Lectures and Trainings

   

Public Lecture – “Unrestricted Warfare: The Example of Georgia”

On February 5, 2014 the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies organized the public lecture "Unrestricted Warfare: The Example of Georgia” by Ambassador David J. Smith, the Senior Fellow at the Foundation.  Ambassador Smith presented an audience some observations from the  current research project.  The concept of unrestricted warfare was advanced in 1999 by two Chinese senior colonels, Wang Xiangsui and Qiao Liang.  According to Smith, it has been rather misunderstood in the west. The aforementioned concept by Wang and Qiao is a very thorough description of war strategy and offers a good explanation of how warfare is changing in the era of globalization. 

Ambassador Smith explained that unrestricted warfare does not need to be intemperate or cruel.  Traditional warfare was for thousands of years restricted to standard understandings of soldiers, battlefields and weapons.  Unrestricted warfare means that soldiers can be anyone and everyone, battlefields can be anywhere or nowhere and weapons can be such commonplace tools like computers.  During his lecture, Smith mentioned many examples of unrestricted warfare, however, he mainly concentrated on cyber warfare.  He noted that there are lessons to be learned from the Russian attack on Georgia in 2008, the first ever combined kinetic and cyber war. There may be a ceasefire on the ground, but cyber-attacks can continue.