Taking the Fight to the Enemy: Chinese Thinking about Long-Distance and Expeditionary Operations

According to many analysts of China’s military, when an officer of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) suggests new forms of operations, expanded domains of warfare, or new weapons systems, American security planners can dismiss these projections as merely “aspirational” thinking. This assessment of the PLA Academy of Military Science publication Long Distance Operations and other military publications of this genre propose that suggestions for forms of future warfare capture currents of thinking among mid-grade officers and also reflect how the senior political and military leaders in China want the PLA to evolve. Among the trends identified in this Letort Paper is the requirement for a capacity to more effectively attack a distant adversary, such as the United States, and to hold that adversary’s population at risk. This analysis also shows that a number of military analysts in China perceive that the populace is at risk from attacks by stronger, distant states. In the past 5 years, the PLA has exercised to develop force projection and expeditionary capabilities. As described in brief in this analysis, in the past 6 months, the PLA has changed its own force structure and posture in ways that will facilitate expeditionary operations.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1300/thumbnail.jp

The Chinese People\u27s Liberation Army and Information Warfare

On November 23, 2013, the Chinese government announced plans to establish a new air defense intercept zone which will include the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands, sovereignty over which is disputed by Japan, China, and Taiwan. Due to complaints of cyber penetrations attributed to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and State are devising new means to protect intellectual property and secrets from the PLA’s computer network operations. This monograph explains how the PLA is revising its operational doctrine to meet what it sees as the new mode of “integrated, joint operations” for the 21st century. An understanding of the PLA’s new concepts are important for U.S. and allied military leaders and planners.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1505/thumbnail.jp

Shaping China\u27s Security Environment: The Role of the People\u27s Liberation Army

This volume addresses the role of the Chinese military in shaping its country’s security environment. The PLA itself is shaped and molded by both domestic and foreign influences. In the first decade of the 21st century, the PLA is not a central actor in China’s foreign policy the way it was just a few decades ago. Nevertheless, the significance of the PLA should not be discounted. The military remains a player that seeks to play a role and influence China’s policy towards the such countries and regions as United States, Japan, the Koreas, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Taiwan. It is important not to overlook that, in times of crisis or conflict, the role and influence of the PLA rise significantly.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1709/thumbnail.jp

The Future U.S. Military Presence in Asia: Landpower and the Geostrategy of American Commitment

The United States strategic framework in the Pacific has three parts: peacetime engagement, as described above, which includes a forward presence; crisis response, which builds on forward-stationed forces, the boots-on-the ground and, if necessary, fighting and winning any conflict that might develop. The mechanisms to carry out this strategic framework are embedded in the regular contacts and engagement activities that the United States carries out with friends and allies in the region. What the future will look like in Asia will be determined largely on what happens on the Korean Peninsula. It could be changed by such eventualities as a resurgent, expansionist, or nationalistic Russia. But the dialogue that is taking place among strategists in Seoul and Tokyo needs to be broadened to include the United States. It also must become a public debate. The tyranny of distance requires a United States military presence, and the governments of Korea and Japan must involve their own voters in a civil debate, setting forth the case for a new security structure. This is important not only for domestic political reasons in Asia, but because the American people need to know that there is a civil debate about the subject among their allies, and that the alliances that have kept Asia safe, peaceful and prosperous for 55 years are still useful, welcome, and healthy.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1847/thumbnail.jp

China\u27s Military Potential

This monograph provides an appraisal of the ability of the People\u27s Republic of China (PRC) to build a credible military force in the 21st century. The author examines a complicated set of factors, which when taken together, equates to potential military power in China\u27s case. Perhaps foremost among these factors is the PRC\u27s current economic success and whether Beijing can transfer it to the military sphere. Colonel Wortzel concludes that China could become a military power in every sense, but the greater likelihood is that the PRC will be overcome by internal problems. Nonetheless, the growth in China\u27s military potential bears careful watching by U.S. military planners.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1159/thumbnail.jp

The ASEAN Regional Forum: Asian Security without an American Umbrella

U.S. Asian policy today is a curious blend of seemingly firm bilateral commitments and occasionally startling ambiguities. The latter, while preserving American flexibility, run the risk of signaling weakness when friends and potential adversaries probe for clarity of purpose. This American inscrutability in Asia is all the more troubling in a region lacking a strong web of multilateral institutions, as exists across the North Atlantic. Indeed, if the United States is to maintain regional stability in Asia, Colonel Larry Wortzel, the U.S. Army attaché in Beijing, argues, it must make multilateral dialogues like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum a major tenet of its Asian policy. The problems that need to be addressed by the United States in conjunction with its Asian friends, allies and potential foes—proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ethnic conflict, territorial issues, trade relations, and the future of democracy throughout the region—are every bit as important to U.S. security in the Asian context as they are in Europe, where they receive intensive, continuous, multilateral scrutiny. Colonel Wortzel calls our attention to the nascent ASEAN Regional Forum and causes us to consider its potential to enable a highly diverse group of nations to enhance their mutual understanding, stability, and security as they enter the 21st century.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1201/thumbnail.jp