resilience. The adoption of “salamander-English” was not merely a linguistic curiosity; it was a badge of loyalty, a way of signaling membership.

Čapek warned that civilizations can stumble into subordination through aligning with the forces that promise advantage today. This may hollow out sovereignty. Sun Tzu describes the ideal victory as an achievement through superior strategy before armies collide on the battlefield”.^[37]  Why would one initiate open warfare on its enemy, if you can instead radicalize your enemy’s population, sow division, and last but not least, promote violence?

Accepting Reality

The West operates within a moral framework. Maoism does not have a cardinal protocol. Liberal democracies have one common pillar, Judeo-Christian values. In this lies an inherent conviction that the individual matters. This contradicts the Marxist view that labels people into groups opposing each other. One promotes freedom where the other demands conflict. 

New terms used to describe adversarial strategies, or our own way forward as Multi Domain Battle, still confine the Western strategist. This matches the notion of the No True Scotsman^[38] fallacy. This war not only warrants military measures, but societal change.

Situational awareness requires a new train of thought. The West must accept that what is intrinsically evil does exist. Fellow-travellers, the bribable, and the deliberately ignorant, must be caught red-handed and declared incapacitated. Defending freedom cannot be achieved through halting a conventional military force alone. If the very thing you are defending is being corrupted, the reason for defending it becomes defenseless. Neo-Maoism imposes Unrestricted Warfare under Chairman Xi’s vision.

Now, going back to the questions earlier asked regarding what creates riots, revolution, and why. Psychologist Irving Janis came up with the term “Groupthink” where the strive for consensus within a group can lead to poor decision making.^[39] Is his hypothesis not especially apparent today? This paper has demonstrated how the CCP exploits the “why” in everything and by doing so, eventually overrides and becomes the “why”.  

End of the Line

A pact with the devil leads to suffering. Author Torbjørn Færøvik addressed one such pact in which a liberal democracy signed off on not criticizing China.^[40] If reality is twisted by the degeneracy of communism, the corrupted and violent shadow of Mao will never be seen, nor acknowledged for what it truly is: perfectly wrong.

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