There are universal and special mechanisms for winning wars. Special winning mechanisms are conditional, while universal and fundamental winning mechanisms are relatively stable. Anyone and any era’s war guidance that violates these mechanisms will lose the war. Revealing the fundamental winning mechanism of wars can not only help us more deeply understand the scientific correctness of classical war theories and enhance theoretical confidence in war guidance, but also help us continuously innovate war and combat guidance that adapts to the conditions of the times according to changes in the war environment and conditions, and firmly grasp the strategic initiative.
To understand, prepare for, and direct war, the first thing is to uncover the fundamental mechanism of victory
Studying the fundamental mechanisms for winning wars is the logical starting point for understanding wars and the fundamental basis for preparing for and waging wars.
Studying the fundamental mechanism of winning a war is to reveal the necessary and sufficient conditions for winning. In essence, the mechanism of winning is the reason and condition for winning a war. Studying the fundamental mechanism of winning a war is to answer the fundamental question of “when and only when what conditions are met can we win a war”, aiming to make us realize that if this condition is met, we will definitely win, if this condition is not met, we will definitely fail; if we win, it must be because we have this fundamental condition. Philosophically speaking, this condition definitely exists, but it is just a matter of whether we can recognize it and reveal it. Otherwise, there will be no way to know the laws of winning so many battles in history.
“Winning with immediate advantage” is the fundamental winning mechanism of war. The advantage in immediate advantage is not a simple comparison of resources, but the comprehensive ability and favorable situation to defeat the enemy at the moment of exerting force on the enemy and in the confrontation at the decisive point of the war. “Winning with immediate advantage” means that with immediate advantage, victory will be achieved at the moment of confrontation with the enemy at the decisive point. If this advantage is maintained for only one moment, then this round can be won; if this advantage can be maintained at every moment and every round of confrontation, then the war will inevitably be won. The author believes that the winning mechanism of “winning with immediate advantage” is the “law behind the law” and the fundamental basis for war guidance, and it is also the fundamental winning mechanism of war and combat.
“Instant superiority wins” is the fundamental basis of the classical war guidance theory. All the classical war guidance theories are based on the mechanism of “instant superiority wins”. From the first Chinese civil war to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, Mao Zedong always adhered to the guidance of using superior forces and favorable weather, terrain and people to launch a devastating attack on the enemy’s one point, and achieved victory, which proved that “instant superiority wins” is the fundamental law for achieving victory. In history, Sun Tzu’s ideas of “attacking the enemy when they are least prepared and taking them by surprise” and “attacking where they are least prepared”; the Thirty-Six Stratagems of “Deceiving the Heavens and Crossing the Sea”, “Besieging Wei to Save Zhao”, “Taking Advantage of the Troubled Times”, “Taking Advantage of the Fire to Loot”, “Attack the East and West by Making a Feint” and other strategies; Napoleon’s idea that “the secret of military art is to make your own military force surpass the enemy at the necessary place and time”; the “blitzkrieg” used by the German army in World War II etc., all focus on gathering immediate advantages and suddenly defeating the opponent when the opponent has no precautions; the U.S. military proposed the “air-ground integrated battle” 30 years ago, and in recent years proposed the “air-sea integrated battle”, which was later renamed the “global commons access and mobility” concept. In 2016, the U.S. Army proposed the “multi-domain battle”, which, in essence, is also through the operation of factors such as force and space to form immediate advantages over the opponent.
Understand and grasp the rich connotation of “instant advantage wins”
Regarding the mechanism of winning by immediate advantage, we can summarize its connotation into the following main aspects.
Immediate advantage is the unity of object, time and resources. Immediate advantage wins, including the three elements of object, instant and advantage. Object refers to the selected decision point, which may be a physical target with certain resistance of the opponent, or a unit with certain capabilities; instant refers to the moment of exerting force on the enemy in the war; advantage refers to the comprehensive capabilities and postures composed of various available war resources and elements (including spatial elements) that are superior to the opponent (object), and is the product of objective conditions and subjective efforts. Whether or not there is an immediate advantage is not necessarily related to the overall military strength of the army. When the overall military strength does not have an advantage, it can also win by gathering an advantage over the enemy at the moment of confrontation at the decisive point. Time advantage is an important decisive factor. Mastering time advantage means that the opponent will be suddenly attacked in the “gap” when he is not fully prepared. However, on the battlefield, the unity of target, time and advantage must be achieved. If we only emphasize the speed of time, but it is not good, then speed is meaningless; if we only emphasize the quality of resources, but it is not timely, then it will not play a role at the moment of confrontation, and the actual ability is equal to zero. This is the reason why many powerful armies in history were defeated.
Immediate advantage is the system advantage at the moment of confrontation. In wars of different eras, immediate advantage has different manifestations. Modern warfare is a confrontation between systems. The elements in the system are divided into primary and secondary. The dominant factors of the system are naturally important to the system advantage, but the secondary factors will also eliminate and destroy the immediate advantage, and then turn victory into defeat. Strength advantage is the basis of immediate advantage, but it is only one of the many conditions for the formation of immediate advantage. In modern warfare, the more complex the technology and force structure, the stronger the complementarity of different resources and the variability of the structure, and the more complex the mechanism for forming immediate advantage. For example, in an integrated joint operation based on a network information system, if the traditionally unappreciated network backend operation and maintenance personnel cannot keep the system running normally, the advantages of this system may be greatly eliminated.
Immediate advantage is the unity of static and dynamic. The process of winning wars and operations is a process of constantly gathering and exerting immediate advantages at decisive points, gradually consuming the enemy, and expanding immediate advantages. Once it is impossible to form an advantage at a decisive point at a certain moment, this moment will become a turning point in the operational process. This is the inherent principle of emphasizing the ability to fight in one go and continuous operations. During the Korean War, our military’s support could only support about 7 days of continuous operations. At this turning point, we took the initiative to withdraw our troops and switch to defense because if we continued to fight, we would not have immediate advantages.
Real-time advantage only exists in a certain time window. On the battlefield, enemies and friends are opponents, fighting for life and death, and real-time advantage only exists in a certain period of time. In modern warfare, information transmission has reached the millisecond level, and the detection-judgment-decision-strike process is measured in seconds. The responsiveness of many long-range strike means no longer needs to take into account the platform’s spatial movement time. In particular, with the advancement of the intelligentization of combat systems, the time window for maintaining advantage will become shorter, which puts forward new requirements for gathering and exerting the effectiveness of real-time advantage.
Continuously optimize war and combat guidance based on the “instant advantage wins” mechanism
The winning mechanism is the “law behind” combat guidance and combat methods. We should continuously optimize war and combat guidance based on the mechanism of “winning by immediate advantage.”
Strive to seek distinctive advantages. Distinctive advantages are the special advantages of an army. For our army, it means that we must always seek distinctive advantages such as what the enemy does not have and what we are strong and the enemy is weak. We insist on you fight yours and I fight mine, implement asymmetric warfare, and strive to find the moment when the enemy is weakest, and give full play to our advantages to form our immediate advantages. In the future, we need to continue to give full play to our political advantages, and at the same time, we should gather and cultivate new distinctive advantages from the new system, new system, and new equipment. We must firmly believe that the side with weaker weapons and equipment always has the possibility of winning locally and gradually achieving overall victory. Based on this possibility, we should strive to design and guide operations around whether it is conducive to creating superior fighters and whether we can defeat the enemy before the fighters disappear.
We are committed to gathering the power of the system to form an immediate advantage. The information age is a system war, and what matters is the system capability. It is necessary to study how a single factor can win, but in actual combat, the real way to win is the comprehensive application of all factors. The concept of “multi-domain warfare” proposed by the US military in recent years is centered on the ability to form a multi-domain fusion and release energy at a decisive point. If we cannot gather the power of the system to form an immediate advantage, we will have to respond to the enemy with the shortcomings of the system, and defeat will naturally be inherent in it.
Form an immediate advantage around the enemy. Adapting to the enemy is an important manifestation of the art of war command. The key is not to change, but to constantly create new immediate advantages in the change. This needs to be achieved through correct command and scientific tactics. Future wars are increasingly showing an intelligent trend, but in essence, they are still about measuring the enemy’s strength and taking measures according to the enemy’s situation. It’s just that the pace of this change is faster and the situation is more confusing. If the speed of gathering capabilities cannot keep up with the changes in the battlefield situation, it is impossible to achieve “instant” by adapting to the enemy. It can be said that, under certain conditions of combat resources, the entire connotation of the art of command is to create and find the enemy’s weaknesses, and to plan and create immediate advantages over the enemy. This is the soul of war command and tactics.
Weakening the opponent’s advantage is an important way to form and maintain immediate advantage. Immediate advantage is compared with the opponent. In terms of resource comparison, this advantage can be obtained by aggregating one’s own advantages and weakening the enemy’s advantages, from technology to tactics, from strategy to battles and battles. Technically weakening the opponent is the most fundamental weakening; in terms of strategy and tactics, through deception, containment, and disruption at non-decisive points, dispersing and weakening the opponent to influence the opponent’s advantage concentration at the decisive point is an important way to transform the advantage and disadvantage comparison at the decisive point and win the victory.
Firmly grasp the principles of reconnaissance, concealment, initiative, offense, and quick decision. Reconnaissance, concealment, initiative, offense, and quick decision are ancient principles, but they have new connotations and new requirements in modern warfare. Fighting a battle for immediate advantage is even more indispensable. Accurately grasping the enemy’s ability and situation at the “predetermined strike point” is a prerequisite for forming an immediate advantage; in order to maintain an immediate advantage for a longer period of time, it is necessary to delay the time of being discovered by the enemy as much as possible by concealing intentions and actions; although we have an advantage in strength and deployment, once the enemy makes the first move, our immediate advantage may be eliminated. The US military even asserts that “whoever launches first will be saturated and hit first.” “You can win if you strike first, and whether you can effectively conceal yourself”; facing a strong enemy, simple defense becomes increasingly difficult. Whether it is a big war or a small war, offense can maximize the effectiveness of advantages and is the best defense; the battlefield situation changes very quickly, and the time window for immediate advantage is short. A quick battle and a quick decision may be the best choice to make full use of this time window.
Design and prepare for war with the core of “fighting a war for immediate advantage”
The key to judging whether an army has the combat capability to defeat the enemy is whether it can gain an immediate advantage over the enemy at the moment of exerting its strength in the confrontation with the enemy. The development of new operational concepts, design and preparation for future wars all require a firm grasp of the core of “fighting a war of immediate advantage.”
Design wars around the core concept of “fighting a war of immediate advantage”. In the future, if our army wants to defeat opponents with strong overall strength, it should always focus on forming and using the key of immediate advantage. Instead of confronting the enemy in all dimensions, it should seize the enemy’s most critical pain points and decision points, aggregate multi-dimensional capabilities at a moment and concentrate its efforts, and accordingly plan tactics to defeat the enemy with immediate advantage. The top priority is to design the decision points for striking and the methods and ways to gather immediate advantages. At all levels of strategy, campaign, tactics and even individual combat, operational guidance and tactics should be designed according to this idea, and this should be used as the fundamental test standard.
Military capabilities should be built based on whether or not they can form an immediate advantage. We should focus on the core concept of “fighting a war of immediate advantage” and systematically design strategic capabilities, weapons and equipment, force structure, combat methods and specific tactics, as well as everything needed for combat, in accordance with the idea of using our capabilities to defeat the enemy’s inability at the decisive moment of the war. We should pay special attention to the prominent role of new technologies and new means in forming an immediate advantage, and continue to inject contemporary vitality and scientific and technological determination into forming an immediate advantage and fighting a war of immediate advantage.
(Author’s unit: Institute of War Studies, Academy of Military Science)
Beijing, July 2, Title: Creating a new situation in reforming and strengthening the military – a summary of the achievements in national defense and military reform since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
On the great journey of the people’s army to reform and strengthen the army, we have ushered in another important moment that will go down in history——
On April 19, 2024, the founding meeting of the Information Support Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was held grandly at the Bayi Building in Beijing. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, awarded the military flag to the Information Support Force and delivered a speech. On behalf of the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, he extended warm congratulations to all officers and soldiers of the Information Support Force.
After the flag-presenting ceremony, Xi Jinping delivered a speech. He pointed out that the adjustment and formation of the information support force is a major decision made by the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission based on the overall situation of strengthening the military. It is a strategic measure to build a new structure of services and arms and improve the modern military force system with Chinese characteristics. It is also important for accelerating national defense and military affairs. Modernizing and effectively fulfilling the missions and tasks of the People’s Army in the new era is of great and far-reaching significance.
According to the decision of the Central Military Commission, the newly formed information support force will be directly commanded by the Central Military Commission. At the same time, the designation of the strategic support force will be revoked, and the leadership and management relationships of the military aerospace force and cyberspace force will be adjusted accordingly.
Reform is the requirement of the times to realize the Chinese Dream and the dream of building a strong military. It is the only way to strengthen and rejuvenate the military, and it is also a key move to determine the future of the military.
Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the People’s Army has adhered to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implemented Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military, and guided the Party’s goal of strengthening the military in the new era, comprehensively implementing the strategy of reforming and strengthening the military. , deeply break through the institutional obstacles, structural contradictions, and policy issues that have long restricted national defense and military construction, deepen the reform of national defense and the military, and achieve historic achievements. The people’s army has a new system, a new structure, a new pattern, and a new look. Take firm steps on the road to building a strong military with Chinese characteristics.
Reform promotes a strong military, and a strong military supports a strong country. Standing at a new historical starting point, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the People’s Army has achieved overall revolutionary reshaping and is making strides to become a world-class force, providing strategic support for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
The commander-in-chief of strategic planning is at the helm and leads the way.
Reform is the distinctive feature of contemporary China and the distinctive character of the Communists.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and national defense and military building have also entered a new era. Faced with the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the world’s major changes unseen in a century, as well as the deep-seated contradictions and problems that have long restricted the construction of national defense and the military, President Xi assessed the situation, took charge of the overall situation, and decisively made strategic decisions to reform and strengthen the military.
A strong country must have a strong army, and a strong army must be reformed. “Once military backwardness occurs, the impact on national security will be fatal. I often read some historical materials in modern China, and it hurts my heart to see the tragic scenes of backwardness and beatings!” President Xi pointed out with strong historical concern. , National defense and military reform is an important part of comprehensive reform and an important symbol of comprehensively deepening reform. The military must keep up with the pace of the central government and resolutely promote various military reforms in the spirit of opening roads across mountains and building bridges across rivers. Everyone must have this kind of historical responsibility.
Only reformers advance, only innovators are strong. President Xi encouraged the entire army: “The new military revolution provides us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must seize the opportunity and work hard. We must not only catch up with the trend and the times, but also strive to be at the forefront of the times.”
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, our army has carried out 13 relatively major reforms. The size and structure of the army have been continuously adjusted, and they have played an important role in different historical periods. At the same time, affected by various factors, deep-seated contradictions that restrict national defense and military construction still exist to varying degrees.
”The reform of national defense and the military has entered a critical period and a deep-water zone. Most of the problems that need to be solved are long-term accumulated institutional obstacles, structural contradictions, and policy issues. It is indeed not easy to advance.” President Xi warned the entire army, “Not reforming is a waste of time. You can’t fight and win the battle.”
The more you think deeply, the more earnestly you act.
In November 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was held. The Party Central Committee decided to include deepening the reform of national defense and the military into the overall plan of comprehensively deepening reforms, making it the will of the Party and the behavior of the state.
This is the first time in the history of the plenary session that national defense and military reform were included in the plenary session’s decision as a separate part.
Only four months later, another blockbuster news attracted widespread attention at home and abroad: President Xi decided to establish a Central Military Commission leading group for deepening national defense and military reform and served as the group leader. This is also the first time that the General Secretary of the Party personally serves as the leader of the Central Military Commission’s Leading Group for Deepening National Defense and Military Reform.
These two extraordinary “firsts” demonstrated the firm will and determination of the core of the Party, the commander-in-chief of the army, and the people’s leaders to deepen the reform of national defense and the army. They greatly inspired and gathered all the officers and soldiers to support the reform and support the reform. Reform and the majestic force devoted to reform have become the fundamental guarantee for promoting reform.
For a major country’s military, the question of what to change and how to change it involves issues of goals and layout, issues of stance and perspective, as well as issues of methods and paths. President Xi has put a lot of effort into the reform demonstration and design. He has chaired many meetings of the Central Military Commission’s Leading Group for Deepening National Defense and Military Reform, Central Military Commission Standing Meetings, and Central Political Bureau Standing Committee meetings. He has listened to the reform opinions and suggestions of relevant units in person on many occasions, and personally determined the reforms. Arrange major work, personally lead the research, demonstration and plan formulation work, personally organize research on major reform issues…
Reform always pursues problems and uses problems to force reform. At each stage of reform, each plan pointed out the method and path to solve practical problems, and the solutions to each practical problem eventually converged into specific reform measures.
Deepening the reform of national defense and the military is a comprehensive change that requires strengthening top-level planning and system design. At an important meeting of the military, President Xi emphasized the need to grasp the relevance and coupling of reform measures so that various reforms such as leadership and command systems, force structures, and policy systems can promote and complement each other to form an overall effect and achieve overall results.
Plan the layout of the article and make a sound decision.
Establish an expert advisory group of the Central Military Commission’s Leading Group for Deepening National Defense and Military Reform; establish an expert database for consultation and evaluation of military policy and system reform consisting of more than 200 military and civilian experts and leaders to give full play to the role of third-party independent evaluation; empower the Academy of Military Science and the National Defense University with relevant Research and demonstrate tasks and play its role as a think tank…
Gather the wisdom of the entire military and all sectors to form the “greatest common denominator” for reform. President Xi visited institutions, joined squads, went to plateaus and islands, boarded tanks and took warships to conduct in-depth investigations and studies. The whole army and all aspects actively offer suggestions and suggestions, from outside the military to inside the military, from agencies to troops, from generals to soldiers; field surveys in all directions, interviews at all levels, large-scale questionnaire surveys; situation reports one after another, and letters one after another. Opinions, online messages… many good ideas, suggestions, and ideas have entered the reform plan.
”Anything that can be done with concentrated effort will be invincible; anything that can be done with collective wisdom can be achieved.” Under the leadership and planning of President Xi, a set of reform designs that solve deep-seated contradictions, have major innovative breakthroughs, and have distinctive characteristics of the People’s Army Break out of the cocoon.
In July 2015, President Xi presided over the meeting of the Central Military Commission’s Leading Group for Deepening National Defense and Military Reform, the Central Military Commission Standing Meeting and the Central Political Bureau Standing Committee meeting, and reviewed and approved the overall plan for deepening national defense and military reform.
In the process of leading this round of reforms, President Xi Jinping has issued a series of directional, fundamental and overall important strategic thoughts on deepening the reform of national defense and the military, which have established the fundamental principles and action guidelines for reforming and strengthening the military.
From the overall layout of the party and the country to the mutual coupling of various military systems, from the overall plan, major field plans to special plans, and from the leadership and command system, the size, structure and strength of the army to the orderly advancement of the reform of military policies and systems, the new era The goal map, road map and construction drawings for the reform of the People’s Army were thus drawn up, and a historic change of rebirth from the ashes and new development was vigorously launched.
Overcoming Difficulties and Deeply Promoting Reform
A history of the development of the people’s army is a history of reform and innovation.
November 24, 2015, is a day destined to go down in the history of the People’s Army. The Central Military Commission Reform Work Conference was held grandly in Beijing. President Xi issued a mobilization order to deepen the reform of national defense and the military—to comprehensively implement the strategy of reforming and strengthening the military and unswervingly follow the path of strengthening the military with Chinese characteristics.
When the commander-in-chief orders, the entire army obeys the order, unites to the center, exerts force for the battle, and overcomes difficulties.
The leadership and command system achieves historic changes——
The reform of the leadership and command system implements the general principles of the Central Military Commission, the main battle areas, and the military services, breaking the long-standing headquarters system, large military region system, and large army system, and building a leadership and management system of “Central Military Commission-Services-troops” and ” The combat command system of “Central Military Commission – Theater – Troops” has established a new “four beams and eight pillars” of the people’s army. The “Four Headquarters” have withdrawn from the historical stage, and 15 functional departments of the Central Military Commission have been adjusted and established. The paths of command, construction, management, and supervision have become clearer. Functional configurations such as decision-making, planning, execution, and evaluation have become more reasonable. The Central Military Commission has centralized and unified leadership and strategic planning, Strategic management functions have been effectively strengthened. The “Seven Military Regions” have completed their historical missions, reorganized and divided into five major theaters, improved the military commission and theater joint operations command structure, and established a strategic campaign command system that integrates peacetime and wartime operations, operates normally, specializes in main operations, and is capable and efficient. The leadership and management system of the services and arms has been further improved. The Armed Police Force is under the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission. The reserve forces are fully integrated into the military leadership and command system. Entering the “new system era”, the majority of officers and soldiers have both “changed their bodies” and “changed their minds”, liberating themselves from all outdated mindsets, inherent patterns, and path dependencies. The barriers to alliances have gradually been broken down, and the effectiveness of warfare has gradually become apparent.
