The Lessons Of History The Chinese People S Liberation Army At 75

The title of this volume, "The Lessons of History: The Chinese People's Liberation Army at 75," captures well the overall theme of the twelve chapters that follow. The primary focus is not on summarizing the lessons that analysts or scholars from outside China have learned when they look back at the past three-quarters of a century of Chinese military history. Rather, the emphasis of this volume is to assess key lessons that the top ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have drawn from their own military's 75- year history. The reader should be clear at the outset: this volume is not a comprehensive up-to-date overview of the state of the PLA; nor is it a comprehensive 75-year history of the Chinese communist military. Anyone seeking these will have to look elsewhere. The primary value of this volume, we believe, is that it provides insights into what Chinese military leaders themselves take from their past.

With the armed forces of the People's Republic of China (PLA) celebrating its 75th anniversary on August 1, 2002, it only seemed appropriate and timely to take stock of the world's largest military. The PLA has officially been in existence for three-quarters of a century, and its history is one filled with turmoil and warfare. One weekend in the September 2002, a group of PLA specialists gathered at Carlisle Barracks, the home of the U.S. Army War College, to assess what lessons China's soldiers had drawn from the history of their own armed forces. This volume constitutes the final product of months of extensive research by the individual authors and hours of intense discussion at the 3-day conference by approximately 50 participants. The conference was sponsored jointly by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the U.S. Army War College.

The title of this volume, "The Lessons of History: The Chinese People's Liberation Army at 75," captures well the overall theme of the twelve chapters that follow. The primary focus is not on summarizing the lessons that analysts or scholars from outside China have learned when they look back at the past three-quarters of a century of Chinese military history. Rather, the emphasis of this volume is to assess key lessons that the top ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have drawn from their own military's 75-year history. The primary value of this volume, we believe, is that it provides insights into what Chinese military leaders themselves take from their past. The PLA is certainly not monolithic and to attribute a single, collective point of view is foolish, if not futile. Nevertheless, the contributors to this volume attempt to distill lessons learned by the Chinese military as an institution. However, in many cases, it is impossible to assert with 100 percent reliability what precise lessons have been gleaned by the PLA. Wherever possible, the contributors have used Chinese published source material originating from within what Paul Godwin calls "China's Defense Establishment." Moreover, it should be noted that the analyses in this volume are based entirely on open source materials.1. Introduction: The Lesson Learned by China's Soldiers * 2. China's Defense Establishment: The Hard Lessons of Incomplete Modernization * 3. PLA Ground Forces Lessons Learned: Experience and Theory * 4. PLA Air Force, 1949-2002: Overview and Lessons Learned * 5. The People's Liberation Army Navy after Half a Century: Lessons Learned in Beijing * 6. The People's Liberation Army and China's Space and Missile Development: Lessons from the Past and Prospects for the Future * 7. How Beijing Evaluates Military Campaigns: An Initial Assessment * 8. From Surprise to Stalemate: What the People's Liberation Army Learned from the Korean War -- A Half-Century Later * 9. Concentrating Forces and Audacious Action: PLA Lessons from the Sino-Indian War * 10. The 1979 Chinese Campaign in Vietnam: Lessons Learned * 11. The Lessons of the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis: Developing a New Strategy Toward the United States and Taiwan * 12. Lessons Learned from the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Massacre * 13. Seventy-five Years of Civil-Military Relations: Lessons LearnedThere are challenges for any outsider researching a military organization, and there are particular challenges in studying an opaque institution like the PLA.2 Since analysts are not always privy to the classified studies conducted for the internal use of the Chinese military, there is the ever-present danger of dutifully parroting the propaganda published in official works produced for public and/or foreign consumption. Often the researcher is left to read between the lines, discerning what is left unsaid or taking the logic of the official printed lesson a step further. These challenges can be partially overcome by supplementing open sources with internally circulated materials wherever possible and through interviews and firsthand observation. For the non-Chinese researcher, another challenge to be overcome in studying China's armed forces is that of mirror imaging. Many PLA analysts today have served or are serving in the militaries of their own countries and still others work in the defense intellectual communities.3 There can be a tendency to presume that all militaries think and operate more or less like one's own does. Yet, the kinds of lessons the U.S. Army may draw from a particular experience may be very different from those that might be drawn by the PLA's ground forces. Fortunately, mirror imaging is kept under control because most specialists have had to immerse themselves in Chinese language, history, and culture often for a decade or more. Many have spent months--if not years--of their professional lives in China with day-to-day interaction with the PLA.

The first work of its kind, this strategic assessment of China's national security reveals the nation's intentions, capabilities, and threats—and their implications for the United States and the world. As China continues to develop the strategic means to advance its national interests in Asia and around the world, assessing its role in international security is the greatest strategic challenge now faced by the United States and its allies. China and International Security facilitates this critically important understanding, analyzing topics that range from strategic geography and orientation to gender ratios. Using detailed case studies and sharing expert insights, the work provides historical, internal, and contemporary analyses that reveal the nature and character of China's national security. This three-volume set is written for scholars, students, and policymakers. The volumes offer in-depth articles penned by intelligence professionals and journalists, as well as entries by scholars in fields as diverse as international politics, history, and strategic studies. While other works may attempt to predict the future of China's rise or the nature of China's future bilateral relationships, none so thoroughly examines the totality of China's domestic, regional, and international security—and their implications.

From early zeppelins, to the Luftwaffe and the Enola Gay, to the unmanned aerial vehicles of today, air power has long been regarded as an invaluable instrument of war. However, nations have employed aircraft for many other purposes as well; they provide security and surveillance, and they are vital to myriad diplomatic and humanitarian efforts. