In this insightful podcast episode, senior U.S. defense analyst Andrew Jensen joins hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso to break down cognitive warfare—the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) key tactic for shaping perceptions, decisions, and narratives to achieve strategic goals without traditional military conflict. Leveraging his deep knowledge of Sino-Russian relations and information operations, Jensen explores how cognitive warfare targets human thought processes before, during, and after battles. Discover why the CCP invests heavily in these methods, drawing from its revolutionary history, and how they play out in the Indo-Pacific region, including the South China Sea, Taiwan, and beyond.

Jensen defines cognitive warfare as the strategic manipulation of how individuals, adversaries, and societies think and perceive reality. Unlike the cyber domain's focus on "down code" (technical infrastructure), cognitive warfare operates on the "up-code" of human cognition to preempt and control battlefields. The CCP deploys this through its "Three Warfares" doctrine: public opinion warfare (crafting narratives), psychological warfare (influencing morale and self-perception), and legal warfare (exploiting international rules for advantage). These tactics blur together, with roots in early CCP strategies to dominate discourse and erode opposition.

In South China Sea disputes, narrative warfare pushes CCP sovereignty claims like the nine-dash line to overshadow competing views, while psychological warfare boosts national pride through initiatives like tourist cruises to disputed islands. Legal warfare selectively ignores rulings, such as the 2016 arbitral decision, and enforces unilateral zones to confuse global norms and intimidate neighbors like the Philippines and Vietnam. Examples include one-sided environmental declarations in contested waters, which validate claims for Chinese audiences and heighten regional tensions.

Beijing masterfully targets societal fissures in open societies, amplifying issues like U.S. military bases in Okinawa or political divides in the Philippines and Taiwan via social media bots and fake accounts to create doubt without direct attribution. In Taiwan, after the overt backing of the pro-unification Kuomintang backfired and strengthened the independence-focused Democratic Progressive Party, the CCP pivoted to covert co-optation of figures like retired officers. In Southeast Asia, these efforts aim to erode U.S. and Quad influence, positioning China as the region's natural leader while aligning with domestic nationalist narratives.

Jensen recommends countering by injecting diverse perspectives into China through private media, culture, and soft power—outshining overt tools like Voice of America. For the U.S. and allies, building information resilience, avoiding adversarial mirror imaging, and cultivating critical thinking are essential to dismantle CCP narrative dominance.

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Episode 110 features Isaac Kardon, Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of "China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order." Kardon joins hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso to discuss how China uses domestic law, coast guard operations, and strategic ambiguity to reshape international maritime norms - especially in the South and East China Seas and the Yellow Sea.

China’s Approach to Maritime Law: Kardon explains that China’s participation in international treaties, such as UNCLOS, differs fundamentally from rule-of-law societies like the U.S. Rather than constraining itself, China uses treaties as instruments for political and strategic advantage, showing significant flexibility in interpretation and enforcement.

Global Impact of Indo-Pacific Maritime Order: The Indo-Pacific isn’t just a regional issue - what happens there affects global trade, technology supply chains, and the daily lives of people worldwide. The COVID pandemic and events like the Ever Given incident in the Suez Canal reveal the fragility of maritime order, making disruptions to the global order dangerous for prosperity and peace.

Frictions in the South China Sea: China’s ratification of UNCLOS presented challenges, notably the framework that limits China’s ability to claim “historic” zones like the “nine-dash line.” Despite arbitration rulings against Chinese claims, China responds in ways that undermine the effectiveness of international mechanisms, often using ambiguous claims and building capacity to assert control regardless of legal setbacks.

Law, Power, and Regional Responses: The episode highlights the contrast between the legalistic approaches of “cricket-playing nations” and China’s more instrumental use of law. Small states in the region rely on legal frameworks for protection, but China’s power allows it to bend or contest those rules.

Recent Developments: China has expanded its exclusion zone around Scarborough Shoal and used environmental pretext to assert control, demonstrating a pattern of using lawfare as a tool for broader strategic objectives.

Future Directions: The discussion covers the gridlock over the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct process, the decline of sentimentality about U.S. leadership in maritime law, and the general skepticism about international law’s ability to constrain powerful states. The hosts discuss the potential for the Indo-Pacific maritime disputes to become the setting for geopolitical drama, involving all facets from local fishermen and coast guards to great power competition.

Kardon argues that China’s lawfare bolsters its capabilities: strength and presence on the water matter just as much, if not more, than legal arguments. He describes the situation as “possession is nine-tenths of the law”—a reality that smaller states cannot match with mere legal claims.

Policy Takeaways: International law matters less when powerful states refuse to be constrained. China’s approach threatens regional cooperation and legal consistency.

The episode calls for listeners to recognize how Indo-Pacific maritime order shapes global stability, trade, and strategic realities - and provides both practical insights and a thought-provoking narrative, encouraging listeners to see Indo-Pacific maritime disputes not just as legal questions but as complex dramas involving power, law, and the future of global cooperation.

👉 Visit Isaac's web site, or follow him on X, @IBKardon

👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

In this episode, China scholar David C. Kang joins Ray Powell and Jim Carouso to discuss his recent Foreign Affairs article, “What China Doesn’t Want”, which argues that Beijing's geostrategic ambitions are much more limited than Washington's foreign policy establishment believes. Kang challenges the prevailing consensus that China seeks regional hegemony and global primacy, arguing instead that China's aims are narrower, more domestic, and more status quo than commonly assumed.​

A contrarian perspective on China's intentions: Kang and his co-authors analyzed approximately 12,000 Chinese articles and hundreds of Xi Jinping speeches, concluding that systematic analysis reveals China's priorities are internal stability and Taiwan, not global domination or territorial conquest of neighboring states.​

The debate over regional threat perceptions: While Kang argues that countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan view China more pragmatically than Washington does, the hosts push back with examples of regional maritime tensions, arguing that frontline states see China as a more serious threat than Kang credits.​

Taiwan as the central flashpoint: All three agree China prefers a "boa constrictor" strategy of gradual pressure over military invasion, but disagree on how to interpret low-probability war risks and whether recent U.S.-Taiwan moves constitute status quo changes.​

Gray-zone success and maritime expansion: Powell argues China is the 21st century's most successful maritime expansionist power, achieving objectives through gray-zone and political warfare in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea without conventional war.​

The South China Sea disputes: The conversation explores China's aggressive island-building and exclusion zones around Scarborough Shoal, with Kang acknowledging these as serious issues but distinguishing them from existential threats that would trigger regional wars.​

Regional balancing vs. living with China: Kang contends Southeast Asian nations focus on "how to live with China" rather than preparing for war or joining containment coalitions, while the hosts draw on their experiences in diplomatic posts to argue that these countries privately seek American presence as a critical counterbalance.​

Methodology matters: Kang defends his systematic analysis of Chinese rhetoric against accusations of cherry-picking, arguing that scholars must distinguish between propaganda, sincere statements, and observed behavior—and that critics often cherry-pick quotes themselves.​

War probabilities and deterrence: Even if China's intention to fight over Taiwan is low, the hosts emphasize that even 10-20% odds of catastrophic war demand serious deterrence planning and military readiness.​

👉 Follow David Kang on X, @DaveCKang

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