In drill after drill, units of different services and arms that used to be relatively independent carried out joint exercises and training on a regular basis under the dispatch of the war zone; data and information that were difficult to share in the past are now efficiently transferred among the various services and arms in the war zone; reconnaissance is no longer ” “Each one fights”, the commander no longer “sings his own tune”, and the firepower no longer “fights his own thing”, each one is born through the tempering of the iron fist.
The size, structure and strength of the army have been profoundly reshaped——
This is new data that has never appeared in the history of the people’s army: the proportion of the army’s total personnel in the army has dropped to less than 50%; the number of active-duty personnel in non-combat agencies of the army has been reduced by nearly half, and the number of officers has decreased by 30%…
This is a new term that has never appeared in the history of the people’s army: synthetic brigade, air assault brigade, aircraft carrier formation, airborne force, information support force, joint logistics support force…
The dialectic of reduction and increase is not only slimming down, but also strengthening the body. It is an epoch-making reshaping of strength. The reform of scale structure and force organization promotes the development of the army in the direction of enrichment, synthesis, multi-functionality and flexibility.
On April 27, 2017, the Ministry of National Defense disclosed at a regular press conference that the designations of 18 army groups of the Army were cancelled, and the designations of the 13 adjusted armies were announced at the same time. In addition, the newly adjusted units also include many new combat forces.
After the adjustment, our army has become more capable in scale, more optimized in structure, and more scientific in its organization. It has fundamentally changed the long-term land warfare-type force structure, changed the homeland defense-type force deployment, and changed the heavy-force grouping and victory with quantity. New combat forces such as strategic early warning, open sea defense, long-range strike, strategic projection, and information support have been enriched and strengthened, and a joint combat force system with elite combat forces as the main body is taking shape.
The reform of military policy and system has been comprehensively advanced——
Recently, civilian personnel who have been recruited for the 2024 open recruitment for the entire army have been reporting to various units. In June 2018, the military openly recruited civilian personnel for the first time. Among the recruited personnel, groups with high academic qualifications and “secondary enlistment” groups were particularly eye-catching. This marks that the openness and competitiveness of our military’s talent introduction work have been greatly enhanced. Civilians are an integral part of the military personnel and play an increasingly important role.
Let the vitality of all combat effectiveness elements burst out, and let the sources of all military modernization fully flow. The establishment and improvement of the new civilian personnel system is a vivid epitome of the policy and system reform of the people’s army.
This reform has completely changed the previous piecemeal approach. Systematic planning, forward-looking design, innovative development, and overall reshaping have established and improved the socialist military policy system with Chinese characteristics, forming a military party building system, a policy system for the use of military power, and a military power building system. The “four major sections” are policy system and military management policy system.
President Xi presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, which successively reviewed and approved the “Regulations on Party Building of the Chinese Communist Party in the Military”, “Regulations on Military Political Work” and other backbone systems for party building in our military. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has successively reviewed and adopted the newly revised National Defense Law of the People’s Republic of China, the newly revised Military Service Law of the People’s Republic of China, and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of the Status and Rights and Interests of Military Personnel.
Establish a leading group for talent work of the Central Military Commission and establish a cadre evaluation committee of the Central Military Commission. The “Interim Regulations on the Management of Active Military Officers” and 11 supporting policies and systems were promulgated, and substantial progress was made in establishing a professional system for military officers with Chinese characteristics. The “Interim Regulations for Sergeants”, “Interim Regulations for Conscripts”, the newly revised “Regulations on Civilian Personnel of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” and supporting regulations were promulgated.
Build a military honor system, hold honor and title ceremonies; optimize military benefits, issue military parent support subsidies, spouse honorary funds, and implement new medical security policies such as free medical care for military spouses and children… Each heart-warming event enhances the professional honor of officers and soldiers sense, making military personnel a profession respected by the whole society.
The reform of military policies and systems has matured one by one. Basic laws and regulations in more than 20 major fields have been introduced one after another. A large number of supporting policies and systems and major reform measures have been intensively introduced. The combat effectiveness of the military and the vitality of officers and soldiers have been further liberated, and the effectiveness of reforms has been continuously released.
Major reforms across the military and civilian areas are implemented in depth——
”Coordinate economic construction and national defense construction, and strive to achieve the unity of enriching the country and strengthening the military.” Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, President Xi has attached great importance to major cross-military and local reforms, and has made many deployments to promote the implementation of a series of measures.
Just after the Spring Festival in 2018, the Third Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China reviewed and approved the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Deepening the Reform of the Party and State Institutions” and the “Plan for Deepening the Reform of the Party and State Institutions”. Deepening cross-military and civilian reforms is an important part of it.
Combined with deepening the reform of party and state institutions, deepening the cross-military reform of the Armed Police Force, advancing the reform of the active public security force, establishing the Ministry of Veterans Affairs; implementing the reform of the air traffic control system, establishing the Central Air Traffic Management Commission; advancing the reform of the national defense mobilization system, and building a modern national defense Mobilizing the force system; Comprehensive suspension of paid military services, and the goal of the military not engaging in business activities has been basically achieved…
“With all our efforts, nothing can be done.” Central state agencies, local party committees, governments, and all sectors of society have introduced a series of policies and measures to support and serve reform, and the military and civilians have gathered a powerful force to promote reform.
In the late autumn of 2021, the “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party’s Centenary Struggle” passed by the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China fully affirmed the historic achievements made in deepening the reform of national defense and the army, calling it “New China” The most extensive and profound reform of national defense and the military since its establishment.”
Reshaping and reshaping to become world-class
Reform and strengthening the military have brought a series of profound changes to the People’s Army. The People’s Army has accelerated its transformation in the “new system era”: the Army’s mobile combat and three-dimensional offensive and defensive capabilities have been significantly enhanced, and the Navy has accelerated its transformation from offshore defense to far-sea defense. , the Air Force is accelerating its transformation into integrated air and space, and both offensive and defensive capabilities, and the Rocket Force continues to strengthen its nuclear and conventional capabilities and its ability to deter war in all areas…
This is the new look of the People’s Army as a strong military after reform and reshaping——
In July 2023, at the Air Force Aviation Open Event Changchun Air Show, the J-20 performed maneuvering flight demonstrations in a four-aircraft formation for the first time. The screen was displayed for aerial refueling, and the J-10S and J-11BS were displayed for the first time in simulated air combat of special-shaped aircraft…
This event demonstrated the People’s Air Force’s ever-changing equipment development level, the quality and effectiveness of practical military training, and its strategic capabilities to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
”The Yunyou-20 is no longer a single static display and a single flight display, but an all-round presentation of the system’s capabilities, displaying combat postures commonly used in our daily combat training.” Wang Yuling, pilot of the Yunyou-20, said, “The reform has strengthened the The military strategy has enabled the people’s army to achieve historic changes in its organizational structure and force system. It is precisely because of the reform that our army has been reshaped and accelerated to become a world-class force.”
On October 1, 2019, more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Republic of China with a grand military parade and mass march.
This is the first National Day military parade as socialism with Chinese characteristics enters a new era, and it is also the first overall appearance of the Republic’s armed forces after the reform and reshaping.
The leadership and command formation that made its debut is a formation with the most distinctive imprint of reforming and strengthening the army and joint combat command – the members are drawn from 15 departments of the Central Military Commission and various war zones, service and arms agencies, and armed police forces.
The leadership and command formation created two firsts: the first formation in the history of the People’s Army military parade to be drawn from the leadership and command organization, and the first formation with generals forming the first row.
For the first time, this military parade has set up joint support forces, academic scientific research, civilian personnel and other formations, demonstrating the results of the integral and revolutionary reshaping of the national defense and military organizational structure and force system, and demonstrating the new composition of the people’s army in the new era. , new look.
580 pieces (sets) of ground equipment formed 32 equipment formations, and more than 160 fighter planes of the army, navy and air force formed 12 air echelons… The equipment reviewed was all made in China, 40% of which were made for the first time, demonstrating the basics of the people’s army. Achieve mechanization and accelerate the momentum towards informatization.
This is the more capable and efficient command system displayed by the People’s Army after the reform and reshaping——
From May 23 to 24, 2024, the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army organized the theater’s army, navy, air force, rocket force and other forces to conduct the “Joint Sword-2024A” exercise around Taiwan Island.
The exercise focuses on subjects such as joint naval and air combat readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control, and joint precision targeting of key targets. Ships and aircraft conduct combat patrols near Taiwan Island, and integrate internal and external linkage within the island chain to test the actual joint combat capabilities of the theater forces.
This is also a strong punishment for the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces seeking “independence” and a serious warning against external forces interfering and provoking trouble.
Military experts believe that during the exercise, under the unified command of the Eastern Theater Command, the theater’s army, navy, air force, rocket force and other services jointly participated, demonstrating the collaborative capabilities and overall operations of the Chinese military in joint operations after reform and reshaping. strength.
More than 4 years ago, the COVID-19 epidemic broke out.
With an order, medical personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, Joint Logistics Support Force, Armed Police Force and other medical units quickly gathered to assist Wuhan.
Aviation, railways, highways, three-dimensional delivery; manpower, materials, and information, efficient circulation; active military personnel, civilian personnel, and militia, close collaboration; joint command, joint formation, military-civilian joint…
”Getting into the state quickly, assembling troops quickly, and launching operations quickly, this is the real speed of war.” “Command and coordinate a picture, use strength as a game, and implement every move. This is the real war system.” Some military observers commented this way The performance of the Chinese military in the anti-epidemic operation in Wuhan. There was no preparation time, no battle rehearsal, and the decisive battle was the first battle. In this special battle, the People’s Army handed over an excellent answer sheet of “going to the front line on the day of receiving the order, controlling the situation in 3 weeks, and completing the task within 3 months.” This miraculous “speed” stems from the more efficient command system, leaner force scale, and more scientific structure after the reform and reshaping of the People’s Army.
”The People’s Army’s anti-epidemic response sheet condenses the reshaping of the People’s Army’s capabilities and the changes of the times, and demonstrates the new look and confidence of an army after reform and reshaping.” Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Systems Engineering, Academy of Military Sciences Researcher Yin Hao believes that although the fight against the epidemic is a non-war military operation, it tests and reflects the actual combat capabilities of the people’s army after reform and reshaping.
Military experts believe that after the reform and adjustment, the entire army has further strengthened the concept of preparing for war and joint operations and joint training. Each theater has played the role of a hub for joint operations and joint training, and all services and arms units have closely aligned with the joint operations capability needs of the theater, and trained with the capabilities of the services and arms. Support system joint training to continuously improve the victory contribution rate.
This is the new training style explored by the people’s army after reform and reshaping——
From September 11 to 25, 2021, the “Peace Mission-2021” SCO joint anti-terrorism military exercise was held at the Donguz shooting range in Orenburg Oblast, Russia.
In this joint exercise, the command structure of the Chinese participating troops is mainly composed of the Chinese directing department and the Chinese anti-terrorism cluster command headquarters in the northern theater. The task force is mainly composed of a synthetic battalion of a brigade in the northern theater and is equipped with relevant support detachments.
Under the new system and new organization, the combined battalion of Chinese participating troops includes infantry, armor, artillery, reconnaissance, communications, engineering and other forces. It integrates multiple arms and realizes the strength structure, personnel organization, equipment deployment, The reshaping and leapfrogging of element grouping can be combined with a variety of combat forces and modularized, giving full play to its advantages of miniaturization, multi-functionality, and leanness, so that each combat unit and element can maximize the system’s combat capabilities.
During a live-fire exercise on September 23, reporters saw the modular and multi-functional combat organization advantages of the combined battalion in a new combat command vehicle, boldly practicing multi-source perception of combat command, high integration of combat elements, and combat space orientation. The multi-dimensional expansion of the new combat style maximizes the role of the combined battalion’s “forward reach”.
On July 23, 2023, with the successful conclusion of the “Anchorage Defense” drill of the ship formation, the “Northern Joint-2023” exercise completed various scheduled drill courses.
The exercise focused on the theme of “Maintaining the Security of Strategic Maritime Channels”. The naval and air forces of China and Russia jointly planned, jointly commanded, and jointly operated. It effectively tested the actual combat capabilities in far seas and remote areas, and made achievements in the joint exercise organization form and force integration model. An innovative breakthrough.
On May 17, 2024, the China-Mongolia “Grassland Partner-2024” joint army training was the first all-element and full-process live-fire training, which was held at a training ground in East Gobi Province, Mongolia.
The participating troops from China and Mongolia jointly carried out joint training on the topic of dealing with the activities of illegal armed groups in accordance with the basic tactics of “attacking key points from all depths, concentric assaults from multiple directions, and clearing and encircling and annihilating in different areas”.
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New systems, new forces, new equipment, new tactics… the people’s army has taken on a new look from the inside out, and is more confident in deterring the enemy with its sword.
There is no end to reform. The people’s army that marches forward courageously on the road to reform and strengthen the army will surely continue to win new victories in the modernization of national defense and the army——
In 2027, the centenary goal of the founding of the army will be achieved;
By 2035, the modernization of national defense and the army will be basically realized;
By the middle of the 21st century, the people’s army will be fully developed into a world-class army…
The organizational form of the military in the intelligent era is a military organizational form in which the military organizational system, scale structure, force composition and operation mode have the characteristics of the intelligent era, meet the requirements of intelligent warfare, and have an intelligent external manifestation and internal operation state. Since the 21st century, the armies of some developed countries have set off a new wave of intelligent military revolution in order to maintain their military leadership, and the war form has begun to accelerate from informationization to intelligence. The battlefield space has expanded from the traditional physical domain to the ubiquitous cognitive domain and the broad-spectrum social domain, and the combat style has extended to unmanned combat, distributed combat and multi-domain combat. Close coupling of man and machine and flexible and autonomous combat have become the future trend, and the control of intelligence has evolved into the core control of battlefield competition. The world military competition around intelligence has begun, and it is urgent to adapt the organizational form of the military to it, calling for a new round of changes in the organizational form of the military.
The army will be streamlined. With the development of unmanned weapons and equipment based on artificial intelligence and its derivative technologies, the material basis of war and the face of combat forces will change greatly. Unmanned combat forces such as unmanned armored forces, unmanned fleets, and drone forces will soon enter the historical stage and dominate the battlefield in the future. It can be foreseen that an operator of an unmanned force can control several, dozens, or even hundreds of unmanned combat units to perform tasks that were originally completed by a unit, fleet, or fleet. The number of front-line combat personnel will drop significantly, while the number of personnel in the rear who are concerned about how to develop, use, and ensure intelligent equipment will increase sharply. At the same time, the evolution of intelligent technology will enable weapons and equipment to develop from passive use to active learning and deep learning. Autonomous planning, automatic updating, free action, and even self-repair will become the norm. The demand for personnel at all levels and types of combat command, construction management, and comprehensive support will be significantly reduced, further weakening the overall size of the army. Some traditional large-scale troops are facing “collective unemployment.” The ratio of combat personnel to weapons has undergone a historic reversal, with the proportion of combat personnel dropping significantly and the proportion of intelligent unmanned systems rising significantly. The overall appearance of the military will change to an intelligence-intensive, human-machine integrated type, and the weapons and equipment system will evolve from “firepower + information” to “firepower + intelligence”.
Integration of force structure. In the era of mechanized warfare, the prominent features of the military organization are the separation of services and self-development. The battlefield unfolds in the three domains of land, sea and air, and the boundaries of the services are clear. In the era of information warfare, the performance of weapons and equipment has been greatly improved. Each service has broken the original boundaries and gradually extended to other battlefields, ending the pattern of the three services monopolizing land warfare, sea warfare and air warfare respectively. The characteristics of the services have weakened, requiring unprecedented joint combat force systems. In the era of intelligent warfare, the winning mechanism has evolved from the precise release of information-controlled power to cognitive warfare, will warfare, swarm warfare, wolf pack warfare, etc. controlled by intelligence. “Unmanned, invisible, and silent” combat will become the main mode of war. The combination of people and land, sea and air equipment will give way to the combination of people and intelligent machines. The military structure has developed from the “land, sea and air” field organization to the “unmanned + manned” integrated force model divided by combat subjects. The fundamental change in combat style and the full-domain combat capability of weapons and equipment have brought subversive impacts on the traditional combat force organization structure, shaking the foundation of the existence of the services. The services are more integrated and will eventually achieve “integration”. At the same time, the boundaries of traditional battlefields are becoming increasingly blurred, the effects of war expansion are becoming more obvious, the degree of military-civilian integration is deepening, and more and more “soldiers without uniforms” are performing military tasks, which has a profound impact on the composition of traditional armies. The army’s organizational structure is rapidly developing towards a cross-border, cross-domain, and cross-generational mixed organization model.
Flexible command system. Intelligent warfare has the characteristics of “human-machine integration, using speed to defeat slowness”. The situation on the intelligent battlefield is more complex, with all-dimensional and all-domain “hard kill” and “soft confrontation” intertwined and iterated. Multi-type and multi-channel battlefield information converges to form massive data, which poses severe challenges and higher requirements for the construction and operation of the command system. In terms of the establishment of the command system, the command chain evolves to the three levels of “strategic command organization-functional command organization-intelligent combat force”; the command organization personnel are more capable, and the staff seats will be replaced by “cloud brain” and “digital staff”. Commanders will mainly rely on intelligent command systems to analyze information, implement communication control, and process various types of intelligence. With the help of intelligent decision-making technologies such as intelligent recognition of graphic image processing, decision-making “optimization” algorithms, and deep neural networks, the quality of command decisions will be improved, and the shortest “decision-response” cycle will be achieved. In terms of the operation mode of the command system, more attention will be paid to following the human-machine interaction mode, and expanding the application and development of independent and autonomous command decisions by machines. We will promote the intelligence of command and control, use artificial intelligence to obtain useful, orderly, timely and accurate battlefield information data, greatly shorten the operational cycle of operational conception, task allocation, target attack, damage assessment, etc., and ensure that commanders can think more rationally about unexpected situations on the battlefield and deal with battlefield situations, so that they can achieve the operational cycle characteristics of “man out of the loop”. In terms of the configuration of command system authority, commanders are required to actively delegate “power” and let machines replace humans to perform some command and decision-making functions. Some decision-making functions are embedded in machines through implanted programs, and machines are allowed to make autonomous decisions, while retaining the final decision-making power of humans on major matters.
Autonomous combat formation. In the era of information warfare, the external characteristics of combat formations are modularization and “plug and play”, and the formation of troops is quite different from combat formations. In the era of intelligent warfare, combat missions, combat targets, combat space, and combat styles are mixed and varied. The combat effectiveness is determined by the degree of integration between man and machine, requiring combat formations to be more flexible, elastic, and have autonomous adaptability. The emergence of intelligent unmanned forces provides the prerequisite for realizing the autonomous adaptability of combat formations. In 2015, the French army conducted a demonstration and verification of the “neuron” UAV, realizing autonomous formation flight. Several “neurons” can accept the command and control of a “Rafale” fighter at the same time, solving the formation control, information fusion, inter-machine data communication, and tactical decision-making technologies. It is not difficult to speculate that in the future, unmanned forces may have hundreds or thousands of unmanned combat units. Different combat units may have multiple functions such as “reconnaissance, control, attack, and evaluation”, and may also have multi-dimensional combat capabilities such as land, sea, air, space, network, and electricity. By differentiating these combat units into “machine-machine formations” and “man-machine formations”, they can perform tasks in different fields. At the same time, through preset rules, these combat units can also be autonomously organized according to changes in tasks, thereby achieving autonomous adaptability and flexible organization of combat units, and generating diversified combat capabilities that traditional forces do not have.
Beijing, July 30. The “Selected Collection of Important Documents on the Military Work of the Communist Party of China” edited by the Party History and Documentation Research Institute of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Academy of Military Sciences of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has been published by the Central Literature Publishing House and the People’s Liberation Army Publishing House. The main chapters of the book are introduced below.
”On Correcting Wrong Thoughts within the Party” is the first part of the resolution written by Comrade Mao Zedong for the Ninth Congress of the Fourth Army of the Red Army of the Communist Party of China in December 1929. It was pointed out that various non-proletarian ideas existed within the Communist Party of the Fourth Red Army, which was a great hindrance to the implementation of the party’s correct line. Based on the spirit of the September letter from the Central Committee, the congress pointed out the manifestations, sources and methods of correction of various non-proletarian ideas within the Fourth Army Party, and called on comrades to rise up and eliminate them thoroughly. It was emphasized that the Red Army is by no means simply fighting wars. In addition to fighting to eliminate the enemy’s military power, it also undertakes major tasks such as propagandizing the masses, organizing the masses, arming the masses, helping the masses establish revolutionary political power and even establish communist organizations.
”A single spark can start a prairie fire” is a letter written by Comrade Mao Zedong on January 5, 1930. The letter criticized some comrades in the party for their pessimistic assessment of the current situation, pointing out that “there is no profound concept of establishing a red political power in the guerrilla areas” and that “nationwide, including all localities, win over the masses first and then The theory of establishing political power is not suitable for the actual situation of the Chinese revolution. “The main source of their theory is that they did not clearly understand that China is a semi-colony that many imperialist countries compete with each other. The letter provides an in-depth analysis of the balance of power between the enemy and ourselves, and profoundly reveals the inevitable development trend of the Chinese revolution from a “spark” of a small red regime to a “prairie fire” across the country.
