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Review of "The Armed Forces of China"
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Review of "The Armed Forces of China"
by Xinhui
The so-call people's war under modern condition:
"Theoretically, the doctrine of active defense, mainly designed to defeat a Soviet land attack through positional warfare, seemed to be out of step with the evolution of international affairs."
No more Soviet polar bear. Then the Gulf War happened.
The author also pointed out that the PLA had to had a short pause internally (page 6). First the succession arrangement in the political and military leadership was worked out during the period 1989-1992. Although it took a few more years for the leadership to consolidate. This is a good point, I didn't think of it when I look at PLA's reform history. There is always the political side. After the consolidation, the army is supposed to be trimmed by 500K personnel at the same time. The specialized service continue to enjoy greater priority.
A 3 to 4 years pause, I would not call that short!
In the issue of RMA, the author has another interesting point and it is different then the two PLA Senior Col. wrote and Col. Yu love to link to Major General Li Youyuan argue that revolutions in military tech will not automatically produce theoretical guidelines.. Without new combat theory, technology cannot win wars by itself. However, new theory will not be invested without a fundamental change in the mentality of PLA senior officers. According to the author, RMA provides the best stimulant for the PLA to change. This point is a little bit different from the RMA paper by those two senior Col. If I remember right, they seem to argue RMA is the magic potion for PLA. Those two believe the PLA can bypass many reforms. However, Li Youyuan and the author would argue the other way around. If PLA doesn't reform fundamentally, RMA will only hurt the PLA.
Also according to the book, the Gulf War is more then just high tech weapon displays to the PLA, it has number of other profound impact too.
"The PLA conducted specific research on how the computer system of the US air force made possible the 'zero stock' in the Gulf theater by flying in from home 95 per cent of the needed supplies."
One report noted that while the 42 day bombing of C3I system by the allied air force failed to eliminated the system's physical existence. On the other hands, the three-day electronic blockade at the beginning of desert shield achieved the desired result. The 'soft warfare' as the PLA terms it.
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