China’s Mosaic Warfare

China’s Mosaic Warfare
A fisherman drives a boat in a harbour on Pingtan island, opposite Taiwan, in Chinas southeast Fujian Province on April 9, 2023. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
Matthew P. Arsenault
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Commentary
The potential for conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan has been a central focus of contemporary military strategy. Both nations have developed distinct approaches to modern warfare that emphasize innovation, adaptability, and the exploitation of technology to gain operational advantages. The United States’ Mosaic Warfare, which prioritizes distributed, composable systems and artificial-intelligence-driven decision-making, contrasts sharply with China’s System Destruction Warfare, which seeks to paralyze adversary systems through multi-domain disruption (Clark, Patt, & Schram, 2020Engstrom, 2018). If such a conflict were to occur, these strategies would inevitably collide, creating a complex and unpredictable battlefield shaped by divergent military philosophies.
Matthew P. Arsenault
Matthew P. Arsenault
Author
Matthew P. Arsenault holds a Ph.D. in political science and has worked on issues of political violence across academia, government, and the private sector.