”Strategic Issues in China’s Revolutionary War” was written by Comrade Mao Zedong in December 1936 and gave a lecture at the Red Army University. The article discusses the basic viewpoints and methods of studying war issues, further discusses the characteristics of China’s revolutionary war and the main conditions for victory, stipulates the guiding line for the Red Army’s war under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and stipulates the characteristics of China’s revolutionary war. Strategy and tactics. The main ones are: it is necessary to grasp the law of long-term repetition of “encirclement and suppression” and counter-“encirclement and suppression”; it is necessary to adopt the strategic policy of active defense; it is necessary to retreat and lure the enemy deeper for the attack under certain conditions; it is necessary to implement the concentration of troops to defeat the enemy. We should adopt mobile warfare as the main form of combat of the Red Army; we should adopt strategic protracted warfare, battles and quick decisive battles in battles, and regard the war of annihilation as a fundamental guiding ideology of the Red Army’s operations.
”Strategic Issues in the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War” was written by Comrade Mao Zedong in May 1938 in response to the erroneous tendency of many people inside and outside the Party at that time to underestimate the important strategic role of guerrilla war and to place their hopes only in regular warfare, especially in the operations of the Kuomintang army. A long article written. It is pointed out that the strategic problem of guerrilla war occurs under such circumstances: China is neither a small country nor, unlike the Soviet Union, a large but weak country. This big but weak country is attacked by another small but strong country, but this big but weak country is in the era of progress, and the whole problem occurs from here. Because China is large and weak, but has the Communist Party and its army and the broad masses of the people; Japan is small and strong, but has insufficient military strength, which will leave many empty places in its occupied areas. This makes the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party and the anti-Japanese The people’s armed forces have gained broad scope in developing guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. The anti-Japanese guerrilla war is not just a tactical and operational issue, but has a strategic status.
”On Protracted War” was a speech delivered by Comrade Mao Zedong at the Yan’an Anti-Japanese War Research Society from May 26 to June 3, 1938. Based on the experience of the past year of the Anti-Japanese War, the article refuted the “theory of national subjugation” and the “theory of quick victory” and pointed out that the Sino-Japanese War was a desperate struggle between semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and imperialist Japan in the 1930s. war. In this war, China and Japan had four basic contradictory characteristics. These characteristics stipulate that the protracted war and the final victory belong to China, and China must adopt the policy of lasting victory over the enemy in the war of resistance. The article scientifically foresees the three stages that the Anti-Japanese War will pass through. The article completely puts forward the strategic and tactical guiding principles of the Anti-Japanese War, pointing out that the soldiers and the people are the foundation of victory; the deepest root of the power of war exists among the people.
”War and Strategic Issues” is part of the conclusion made by Comrade Mao Zedong at the enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 6, 1938. It was pointed out that the strategic status of the anti-Japanese guerrilla war must be clarified. In the entire War of Resistance Against Japan, regular warfare is the main force and guerrilla warfare is the auxiliary force, but guerrilla warfare occupies an important strategic position. Because there is no guerrilla war with the largest and most persistent force behind enemy lines, the enemy has no worries, and the attack will be more aggressive. The continued resistance may be shaken; or the counterattack force is insufficiently prepared and there is no response during the counterattack, it is impossible to defeat Japan. China’s survival depends on the outcome of the war. Therefore, the study of military theory, strategy and tactics, and political work cannot be delayed, and the theory of war and strategy is the backbone of everything.
”Concentrate superior forces and annihilate enemies individually” is an instruction to the party drafted by Comrade Mao Zedong for the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China on September 16, 1946. The instructions concentrated on the combat methods of concentrating superior forces and annihilating the enemy one by one, and fundamentally solved the military principle problem of how to gradually defeat the Kuomintang army in the war. It was pointed out that the principle of concentrating forces to annihilate the enemy individually is to take the annihilation of the enemy’s effective forces as the main goal, and not to defend or seize the place as the main goal. The instructions also pointed out that the effects of this method of warfare are: first, total annihilation; second, quick victory. Quick decisions in tactics and operations are a necessary condition for lasting strategy.
The “Declaration of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” is a political declaration drafted by Comrade Mao Zedong for the headquarters of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on October 10, 1947. It was pointed out that the purpose of our army’s operations, which has been repeatedly announced at home and abroad, is for the liberation of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. Today, it is to realize the urgent demands of the people across the country, to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek, the culprit of the civil war, to organize a democratic coalition government to achieve the overall goal of liberating the people and the nation, and to announce eight basic policies. Emphasizing that all officers and soldiers of our army must always remember that we are the great People’s Liberation Army and a team led by the great Communist Party of China. As long as we always abide by the party’s instructions, we will surely win.
”The People’s Liberation Army is always a fighting team and a working team” is part of Comrade Mao Zedong’s report at the second plenary session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on March 5, 1949. It was pointed out that there are only three ways to deal with the remaining Kuomintang troops in the future: Tianjin, Peiping, and Suiyuan. The People’s Liberation Army is always a fighting team and a work team. As the fighting gradually decreases, the role of the work team increases, especially when the Beiping method or the Suiyuan method is used to solve problems in various parts of the south. Within a short period of time, the entire People’s Liberation Army must be transformed into work teams. The 2.1 million field army must be regarded as a huge cadre school. In the situation of national victory, the focus of the party’s work must be moved from the countryside to the city, and great efforts must be made to learn to manage and build cities.
”The Victory and Significance of Resisting U.S. Aggression and Aiding Korea” was part of Comrade Mao Zedong’s speech at the 24th Session of the Central People’s Government Committee on September 12, 1953. It was pointed out that after three years of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea, a great victory was achieved, and there were military, political, and economic reasons for its success. Leadership is one factor, and the masses’ thinking of solutions is the most important. Our experience is: relying on the people and a relatively correct leadership, we can use our inferior equipment to defeat the enemy with superior equipment. The victory in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea was great and of great significance.
The “General Provisions of the Political Work Regulations of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Draft)” were promulgated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government on April 15, 1954, and ordered the entire army to implement them. There are seven general principles in total, which point out that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the armed force of the People’s Republic of China and a people’s army led by the Communist Party of China that defends the motherland and serves the people’s revolutionary struggle and national construction. The Communist Party of China is the founder and organizer of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The Party’s Marxist-Leninist political line and military line are the decisive factors for this army’s victory. Standing closely with the people and serving the people wholeheartedly is the sole purpose of this army. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army must resolutely fight for the party’s program and line and for socialist communism. The Communist Party of China has established party committees at all levels in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as the core of the unified leadership of the army; it has also determined the division of labor and responsibility system of chiefs under the unified collective leadership of the party committee as the party’s leadership system for the army. The political work of the Communist Party of China in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the lifeline of our army.
”The Relationship between Economic Construction and National Defense Construction” is the third part of Comrade Mao Zedong’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on April 25, 1956. The speech explained the dialectical relationship between economic construction and national defense construction, pointing out that national defense is indispensable. Now, we have a certain defense capability. Our defense industry is building. Only if economic construction develops faster can national defense construction make greater progress. We must strengthen national defense, so we must first strengthen economic construction. This is a question of strategic policy.
”The Task of Military Reorganization” was Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China on July 14, 1975. He pointed out that the army is now a bit bloated, scattered, arrogant, extravagant and lazy. To reorganize the army is to reorganize the five words mentioned above. During the reorganization of the army, it is necessary to strengthen cadre learning, strengthen party spirit, opposition spirit, strengthen discipline, and carry forward the traditional style of hard work. The Military Commission must focus on establishment, equipment, and strategy. The issues to be studied in strategy are not only combat issues, but also training. Our tradition has always been that political organs manage cadres, and leaders always have to go through political organs to assess and review cadres. This is in line with organizational principles. We must inherit this good tradition. Nowadays, when selecting cadres, especially senior cadres, we must choose those who work hard or work relatively hard. The responsibility for running the military well lies with the main members above the military level. As long as everyone takes the lead and works hard to achieve the eight words Comrade Mao Zedong said: unity, intensity, seriousness, and liveliness, the problems of the army will not be difficult to solve, and the party’s line, principles, and policies can be implemented well. In short, the people’s army must carry forward the revolutionary tradition and strive for greater glory.
”The military must raise education and training to a strategic position” was part of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech at a symposium of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China on August 23, 1977. It was pointed out that under the conditions of no war, the education and training of the military should be raised to a strategic position. It should be done from two aspects. On the one hand, the army itself should promote hard study and training; on the other hand, it should solve the cadre problem by running schools. There are three requirements for running a school. First, train cadres, select cadres, and recommend cadres. Second, earnestly study the knowledge of modern warfare and learn the joint operations of all services and arms. Third, restore the traditional style of our military. The purpose of running a school is to improve the level of the cadres, strengthen their capabilities, and make them younger, especially the cadres of the combat troops, so that our cadres can master some knowledge of modern warfare and have a good style of work.
”Our strategic policy is active defense” was part of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech at the plenary session of the Defense Operations Research Class held by the General Staff Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on October 15, 1980. Point out, what policy will we adopt in our future anti-aggression war? I agree with the four words “active defense”. Active defense itself is not just a defense, there is offense within defense. Another thing to emphasize is to focus on training. You can’t relax on this matter. In training, we must pay attention to synthetic training and focus on synthetic army combat training. Not only schools pay attention to training, but the troops also pay attention to actual combat training.
”Building a powerful modernized and regularized revolutionary army” was a speech delivered by Comrade Deng Xiaoping when he reviewed the military exercise troops somewhere in North China on September 19, 1981. It was pointed out that our army is a strong pillar of the people’s democratic dictatorship and shoulders the glorious mission of defending the socialist motherland and safeguarding the construction of the four modernizations. Our army must be built into a powerful, modern and regularized revolutionary army.
”The military must obey the overall situation of national construction” was part of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech at the Central Military Commission symposium on November 1, 1984. He pointed out that what is needed now is for the party, government, military and civilians across the country to wholeheartedly obey the overall situation of national construction and take care of this overall situation. Our military has its own responsibilities and must not hinder this overall situation. It must closely cooperate with this overall situation and act within this overall situation. Everyone must proceed from the overall situation, take care of the overall situation, and do everything possible to develop our country’s economy.
”Speech at the Enlarged Meeting of the Central Military Commission” was Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s speech on June 4, 1985. It was pointed out that reducing the number of personnel in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army by one million is a sign of the strength and confidence of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government and the Chinese people. It was pointed out that after smashing the “Gang of Four”, especially after the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, our judgment on the international situation has changed, and our foreign policy has also changed. These are two important changes. The first change is the understanding of war and peace issues. It is possible that a large-scale world war will not occur for a relatively long period of time, and there is hope for maintaining world peace. Based on these analyzes of the general trend of the world and the analysis of our surrounding environment, we have changed our original view that the danger of war is imminent. The second change is our foreign policy. For some time in the past, we implemented a “one-line” strategy. Now we have changed that strategy, which is a major shift. We pursue an independent and correct diplomatic line and foreign policy, hold high the banner of opposing hegemonism and safeguarding world peace, and stand firmly on the side of the forces of peace.
The “Notice of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China approving the Central Military Commission’s Decision on Military Political Work in the New Era” was issued on February 15, 1987. It was pointed out that this decision is guided by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, inherits the fine traditions of the political work of the party and the army, and combines the tasks and situations faced by the army in the new historical period, and sets out the guiding ideology, main tasks, principles and policies of the political work of the army. and basic methods, and has made correct explanations and regulations, which has an important long-term guiding role in ensuring the revolutionary, modernization, and regularization of the army and ensuring that the army completes the glorious mission of defending the motherland and building the motherland. The “Decision” discusses how to implement strategic changes in adapting to the guiding ideology of national defense construction and army building and do a good job in the political work of the army in the new era. It is divided into seven issues. It was pointed out that the People’s Liberation Army shoulders major historical responsibilities in realizing the country’s three major tasks and must strengthen the political work of our army under new historical conditions.
”Speech when meeting all comrades attending the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission” was a speech delivered by Comrade Deng Xiaoping on November 12, 1989. pointed out that I am convinced that our military can always adhere to its own nature. This nature is the army of the party, the army of the people, and the army of the socialist country. This is different from militaries around the world. It is also different from the armies of other socialist countries because their armies have different experiences from our armies. Our military must always be loyal to the party, the people, the country, and socialism.
”The troops must be politically qualified, militarily strong, have a good work style, have strict discipline, and have strong support” was part of Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech at the military work conference of the entire army on December 1, 1990. It was pointed out that the most fundamental thing to do in building the army is to do a good job in ideological and political work. It is necessary to strengthen organizational discipline and ensure the concentration and unity of the troops. Military training is an important means for the troops to cultivate their style, improve their military quality, and enhance their combat effectiveness in peacetime. Military training must be placed in a strategic position. Whether it is military training or the entire military work, we should do it in a practical way. Only by doing it in a practical way can we achieve results.
”The International Situation and Military Strategic Principles” was the main part of Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on January 13, 1993. It is pointed out that the basic content of the military strategic policy of active defense is to take Mao Zedong’s military thought and Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s thoughts on military construction in the new era as the fundamental guidance, obey and serve the national development strategy, and be based on winning a possible modern technological special situation. It is a local war under high-tech conditions. Accelerate the quality construction of our army, strive to improve our army’s emergency combat capabilities, use strengths and avoid weaknesses, be flexible, contain wars, win wars, defend the country’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, maintain the unity of the motherland and social stability, and provide Reform, opening up and modernization provide a strong security guarantee.
The “Notice of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Forwarding the Decision on Several Issues Concerning the Ideological and Political Construction of the Army under the Conditions of Reform, Opening Up and the Development of a Socialist Market Economy” was issued on August 24, 1999. It was pointed out that winning future high-tech wars and maintaining the nature, true character and style of the people’s army are the party’s highest political requirements for the people’s army in the new era. The “Decision” pointed out that we must unswervingly hold high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory, ensure the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, must always put ideological and political construction at the top of all military constructions, and must closely focus on the centralization of military modernization. We must adhere to the unity of inheriting fine traditions and reform and innovation. The mission of our military’s ideological and political construction under the new historical conditions is to provide strong spiritual motivation for winning future high-tech wars and to provide reliable political guarantee for maintaining the nature, true character and style of the people’s army.
”Mechanization and informatization are the dual historical tasks of our military construction” was part of Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 11, 2000. He pointed out that by stepping up preparations for military struggle, we have grasped the main contradiction in the current military construction. We must strive to complete the dual historical tasks of mechanization and informatization of our army, focus on building a modern combat system that adapts to the requirements of high-tech warfare, persist in using the spirit of reform and innovation to carry out the comprehensive construction of our army centered on modernization, and further improve the mechanism of scientific decision-making and means.
”On Military Transformation with Chinese Characteristics” was Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 27, 2002. It is pointed out that the new military revolution is entering a new stage of qualitative change and is likely to develop into a profound military revolution that affects the world and involves all military fields. It will inevitably lead to revolutionary changes in a series of aspects such as military construction and combat methods. It is possible that It further widens the gap in military strength between China and major countries in the world and increases the potential threat to China’s military security. With a sense of urgency that time cannot wait, we must actively promote military reform with Chinese characteristics, accelerate the transformation of our military from mechanization and semi-mechanization to informationization, and comprehensively improve our military’s deterrence and actual combat capabilities.
”The Historical Mission of Our Army in the New Century and New Stage” was part of Comrade Hu Jintao’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 24, 2004. It was pointed out that after a comprehensive analysis of the development requirements of the times and changes in China’s security situation, the historical mission of our army in the new century and new stage must be accurately grasped from the following aspects: providing an important force guarantee for the party to consolidate its ruling position, and safeguarding the development of the country. It provides a strong security guarantee during a period of important strategic opportunities, provides strong strategic support for safeguarding national interests, and plays an important role in safeguarding world peace and promoting common development.
”Transformation to Military Training under Informatization Conditions” was part of Comrade Hu Jintao’s speech at the military training conference on June 27, 2006. It was pointed out that entering the new stage of the new century, our army has adapted to the development trend of war forms and combat methods, established the strategic goal of building an information-based army and winning information-based wars, and strives to promote the compound development of mechanization and informationization. Military training is undergoing a revolution. Profound change. Based on the actual progress and development level of mechanization and informatization construction, we must proceed from reality, provide classified guidance, creatively carry out military training, strive to improve the quality and effect of training, and solidly promote the transformation of military training under mechanized conditions to military training under informationized conditions. Accelerate the improvement of our military’s deterrence and actual combat capabilities under informationization conditions.
”Building a consolidated national defense and a strong military compatible with national security and development interests” was part of Comrade Hu Jintao’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 28, 2007. It was pointed out that continuing to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics at a new historical starting point has put forward new requirements for strengthening national defense and army building. We must strive to build a solid national defense and a strong military that is commensurate with the country’s international status and consistent with national security and development interests. Enriching the country and strengthening the army are the two cornerstones for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It is necessary to coordinate economic construction and national defense construction, and achieve the unity of enriching the country and strengthening the military in the process of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way.
”Cultivating the Core Values of Contemporary Revolutionary Soldiers” was part of Comrade Hu Jintao’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 24, 2008. It was pointed out that the core values of contemporary revolutionary soldiers are embodied in “loyalty to the party, love for the people, serving the country, dedication to the mission, and advocating honor.” We must persist in using the core values of contemporary revolutionary soldiers to guide the thoughts and behaviors of officers and soldiers, guide officers and soldiers to always maintain political firmness and ideological and moral purity, and truly win the battle without deterioration. It is necessary to integrate the core values of contemporary revolutionary soldiers into all aspects of military building, and do a good job in ideological education, public opinion guidance, cultural edification, model demonstration, practical cultivation, and institutional guarantees, so that the core values of contemporary revolutionary soldiers can be universally understood and recognized by officers and soldiers, and they can consciously cultivate and practice them. .
The “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission on Strengthening National Defense Education under the New Situation” was issued on April 19, 2011. It was pointed out that national defense education is the foundation for building and consolidating national defense and an important way to enhance national cohesion and improve the quality of the entire people. We must fully understand the importance of strengthening national defense education under the new situation. It is necessary to firmly establish a concept of national defense that is consistent with the requirements of the Scientific Outlook on Development, focus on national defense education for leading cadres at all levels, vigorously promote the popularization of national defense education in all sectors of society, actively improve and innovate methods and means of national defense education, and strive to provide policies for popularizing national defense education Support and related guarantees, and effectively strengthen the organizational leadership of national defense education.
”Firmly grasp the goal of strengthening the military and build a strong people’s army” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the plenary session of the People’s Liberation Army delegation at the first session of the 12th National People’s Congress on March 11, 2013. It was pointed out that the party’s goal of strengthening the army under the new situation is to build a people’s army that obeys the party’s command, can win wars, and has a good work style. Listening to the party’s command is the soul and determines the political direction of military construction; being able to win battles is the core, reflecting the fundamental functions of the military and the fundamental direction of military construction; excellent work style is the guarantee, and is related to the nature, purpose and true quality of the military. This goal clarifies the focus and focus of strengthening military construction, which the entire military must accurately grasp to guide military construction, reform and military struggle preparations, and strive to raise national defense and military construction to a new level.
”Deepening National Defense and Military Reform” is the fifteenth part of the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform” adopted at the third plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013. It is pointed out that we must closely focus on the party’s goal of strengthening the military under the new situation, strive to solve outstanding contradictions and problems that restrict the development of national defense and military construction, innovate and develop military theory, strengthen military strategic guidance, improve military strategic guidelines for the new era, and build a modern modern society with Chinese characteristics. military power system.
”Effectively strengthening and improving the political work of our military under the new situation” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the military political work conference on October 31, 2014. It was pointed out that we must closely focus on the theme of the times for our military’s political work, strengthen and improve our military’s political work under the new situation, and give full play to the lifeline role of political work in strengthening and rejuvenating the army. The most important thing is to firmly establish four fundamental things in the entire army: ideals and beliefs, party spirit principles, combat effectiveness standards, and political work authority. He emphasized that adhering to the Party’s absolute leadership over the military is the soul of a strong military, and forging a solid military soul is the core task of our military’s political work. It is necessary to grasp the characteristics and laws of soul-casting and educating people under the new situation, and strive to cultivate a new generation of revolutionary soldiers with soul, ability, blood and moral character.
”Comprehensively implement the strategy of reforming and strengthening the military, and unswervingly follow the path of strengthening the military with Chinese characteristics” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the Central Military Commission Reform Work Conference on November 24, 2015. It is pointed out that deepening the reform of national defense and the army is the requirement of the times to realize the Chinese Dream and the dream of building a strong military. It is the only way to strengthen and rejuvenate the army, and it is also a key move to determine the future of the army. In accordance with the requirements of the “Four Comprehensives” strategic layout, guided by the Party’s goal of strengthening the military under the new situation, we must implement the military strategic guidelines under the new situation, comprehensively implement the strategy of reform and strengthening the military, and strive to solve the institutional obstacles that restrict national defense and military construction. , structural contradictions and policy issues, promote the modernization of the military’s organizational form, further liberate and develop combat effectiveness, further liberate and enhance the vitality of the military, and build a consolidated national defense and a strong military commensurate with our country’s international status and compatible with national security and development interests, Provide a strong guarantee of strength to achieve the “Two Centenary Goals” and realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It was emphasized that the General Principle of the leadership and command system reform is that the Military Commission takes charge of the overall affairs, the theaters are responsible for the battle, and the military services are responsible for the construction.
