China

The First Great ‘Barbarian’ War of Chinese History

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A modern depiction of Huo Qubing’s cavalry charging a surprised Xiongnu  force.

 Image Source.




The 3,000 years of recorded Chinese history are full of bloodshed and war. In times of strength and union the Chinese warred with ‘barbarian’ peoples on the frontier; in days of disunion they fought bitter wars against each other. Very little of this history is known by Western readers, and to be frank, there are not many books English speakers can pick up to fill this gap in their education. Narrative accounts of most of China’s famous conflicts simply do not exist–not in English anyway. Getting a handle on any of these wars usually requires reading numerous works on narrower topics that mention Chinese military campaigns and grand strategy in passing. There is a pressing need for treatments of these wars (to say nothing of the broader history of Chinese strategic thought) that can be understood by Westerners not versed in Sinological conventions.

A few months ago Edward Luttwak published an essay on one the most significant wars of Chinese antiquity, the eighty year conflict between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu steppe confederation (133-53 BC). This was the first war in Chinese history between a nomadic empire of central Asia and a centralized Chinese dynasty. The scale of this conflict had no precedents in world history and was one of the most extraordinary events of the ancient world. The Han dynasty’s victory required the mobilization of 12 million men, campaigns in theaters 3,000 miles apart, and eight decades of fighting on the steppe.

Mr.Luttwak’s essay, which contends that this experience left an enduring impact on the Chinese psyche that can be seen in China’s foreign policy today, presents a deeply flawed account of the war. In response I have written a more accurate account of Han-Xiongnu relations and the first great barbarian war of Chinese history. ChicagoBoyz readers interested in military history, the ancient world, or contemporary Chinese strategy will find it of interest.

The first part, which summarizes Luttwak’s essay and sketches the Han’s antebellum strategy for dealing with the nomads, can be read here.

The second part, which narrates the course of the war itself and analyzes the tactics the Han used to defeat the Xiongnu, can be read here.

I welcome comments from ChicagoBoyz readers on the contents of either post.

Future History Friday — China’s Coming “Days of Future Past”

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This Friday column on Chicago Boyz is normally reserved for the unknown stories of the End of World War 2 (WW2) in the Pacific, aimed at answering the question of “How would the American military have fought the Imperial Japanese in November 1945 had the A-bomb failed?” Today’s column, takes a completely different tack from any previous History Friday column. Rather than deconstructing the P-51 narrative, being a book review — See this link and this link — or exploring the moral character of the IDF’s Barak Brigade on the Golan Heights in 1973, this column will use the military geography of the past to explore the near future. And in specific, it will use the military geography of the 1945 Okinawa campaign and the proposed invasion of Japan, to explore the patterns of “future history” between Japan and China in the coming age of Unmanned Warfare. It is a column about China’s coming “Days of Future Past.”

<strong>The U.S. Air Force has deployed two of the unarmed Global Hawk aircraft to Japan for the first time at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. This move greatly enhances the U.S. military's efforts to monitor nuclear activities in North Korea, Chinese naval operations in the region and respond to natural disasters and assist in humanitarian aid operations.</strong>
The U.S. Air Force has deployed two of the unarmed Global Hawk aircraft to Japan for the first time at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. This move greatly enhances the U.S. military’s efforts to monitor nuclear activities in North Korea, Chinese naval operations in the region and respond to natural disasters and assist in humanitarian aid operations.

To begin at the beginning, see this Defense One column and this AP Column on the arrival of American Global Hawk Drones in Japan and Japan’s announcement that it is now a “Normal Power,” one that is able to sell arms internationally.

And in particular pay close attention to this passage from those links:

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The Next 40 years in Twelve Hundred Words

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This post was originally published at The Scholar’s Stage on 19 July 2014 and has been reposted here without alteration.

Info-graphic taken from Peter Turchin, “The Double-Helix of Inequality and Well-Being,” Social Evolution Forum (8 February 2013).

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Recently in a discussion at a different venue I wrote the following:

I am extremely pessimistic about the near term (2015-2035) future of both of the countries I care most about and follow most closely, but very optimistic about the long term (2040+) of both.

I was asked to give a condensed explanation of why I felt this way. The twelve thousand words or so I wrote in response proved interesting enough that participants in the discussion urged me to re-post my speculations here so that they might receive wider circulation and discussion.

 Below is a slightly edited version of my response:

The demons that afflict the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China are legion, and every pundit that turns their eye to either country seems to have their own favorite. Some of these difficulties are more alarming than others.

