Against the backdrop of prolonged and unresolved conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, Study Times, a publication affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School, published a commentary on the 3rd examining what it describes as a recurring historical form of conflict: “chronic warfare.” The term refers to long-lasting, low-intensity, attritional conflicts in which combatants pursue ambiguous strategic objectives rather than decisive victory.
The article examines this phenomenon across five dimensions. First, time: warfare has shifted from the pursuit of swift, decisive outcomes toward prolonged, back-and-forth struggles, as objectives have expanded beyond territorial conquest to include regime change and the reshaping of geopolitical structures. Second, space: battlefields have become increasingly boundless, with conflict extending from front lines into rear-area cities, energy infrastructure, and grain storage facilities. At the same time, cognitive and cyberspace domains have emerged as a “second battlefield” for narrative warfare, aimed at dividing enemy societies and eroding their willingness to fight.
Third, tactics: warfare increasingly relies on low-cost, high-frequency, and reversible strikes. The article points to the extensive use of inexpensive drones by both sides as an example, with such weapons enabling round-the-clock harassment of targets in the rear. Fourth, actors: the participants in warfare have become more diverse, dispersing responsibility and distributing the costs of conflict more broadly. In the article’s view, this dynamic further reinforces the prolonged, low-intensity, and difficult-to-resolve nature of such wars.
Fifth, outcomes tend toward asymmetry. Rather than producing clear victors, chronic wars typically end in what the article characterizes as “exhausted compromise” or temporary ceasefires, leaving no true winners—only survivors that have endured heavy casualties and economic losses.
The article further argues that chronic wars tend to end not through external defeat but through internal collapse. The decisive blow, it suggests, often comes from structural breakdown within one’s own side rather than from enemy fire.
Although the commentary does not explicitly name Ukraine or Iran, its framework closely parallels the dynamics of those ongoing conflicts.
Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), August 10, 2026
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202608100076.aspx