”Comprehensively implement the innovation-driven development strategy and promote national defense and military construction to achieve new leaps” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the plenary session of the People’s Liberation Army Delegation at the Fourth Session of the 12th National People’s Congress on March 13, 2016. It is pointed out that innovation capability is the core competitiveness of an army and an accelerator for generating and improving combat effectiveness. Promoting new leaps and bounds in national defense and military construction through reform and innovation is a key to determining the future and destiny of our military. We must make great efforts to focus on theoretical innovation, scientific and technological innovation, scientific management, talent gathering, and practical innovation, drive and promote comprehensive innovation with key breakthroughs, and continuously create new situations for strengthening the military.
”On the Central Military Commission’s Adherence to the Chairman’s Responsibility System” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the Central Military Commission’s Democratic Life Conference on February 4, 2017. He pointed out that our party’s system is for the party leader to serve as chairman of the Central Military Commission, which is to ensure the party’s absolute leadership over the military. We must understand the extreme importance of this system from the perspective of prosperity and long-term stability of the party, country and army. The chairman’s responsibility system solves the issue of the highest leadership and command power of our military. It is the chairman of the Central Military Commission who has the final say and final say on major issues of our military. To implement the chairman’s responsibility system, the entire military must be particularly clear-headed and conscious in its actions, and report major issues to the request for instructions.
”Speech at the Conference to Celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” was Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech on August 1, 2017. It was pointed out that standing at a new historical starting point, we must speed up the construction of the people’s army into a world-class army. To advance the cause of building a strong military, we must unswervingly uphold the Party’s absolute leadership over the military and ensure that the People’s Army always follows the Party; we must uphold and develop the Party’s military guiding theory, and constantly open up new realms of development of Marxist military theory and contemporary China’s military practice; We must always focus on preparing for war, and forging elite troops who are ready to fight when called upon, and who are sure to win in battle; we must persist in building the army politically, strengthening the army through reform, developing the army through science and technology, and running the army in accordance with the law, so as to comprehensively improve the modernization level of national defense and the army. ; We must further promote the development of military-civilian integration and build a national strategic system and capability for military-civilian integration; we must adhere to the fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly and always be a soldier trusted by the people, supported by the people, and loved by the people.
”Adhere to the path of strengthening the military with Chinese characteristics and comprehensively promote the modernization of national defense and the military” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s report at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on October 18, 2017. It was pointed out that in the face of profound changes in the national security environment and the requirements of the times for a strong country and strong military, we must fully implement the Party’s thought on strengthening the military in the new era, implement the military strategic guidelines under the new situation, and build a powerful modern army, navy, air force, rocket Army and strategic support forces, build a strong and efficient theater joint operations command structure, build a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics, and shoulder the missions of the new era entrusted by the party and the people.
”Continuously creating a new realm for the development of contemporary China’s Marxist military theory and military practice” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission on December 22, 2017. It was pointed out that in the magnificent practice of strengthening the army, we focus on realizing the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, focus on what kind of strong people’s army to build in the new era and how to build a strong people’s army, and conduct in-depth theoretical exploration and practical creation to form The Party’s thought on strengthening the army in the new era. It is clear that a strong country must have a strong army. Consolidating national defense and a strong people’s army are strategic supports for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era. It is clear that the party’s goal of strengthening the army in the new era is to build a force that can obey the party’s command and be capable. The people’s army that wins battles and has an excellent work style must be consistent with the national modernization process and strive to basically realize the modernization of national defense and the army by 2035, and fully build the people’s army into a world-class army by the middle of this century; it is clear that the party’s absolute leadership over the army is the people The foundation of building an army and the soul of a strong army must fully implement a series of fundamental principles and systems for the Party’s leadership of the army to ensure that the army is absolutely loyal, absolutely pure, and absolutely reliable; it is clear that the army must be prepared to fight, and must focus on being able to fight and fight. To win the war, innovatively develop military strategic guidance, build a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics, comprehensively improve the ability to prepare for war in the new era, effectively shape the situation, manage crises, contain wars, and win wars; it is clear that excellent work style is the distinctive feature and political advantage of our military, and must Strengthen the construction of work style and discipline, unswervingly improve the work style and discipline, fight corruption and punish evil, vigorously carry forward the glorious traditions and fine styles of our party and our army, and always maintain the nature, purpose and true quality of the people’s army; it is clear that to advance the cause of strengthening the army, we must adhere to political construction The army, reform and strengthen the army, develop the army through science and technology, and run the army in accordance with the law, pay more attention to focusing on actual combat, pay more attention to innovation-driven, pay more attention to system construction, pay more attention to intensive and efficient, pay more attention to military-civilian integration, comprehensively improve the level of revolution, modernization and regularization; clarify the reform It is the only way to strengthen the army. We must promote the modernization of the military’s organizational form, build a modern military force system with Chinese characteristics, and improve the socialist military system with Chinese characteristics. It is clear that innovation is the first driving force for development, and we must insist on seeking combat effectiveness from scientific and technological innovation, and coordinate the advancement of the military Innovate in theory, technology, organization, management, culture and other aspects to build an innovative people’s army; clarify that a modern military must build a military legal system with Chinese characteristics, promote fundamental changes in the way of running the military, and improve the level of legalization of national defense and military construction; clarify that the military and civilians must Integrated development is a strategy to rejuvenate the country and strengthen the military. We must adhere to the principle of balancing development and security, enriching the country and strengthening the military, forming an all-factor, multi-domain, and highly effective military-civilian integration in-depth development pattern, and building an integrated national strategic system and capabilities. We must comprehensively and accurately study and understand the Party’s thought on strengthening the military in the new era and implement it unswervingly.
”Unswervingly Uphold the Party’s Absolute Leadership over the Military” was part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the Party Building Conference of the Central Military Commission on August 17, 2018. It was pointed out that to uphold the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, first of all, the entire military must be absolutely loyal to the Party. To be absolutely loyal to the Party, we must build a solid ideological foundation of listening to the Party and following the Party. It is necessary to strengthen loyalty identification and political inspection to ensure that the barrel of the gun is firmly in the hands of those who are absolutely loyal to the party.
”Uphold and improve the Party’s absolute leadership system over the People’s Army and ensure that the People’s Army faithfully performs its missions and tasks in the new era” is the “Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Resolution on Upholding the Mission and Tasks of the New Era” adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on October 31, 2019. and the Decision on Several Major Issues in Improving the Socialist System with Chinese Characteristics and Advancing the Modernization of the National Governance System and Governance Capacity.” It was pointed out that the party’s absolute leadership over the people’s army is the foundation of the people’s army and the soul of a strong army. The Central Military Commission’s implementation of the chairman’s responsibility system is the fundamental implementation form of upholding the party’s absolute leadership over the people’s military. We must firmly establish the guiding position of Xi Jinping’s Thought on Strengthening the Military in national defense and military construction, insist that the highest leadership and command power of the People’s Army belong to the Party Central Committee, improve the Party building system of the People’s Army, and implement the Party’s absolute leadership over the People’s Army into the military The entire process of construction in various fields.
”Comprehensively strengthening practical military training and comprehensively improving training levels and winning capabilities” are the key points of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the Central Military Commission’s military training conference on November 25, 2020. It is pointed out that military training is the regular and central work of the army, the basic way to generate and improve combat effectiveness, and the most direct preparation for military struggle. We must continue to focus on preparing for war, adhere to actual combat training, joint combat training, science and technology-based training, and law-based training, carry forward fine traditions, strengthen reform and innovation, accelerate the construction of a new military training system, and comprehensively improve training levels and winning capabilities, in order to achieve The Party’s goal of strengthening the military in the new era is to provide strong support for building our military into a world-class military.
”Promoting historic achievements and historic changes in national defense and military construction in the new era” is derived from the “Major Issues of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Party’s Centenary Struggle” adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 11, 2021. The fourth part of the resolution “Creating a New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. It was pointed out that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the party has proposed the goal of strengthening the military in the new era, established military strategic guidelines for the new era, and formulated the goal of achieving the centenary goal of the founding of the army by 2027, basically realizing the modernization of national defense and the army by 2035, and The new “three-step” strategy for national defense and military modernization to build a world-class military in an all-round way by the middle of the century, promote political military building, strengthen the military through reform, strengthen the military through science and technology, strengthen the military through talent, and run the military in accordance with the law, and accelerate the modernization of military theory and the modernization of military organizational forms. , modernize military personnel, modernize weapons and equipment, accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligence, comprehensively strengthen military training and preparations, and adhere to the path of building a strong military with Chinese characteristics. Under the strong leadership of the Party, the People’s Army has achieved overall revolutionary reshaping, reorganized and started again, simultaneously improved its national defense strength and economic strength, accelerated the construction of an integrated national strategic system and capabilities, established and improved the management and support system for veterans, and established a national defense system. Mobilization is more efficient, and unity between the military and the government and the people is more consolidated. The People’s Army has resolutely fulfilled its missions and tasks in the new era, and defended national sovereignty, security, and development interests with its tenacious fighting spirit and practical actions.
”In-depth implementation of the strategy of strengthening the military through talents in the new era” is the key point of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech at the Central Military Commission Talent Work Conference on November 26, 2021. It is pointed out that talents are the key factor to promote the high-quality development of our military, win military competition and take the initiative in future wars. To implement the strategy of strengthening the military with talents in the new era, we must implement the Party’s absolute leadership over the military in all aspects and the entire process of talent work. We must regard the ability to fight and win wars as the starting point and foothold of talent work. We must face the world’s military frontier and face major national security issues. To meet the needs of national defense and military modernization, we must cultivate and make good use of talents in an all-round way, deepen the reform of military human resources policies and systems, and implement the strategy of strengthening the country through talents.
”Implementing the strategy of running the military according to law and improving the level of legalization of national defense and military construction” were the key points of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speech when attending the plenary meeting of the People’s Liberation Army and Armed Police Force delegation at the fifth session of the 13th National People’s Congress on March 7, 2022. It was pointed out that running the army in accordance with the law is the basic way for our party to build and run the army, and is an inevitable requirement to achieve the party’s goal of strengthening the army in the new era. It is necessary to uphold the party’s absolute leadership over the military, adhere to combat effectiveness standards, insist on building a military legal system with Chinese characteristics, insist on transforming the way of running the military in accordance with the requirements of the rule of law, insist on strict discipline in the military, insist on seizing the “critical minority” of leading cadres, and insist on the dominant position of officers and soldiers. , insisting on implementing the requirements of comprehensively governing the country according to law.
”Achieve the Centenary Goal of the Founding of the Army and Create a New Situation in the Modernization of National Defense and the Army” is part of Comrade Xi Jinping’s report at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on October 16, 2022. It was pointed out that achieving the centenary goal of the founding of the army as scheduled and accelerating the building of the people’s army into a world-class army are strategic requirements for comprehensively building a modern socialist country. We must implement the Party’s thought on strengthening the army in the new era, implement the military strategic principles of the new era, adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the people’s army, adhere to political army building, reform to strengthen the army, science and technology to strengthen the army, talents to strengthen the army, and rule of law, and adhere to border struggles. , prepare for war while building, adhere to the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligence, accelerate the modernization of military theory, military organizational form, military personnel, and weapons and equipment, improve the strategic ability to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and effectively fulfill the new era People’s Army missions.
The Ten Military Principles are our Party’s scientific summary of the practical experience of the People’s Army in combat during the revolutionary war years. They are a concentrated reflection of Comrade Mao Zedong’s profound military thought and the commanding art of using troops like a god. They embody the basic principles and tactics of the People’s War strategy and tactics. The methodological principle of seeking truth from facts is full of materialism and dialectics, and has vitality that spans time and space. It is the historical responsibility of our generation of soldiers to continue to inherit the winning magic weapon of the people’s army. Of course, all military principles are moving forward. Today, when intelligent warfare has gradually become a new form of warfare, this article focuses on the ten major military principles, summarizes and sorts out the dialectical implications and enlightenment of the times in nine aspects, and provides readers with reference.
Strategic contempt and tactical attention
Operational judgment is the prerequisite for planning operations. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that we must despise the enemy strategically and attach great importance to the enemy tactically. Strategic contempt and tactical attention are a complete idea. The first is to strategically despise the enemy, dare to fight against them, and dare to win. At the same time, we must pay attention to the enemy tactically, adopt a cautious attitude, and pay attention to the art of struggle. If you cannot see the weak side of the enemy and cannot despise the enemy strategically, then paying attention to the enemy tactically may become a fear of the enemy; if you ignore the strong side of the enemy and ignore the enemy tactically, despising the enemy strategically will become underestimating the enemy. Recognizing the dual nature of struggle and preventing one tendency from overshadowing the other is the key to defeating the enemy. The victory in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea was a victory in which our army despised the enemy strategically and paid attention to the enemy tactically. It was a victory in which our army had the courage to fight and was good at fighting.
In today’s era, a century of changes and a century’s epidemic are superimposed on each other, and the strategic game between countries has become more intense. We must always remain clear-headed and determined, defy all dangers and difficulties, organically combine strategic contempt for the enemy with tactical attention to the enemy, and deal with the enemy. Be fully prepared for all possible situations, be neither afraid of nor underestimate the enemy, dare to fight and be good at winning.
Careful preparation and cautious initial battle
Combat preparation is the basis for winning the battle. Comrade Mao Zedong emphasized that we should never fight an unprepared battle or a battle that we are not sure of; he called for caution in the first battle, believing that the victory or defeat in the first battle would have a great impact on the overall situation of the war, and it would be especially important for the army at a disadvantage or in a defensive position. Long-term war practice tells us that the more complex and difficult the situation, the more detailed the preparation for combat is to analyze the strength and situation of friends and foes, and to put ourselves in their shoes and analyze what the opponent will think and do. In particular, we should strive to be prepared for every battle, anticipate the most difficult and dangerous possible situations, and strive to be sure of victory under the contrasting conditions between the enemy and ourselves. The Battle of Yijiangshan Island was our army’s first three-service joint operation. The planning of the battle lasted for several years, and the preparation for the battle lasted for more than 2 months. It is an example of careful preparation and cautious initial battle.
In today’s era, China, which is at a critical stage of development from big to strong, faces complex and diverse challenges. This requires us to strengthen the concept of combat readiness, improve the ability to win, be prepared for war at any time, and truly carry out construction, development, and preparation for war in accordance with the standards of war. We must anticipate the most difficult and complex situations and treat such situations as The starting point for all combat preparations is to make sufficient and detailed preparations and formulate a comprehensive plan for integrated implementation, so as to achieve the goal of winning if we do not fight and win if we fight.
Destroy enemies and capture places
The purpose of combat is the core of implementing operations. Comrade Mao Zedong demanded that the main goal be to annihilate the enemy’s effective forces and not to defend or capture cities and places. He vividly pointed out that for a person, it is better to cut off one of his ten fingers than to hurt him; for the enemy, it is better to annihilate one of his divisions than to defeat his ten divisions. When the enemy is large and we are small, the enemy is strong and we are weak, it is generally impossible to achieve the two goals of annihilating the enemy and seizing the place at the same time. Only after annihilating the enemy’s effective strength can the place be finally defended or captured. Therefore, annihilating the enemy is a means to seize territory, and seizing territory is the result of annihilating the enemy. Therefore, annihilating the enemy should be the first priority, and consolidating the territory second. During the Yan’an Defense War, the Party Central Committee resolutely withdrew from Yan’an, and while annihilating the effective strength of the Kuomintang army on a large scale, it realized the strategic concept of “save people and lose land, and save both people and land”.
In today’s era, system breaking and precise victory are becoming key words in modern combat theory. We must change the traditional operational thinking of annihilating the enemy and seizing territory, and regard the pursuit of deterrence effects and depriving the enemy of combat power as important operational options. We must step up efforts to forge capabilities and means to seize comprehensive control and take the initiative on the battlefield, so as to destroy the enemy’s key support elements and deprive them of their combat power. The objective material basis for its continued operations and the operational purpose of disintegrating its will to carry out war.
Pay attention to the overall situation and grasp the key points
Combat guidance is the criterion for controlling combat. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that the overall situation and the local part of a war are the unity of opposites. The key to combat guidance is to unify focusing on the overall situation and grasping the key points, “seizing the strategic key point to deploy the campaign, and seizing the operational key point to deploy the battle.” Only in this way can the war situation be effectively promoted in a direction that is beneficial to oneself. In particular, a weak army must follow the objective laws of the development of things, start from the local area, and continue to accumulate the quantity of local victories to cause a qualitative leap and achieve overall changes. In the long-term revolutionary war, our army was good at firmly grasping strategic pivots to promote the development of the war situation, and firmly grasping the main contradictions to promote the transformation of contradictions. Only then did our army turn from passive to active, and from disadvantage to advantage. In the Liaoshen Campaign, our army made comprehensive considerations and decided to “attack Jinzhou first”, which effectively promoted the battle process and won the victory.
In today’s era, wars are becoming more and more hybrid, security threats are complex, diverse and multi-dimensional, and they are characterized by multi-domain linkage. Changes in war practice require us to consider the overall situation and the overall situation in operational guidance, focus on the actual situation on the battlefield, coordinate the struggle in the main strategic direction and other strategic directions, coordinate the military struggle in the traditional security field and the new security field, and coordinate the political, The economic, diplomatic, military, cultural, public opinion and other fronts realize the mutual superposition and accumulation of combat effects, forming an overall emergence of anti-hybrid warfare capabilities and ensuring the strategic goal of complete victory.
Fight weak enemies first and strong enemies later
The focus of operations is the key to implementing operations. Comrade Mao Zedong emphasized that we must first attack dispersed and isolated enemies, and then attack concentrated and powerful enemies. In the practice of long-term revolutionary wars, our army is often at a disadvantage in terms of quantity, scale and equipment. We must first annihilate the enemies that are isolated, dispersed, weakly defended, and garrisoned in small and medium-sized cities. Then, the enemies that are concentrated, strong, well-garrisoned, and garrisoned in large cities will become weaker. , which creates conditions for the next attack and annihilation. If we attack the strong enemy first, not only will it be difficult to deal with the strong enemy quickly, but the weak enemy will also easily become a strong enemy, which will make us passive. Of course, sometimes when you are really sure, you can also wait for an opportunity to attack a strong enemy first to quickly weaken the enemy’s strategic advantage. In the Battle of Menglianggu, Su Yu made the first attack and completely annihilated the reorganized 74th Division, the “first of the five main forces” of the Kuomintang army. This defeated the Kuomintang army’s key attack on the Shandong Liberated Areas and reversed the strategic situation on the East China battlefield.
In today’s era, war is a confrontation between systems. The fundamental goal of defeating the system is to attack the enemy’s center of gravity and key points. Combat operations must be carried out closely around the enemy’s center of gravity, and the selected targets must be the “keys”, “vital points” and “joints” in the enemy’s entire war system. These enemy targets may be “strong enemies” or “weak enemies” in the traditional sense. However, once they are identified as centers of gravity, all efforts should be concentrated on destroying these centers of gravity in order to paralyze the enemy’s entire combat system and quickly complete the operation. Purpose.
Concentrate and disperse forces
Combat posture is the posture in which troops are deployed. Comrade Mao Zedong demanded that operations must focus on eliminating the enemy’s effective strength and concentrate superior forces to annihilate the enemy one by one. The essence of concentrating superior forces is to use forces intensively to obtain local advantages and initiative against the enemy based on the overall needs of the operation and to ensure a decisive victory in the decisive battle. In traditional wars, the concentration of troops is mainly reflected in the concentration of personnel and weapons, relying on quantitative advantages to make up for qualitative deficiencies. In battles, our army’s consistent thinking is to concentrate its absolutely superior forces, adopt roundabout encirclement tactics, and annihilate enemies one by one. The opposite of concentrated force is decentralized force or military egalitarianism. Military egalitarianism may result in having neither an overall strength advantage nor a local strength advantage, making it impossible to control the enemy and to be controlled by the enemy. During the Red Army’s fifth counter-campaign against “encirclement and suppression”, the “six-way division of troops” and “all-front resistance” were manifestations of military egalitarianism.
In today’s era, information power, mobility, strike power, etc. have all increased unprecedentedly. Concentrating superior forces requires concentrating and using one’s own advantages in more diverse fields, and more adopting the approach of “dispersed appearance but concentrated spirit, scattered form but combined strength”. Dynamically combine the various combat forces distributed on the multi-dimensional battlefield, rely on the quality accumulation, efficiency integration, and real-time optimization of multiple combat elements to suddenly change the contrast with the opponent’s combat power, forming a hammer effect to defeat the enemy.
Weapons and equipment and fighting spirit
Combat elements are the components of combat strength. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that weapons and equipment are important factors in the victory or defeat of a war, but they are not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is people, not things. He asked the troops to carry forward the style of fighting bravely, not afraid of sacrifice, not afraid of fatigue and continuous fighting. Obviously, war is not only a confrontation of hard power such as weapons and equipment between the opposing parties, but also a competition of soft power such as will and quality. As an important component of combat effectiveness, fighting spirit plays a key role in the outcome of war. Material causes and effects are but the hilt of the knife; spiritual causes and effects are the sharp edge. Why in history has our army been able to defeat powerful enemies one after another and create miracles one after another even if it does not have an advantage in weapons and equipment? One of the most fundamental reasons is that we have the bloody courage to “show swords when facing the enemy, be brave and tenacious” and have the fighting spirit of “firstly, not being afraid of hardship, and secondly, not being afraid of death.”
