This Is China's Plan To Win The Next War

Members of the Chinese People's Armed Police Corps (CPAP) conducting anti-terrorism exercise to stimulate the situation where it may have to handle terrorist attack. Photo from Chinese Military Review

Jeffrey Engstrom, National Interest: China Has Big Plans to Win the Next War It Fights

The 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo War heralded a new era of warfare for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Stunning victories by U.S.-led coalitions over Iraq and Yugoslavia were unique not only because they emphasized stealth and precision-guided weaponry, but more importantly, because victory did not require the annihilation of enemy forces on the battlefield. Indeed, the ability of Iraqi and Yugoslav forces to function on the battlefield, had become according to one PLA source, “limited, deprived, and rendered useless,” and their annihilation was not necessary to achieve operational success.

As a result of extensive examination of these conflicts and others, the PLA now views modern conflict as a confrontation between opposing systems, or what are specifically referred to as opposing operational systems. As I argue in a recently released RAND report, such systems-thinking has had wide ranging implications for how the PLA conceptualizes warfare in the twenty-first century.

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WNU Editor: Destroying the opponents "operational systems" has been the U.S. war strategy for the past few years .... and it has been successful when applied. The fact that the Chinese have also realized this and are now focused on doing the same thing is a testament to how much the Chinese military has changed from the days of using human wave tactics and mass numbers to achieve their military goals.