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Is Israel winning the Global War on Terror for us ?

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Hamas has attacked Israel, first with the kidnapping of three teenagers, now with rockets aimed, for example, at Tel Aviv and its airport.

GAZA: Islamist Hamas’ armed wing has warned airlines that it intends to target Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport with its rockets from Gaza and has told them not to fly there, a statement by the group said Friday.

So far, Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system has been successful in intercepting those that are a risk to populated places.

Israel’s astonishingly effective Iron Dome air defense has prevented Hamas from killing Israeli Jews and spreading terror in the civilian population. Ironically, though, the better Iron Dome works, the less sympathy the rest of the world has for a nation that remains under rocket attack.

That sentiment is to be expected as even the Presbyterian Church is anti-Israel.

David Goldman, who has been writing as “Spengler” for years, reports on the situation in Israel.

the thumbnail version is that Hamas is making a demonstration out of weakness. Money is tight, 44,000 Gaza civil servants haven’t been paid for weeks, and the IDF did significant damage to its infrastructure on the West Bank after the kidnapping-murder of the three yeshiva boys. Netanyahu will look indecisive and confused, because he has to deal with an openly hostile U.S. administration on one side and his nationalist camp on the other. Time, though, is on Israel’s side: economically, demographically, strategically. The proportion of Jewish births continues to soar. The fruits of a decade of venture capital investing are ripening into high-valuation companies. And the Arab world is disintegrating all around Israel’s borders.

Israel has been in mortal danger for 50 years. They have survived and thrived. The Arab countries are collapsing into chaos. Iran is still a threat but its demographic future is grim.

There will be no Intifada on the West Bank: the Palestinian Arabs are older, more resigned and less inclined to destroy their livelihoods than in 2000. Syria and Iraq continue to disintegrate, Lebanon is inundated with Syrian Sunni refugees (weakening Hezbollah’s relative position), and Jordan is looking to Israel to protect it against ISIS. Egypt is busy trying to survive economically.

Israel is becoming a huge economic success under Netanyahu. Just think of our future had we elected his friend, Mitt Romney.

Obama promised a “pivot to Asia” but Israel may in fact be the one doing the pivot, leaving us in the dreary Socialist past.

Richard Fernandez notes that in the view of the world press and elites being rich makes you “white.” Everybody knows that white people, even if they are Asian like John Derbyshire’s Eurasian children, are the root of all evil.

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History Friday: Secrets of the Pacific Warfare Board — Block III TV in the Occupation of Japan, First of an Occasional Series

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When I started writing my “History Friday” columns, one of my objectives was to explore the “military historical narratives” around General Douglas MacArthur, so I could write with a better understanding about the “cancelled by atomic bomb” November 1945 invasion of Japan. Today’s column is focusing on an almost unknown series of Documents called “The Reports of the Pacific Warfare Board,” and in specific reports No. 31 and 50. This professional lack of interest by the academic history community in these reports represents a huge methodological flaw in the current “narratives” about the end of World War 2 in the Pacific. These two reports amplify and expand an earlier column of mine hitting that “flawed narrative” point titled History Friday: Operation Olympic Something Forgotten & Something Familiar. A column that was about a WW2 “manned UAV” (unmanned air vehicle AKA a drone), an L-5 artillery spotter plane with an early vacuum tube technology broadcast TV camera, pictured below.

Brodie Device In Land and Sea Based Configurations
Brodie Device with L-4 and L-5 Spotter Planes In Land and Sea Based Configurations, 1944-1945
Block III Broadcast TV Surveillance Equipment
Dr. Vladimir Zworykin of RCA’s Block III Broadcast TV Surveillance Equipment

These Pacific Warfare Board (PWB) reports have been classified for decades and unlike their more well know, examined by many researchers, and posted on-line European Theater equivalents. Almost nothing from them has made it to the public since their mass declassification in the 1990’s. There are good reasons for that. The National Archive has a 98,000 file, 80 GB finding aide. One that isn’t on-line. Until recently, the only way you can get at archive files like the Pacific Warfare Board Reports is to learn that finding aide and make your own copies using National Archive equipment. This was usually time consuming and cost prohibitive to all but the most determined researchers or hired archivists.

Thanks to the cratering costs USB flash drives and increasing quality of digital cameras built into even moderately priced cell phones over the last few years, this is no longer true. And as a result, the academic history profession is about to have its key institutional research advantage outsourced to hobbyists and bloggers.

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