In today’s era, war forms and combat styles are evolving at an accelerated pace, science and technology have become the core combat effectiveness, and weapons and equipment are becoming more and more important to winning wars. The contribution rate of scientific and technological innovation to military construction and combat effectiveness development must be continuously increased. At the same time, we must forge the spiritual edge to defeat the enemy while inheriting the glorious tradition and fine style, and combine advanced science and technology with tenacious will, so that the majority of commanders and soldiers have a high degree of revolutionary consciousness and spirit of self-sacrifice, and master advanced Weapons, equipment and complex military technology form a powerful combat force to achieve victory in every attack and victory.
You hit yours and I hit mine
Combat methods are the carrier of strategy and tactics. Comrade Mao Zedong emphasized that people should give full play to their conscious initiative and seize the initiative in war. Starting from the overall situation of the revolutionary war, he successively proposed a series of flexible strategies and tactics, such as “Fight if you can win, leave if you can’t”, “You fight yours, I’ll fight mine”, “Mobile warfare, positional warfare, guerrilla warfare”. Cooperate with each other” and so on. This set of strategies and tactics that seek advantages and avoid disadvantages and are flexible and mobile reveals the laws and methods of war guidance for defeating enemies with superior equipment with inferior equipment, and raises flexible strategies and tactics to a new level. During the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, in response to the U.S. military’s strong land and sea support and strong land firepower and mobility, our military emphasized small-scale annihilation wars, which enriched the implementation of annihilation wars. It relied on tunnels to carry out small-scale counterattacks and found a new way to fight positional warfare. .
In today’s era, wars will be carried out in multiple domains simultaneously, and combat operations such as networked and electronic operations, air and space attacks, and unmanned operations are prominent. Proactive, flexible and changeable strategies and tactics are still a weapon to gain the initiative and defeat the enemy. It is necessary to follow the winning mechanism of modern war, step up the forging of new quality and new domain combat capability means, flexibly use “total war”, “cognitive warfare”, “cross-domain warfare” and “intelligent warfare” and other tactics to temper dimensionality reduction strikes and asymmetric strikes Wait for the way of fighting, do not follow the enemy’s routines, focus on the enemy’s weaknesses, use our army’s strengths and strengths to control the battle, and win the victory.
Continuous combat and rest supplement
Combat support is the cornerstone of sustaining operations. Comrade Mao Zedong always believed that the deepest roots of the power of war exist among the people, and that soldiers and people are the foundation of victory. During the long-term revolutionary war, our army’s manpower and material resources supplementation mainly emphasized obtaining them from the enemy and relying on the support of the base areas. At the same time, we used the gaps between campaigns to reorganize and train the troops, improve military and political quality, and enhance the combat effectiveness of the troops. These are all necessary conditions for carrying out another battle. However, in order to prevent the enemy from taking a breather and to inflict continuous blows to the enemy, sometimes even without supplementary rest and recuperation, it is necessary to develop a style of not being afraid of sacrifice or fatigue and achieve continuous operations. Just after the Liaoshen Campaign, the Northeast Field Army changed its plan to use three months to half a year to rest and reorganize its troops. It took a shortcut and quickly sent troops into the pass to participate in the Pingjin Campaign, which changed the battlefield situation in North China in one fell swoop.
In today’s era, in a sense, fighting a war is fighting for security. With the profound changes in the international military competition landscape, national interests and military missions continue to expand, and the time and space span of combat support has expanded dramatically. In particular, the intensity, difficulty, and With the unprecedented increase in speed, we must continue to deepen national defense mobilization, build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities, and form strong war capabilities and war potential that can achieve both quick and lasting strategic victory.
At present, the war situation is evolving into an informationized war with intelligent characteristics, and the mechanism of winning the war has also undergone profound changes. Actively analyzing the new mechanisms of winning the informationized war, such as information dominance, overall linkage, precise energy release, and system destruction, and accurately revealing its internal laws, is of great significance for innovating the combat guidance of local informationized wars with intelligent characteristics.
The dominant factor for victory has shifted from energy dominance to information dominance, and combat guidance has shifted from focusing on manpower and firepower to focusing on “information + firepower”
Human warfare has gone through a long process from force dominance, firepower dominance to information dominance. In the agricultural era, wars were mainly won by human combat, and the combat performance was mainly a “physical battle” of conquering cities and territories. Force dominance was the basis for winning the war. In combat guidance, the size of the force was exchanged for the improvement of combat effectiveness, advocating more the better and using more to defeat fewer. In the industrial era, firepower gradually occupied a dominant position. The war was mainly manifested in a “firepower battle” to destroy the enemy’s war material base and annihilate the enemy’s living forces. Firepower dominance was the basis for winning the war. The mechanism for winning the war is to release energy from materials and win by scale. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on concentrating superior forces and firepower to destroy the enemy.
In information warfare, information becomes the “blood” and “nerves” of the combat system, penetrating into all aspects such as reconnaissance intelligence, command and control, joint strikes, and comprehensive support. The combat is mainly manifested in “information firepower warfare”, and information dominance is the foundation for winning the war. At this stage, information concentration and information empowerment are important winning mechanisms. The integration of information and firepower has changed the traditional combat method of simply competing in scale and firepower, and greatly improved the speed and accuracy of firepower strikes. Whoever has a strong ability to obtain, process, transmit, use and control information, and whoever has a high degree of integration between information and firepower, will win the war. The result of information dominance is the precise focus and rapid release of firepower. Therefore, in terms of combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on gaining information superiority, paralyzing and controlling the enemy through information attacks and firepower strikes, and using information-led, “information + firepower”-based system confrontation advantages to gain combat victory. In the early morning of April 14, 2018, the US, UK and France dispatched an EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft to carry out “deceptive + repressive” interference on the Syrian air defense missile system, and launched 105 missiles in coordination, attacking and destroying many important targets in Damascus in the form of information firepower warfare.
The winning form has changed from force coordination to overall linkage, and combat guidance has changed from pursuing joint operations among various services to pursuing multi-domain joint operations.
Wars have always focused on winning with overall power. In mechanized joint operations, due to the constraints of information technology, the various forces cannot achieve a high degree of battlefield information sharing and common perception of battlefield situations. The combat functions of the army, navy, air force and other services are difficult to break through the constraints of spatial factors. The degree of jointness in operations is not high. Although there are joint combat forms, it emphasizes that two or more military forces cooperate with each other and work closely in different combat spaces, so as to achieve complementary advantages and coordinated attacks on the enemy. The winning form is mainly manifested in the coordination of forces. The combat effectiveness mainly depends on the extreme release of the energy of each combat force and the physical superposition of effects, and the pursuit is “linear concentration”. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on implementing joint operations of various services in two-dimensional or three-dimensional spatial forces. Through careful pre-war planning and impromptu coordination during the war, various services and combat platforms can achieve strong coordination and cooperation to form overall power.
Informatized joint operations, the battlefield has expanded from land, sea and air to space, network and electronics, the combat domain has extended from the physical domain to the information domain and cognitive domain, the combat space is full and multi-dimensional, the virtual and the real are dependent and integrated, the action range of various services has broken through the inherent spatial limitations, and combat activities are no longer achieved by the various services in their own activity space through external coordination and cooperation with other services, but have evolved into breaking the boundaries between services and aggregating the advantages of each domain to achieve it. Overall linkage has become the basic form of victory. All combat forces have moved from simple “cooperation” to deep “integration”, and formed a combat system of “dispersed deployment in space, coordinated in time, and integrated in multiple domains in energy release”, which has changed combat actions from loose coordination and linear superposition of combat effects in the past to today’s overall linkage and amplification of combat effectiveness index, and finally achieved an asymmetric advantage over the enemy. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on multi-domain joint operations, emphasizing the complementary advantages of cross-domain advantages and seeking overall combat advantages. It is mainly supported by the network information system, coordinating and utilizing multi-dimensional space combat forces such as land, sea, air, space, network and electricity to achieve the integration of air and ground, sea and air, and multiple forces, and highly integrating network warfare, electronic warfare, etc. with troop and firepower operations. It also relies on the system to quickly and accurately maneuver and concentrate forces to carry out concentrated energy strikes on important targets of the enemy’s combat system, transforming the information advantage, speed advantage and firepower advantage formed by the joint efforts of multiple domains into an action advantage to defeat the enemy and quickly achieve the combat objectives.
The winning method has changed from extensive energy release to precise energy release, and combat guidance has changed from seeking large-scale destruction and depletion of the opponent’s strength to seeking precise control of the battle situation.
During the mechanized warfare period, due to insufficient information acquisition capabilities and limited command and control means, there was a lot of “fog” in the war, and the low accuracy of weapons strikes led to the inability to effectively control energy release. Usually, carpet bombing and saturation attacks were used to increase the probability of killing, and the scale of troops and firepower was exchanged for the improvement of combat effectiveness. The winning method was extensive energy release, following the law of quantitative change to qualitative change. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis was placed on consuming the opponent’s strength through large-scale killings and achieving strategic goals in exchange for military victory.
In the information warfare period, the “fog” of war still exists, but because information technology is integrated into the combat system, each combat system uses information to achieve real-time rapid response, which greatly improves the detection accuracy, positioning accuracy, and strike accuracy, so that the “fog” of war is minimized as much as possible. In particular, the development and application of network information systems have made it possible to make precise plans, select targets, use forces, strike at key points, make precise assessments, control actions, and provide precise guarantees. In combat, long-range precise strikes such as beheading, acupuncture, and surgical operations are usually used to directly hit the enemy’s key points. The winning method is mainly precise energy release, which follows the principles of systems theory and cybernetics. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on elite troops and quick decisions, so as to achieve combat objectives at the lowest cost, fastest speed, and lowest risk. A small-scale precision combat operation may achieve the same combat effectiveness as a large-scale war in the past. In modern warfare, precision warfare is not only a military means of application, but also has important political significance, because human life, property and the environment on which human beings depend for survival can be protected as much as possible under this combat method, rather than using unlimited violence, making precise control of the battle situation an important combat guide.
The path to victory shifted from destroying the enemy and seizing territory to destroying the system, and combat guidance shifted from emphasizing annihilation warfare to emphasizing system destruction warfare.
During the mechanized warfare period, the way to win the war mainly depends on destroying the enemy and seizing the territory. The direct purpose of the war is to destroy the enemy, often by destroying a large number of enemy manpower, seizing or occupying enemy territory, and forcing the enemy to surrender. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on the idea of annihilation warfare. In the Battle of Verdun during World War I, the German and French armies deployed nearly 2 million troops, with more than 700,000 casualties, becoming a terrible “meat grinder”.
In the information warfare period, the destruction of the enemy’s manpower is still of great value in winning the war, and the number of casualties is still an important variable in the effectiveness and tolerance of war. In several local wars in this century, the US military pursued the so-called “zero casualties”, which also shows the sensitivity of casualties in war, and on the other hand, it also reflects the importance of destroying the enemy’s manpower. However, the connection and integration of information, the updating of weapons and equipment, and the improvement of combat methods have made the confrontation between the two sides manifest as a confrontation between systems. The overlap of tactical objectives, campaign objectives and even strategic objectives is getting higher and higher. The large-scale destruction of the enemy’s manpower is no longer a necessary condition for winning the war. The way to win the war usually relies on system destruction, and the direct purpose of combat is to scare and control the enemy. The side with system advantage mainly achieves victory in the war by precisely striking the key nodes and key systems that support the operation of the enemy’s war system and combat system. Therefore, in combat guidance, more emphasis is placed on the idea of system destruction warfare, with information as the main guide and system as the support, and the enemy’s “Achilles’ heel” is precisely struck. Through the collapse effect of the system, the purpose of disintegrating the system and winning the hearts and minds is achieved. During the Kosovo War, NATO carried out air strikes for 78 days. The casualties of the Yugoslav army were not many, but because the high-value targets in the combat system, such as the command information system, transportation hubs, energy bases, and power facilities, were hit hard, the war potential of the Yugoslavia was greatly weakened, and the will of the military and civilians to fight was gradually destroyed, leading to the defeat of the war. The limited purpose of information warfare makes the warring parties usually directly target the weaknesses of the opponent’s system to carry out precise destruction, making small-scale and clever system confrontation operations more popular, with few casualties, but can also achieve combat objectives.
Cognitive domain operations, as an ancient but emerging military practice, continue to develop in the wave of the world’s new military revolution. Constructing our military’s cognitive domain combat science is of positive significance to building a world-class military.
Statement of the Problem
Cognitive domain warfare has existed since ancient times and has almost run through thousands of years of human war history. It’s just that there was no such thing as cognitive domain warfare at that time. Instead, it was called “mind attack” and “mental warfare” by military strategists. In the 20th century, with the development of science and technology, cognitive domain operations have unique advantages, showing the characteristics of “fighting at all times and without declaring war”. Cognitive domain operations have become the ultimate domain of great power games and military confrontations, and are the highest level of modern war control.
The development of military science has its own inherent laws. The construction of our military’s cognitive domain combat science is a process that follows the development laws of military science. First of all, cognitive domain operations have strong characteristics of the times. With the development of science and technology, especially the application of science and technology such as biology, medicine, artificial intelligence, and information communication in the field of warfare, the ways to control people’s will, thinking, psychology, emotions and other cognitive systems have become more diverse and flexible. Secondly, cognitive domain operations have become the main battlefield of modern warfare. Recent local wars, especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have shown a new style of cognitive domain operations – cognitive domain operations have entered the war stage as an independent domain and have Established a certain theoretical and material basis.
The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to build the People’s Army into a world-class army by the middle of this century. To build a world-class military, it is necessary to enrich the basic connotation of “first-class” and enhance the value standard of “first-class”, and cognitive factors are indispensable elements. By constructing cognitive domain operations science, it is conducive to accelerating the overall reshaping of the military organizational form under the guidance of cognitive domain operations theory; it is conducive to correctly understanding the characteristics and laws of cognitive domain operations, and accelerating the development, utilization and implementation of cognitive domain operations means. The pace of improvement is conducive to actively taking effective measures and innovating techniques, tactics and styles of cognitive domain operations.
connotation and denotation
The advanced combat theory is an important indicator of the strength of an army’s combat effectiveness. To build our military’s cognitive domain combat science, we insist on putting ourselves first and innovating independently. On the one hand, we are based on our country’s reality, inherit and carry forward the profound wisdom of Chinese military science and our military’s unique political advantages, and at the same time, actively absorb the essence of foreign military culture.
Conceptual definition of cognitive domain warfare research. The fresh content and new characteristics of cognitive domain operations determine the new nature of cognitive domain operations science. As the core support of cognitive domain warfare, it is first necessary to clarify some key concepts of cognitive domain warfare research. One is about “cognition”. Cognition refers to the process by which the human brain or people use cognitive tools to receive, encode, store, exchange, retrieve, extract and use information. It is the subjective construction of information by cognitive subjects. This process can be broken down into four parts: perception, memory, control and reaction. The corresponding cognitive system can also be divided into four systems: perception, memory, control and reaction. The second is about the “cognitive domain”. With the introduction of the concept of “cognition” into the military field, modern warfare has formed three major combat dimensions: the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. The cognitive domain has become the next two warring parties after land, sea, air, space, electricity, and network. Another space for competition. Usually manifested in the quality and ability of combat personnel, the cohesion of the troops, combat experience and training level, battlefield situation awareness, and social public opinion. The third is about “cognitive domain operations.” Compared with operations in the physical domain and information domain, the space involved in cognitive domain operations is wider. Its essence is to capture people’s will, belief, and psychology through actions in the physical domain, use of the information domain, and offense and defense in the cognitive domain. , thinking and other dominance, it is a complex collection of traditional public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, cultural warfare and other means, in order to achieve the strategic goal of “complete victory” of defeating the enemy without fighting. .
The main content of cognitive domain combat science research. Cognitive domain warfare is a theory that studies the development laws of war spirit. It is an applied science that uses the results of cognitive science to study cognitive offensive and defensive operations in war. It takes all cognitive domain combat phenomena at all times and at home and abroad as the research object, and mainly studies the following contents: First, the historical theory of cognitive domain combat. In wars in history, the glorious idea and rich practice of “attacking the heart first, attacking the city first” has long been established. Disrupting enemy forces is included in the three major principles of our military’s political work. Capturing generals and transforming prisoners has become a unique front in the armed struggle led by the party, writing a glorious chapter in the history of the people’s army. This precious historical heritage should be further explored and passed on from today’s height. The second is the basic theory of cognitive domain operations. It is the cornerstone for the establishment, survival and development of a discipline, and plays a leading and foundational role in the research of this discipline. Only by pursuing in-depth and thorough research, clarifying basic issues, and smoothing out various relationships can we establish a systematic, solid, and effective basic theoretical system, and then provide strong guidance for the practice of cognitive domain operations. The third is the cognitive domain combat application theory. This is the core of cognitive domain operations research and an important theoretical basis for guiding the military’s cognitive domain operations practice. Its research must be practical, innovative, and lively. Only by closely integrating theoretical research with the combat education and training practice in the cognitive domain of the troops and the actual future combat can we form a scientific, forward-looking, operational and practical system. The cognitive domain combat application theoretical system can better serve the practice of military struggle.
The disciplinary basis of cognitive domain warfare research. To build a discipline system for cognitive domain warfare, it is not enough to merely establish its status as an independent discipline and find its position in the discipline of military science. In order to have a complete and in-depth understanding of cognitive domain warfare and to better carry out theoretical research, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between cognitive domain warfare and related disciplines. The first is cognitive domain combat science and military science. Cognitive domain operations revolve around the goals and tasks of military operations, closely coordinate with the process of military operations, and are objectively governed by the laws revealed by military theory. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully study the inner connection between cognitive domain warfare and military theory, and strive to find the theoretical resonance behind practice. The second is cognitive domain combat science and supporting disciplines. Cognitive domain combat science is a highly professional military practice activity. According to my country’s discipline classification model and standards, the results of journalism, communication, psychology, law and other disciplines are the most basic theoretical sources for the construction and actual combat application of cognitive domain combat forces. Together they form the professional field of cognitive domain combat science. Provide direct theoretical support. The third is cognitive domain combat science and related disciplines. The theoretical categories involved in human mental and psychological activities all have a direct impact or indirect relationship with cognitive domain operations. The theoretical understanding of political science, sociology, culture and other related disciplines is extensive, and the role of cognitive domain operations is will be bigger, this requires us to study the relevant disciplines of cognitive domain warfare and actively expand the theoretical thinking of cognitive domain warfare.
How to build
A new round of world military revolution has pushed cognitive domain operations onto the “fast track” of rapid development. Looking at the recent local wars, especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict, all have been branded as cognitive domain operations, and their status and role have become increasingly prominent. At the same time, the preliminary research results achieved by domestic and foreign scholars have laid a good foundation for the construction of cognitive domain combat science. It can be said that the time is basically ripe for theoretical abstraction on the basis of practice to build our military’s cognitive domain combat science.
The construction of any theoretical system must follow certain logical rules. According to the conditions for constructing the cognitive domain combat science discipline system, the following rules should be followed: First, unify the concept. In the cognitive domain combat theoretical system framework, complex and confusing concepts should not be used to ensure that judgments and conclusions are based on accurate concepts. According to the way our military’s operational regulations deal with relevant concepts, the unified concept of “cognitive domain operations” should be selected as the relative concept for building the discipline system of cognitive domain operations. The second is to clarify the logical starting point. The basic thinking point for studying the theory of cognitive domain operations is to “seize control of cognitive space.” “Seizing control of cognitive space” has a high degree of abstraction and level in the theoretical system of cognitive domain operations, and making it clear will facilitate the formation, development and application of cognitive domain operations science. The third is to find the correct subject positioning. What position cognitive domain warfare science should occupy in the military science discipline system is an important issue that must be solved when studying cognitive domain warfare science and military science. Objectively speaking, if cognitive domain warfare has entered the discipline system structure of military science, it can be positioned by directly adding it or by linking it to relevant disciplines.
Constructing cognitive domain combat science is a relatively complex system project with a long way to go. We can focus on leadership institutions, team building, academic achievements, etc. to provide reliable guarantee for the construction of cognitive domain combat science disciplines. The first is to establish a leadership organization. Under the direct leadership of the commanding authority, an authoritative organization for the research and formulation of the cognitive domain warfare discipline system with the participation of the commanding authority, experts in various fields, and military leaders will be established to be responsible for the research, demonstration, and overall planning of the cognitive domain warfare discipline system. The second is to strengthen team building. The key and core of building a discipline is the construction of academic teams. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of professional teams for cognitive domain warfare research and provide talent support for the construction and improvement of cognitive domain warfare disciplines. Through training and academic exchanges, we will improve the research quality and capabilities of existing researchers and introduce leaders in this discipline who have profound academic attainments, rigorous scholarship, and innovative academic ideas. The third is to launch academic results. Give full play to the enthusiasm and creativity of existing cognitive domain warfare researchers, increase research efforts, and continue to publish high-quality cognitive domain warfare theoretical research and application research works, teaching materials and academic papers, laying a solid foundation for building the cognitive domain warfare discipline. Solid academic foundation.
