Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unrestricted Warfare (book)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. Non admin closure. The Sunshine Man 20:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unrestricted Warfare (book)

Unrestricted_Warfare_(book) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

I think it would be pretty strange to delete this article suggesting that it is a CIA conspiracy or something like that, given the print version was the last version to appear. Just google around on the internet for the basic information if you want. It is an important book. Many concepts in security policy emerged from it. I will grant you that article could be written alot better. I suggested doing so at the discussion page. After I suggested so, the article was tagged for deletion (without further discussion).

The deletion policy page list several reasons articles should be deleted:

- violation of copyright That is not the case here.

- content that does not belong in an encyclopedia This article is a reference to an important book. That makes the topic encyclopedia-worthy.

- content not verifiable in a reliable source I would suggest that the two folks asserting the article or the book is part of CIA disinformation conspiracy (and therefore the wikipedia article should be deleted) should provide some evidence of that fact. I would okay with having a section of the article noting this as a controversy. However, just because they believe something don't make it so. Extraordinary claims require evidence.

-Unreferenced negative content in biographies of living persons. N/A to this article.

I will grant you that article could be written alot better.

The article should be something like this:

1 Intro 2 Authors 3 Version 3.1 Chinese Version 3.2 FBIS Version 3.3 FBIS abridged version 3.4 Print Version 3.4.1 Cover & Subtitle Controversy 3.4.2 Introduction Controversy 3.4.3 Publisher Controversy 4 Overview of the Concepts 5 References 6 Other Links --Purpleslog 14:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

keep - I agree with Purpleslog. Do not delete this entry. This book gives an important insight to one school of thought in the Chinese military. It is thus an important book (and has been referenced, talked about, etc.).--A517dogg 12:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

delete - It's not clear whether this meets the Threashold criteria from Wikipedia:Notability (books)It's from an unknown publisher, published apparently in translation without the supposed authors consent, and claims to have been translated by the CIA. Checking notability critera beyond the threashold:

"Criteria

A book is generally notable if it verifiably meets through reliable sources, one or more of the following criteria:

1. The book has been the subject [1] of multiple, non-trivial[2] published works whose sources are independent of the book itself,.... such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews.... (I don't see any evidence of this.)

2. The book has won a major literary award. (no evidence of this)

3. The book has been made or adapted with attribution into a motion picture ... (no evidence of this)

4. The book is the subject of instruction at multiple grade schools, high schools, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country. (There was ONE (not multiple) symposium at John Hopkins - but you needed a "SECRET" security clearance to attend.)

5. The book's author is so historically significant..." (Don't think so)

Most importantly - there is nothing reliable about any of the sources on this book, nothing verifiable. Smallbones 15:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 13:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• keep The article needs cleanup. But this does appear to be an important book, as a LexisNexis search for it and the authors turns up numerous results, for example:

China strategy targets soft U.S. underbelly: media, markets; The no-rules warfare tactics also target America's dependency on technology as a way to hurt a more powerful foe., Grand Rapid Press (Michigan), April 22, 2001 Sunday, ALL S EDITION, NATIONAL; Pg. A10, 932 words

Beijing considers exploiting America's reliance on technology , The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), April 19, 2001 Thursday, FINAL EDITION, NEWS; Pg. 10, 674 words, DAVID WOOD, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE, WASHINGTON

China military considers nontraditional 'weapons'; Document suggests computer warfare, Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), April 19, 2001 Thursday, NATIONAL; Pg. 18, 607 words, By David Wood; Newhouse News Service

China Ponders New Rules of 'Unrestricted War', The Washington Post, August 8, 1999, Sunday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A01, 1380 words, John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service, BEIJING

... the authors also made news in 2006 ("Unrestricted warfare", Washington Times, 2006-03-31) when they visited the united states; the article refers to them as "Two of China's most notorious military strategists." I also find the JHU symposium compelling, as this book is the only one they mention in the description of the conference. (Also, Smallbones is wrong: there was a security-clearance track but also a general attendance track the prior day... but I don't see how that matters.) — brighterorange (talk) 13:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Keep: This book is on Amazon with a sales rank of 84,000, which isn't terrible, and it's reviewed by some notable flag officers, so it certainly isn't spurious. That being said, I'm not hugely sold on its notability.  RGTraynor  13:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It is 8 years old, so its time in the limelight may have passed. But notability does not expire. — brighterorange (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Keep China is the major rival to the US as a world power, and a recipe for how China could defeat the superior conventional military power, issued by officers in the People's Liberation Army, and now taught in the US service adademies per the reference I added to the article written by Jeffrey W Bolander in the Marine Corps Gazette, shows it to be a highly notable book. The strategy is to spread US forces thin as has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and to use economic warfare and terrorism, rather than trying to refight WW2 by building a Navy, army and air force to challenge the US in conventional battles worldwide. It should not be judged by the standards of the next bestseller, but by the standards of the 1942 Victory Through Air Power (Amazon sales rank 517,000),the 1925 Mein Kampf (Amazon sales rank 4600), or the 1890 The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Amazon sales rank 978,000). Edison 15:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Amazon is irrelevant altogether except perhaps for judging current fiction or self-help where there may be no better measure of popularity. comparing books in different subjects is useless, as is comparing books on the same subject each published in a different century. There are however published works about this book, and that's sufficient. DGG 02:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The general argument for deletion strikes me as a manifestation for Wikipedia's strange hostility toward the printed work and toward books as such. As someone who works in publishing, I have to say that those criteria for book notability ought to be taken to the Black Lagoon and buried under a log to rot. Not made into a major motion picture? Jesus H. Christ! And someone else raises an Amazon sales rank figure. Sales figures may or may not play a role in the natoability of a book, but Amazon sales rank is not seriously regarded an a meaningfull figure, except in a rare case like John Scalzi.--Pleasantville 11:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep this is about content, content authored by two intelligent Chinese colonels nearly ten years ago. The Amazon book is a hack job by some capitalist opportunist when the text in its entirety is freely available on the web, so stop focusing on the lame book and its cover art. There are two versions of the text, one summarized with commentary (such providing context to the authors' bias against Soros... and why aren't you picking up on that, sysops??), and the other in its complete form. This text is akin to valuable books like Brave New War, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, among many others. But maybe those reads are bad as well because of the Air Force / Counterterrorism pedigree of the first author and the active duty status of the second. Grow up. WestridgeRunner 18:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for not meeeting notability criteria for books.--Samiharris 17:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

How so? I gave several citations to non-trivial reviews (Washington Post, Washington Times, Times-Picayune) above, which would seem to satisfy the first criterion. — brighterorange (talk) 18:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.