China’s PLA & Toward Winning ‘informationized local wars’

對獲獎“信息化條件下的局部戰爭”

At the beginning of the 2016, President Xi Jinping gave his commander’s intent for reorganizing China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at this beginning of the week, China announced a series of major comprehensive reforms for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that will defiinitely forge China’s military modernization emphasis for the immediate and long term.

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The Chinese leadership intent for the overhaul is to redefine roles, missions and authorities of the PLA military services, consolidates Communist Party of China (CPC) control over the nearly autonomous military branches, and ultimately attain new levels of combat effectiveness drsigned under a new set of military guidelines of fighting and winning ‘local wars under informationized conditions.’

The first wave of official announcements included changes in the organisational force structure, starting at the highest echelons of command. Specifically, the creation of a new command structure; a joint staff under the Central Military Commission (CMC) that integrated the previous four general departments. The CMC will now manage the PLA through the Joint Staff Department comprised of 15 departments, commissions and offices.

The second significant measure is the inauguration of three new PLA services: PLA Ground Forces, PLA Rocket Forces and PLA Strategic Support Forces. The previous Second Artillery Corps, in charge of China’s nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles, has been upgraded to the PLA Rocket Force, a full service branch on par with the navy, air force, and, for the first time, the army.

The third major military reform measure, announced on 1 February 2016 @ 21:15 Local, is the restructuring of previous seven ‘military regions’ to five ‘major war zones’ or theater operations. While very similar to the US Military component commands the PLA re-oragnization reflects a move toward truly joint operations . The new major Chinese military commands now represent the Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western, and Middle or Central theaters, which are now mimicking the US Department of Defense (DoD) concept of Combatant Commands.

Changes in the PLA’s organization force structure complement its gradual technological advances. While since Novemeber 8th, 2012, the PLA under President Xi Jinping has seen many accomplishments: from the introduction of next generation of supercomputers such as the TianHe – 2,  aviation prototypes such as the J-16, J-20, J-31, new helicopters and UAVs, to the ongoing construction of a second aircraft carrier, as well as record number of commissioned People’s Liberarion Army Navy (PLAN) ships such as Type 054A, 056 frigates and 052C destroyers.

In the next five to ten years, China is expected to transfer many experimental models from R&D to the production stage (Plan 863), including a number of systems in what the PLA calls ‘domains of emerging military rivalry’: outer space, near space, cyber space, and under water.

These include next generation ballistic missiles, nuclear and conventional, long-range precision-strike assets such as hypersonic vehicles, offensive and defensive cyber capabilities and new classes of submarines, supported by a variety of high-tech directional rocket rising sea mines with accurate control and guidance capacity.

PLA Strategic Support Forces (SSF)

Of all the newly established units, the PLA Strategic Support Forces (SSF), 戰略支援部隊. represents perhaps the most significant development. While details remain hidden under a veil of secrecy, unofficial Chinese PLA sources and Chinese language press reports indicate that the SSF will consist of three independent branches: ‘cyber force’ with ‘hacker troops’ responsible for cyber offense and defense; ‘space force’ tasked with surveillance and satellites; and ‘electronic force’ responsible for denial, deception, disruption of enemy radars and communications systems. The overaarching focus of this reorganizartion is to create an effective and strategic support force” to strengthen the network and space attack.

The SSF integrates the previous PLA General Staff Headquarters Third and Fourth Departments, responsible for technical reconnaissance, electronic warfare, cyber intelligence and cyber warfare, as well as absorbing the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the former PLA General Political Department, tasked with information operations, propaganda and psychological warfare.

This corresponds to PLA writings on future conflicts such as Science of Military Strategy that emphasise a holistic perspective toward space, cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum that must be defended to achieve information dominance. This is the ability to gather, transmit, manage, analyse and exploit information, and prevent an opponent from doing the same as a key prerequisite for allowing the PLA to seize air and naval superiority.

To this end, the PLA recognises the importance of controlling space-based information assets as a means of achieving true information dominance, calling it the ‘new strategic high ground.’ Consequently, establishing space dominance is an essential component of achieving military ‘information dominance.’

Strategic Chinese Military Implications

Ultimately, the key question is this: will the reforms in the PLA’s organisational force structure will be reflected in its operational conduct, particularly in the PLA’s capabilities to exploit cyber-kinetic strategic interactions in its regional power projection, as well as responses in potential crises and security flashpoints in East Asia?

On one hand, China’s political and military elites believe that a new wave of the global Revolution in Military Affairsis gathering pace, led principally by the US, and China must therefore accelerate the pace of its military development. Internally, however, the reforms are designed primarily to close the PLA’s inter-service rivalries, interoperability gaps and the dominance of the ground forces.

In other words, significant capability gaps will continue to exist.

In the long-term the coordinated exploitation of space, cyber-space, electromagnetic spectrum and strategic information operations will likely enable four critical missions for the PLA:

  1. Force enhancement to support combat operations and improve the effectiveness of military forces such as ISR, integrated tactical warning and attack assessment, command, control and communications, navigation and positioning and environmental monitoring;
  2. Counter-space missions to protect PLA forces while denying space capabilities to the adversary;
  3. Information operations to direct influence on the process and outcome in areas of strategic competition, and;
  4. Computer network operations targeting adversaries data and networks.

Consequently, the PLA’s growing military-technological developments may significantly alter both the strategic thought and operational conduct of major powers in East Asia, including the US and its Five Eyes allies including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.

Original content published at this Australian Source

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