China adopts a multifaceted approach in its engagement with Europe, leveraging all instruments of national power to further its interests in the region. Diplomatically, China employs bilateral and multilateral forums to build consensus, overcome barriers, and secure support for major initiatives like One Belt One Road (OBOR). In the information domain, China disseminates targeted messaging to shape positive perceptions and counter unfavorable narratives related to its activities in Europe. The military dimension involves selective cooperation and naval access arrangements to protect China’s growing overseas investments and assets. Economically, China wields its financial clout to fund major infrastructure projects, stimulate trade linkages, and employ incentives or coercion when advantageous. Additionally, China engages in political alignment, intelligence gathering, information control, and measured military cooperation to facilitate the expansion of its influence across the European landscape. By orchestrating a synchronized strategy across these domains, China strives to achieve its overarching objectives in Europe – expanding its economic and political influence, accessing advanced technologies, reshaping global governance, and cementing its role as a major global power on the world stage.
China’s increasing focus on Europe has necessitated a comprehensive and multifaceted approach by the United States military’s European Command (EUCOM) and NATO to counter Chinese influence. Through a range of strategic initiatives, these organizations aim to safeguard European security, protect national interests, and promote democratic values while mitigating the risks posed by China’s expanding presence. By strengthening economic cooperation, addressing military expansion, leveraging soft power and public diplomacy, building multinational partnerships, fostering cooperation with global powers, investing in critical infrastructure, and promoting regional security cooperation, EUCOM and NATO can effectively counter China’s influence in Europe.
China’s focus for the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative in relation to Europe can be summarized into several key aspects:
1. Infrastructure Development: The OBOR initiative aims to enhance connectivity and infrastructure development between China and Europe, with a focus on improving transportation networks, such as railways, ports, and roads. China seeks to build a comprehensive and efficient transportation network that will facilitate trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges between the two regions.
2. Trade and Investment Promotion: China aims to deepen economic ties and promote trade and investment between China and Europe through the OBOR initiative. By improving infrastructure connectivity, reducing trade barriers, and enhancing market access, China envisions increased bilateral trade volumes and a boost in Chinese investment in Europe, as well as European investment in China.
3. Cultural Exchanges and People-to-People Ties: Alongside economic development, OBOR emphasizes fostering cultural exchanges, understanding, and people-to-people ties between China and Europe. China aims to strengthen cooperation in areas such as education, tourism, and cultural heritage preservation to promote mutual understanding and friendship among the peoples of the two regions.
4. Regional Cooperation and Diplomacy: OBOR represents a platform for regional cooperation and diplomatic engagement. China seeks to collaborate with European countries and institutions in areas such as policy coordination, connectivity planning, and project implementation. By fostering multilateral dialogue and cooperation, China intends to create an inclusive and cooperative framework for regional development.
It is important to note that the OBOR initiative is not solely focused on Europe and encompasses a broader vision, including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Nonetheless, Europe plays a crucial role in OBOR due to its geostrategic importance, economic potential, and historical ties with China.
The Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic (DIME) philosophy is a conceptual framework used to analyze and understand the multifaceted elements of a nation’s power projection and influence. Applying the DIME philosophy to China’s efforts in the context of the One Belt One Road initiative focused on Europe.
One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative:
1. Diplomatic Dimension: China strategically employs diplomacy to reinforce OBOR’s objectives. Diplomatically, China engages in bilateral and multilateral dialogues with participating countries, promoting OBOR as a cooperative endeavor that facilitates mutual economic development, regional stability, and win-win outcomes. China seeks diplomatic support, cooperation, and consensus-building to overcome potential barriers to implementation, such as political disagreements, regulatory issues, or national security concerns.
2. Information Dimension: China recognizes the significance of managing information and narratives related to the OBOR initiative. It utilizes various channels, including media, public relations, and cultural exchanges, to disseminate positive messages about the benefits and progress of OBOR projects. China aims to shape perceptions, generate support, and counter any negative narratives that may emerge, ensuring that OBOR is viewed favorably and comprehensively understood by the international community.
3. Military Dimension: Although the primary focus of OBOR is economic and developmental in nature, the military dimension cannot be disregarded entirely. While China promotes a peaceful vision for OBOR, it acknowledges the need to safeguard its interests and protect its investments and infrastructure. China engages in military cooperation, primarily maritime security and anti-piracy efforts, to ensure the safety of critical sea routes and protect its overseas investments and personnel involved in OBOR-related projects.
4. Economic Dimension: The economic dimension is at the heart of the OBOR initiative. China leverages its economic might and financial resources to provide funding, loans, and investments in infrastructure projects along the OBOR routes. Through initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Silk Road Fund, China facilitates economic cooperation and provides financial support to partner countries. This economic dimension is central to stimulating economic growth, reducing regional disparities, creating job opportunities, and enhancing trade linkages between China and participating nations.
In essence, the DIME philosophy helps to articulate how China employs each dimension – diplomatic, information, military, and economic – to further its OBOR goals. By utilizing a comprehensive approach across these domains, China seeks to maximize its impact, build partnerships, and address challenges that may arise during implementation.
Further analysis and expanded review and application of the DIME philosophy to China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative:
5. Political Dimension: The political dimension is intertwined with the diplomatic efforts of China in promoting OBOR. China engages in political dialogue, negotiations, and diplomacy at various levels to secure support for the initiative. It seeks to align the interests and aspirations of participating countries with OBOR’s objectives, forging strategic partnerships and agreements that facilitate policy coordination and mutual benefits. China also employs economic incentives and aid packages to foster political alignment and gain influence in participating nations.
6. Information Warfare: In the information age, China recognizes the importance of information warfare as a means to shape narratives and control the flow of information related to OBOR. Through the use of social media, digital platforms, and state-controlled media outlets, China actively promotes positive stories and achievements associated with OBOR while countering unfavorable narratives. It also invests in soft power initiatives, including cultural exchanges, media cooperation, and academic partnerships, to shape perceptions and gain support for OBOR.
7. Intelligence Gathering: Intelligence plays a crucial role in implementing large-scale infrastructure projects, evaluating risks, and ensuring successful outcomes. China engages in intelligence gathering activities to assess the political, economic, and security landscape of participating countries. It analyzes potential obstacles, identifies investment opportunities, and addresses potential threats to its projects and interests along the OBOR routes. This intelligence informs decision-making, risk management, and mitigation strategies.
8. Military Cooperation and Presence: While the primary focus of OBOR is economic cooperation, China recognizes the importance of military cooperation and presence for certain aspects. China engages in military exercises, joint trainings, and exchanges with partner countries to enhance security cooperation, build trust, and safeguard its maritime interests. It also strategically establishes naval bases or access arrangements along critical sea routes as part of its broader security framework. This military dimension contributes to stability, protects China’s investments, and addresses potential security challenges to OBOR projects.
9. Economic Warfare: China’s economic dimension goes beyond funding infrastructure projects. It employs economic leverage, market access, and economic incentives to advance its OBOR agenda. China can utilize economic coercion or inducements to influence the decision-making of participating countries and create dependencies. It strategically offers trade opportunities, investments, and economic cooperation to strengthen relationships, promote integration, and expand Chinese influence in the region.
By considering these additional dimensions within the DIME philosophy, we can better understand how China applies a comprehensive approach to OBOR, incorporating political, information, intelligence, military, and economic tools to achieve its strategic objectives. The continuous assessment and adaptation across these dimensions allow China to navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and exert influence throughout the implementation of OBOR.
The following table illustrates China’s multidimensional application of the DIME framework, including additional elements like information warfare, intelligence and military cooperation, to further the strategic goals and objectives of its OBOR initiative across diplomatic, information, military and economic dimensions.
The following comprehensive table illustrates China’s application of the DIME framework to its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative:
Dimension
Key Strategies and Objectives
Diplomatic
Bilateral and multilateral engagement; Consensus building; Overcoming barriers
Further analysis and application f the DIME philosophy to the United States European Command (EUCOM) to counter China’s influence:
1. Diplomatic Dimension: The diplomatic dimension of EUCOM involves engaging with European nations through bilateral and multilateral channels to foster cooperation, build alliances, and promote shared security interests. EUCOM conducts diplomatic negotiations, strategic dialogues, and military-to-military engagements to strengthen partnerships, address regional challenges, and enhance collective defense capabilities. It aims to solidify alliances, facilitate interoperability, and foster collaboration through diplomatic initiatives and agreements.
2. Information Dimension: The information dimension is critical for EUCOM in shaping perceptions, countering misinformation, and maintaining a strategic narrative. EUCOM employs various communication strategies and media platforms to disseminate accurate and timely information about its activities, exercises, and missions in Europe. It also engages in public diplomacy to foster understanding, build trust, and counteract potential negative narratives or propaganda that may undermine U.S. interests or objectives in the region.
3. Military Dimension: The military dimension of EUCOM involves the deployment and readiness of military forces to defend U.S. and NATO interests in Europe. EUCOM maintains a robust military presence, conducts joint exercises, and provides deterrence against potential threats. It collaborates closely with NATO allies and partners to ensure collective defense and security cooperation. The military dimension also encompasses crisis response, contingency planning, and the ability to rapidly deploy forces when necessary.
4. Economic Dimension: While primarily a diplomatic and military command, the economic dimension of EUCOM is significant. Economic considerations can play a role in strengthening alliances and partnerships within Europe. EUCOM supports economic initiatives that promote stability and prosperity, encouraging increased trade, investment, and economic integration among European nations. Economic cooperation enhances regional resilience, contributes to security, and fosters long-term stability.
5. Intelligence Dimension: Intelligence is a crucial element for EUCOM’s situational awareness, threat assessment, and decision-making. EUCOM collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence to understand the shifting security dynamics, anticipate emerging threats, and develop effective strategies. Intelligence helps identify potential challenges, vulnerabilities, and opportunities in the European theater, informing EUCOM’s military planning, operational activities, and policy recommendations.
6. Political Dimension: The political dimension is inherent in EUCOM’s engagement with European nations, NATO, and other relevant political actors. EUCOM works closely with U.S. diplomatic representatives and policy-makers to align military objectives with broader political goals. Political engagements range from high-level strategic dialogues to local-level engagements with host nation governments or regional political entities. EUCOM’s political dimension seeks to influence decision-making, enhance cooperation, and build consensus around common security objectives.
By considering these dimensions within the DIME framework, it becomes clear that EUCOM employs a comprehensive approach to ensure regional security, enhance partnerships, and project U.S. influence in Europe. The integration of diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, and political elements allows EUCOM to address multifaceted challenges, build coalitions, and support the strategic interests of the United States and its European allies.
The following table summarizes EUCOM’s application of the DIME framework across the diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, and political dimensions to counter China’s influence in Europe, along with the key elements within each dimension.
Dimension
EUCOM’s Application
Key Elements
Diplomatic
Engagement through bilateral and multilateral channels
Solidify alliances and partnerships; Foster cooperation; Facilitate interoperability
Collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence
Inform decision-making; Identify threats and vulnerabilities
Political
Alignment with diplomatic and policy objectives
Influence decision-making; Build consensus; Achieve political goals
China’s Influence and Counter-Offensive Strategy in Europe apply the DIME philosophy to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the United States European Command (EUCOM) in the European theater:
NATO:
1. Diplomatic Dimension: Diplomacy is at the core of NATO’s operations. The diplomatic dimension involves robust engagement and dialogue among member nations and partner countries to ensure solidarity and consensus on key issues. NATO conducts diplomatic efforts to strengthen alliances, build partnerships, and facilitate cooperation with non-NATO actors. It aims to promote shared values, address regional challenges, and forge common approaches to security.
2. Information Dimension: The information dimension plays a vital role in shaping narratives, countering misinformation, and maintaining public support for NATO’s mission. Through strategic communications, NATO disseminates accurate information about its activities, operations, and collective defense efforts. It engages in public diplomacy to foster understanding, build trust, and counter potential disinformation campaigns that may undermine NATO’s objectives or erode public support.
3. Military Dimension: The military dimension of NATO involves the collective defense and deterrence of its member states. NATO maintains a credible military presence, conducts joint exercises, and ensures interoperability among its forces. It coordinates defense planning, crisis response, and contributes to stability in the Euro-Atlantic region. The military dimension also encompasses the NATO-led missions, such as peacekeeping and counterterrorism, which contribute to regional security.
4. Economic Dimension: The economic dimension in NATO revolves around the economic capabilities and contributions of member nations. NATO encourages defense spending and defense industry cooperation among members to ensure the development and maintenance of effective military capabilities. Economic aspects also involve strengthening resilience against hybrid threats, including cyber and economic vulnerabilities. Economic cooperation ensures the sustainability and effectiveness of NATO’s military endeavors.
EUCOM:
1. Diplomatic Dimension: EUCOM’s diplomatic dimension involves engaging with European nations through strategic dialogues, military-to-military engagements, and diplomatic negotiations. It fosters cooperation, builds partnerships, and ensures synchronized efforts with European allies. EUCOM promotes mutual trust, understanding, and consensus on key security matters, facilitating the alignment of military objectives with broader diplomatic goals in Europe.
2. Information Dimension: The information dimension within EUCOM aims at shaping perceptions, countering misinformation, and maintaining a strategic narrative. EUCOM employs various communication strategies, media platforms, and public diplomacy initiatives to ensure accurate and timely information about its activities. It enhances transparency, builds public support, and counters potential negative narratives that might undermine U.S.-European partnerships or military operations.
3. Military Dimension: As a combatant command, the military dimension of EUCOM focuses on the readiness and posture of U.S. military forces deployed in Europe. EUCOM maintains a robust military presence, conducts joint exercises, and provides deterrence against potential threats. It collaborates closely with NATO allies and partner nations to ensure collective defense and security cooperation. The military dimension also encompasses crisis response, contingency planning, and rapid deployment capabilities.
4. Economic Dimension: Though primarily a military command, the economic dimension of EUCOM recognizes the significance of economic factors for regional stability. EUCOM supports economic initiatives that promote stability, trade, investment, and economic integration among European nations. By encouraging economic cooperation, EUCOM enhances regional resilience, contributes to security, and fosters long-term stability.
5. Intelligence Dimension: Intelligence is instrumental in supporting EUCOM’s situational awareness, threat assessment, and operational planning. EUCOM collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence to understand the evolving security environment in Europe. Intelligence supports decision-making, ensures effective risk management, and enables timely responses to emerging challenges and potential threats.
6. Political Dimension: The political dimension of EUCOM involves close coordination with U.S. diplomatic representatives and policymakers. EUCOM aligns military objectives with broader political goals, participates in strategic dialogues, and engages with European governments and political entities. This political dimension helps shape decision-making, enhance cooperation, and build consensus on key security issues.
By applying the DIME framework to NATO and EUCOM, we can observe how these entities utilize a comprehensive approach, incorporating diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, and political tools to ensure regional security, enhance partnerships, and project influence in Europe. This holistic perspective strengthens collective defense, supports efficient decision-making, and fosters cooperation among member nations and partner countries.
Here are three developed courses of action that can be considered using the DIME philosophy within NATO and EUCOM to counter China’s influence:
Course of Action 1: Enhancing Cyber Defense Capabilities
Diplomatic Dimension: Strengthen diplomatic ties and engage in information sharing on cyber threats among NATO member nations and partner countries. Foster dialogue on norms of behavior in cyberspace and establish joint initiatives to counter cyber threats collectively.
Information Dimension: Develop a comprehensive cybersecurity communication strategy to raise awareness among the public about cyber threats and promote responsible behavior. Disseminate accurate information about cyber incidents and counter potential misinformation campaigns by engaging with the media and employing digital platforms.
Military Dimension: Prioritize the allocation of resources towards cyber defense capabilities, including robust cyber training, exercises, and joint operations among NATO allies. Focus on enhancing cyber resilience and improving interoperability to allow for effective information sharing and coordinated responses in the event of a cyber attack.
Economic Dimension: Encourage investment in research and development of cybersecurity technologies, promote public-private partnerships, and establish cyber protection agreements with defense industries. Foster economic cooperation to improve the collective resilience of NATO members against cyber threats.
Course of Action 2: Counteracting Disinformation Campaigns
Diplomatic Dimension: Strengthen coordination and information-sharing mechanisms with partner countries to exchange best practices in countering disinformation campaigns. Establish joint task forces, workshops, and training programs to enhance media literacy and critical thinking skills.
Information Dimension: Develop a proactive and agile strategic communication approach to counter disinformation campaigns. Establish dedicated communication channels to promptly respond to false narratives, challenge disinformation, and provide accurate information. Collaborate with social media platforms to identify and mitigate the spread of disinformation.
Military Dimension: Leverage the strengths of military strategic communication units to counter disinformation campaigns. Utilize military channels to disseminate accurate news, engage with local communities, and build trust. Conduct joint information operations exercises with NATO allies to enhance coordination and effectiveness.
Political Dimension: Work closely with political leaders, policymakers, and civil society organizations to develop policies that address the impact of disinformation and strengthen media resilience. Promote information transparency and accountability among political entities, fostering public trust in democratic processes.
Course of Action 3: Strengthening Defense Resilience against Hybrid Threats
Diplomatic Dimension: Foster international partnerships to enhance information sharing and cooperation in countering hybrid threats. Strengthen diplomatic ties to establish mechanisms for swift responses and joint operations when faced with hybrid challenges.
Information Dimension: Develop a comprehensive strategy to raise public awareness about hybrid threats, their tactics, and potential consequences. Establish public-private partnerships to combat disinformation and promote media literacy initiatives to increase resilience against manipulation.
Military Dimension: Improve cooperation and coordination among NATO member nations’ military forces to rapidly respond to hybrid threats. Focus on training and joint exercises to enhance interoperability and develop the capability to counter hybrid tactics effectively.
Economic Dimension: Encourage investment in critical infrastructure protection, including measures to defend against cyber attacks and secure supply chains. Foster economic resilience by diversifying energy sources and reducing dependencies on single suppliers to mitigate potential economic coercion.
These courses of action demonstrate how the DIME philosophy can be applied to address specific challenges while considering the diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, and political dimensions. By adopting a holistic approach, NATO and EUCOM can effectively respond to evolving security threats, ensure regional stability, and strengthen partnerships in the European theater.
The following table highlights key points from each course of action are summarized concisely under the relevant DIME dimensions. The use of bullet points helps illustrate the main action points.
Course of Action 1: Enhancing Cyber Defense
Course of Action 2: Countering Disinformation
Course of Action 3: Defense against Hybrid Threats
Diplomatic
Strengthen ties and info sharing on cyber threats Establish norms of behavior in cyberspace
Coordination and info sharing mechanisms Joint task forces and training programs
Foster international partnerships Mechanisms for joint operations
Information
Cybersecurity communication strategy Counter misinformation
Strategic communication approach Collaborate with social media
Public awareness strategy Media literacy initiatives
Military
Prioritize cyber capabilities Exercises and joint operations
Leverage military comms expertise Information operations training
Further analysis considering each course of action, expanding and elaborating on the application of the DIME philosophy within NATO and EUCOM:
Course of Action 1: Enhancing Cyber Defense Capabilities
Diplomatic Dimension: Strengthening diplomatic ties and engaging in information sharing is crucial to combat cyber threats. NATO and EUCOM can facilitate regular forums, workshops, and conferences for member nations and partner countries to exchange best practices, insights, and threat intelligence. This includes enhancing coordination among diplomatic channels to develop joint initiatives and agreements on cybersecurity norms, deterrence, and response mechanisms.
Information Dimension: Developing a comprehensive cybersecurity communication strategy is vital. NATO and EUCOM can establish dedicated cybersecurity communication units to disseminate accurate information, raise awareness of cyber threats, and promote responsible behavior in cyberspace. This includes engaging with media outlets, social media platforms, and educational institutions to counter disinformation and improve public understanding of cybersecurity issues.
Military Dimension: Prioritizing the allocation of resources towards cyber defense capabilities is crucial. NATO and EUCOM can conduct regular joint exercises and training programs to enhance cyber skills and ensure interoperability among member nations’ military forces. This includes developing shared cyber response plans, conducting threat simulations, and fostering cooperation between military and civilian cybersecurity entities.
Economic Dimension: Encouraging investment in research and development of cybersecurity technologies is essential. NATO and EUCOM can collaborate with defense industries, academia, and private sector partners to advance cybersecurity capabilities, exchange expertise, and support innovation in this field. Additionally, member nations can work together to establish cyber protection agreements and promote economic cooperation to strengthen collective cyber resilience.
Course of Action 2: Counteracting Disinformation Campaigns
Diplomatic Dimension: Strengthening coordination and information-sharing mechanisms is key. NATO and EUCOM can establish dedicated working groups and task forces that involve both member nations and partner countries. These forums would facilitate sharing best practices, early warning systems, and intelligence on disinformation campaigns. Joint initiatives should focus on building resilience, countering propaganda, and enhancing collaboration among governments, non-governmental organizations, and international bodies.
Information Dimension: Developing a proactive and agile strategic communication approach is crucial to counter disinformation. NATO and EUCOM can establish specialized communication cells that monitor and analyze disinformation trends, identify false narratives, and promptly respond with accurate information. They should work closely with social media platforms to detect and mitigate the spread of disinformation, ensuring transparent algorithms and policies.
Military Dimension: Leveraging the strengths of military strategic communication units is invaluable. NATO and EUCOM can integrate their expertise into broader information campaigns aimed at countering disinformation. Military communication channels can be utilized to disseminate accurate news, engage with local communities, and build trust. Joint exercises and information operations training with NATO allies would enhance coordination and effectiveness in countering disinformation campaigns.
Political Dimension: Collaboration with political leaders, policymakers, and civil society organizations is essential for effective response to disinformation campaigns. NATO and EUCOM should engage with these stakeholders to develop policies that address disinformation challenges, strengthen media resilience, and ensure transparency in political processes. Partnerships with civil society groups, independent media, and fact-checking organizations can foster public trust, accountability, and responsible media practices.
Course of Action 3: Strengthening Defense Resilience against Hybrid Threats
Diplomatic Dimension: Strengthening cooperation among NATO and partner nations is crucial in countering hybrid threats. Regular dialogue, joint exercises, and information-sharing mechanisms can be established to exchange insights, intelligence, and best practices. NATO and EUCOM should actively engage in diplomatic efforts to develop joint strategies, share lessons learned, and strengthen global partnerships to tackle hybrid challenges collectively.
Information Dimension: Developing a comprehensive strategy to raise public awareness about hybrid threats is essential. NATO and EUCOM can leverage their communication channels to provide accurate information, highlight potential risks, and educate the public on the nature and tactics of hybrid warfare. Engaging social media platforms and partnering with media outlets to promote media literacy initiatives would enhance public resilience against manipulation.
Military Dimension: Improved cooperation and coordination among member nations’ military forces is vital in countering hybrid threats. NATO and EUCOM should organize joint exercises, simulations, and training programs that focus on countering hybrid tactics effectively. This includes enhancing interoperability, developing rapid response capabilities, and conducting joint assessments of vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
Economic Dimension: Economic resilience plays a crucial role in countering hybrid threats. NATO and EUCOM should encourage member nations to invest in critical infrastructure protection measures, such as securing energy supplies, diversifying energy sources, and safeguarding supply chains. Promoting economic cooperation and reducing dependencies on single suppliers would mitigate potential economic coercion and vulnerabilities.
Intelligence Dimension: Strengthening intelligence capabilities is essential to gain situational awareness, assess threats, and support effective response to hybrid challenges. NATO and EUCOM can enhance intelligence sharing and fusion among member nations’ intelligence agencies. This includes developing joint intelligence assessments, establishing early warning systems, and bolstering collaboration between military and civilian intelligence organizations.
Political Dimension: Collaboration with political leaders and policymakers is crucial to develop policies that address the impact of hybrid threats. NATO and EUCOM should engage in regular strategic dialogues and consultations with political entities to align military objectives with broader political goals. By fostering political awareness, ensuring coordination, and promoting transparency, NATO and EUCOM can effectively respond to hybrid threats.
By further expanding and elaborating on these courses of action, NATO and EUCOM can develop comprehensive strategies that encompass the diplomatic, information, military, economic, intelligence, and political dimensions. These actions will enhance their capabilities to address specific challenges, mitigate risks, and promote stability in the European theater.
The following The table summarizes the key points along the DIME+I+P dimensions for each of the three courses of action – enhancing cyber capabilities, countering disinformation campaigns, and building defense against hybrid threats.
Course of Action
Diplomatic
Information
Military
Economic
Intelligence
Political
Enhancing Cyber Defense Capabilities
Strengthen ties for info sharing; Joint cyber initiatives
Cybersecurity communication strategy; Counter disinformation
Joint cyber exercises; Interoperability
R&D investments; Economic cooperation
Countering Disinformation Campaigns
Coordination through working groups; Early warning systems
Strategic communication cells; Social media partnerships
Integrate military comms expertise
Collaboration on policies and transparency
Strengthening Defense against Hybrid Threats
Cooperation for joint strategies; Global partnerships
Applying the diplomatic, information/intelligence and economic philosophy to China’s challenges in Europe. When applying the DIME philosophy to analyze the challenges China faces, we can focus on the following dimensions: Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic.
Diplomatic Challenges:
1. Competition for Influence: China faces diplomatic challenges in managing its relationships with other major powers and regional actors. Balancing its influence against that of the United States, Japan, and regional rivals like India and Vietnam requires careful diplomacy and economic engagement.
2. Disputed Territorial Claims: China’s territorial disputes, particularly in the South China Sea and East China Sea, pose significant diplomatic challenges. Resolving these disputes while maintaining regional stability and avoiding conflicts is crucial for China’s diplomatic strategies.
3. Tensions with Neighboring Countries: China’s assertive actions, such as its border disputes with India and historical rivalries with countries like Japan and South Korea create challenges in maintaining stable diplomatic relations. Addressing these tensions while promoting cooperation is essential for China’s diplomatic efforts.
Information Challenges:
1. Information Control: China faces challenges in controlling and managing information flows within its borders, especially with the increasing influence of social media platforms. Maintaining strict censorship and managing narratives to maintain domestic stability while engaging with the global community can be a delicate balancing act.
2. Disinformation and Perception Management: China faces scrutiny regarding its state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and efforts to shape global perceptions. Countering negative narratives and addressing concerns about human rights, intellectual property, and technological advancements is a significant information challenge.
3. Media Influence: China’s state-controlled media outlets, such as Xinhua and CGTN, encounter challenges in presenting a positive image abroad while facing accusations of biased reporting and lack of press freedom. Navigating global media landscapes and countering negative perceptions is a critical information challenge for China.
Military Challenges:
1. Regional Security Dynamics: As China’s military capabilities expand, it faces challenges with regard to regional perceptions. Neighboring countries and global powers like the United States are cautious about China’s military modernization and assertiveness, creating challenges in maintaining a stable military balance and managing regional tensions.
2. Technological Advancements: China faces challenges in developing cutting-edge military technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and advanced weaponry. Addressing the gap between indigenous innovation and reliance on foreign technologies is crucial for China’s military modernization efforts.
3. Naval Power Projection: China’s desire to expand its maritime influence presents challenges in developing a blue-water navy capable of power projection beyond its immediate maritime borders. Overcoming technological constraints, enhancing logistical capabilities, and countering regional concerns are significant military challenges.
Economic Challenges:
1. Economic Structural Reforms: China faces the challenge of transitioning from an export-led economic model to one driven by domestic consumption, innovation, and a more sustainable growth trajectory. Rebalancing the economy while managing financial risks, addressing inequality, and reducing overcapacity requires careful economic management.
2. Trade Tensions: China confronts challenges associated with its trade disputes with major economies, particularly the United States. Navigating protectionist measures, supporting global trade rules, and striking a balance between economic growth and geopolitical influence pose significant economic challenges.
3. Resource and Energy Security: China’s rapidly growing economy faces challenges related to resource scarcity and energy security. As the largest energy consumer globally, ensuring a stable supply of resources while diversifying energy mix and promoting sustainable practices are essential for China’s economic resilience.
By addressing these challenges across the diplomatic, information, military, and economic dimensions, China can navigate its geopolitical landscape more effectively and shape its strategies accordingly. It requires careful management of relationships, enhancement of information capabilities, modernization of the military, and sustainable economic reforms to address these challenges successfully.
The following table summarizes the key challenges outlined across the diplomatic, information, military, and economic dimensions that China faces:
Dimension
Challenge
Details
Diplomatic
Competition for influence
Balancing relationships with US, Japan, India, Vietnam
Territorial disputes
Resolving South China Sea, East China Sea issues
Tensions with neighboring countries
Border disputes with India; Historical rivalries with Japan, South Korea
Information
Information control
Censorship, narrative management, balancing openness and stability
Disinformation and perception
Countering negative campaigns, managing global image
Media influence
Promoting state media amid press freedom concerns
Military
Regional security dynamics
Cautiousness about China’s military growth and assertiveness
Technological advancements
Gaps in developing advanced defense tech like AI and cyber
Naval power projection
Building blue-water navy; Logistical and tech constraints
Economic
Structural reforms
Shifting export model; Managing risks and inequality
Trade tensions
Navigating disputes with US; Supporting trade rules
Resource and energy security
Ensuring supply while diversifying sources
Further analysis expanded of the challenges China faces by applying the DIME philosophy:
Diplomatic Challenges:
1. Competition for Influence: As China’s economic and political power grows, it faces diplomatic challenges in managing its relationships with other major powers and regional actors. Balancing its influence against that of the United States, Japan, and regional rivals like India and Vietnam requires nuanced diplomacy and strategic engagement to expand its sphere of influence without triggering backlash or conflicts.
2. Disputed Territorial Claims: China’s territorial disputes, particularly in the South China Sea and East China Sea, pose significant diplomatic challenges. Resolving these disputes while maintaining regional stability and peaceful coexistence is crucial for China’s diplomatic strategies. It requires skillful negotiation, confidence-building measures, and adherence to international law to mitigate tensions and foster a cooperative environment.
3. Tensions with Neighboring Countries: China’s assertive actions, such as its border disputes with India and historical rivalries with countries like Japan and South Korea, create challenges in maintaining stable diplomatic relations. Addressing historical grievances, defusing tensions through dialogue, and fostering mutual trust and understanding are essential for maintaining peace and stability in the region.
Information Challenges:
1. Information Control: China faces challenges in controlling and managing information flows within its borders, given the increasing influence of the internet and social media platforms. Maintaining strict censorship and managing narratives to maintain domestic stability while engaging with the global community can be a delicate balancing act. China needs to explore strategies that allow for greater transparency and open communication while addressing concerns related to cybersecurity and maintaining social stability.
2. Disinformation and Perception Management: China faces scrutiny regarding its state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and efforts to shape global perceptions. Countering negative narratives and addressing concerns about human rights, intellectual property, and technological advancements is a significant information challenge. China must foster greater transparency, engage in constructive dialogue, and share accurate information to shape a more favorable global perception.
3. Media Influence: China’s state-controlled media outlets, such as Xinhua and CGTN, encounter challenges in presenting a positive image abroad while facing accusations of biased reporting and lack of press freedom. Navigating global media landscapes, building media partnerships, and fostering independent journalism can help China overcome these challenges. Enhancing the international presence of Chinese media outlets and promoting cultural exchange can also help improve China’s global media influence.
Military Challenges:
1. Regional Security Dynamics: As China’s military capabilities expand, it faces challenges with regard to regional perceptions and potential rivalries. Neighboring countries and global powers like the United States are cautious about China’s military modernization and assertiveness, creating challenges in maintaining a stable military balance and managing regional tensions. China needs to emphasize transparency, confidence-building measures, and dialogue to address concerns and foster trust among regional stakeholders.
2. Technological Advancements: China faces challenges in developing cutting-edge military technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and advanced weaponry. Addressing the gap between indigenous innovation and reliance on foreign technologies is crucial for China’s military modernization efforts. Encouraging research and development, fostering collaborations with global partners, and investing in education and training can help China overcome these challenges and achieve technological self-reliance.
3. Naval Power Projection: China’s desire to expand its maritime influence presents challenges in developing a blue-water navy capable of power projection beyond its immediate maritime borders. Overcoming technological constraints, enhancing logistical capabilities, and countering regional concerns are significant military challenges. Improving naval capabilities, developing overseas military bases, and ensuring maritime security collaboration with other nations are crucial for China to establish itself as a regional maritime power.
Economic Challenges:
1. Economic Structural Reforms: China faces the challenge of transitioning from an export-led economic model to one driven by domestic consumption, innovation, and a more sustainable growth trajectory. Rebalancing the economy while managing financial risks, addressing inequality, reducing overcapacity, and promoting environmental sustainability require comprehensive economic structural reforms. This involves liberalizing key sectors, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, and strengthening social safety nets to ensure inclusive and sustainable growth.
2. Trade Tensions: China confronts challenges associated with its trade disputes with major economies, particularly the United States. Navigating protectionist measures, supporting global trade rules, and striking a balance between economic growth and geopolitical influence pose significant economic challenges. China must emphasize fair trade practices, increase market access opportunities, and strengthen multilateral trade mechanisms to resolve disputes and maintain global economic stability.
3. Resource and Energy Security: China’s rapidly growing economy faces challenges related to resource scarcity and energy security. As the world’s largest energy consumer, ensuring a stable supply of resources while diversifying the energy mix, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and promoting sustainable practices are essential for China’s economic resilience. Investing in renewable energy infrastructure, promoting energy efficiency, and international cooperation in resource management can help China address these challenges effectively.
In summary, China’s application of the DIME philosophy reveals a range of challenges including diplomatic competitions, information control and influence, military modernization and projection, as well as economic transformations and trade tensions. Navigating these challenges requires strategic diplomacy, transparent information practices, responsible military growth, and comprehensive economic reforms. By addressing these challenges effectively, China can enhance its global standing and contribute to regional stability and prosperity.
The following table illustrates the key challenges faced by China in the realms of diplomacy, information, military, and economics.
Area
Main Challenges
Additional Details
Diplomatic
Managing relationships with major powers, territorial disputes, tensions with neighboring countries
Balancing influence against US, Japan, India etc.; Resolving South China Sea disputes; Border tensions with India; Historical rivalries with Japan and South Korea
Information
Controlling information flows, countering disinformation campaigns, expanding state-controlled media influence
Censorship and narrative control; Perception management and transparency issues; Building global presence of state media
Military
Perceptions of regional security threat, gaps in technological capabilities, projecting naval power
Regional arms race and mistrust issues; Gaps in AI, cybernetics, weapons tech; Developing blue-water navy and overseas bases
Economic
Rebalancing economic structure, trade tensions with major economies, energy security concerns
Shifting from export model; US trade war; Resource scarcity and fossil fuel dependence
United States and European allied nations should consider China’s challenges in the context of Project 863 and Project 972:
Project 863:
1. Technological Innovation: One of the key challenges for China’s Project 863, a high-technology development plan initiated in the 1980s, is achieving indigenous innovation. While China has made significant progress in areas such as telecommunications, space exploration, and biotechnology, it still faces challenges in developing cutting-edge technologies that can compete with global leaders. Overcoming technological bottlenecks, fostering an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship, and attracting top talent in scientific research and development are crucial for China to enhance its technological capabilities through Project 863.
2. Intellectual Property Rights: China faces challenges related to protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights (IPR) within the framework of Project 863. Addressing concerns about intellectual property theft, patent infringement, and trade secret violations is vital for attracting foreign direct investment, promoting collaborations with international partners, and ensuring a fair playing field for innovation. Enhancing IPR laws, strengthening enforcement mechanisms, and encouraging a culture of respect for intellectual property are essential steps for China to overcome these challenges.
3. Collaboration and Integration: China’s Project 863 strives to promote collaboration and integration between academia, industry, and government research institutions to drive technological advancements. However, achieving seamless coordination and fostering effective knowledge transfer among these sectors remains a challenge. Encouraging partnerships, providing funding incentives, streamlining bureaucratic processes, and creating platforms for open collaboration can help address these challenges, fostering a more integrated and efficient innovation ecosystem.
Project 972:
1. Food Security: China’s Project 972, an agricultural development project initiated in the late 1990s, faces challenges in ensuring food security for its massive population. With increasing urbanization, limited arable land, water scarcity, and environmental concerns, achieving self-sufficiency in food production is a significant challenge. Implementing sustainable agricultural practices, improving irrigation infrastructure, enhancing agricultural research and development, and promoting efficient resource allocation are crucial for China’s food security goals under Project 972.
2. Environmental Sustainability: Project 972 faces challenges in addressing environmental sustainability issues, particularly in the context of agricultural practices. Greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, deforestation, and soil degradation pose significant environmental challenges that need to be tackled. Transitioning towards sustainable farming practices, promoting organic agriculture, implementing effective waste management systems, and investing in renewable energy sources are necessary steps for China to mitigate environmental impacts associated with agricultural development.
3. Rural-Urban Income Gap: Implementing Project 972 has the objective of bridging the income gap between rural and urban areas, promoting rural development, and raising living standards. However, China faces challenges in achieving equitable economic growth and opportunities across regions. Addressing disparities in infrastructure, access to education, healthcare, and social services between rural and urban areas, as well as promoting rural job creation and income generation, are essential for reducing the income gap and ensuring the success of Project 972 in promoting inclusive development.
In summary, China faces a range of challenges within the frameworks of Project 863 and Project 972. These challenges include achieving technological innovation and indigenous research capabilities, protecting intellectual property rights, fostering collaboration and integration, ensuring food security and environmental sustainability in agriculture, and bridging the income gap between rural and urban areas. By addressing these challenges effectively, China can enhance its technological capabilities, promote sustainable agricultural practices, and achieve more balanced regional development, contributing to its long-term economic growth and societal well-being.
To successfully apply the plans of Project 863 and Project 972 in conjunction with the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in Europe, China can focus on the following strategies:
1. Technology and Innovation Exchange: China can leverage the technological advancements achieved through Project 863 to promote knowledge exchange, collaboration, and technology transfer with European countries. By fostering partnerships between Chinese and European research institutions, facilitating joint research projects, and providing incentives for technological cooperation, China can enhance its technological capabilities while benefiting from European expertise in areas such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and digital technologies.
2. Intellectual Property Protection and Collaboration: China can address concerns regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) by strengthening its legal framework and enforcement mechanisms. By cooperating with European countries to improve IPR protection, establishing bilateral agreements, and promoting transparency in technology transfer, China can build trust and attract European investments and partnerships under the OBOR framework. Demonstrating a commitment to IPR protection will be essential in fostering collaboration and ensuring mutually beneficial engagements.
3. Infrastructure Development and Investment: China’s OBOR initiative aims to enhance connectivity and trade between Asia, Europe, and Africa. By aligning the objectives of Project 972 with OBOR, China can contribute to Europe’s infrastructure development needs. Investment in transport, logistics, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure projects will facilitate trade, promote economic growth, and strengthen regional integration. Adhering to international best practices, ensuring transparency in tendering processes, and engaging in mutually beneficial partnerships with European countries will be crucial for China’s success in Europe under OBOR.
4. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security Cooperation: In the context of Project 972, China can collaborate with European countries to address food security challenges. By sharing expertise and best practices in sustainable agricultural techniques, resource management, and ecological protection, China can contribute to European efforts in promoting sustainable farming practices. Strengthening agricultural research partnerships, facilitating knowledge exchange, and developing joint projects related to agri-tech and food processing will enhance cooperation and support food security objectives within the OBOR framework.
5. Green Technology and Environmental Cooperation: China’s focus on environmental sustainability aligns with European efforts to combat climate change and promote a green economy. Through Project 972, China can collaborate with European countries to develop and deploy green technologies, such as renewable energy systems, energy-efficient infrastructure, and waste management solutions. By sharing experiences and investing in joint research and development projects, China can support Europe’s environmental goals while driving sustainable growth within the OBOR framework.
6. Cultural Exchange and People-to-People Engagement: Facilitating cultural exchange, educational cooperation, and tourism promotion between China and Europe is essential for fostering mutual understanding and building stronger relationships. By encouraging student exchanges, academic collaborations, and promoting tourism and cultural events, China can enhance people-to-people connections. Such exchanges will contribute to greater mutual trust and support the successful implementation of Project 863, Project 972, and the OBOR initiative in Europe.
Overall, China’s successful application of Project 863 and Project 972 in Europe under the OBOR framework requires a combination of technological cooperation, infrastructure investment, sustainable agriculture collaboration, environmental protection, cultural exchange, and people-to-people engagement. By leveraging these strategies, China can forge productive partnerships, strengthen regional connectivity, and promote mutually beneficial development between China and European countries.
The following table focuses on condensing the main points regarding how China can leverage Project 863, Project 972, and OBOR to collaborate with Europe across areas like technology, infrastructure, agriculture, environment, and cultural exchange.
Project
Ways China Can Collaborate with Europe
Project 863
Knowledge exchange, joint research projects, incentives for tech cooperation in areas like manufacturing, energy, digital tech
Strengthen IPR protection
Improve legal frameworks, bilateral agreements, ensure transparency in tech transfers
Project 972 and OBOR
Invest in infrastructure development projects to facilitate trade and growth
Sustainable agriculture
Share expertise in sustainable farming practices, agri-tech research partnerships
Green technology
Develop and deploy renewable energy systems, waste management solutions, support Europe’s environmental goals
Cultural exchange
Student exchanges, academic collaborations, tourism promotion to build relationships
The United States and European allies should also consider additional strategies that China can and will apply towards colonizing Europe, such as the Project 863, Project 972, and the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in Europe:
1. Technology and Innovation Exchange:
China can establish joint research and development centers, innovation parks, and technology incubators in collaboration with European countries. These platforms would facilitate the exchange of expertise and ideas, leading to the development of cutting-edge technologies. China can also encourage Chinese companies to invest in, acquire, or form partnerships with European tech start-ups and established companies to gain access to advanced technologies and market opportunities.
China’s focus on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and advanced manufacturing aligns with European priorities. By fostering technology partnerships, China can tap into European expertise and gain a competitive edge in these fields. Additionally, China can promote training programs and scholarships for European researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs, encouraging their engagement in Chinese technological advancements.
2. Intellectual Property Protection and Collaboration:
China has made strides in improving its intellectual property rights (IPR) framework; however, concerns persist. As part of its efforts, China can provide clear guidelines to protect IPR, establish specialized IPR courts, and streamline the process for enforcing IPR laws. Collaborating with European countries, China can create mechanisms for monitoring and reporting IPR violations, as well as implementing effective dispute resolution mechanisms.
China can actively engage in technology collaboration, joint patent applications, and licensing agreements with European companies. By promoting joint ventures and technology transfer, built on a foundation of transparent and fair agreements, China can build trust and strengthen ties with European partners. Implementing transparent pricing mechanisms and ensuring a level playing field for foreign companies will contribute to mutual confidence, attracting more European investments.
3. Infrastructure Development and Investment:
China’s OBOR initiative seeks to improve transportation, logistics, and energy infrastructure connectivity. In Europe, China can align its infrastructure investments with regional needs and priorities. By conducting rigorous feasibility studies, consulting with local stakeholders, and adhering international standards and best practices, China can ensure the sustainability and long-term viability of infrastructure projects.
Additionally, China can explore public-private partnerships (PPPs) and co-investment models to involve European companies and investors in infrastructure projects. Collaboration with European development banks, such as the European Investment Bank, can provide financial support, expertise, and risk-sharing mechanisms. Such partnerships and investment models enable mutual benefits and foster a sense of shared ownership, leading to successful implementation of OBOR infrastructure projects in Europe.
4. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security Cooperation:
Food security is a crucial concern globally, and China’s expertise in agricultural innovation and technology can be beneficial for Europe. China can collaborate with European countries to develop sustainable agriculture practices, exchange knowledge on crop varieties, cultivation techniques, and water resource management.
China can strengthen agricultural research cooperation, establish demonstration farms for best practices, and support joint projects in innovative farming methods such as hydroponics, vertical farming, and precision agriculture. The exchange of agricultural experts, training programs, and technology demonstrations would enhance collaborative efforts in addressing common challenges related to food security, sustainability, and climate change adaptation.
5. Green Technology and Environmental Cooperation:
China is striving to transition towards a low-carbon economy, and European countries have a wealth of experience in green technologies, renewable energy, and environmental protection. By partnering with European companies and leveraging their expertise, China can accelerate the adoption and deployment of clean energy solutions, energy-efficient technologies, and sustainable practices.
China can collaborate with European countries to set emission reduction targets, exchange best practices in renewable energy development, and establish joint research and development centers focusing on clean technologies. Furthermore, China can participate in European environmental initiatives like the European Green Deal and leverage these partnerships to enhance its own environmental sustainability goals.
6. Cultural Exchange and People-to-People Engagement:
Promoting cultural understanding and fostering people-to-people connections are essential for successful cooperation. China can support academic exchanges, scholarships, and joint research programs with European universities. Establishing Confucius Institutes and cultural centers would facilitate language learning, cultural activities, and academic programs, enhancing mutual understanding and trust.
Furthermore, China can proactively promote tourism between China and Europe by easing visa procedures, supporting marketing campaigns, and expanding direct flight routes. Encouraging cultural events, festivals, and exhibitions that highlight both Chinese and European traditions will attract tourists and foster cultural exchange.
It is worth noting that each European country has its own unique needs, priorities, and regulatory environments. Therefore, China should consider tailoring its strategies and approaches to better align with the specific requirements and expectations of different European nations. Open dialogue, flexibility, and adaptability will be key to navigating the diverse European landscape effectively.
By comprehensively applying these strategies, China can strengthen its partnerships, enhance technology and innovation capabilities, contribute to sustainable development, and foster mutual growth and prosperity between China and Europe under the framework of OBOR.
The following table focuses on condensing the key areas of potential China-Europe collaboration from the document into a concise summary, outlining the main mechanisms and initiatives for cooperation in each domain.
Area of Cooperation
Ways China Can Collaborate with Europe
Technology and Innovation
Joint R&D centers, incubators, investments in startups, training programs
Align investments with local priorities, feasibility studies, public-private partnerships
Sustainable Agriculture
Develop sustainable practices, knowledge exchange, joint research projects
Green Technology
Emission reduction targets, renewable energy collaboration, leverage European Green Deal
Cultural Exchange
Academic exchanges, scholarships, Confucius Institutes, cultural centers
The United States military’s European Command (EUCOM) and NATO have several means to counter Chinese influence in Europe:
1. Robust Defense Posture:
EUCOM and NATO maintain a strong military presence in Europe to deter potential aggression and secure the region. This includes forward-deployed forces, rotational deployments, and joint exercises with European partner nations. By demonstrating collective defense commitments, the U.S. military and NATO send a clear message that any attempts to undermine European security will be met with a strong response.
2. Strengthening Alliance Cohesion:
EUCOM and NATO place a strong emphasis on enhancing cohesion among member countries. Acting as a unified front, they work to foster a sense of shared responsibility and solidarity among allies. This involves regular consultations, coordination on defense planning, and joint decision-making processes. By maintaining a united stance, NATO and the U.S. military can effectively address challenges posed by Chinese influence in Europe.
3. Enhanced Intelligence and Information Sharing:
Maintaining situational awareness is critical to counter Chinese influence effectively. EUCOM, in coordination with intelligence agencies, utilizes intelligence-sharing mechanisms and information networks to monitor and identify potential areas of concern. Sharing intelligence on Chinese activities and intentions with NATO allies helps build a comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape, enabling proactive responses.
4. Strengthening Cybersecurity:
China’s increasing cyber capabilities pose a significant challenge. EUCOM and NATO place great emphasis on enhancing cybersecurity measures, including the protection of critical infrastructure and information systems. By promoting information sharing, conducting joint cybersecurity exercises, and developing robust defenses, they can effectively counter Chinese cyber threats and minimize vulnerabilities.
5. Countering Chinese Disinformation:
China employs various tactics, including disinformation campaigns, to shape public opinions in Europe. EUCOM and NATO actively work to counter these efforts through strategic communication, media literacy programs, and highlighting the importance of objective and accurate reporting. By enhancing public awareness and countering false narratives, they can limit the impact of Chinese disinformation campaigns.
6. Collaborative Engagement and Capacity Building:
EUCOM and NATO engage in bilateral and multilateral military cooperation and capacity-building initiatives with European partner nations. They provide training, expertise, and support to enhance the capabilities and resilience of European armed forces, particularly in areas such as cybersecurity, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism. By bolstering partner nation capabilities, they can better address Chinese influence and potential security challenges.
7. Defense Trade and Technology Partnerships:
EUCOM and NATO promote defense trade and technology partnerships among member states to ensure interoperability, shared technological advancements, and collective defense capabilities. By encouraging the exchange of defense technologies and fostering collaborative research and development, they can counterbalance China’s attempts to advance its military technologies in Europe.
8. Engaging Allies and Partners in the Indo-Pacific Region:
EUCOM and NATO work in close coordination with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). Strengthening ties between these commands helps address shared concerns about Chinese influence and contributes to a coordinated response across both regions, increasing the resilience of the U.S. and its European allies.
It is crucial to note that countering Chinese influence requires a comprehensive approach that combines diplomatic, economic, informational, and military efforts. Ultimately, the U.S. military’s European Command and NATO, working in tandem, aim to maintain the stability, security, and resilience of Europe while effectively addressing challenges arising from China’s expanding influence.
Further additional analysis on how the United States military’s European Command (EUCOM) and NATO can counter Chinese influence in Europe includes:
9. Strengthening Economic Cooperation:
EUCOM and NATO can work alongside European countries to promote economic cooperation and investment policies that ensure transparency, fairness, and protect national interests. By encouraging market diversification, reducing dependency on Chinese investments, and fostering trade partnerships with like-minded nations, the U.S. and NATO can help European countries resist undue influence and economic coercion.
10. Addressing Chinese Military Expansion:
China’s military ambitions extend beyond its regional waters, with a growing presence in Europe through investments in ports, military logistics, and cooperation with European countries. EUCOM and NATO can closely monitor and assess these activities, urging their member nations to be vigilant about potential security risks. Joint military exercises and defense cooperation with European partners can enhance capabilities and enable a coordinated response to address any challenges arising from China’s military expansion in Europe.
11. Leveraging Soft Power and Public Diplomacy:
EUCOM and NATO can leverage soft power and public diplomacy efforts to counter Chinese influence. This involves promoting democratic values, human rights, and shared principles through cultural exchanges, educational programs, and public outreach initiatives. By highlighting the benefits of democratic systems and engaging with civil society organizations, they can foster a counter-narrative to China’s authoritarian influence and win the hearts and minds of the European public.
12. Building Multinational Partnerships:
EUCOM and NATO can strengthen partnerships with non-NATO European countries to counter Chinese influence effectively. Engaging countries like Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine, among others, in joint defense exercises, capacity-building programs, and information sharing helps broaden the collective strength against potential Chinese encroachment in Europe.
13. Strategic Cooperation with Other Global Powers:
Cooperation with other global powers, such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and Canada, is crucial in countering Chinese influence. EUCOM and NATO can deepen military partnerships and information sharing with these countries, expanding joint exercises and coordination efforts. By leveraging collective resources and expertise, a united front can deter potential Chinese aggression and safeguard European security.
14. Investment in Critical Infrastructure:
EUCOM and NATO can work with European countries to ensure the security and integrity of critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications networks, ports, energy facilities, and transportation systems. Close monitoring, risk assessments, and collaboration on cybersecurity efforts can help prevent potential vulnerabilities and limit China’s ability to exploit critical infrastructure for strategic or intelligence purposes.
15. Promoting Regional Security Cooperation:
EUCOM and NATO can actively engage in supporting and promoting regional security cooperation mechanisms in Europe, such as the Three Seas Initiative or the Baltic Sea Region Defense Cooperation (B9 format). These efforts bolster unity, coordination, and interoperability among European countries, reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing the collective ability to deter and counter Chinese influence.
Overall, countering Chinese influence in Europe necessitates a comprehensive and multidimensional approach where diplomatic, economic, informational, and military measures converge. EUCOM and NATO play a crucial role in this endeavor, working together with European allies and partners to ensure a secure and resilient Europe that is prepared to address and mitigate the challenges posed by China’s expanding influence.
Here is a table which highlights these strategic options for countering China’s influence in Europe:
Strategy
Description
Robust Defense Posture
Maintain strong military presence in Europe through forward-deployed forces, rotations, and joint exercises to deter aggression
Strengthening Alliance Cohesion
Enhance unity and shared responsibility among NATO allies through consultations, coordination, and joint decision-making
Enhanced Intelligence Sharing
Improve situational awareness through intelligence-sharing networks to monitor Chinese activities
Strengthening Cybersecurity
Bolster cyber defenses, critical infrastructure protection, and interoperability through NATO
Countering Disinformation
Counter Chinese propaganda and shape public opinion through strategic communication and media literacy
Collaborative Engagement and Capacity Building
Provide training, expertise and support to European partners to enhance capabilities in areas like cybersecurity and counterintelligence
Defense Trade and Technology Partnerships
Promote defense trade and R&D partnerships for interoperability and collective defense capabilities
Indo-Pacific Coordination
Coordinate with Indo-Pacific allies to address Chinese influence across regions
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In late April, the Institute of War Research of the Academy of Military Sciences successfully completed the submission of project demonstration proposals for two major combat issue research projects. This is a concrete practice of the institute focusing on fulfilling its core functions and always aiming at scientific research and preparation for war.
The War Research Institute is a scientific research institution specializing in the study and design of war in the entire military. As a newly established unit, the main characteristics of their scientific research work are many major tasks, many temporary tasks, and many demonstration and application tasks. At the beginning of the year, in response to the actual situation where there were few people and urgent tasks and scientific research tasks were being pushed forward, the party committee of the institute put the scientific research work aimed at strengthening the army and winning the war in an important position in accordance with the combat effectiveness standards. Based on the criteria of urgent need for war preparation, urgent need for war, and urgent need of troops, they adjusted and established key scientific research tasks in the research of war and combat issues, and the compilation of doctrines and regulations, etc., and reduced more than 10 topics that deviated from their main responsibilities and main business, and added new A batch of research on war forms, combat styles and other topics focusing on war preparation and combat were carried out. According to the leader of the institute, the party committee of the institute requires team members to both take command and go out on major scientific research tasks, so that the main energy should be devoted to key tasks, and force allocation and financial support should be tilted towards combat research.
At the same time, the institute continues to deepen the collaborative research of “small core and large periphery” and continuously innovates the scientific research organization model. They carry out “bundled” research by military theoretical personnel and military scientific and technological personnel within the institute to break down barriers to scientific research; they exchange experts with sister units such as the Military Medical Research Institute and the National Defense Engineering Research Institute to participate in major project research to achieve complementary advantages; organize scientific research Personnel participate in various major exercises and training activities to identify scientific research needs; multilateral military exchange activities are held to keep scientific researchers informed of the latest military science and technology trends. In addition, they also actively cooperate with local scientific research institutes to use local high-quality scientific research resources for their own use, forming a closed loop of researching war, designing war, operating war, and verifying war.
Since last year, the institute has completed more than 100 scientific research projects, made important breakthroughs in the development of core operational concepts and joint operational experiments, submitted more than 60 national high-end think tank research reports and important issue assessment reports, and launched a number of strategies. Innovative results that are highly innovative, original and forward-looking.
Chinese Military Exploring the Strategy of Winning Superiority in Information Warfare
來源：中國國防報
In the era of information warfare, due to changes in the mechanism of winning wars, the strategy of winning with the inferior to the superior has also changed accordingly. Under the new situation, exploring the new characteristics, new laws, and new strategies of informatization warfare to win the war with the inferior has very important practical significance for winning future wars.
Information has become the dominant factor in winning a war, and the victory of the inferior is concentrated in seizing information superiority
As information technology is widely used in the military field, informationized weapons and equipment have become the main weapons on the battlefield. Information flow will determine material flow, force flow and energy flow, and become the dominant element of combat effectiveness, penetrating every corner of the battlefield. Competing for information superiority and linking multidimensional forces such as land, sea, air, space, and electricity have become the focus of confrontation in informationized warfare. Taking the information combat system as the primary target of using troops, finding the weak parts of the opponent’s information system, concentrating on destroying them, and making the opponent’s intelligence information system and command and control system paralyzed or unable to operate normally has become an important way for the inferior equipment to defeat the strong enemy. By striking information targets, one hair can affect the whole body and even directly achieve the purpose of war.
The more the party has the advantage of information technology, the more afraid the disadvantaged party will adopt asymmetric means of confrontation. As someone pointed out: our practice of using information as the focus of operations can become our strength, but it is also easy to become a vulnerable weakness. Therefore, aim at the weaknesses and weaknesses of the powerful enemy’s informationized combat platform, concentrate elite weapons and trumpet weapons and equipment, avoid the enemy’s sharp edge, take a slanted sword, and attack its weak links, such as comprehensively using information attack, navigation countermeasures, photoelectric interference and other means to destroy enemy information Even if only one or two of the network system, reconnaissance and early warning system, command and control system, and navigation and positioning system are successful, it can disrupt its overall structure and combat order, effectively paralyze its combat system, and finally achieve the effect of four or two.
System confrontation has become the basic law of victory in war, and the superiority of the inferior is highlighted by the weakening and deprivation of the enemy’s systematic combat advantages
In informationized warfare, the integration, complementarity, and interdependence of the various services and arms have increased, and the confrontation between the combat systems of the two hostile parties has become increasingly prominent. War is no longer a confrontation of single functions between combat units, but a systemic confrontation based on the comprehensive integration of various combat units and combat elements. The overall function of the combat system has a major impact on the success or failure of a war. In the face of an enemy with systemic advantages, it is very difficult to rely on a single force and a single means to achieve victory over the superior. Whether it can weaken and deprive the combat advantages of a powerful enemy system has become a key link in information warfare to achieve victory over the superior.
The practice of several local wars in recent years has proved that the party with inferior equipment can effectively destroy the key targets of the enemy’s combat system by developing and using some advanced weapons and combining them with other weapons and equipment when there is a “generational difference” in the overall combat capability. It is entirely possible to cause a powerful enemy’s overall operational dysfunction or paralysis. The larger and more sophisticated the combat system of a strong enemy in information technology, the easier it is to expose its vulnerable side. Once it is destroyed, it will often cause serious consequences. During the Iraq war, the U.S. military was shocked by the fact that GPS precision-guided weapons lost their accuracy after being interfered by the Iraqi army’s GPS jammers. During the Kosovo War, the soldiers and civilians of Yugoslavia used flexible and diverse computer network warfare, which also caused NATO’s computer network system to be attacked and paralyzed many times.
Quick decision has become the basic requirement for winning a war, and more emphasis is placed on immediate linkage to form a local advantage over the enemy by using the inferior to win the superior
The depreciation of the space factor and the sharp increase in the value of the time factor in the informationized battlefield lead to the acceleration of the combat rhythm, the shortening of the duration of the war, and the significant enhancement of the quick decision of the war. Although the basic combat procedures and information flow have not undergone fundamental changes, the processes of discovering targets, making decisions, issuing orders, and troop actions are carried out almost simultaneously in real time. The U.S. military’s book “Awe and Fear–The Way to Quickly Conquer the Enemy” pointed out that when talking about the quick victory of information warfare: “From a technical point of view, the speed here includes the formulation of combat plans, combat determination, and deployment and use of troops. Everything requires the troops to respond quickly in the shortest possible time.” In the Afghan war, it took about 19 minutes for the U.S. military to go from the “discovery-location-aiming-attack-assessment” kill chain, while it only took 10 minutes in the 2003 Iraq war about.
At the same time, various information-based weapons can carry out rapid and deadly long-range precision strikes, making the disadvantaged party form a passive situation where they cannot be seen, relied on, grasped, or hit. In exchange for room for maneuver in battles and battles; through long-term local gathering of superior forces and annihilating the enemy, accumulating small victories into big victories, it becomes more difficult to finally realize the growth and decline of the enemy and our forces. We must pay attention to the function of network aggregation, select and deploy new quality and elite forces, adopt modular organization, building block combination, task combination and other force formation methods, use multi-dimensional distribution, network chain combat configuration, and use link cycle linkage and leapfrog Response methods such as direct linkage, synchronous parallel linkage, sequential connection linkage, etc., realize network aggregation efficiency, system linkage, and multi-dimensional response to obtain local strength advantages against the enemy.
Technological factors are becoming more and more important in war, and the victory of the inferior depends on the close integration of people and technology
Information technology, especially disruptive technology, has triggered revolutionary changes in weaponry, organizational structure, and combat styles, and has become a direct driving force for the transformation of information warfare. Information warfare relies on the combination and application advantages of weapon platforms to realize domain linkage and cross-domain control. The proportion of technology-intensive arms and new-quality combat forces continues to increase. The concept of inferior superiority is facing challenges. However, information-based weapons and equipment put forward higher requirements for the quality of personnel. The organic combination of information-based weapons and equipment and high-quality personnel has become a key factor in winning a war. When the disadvantaged party confronts a strong enemy, it is even more necessary to do more in terms of human subjective initiative. enough articles.
In the man-machine system composed of man and weapon, the scientific and technological content of weapons and equipment is increasing day by day, and the trend of intelligence is becoming more and more obvious. The political, theoretical, military and technological literacy of commanders has become the key factor for winning an information war. General Sullivan of the U.S. Army once said: “Even in the information age, it is still people who dominate war operations. Changes in technology, equipment, and force structure will not lead to the disappearance of courage, selflessness, camaraderie, and leadership. “Information warfare has not changed that people are the decisive factor in the outcome of a war. How to make full use of strengths and avoid weaknesses for the party with inferior weapons and equipment, give full play to the effective combination of people and technology, and make up for technological disadvantages has become a key factor in defeating an enemy with superior equipment.
The contest of intelligence and strategy has become an important aspect of winning a war, and the strategy of using the inferior to win the superior exists in the active role
If a weak army wants to defeat a strong enemy, simply competing in military strength is tantamount to hitting a rock with an egg – there is no advantage at all; simply competing in equipment technology is tantamount to using its own strengths to defeat the enemy’s strengths – always being passive; Competing with external support is tantamount to discarding the decisive role of internal factors-willing to seek defeat with inferiority. What ultimately depends on the inferior to the superior? Relying on the active role of self-consciousness, relying on intelligence and strategic competition, this is the fundamental factor to realize the transformation from weak to strong, and the inferior to the superior.
Subjective initiative is manifested in many aspects for “surviving the superior with the inferior”. Although the “potential” here has a certain relationship with the strength of the opposing sides, it still depends on the degree of the commander’s subjective initiative. Those who plan well gain power, and those who do not plan lose power. The second is to actively plan a series of strategies to actively seize the advantages of opportunities. War is a vigorous confrontation between two sides fighting wits and courage. If the weaker side can make a superior move and make a living in a row, it will surely win the first opportunity. The third is to actively create local advantages and actively establish overall victory. Global strength does not mean local overall superiority, and overall global weakness does not mean local overall inferiority. Concentrating forces to form local advantages will eventually break the comparison of advantages and disadvantages and lay the foundation for overall victory. The fourth is to make the best use of the situation and actively innovate and adapt tactics. Water is impermanent, and soldiers are impermanent. According to changes in the enemy’s situation, we can flexibly innovate and change our own tactics, and constantly change the situation of both the enemy and ourselves, so as to gradually provide conditions for our own side to change from weak to strong.
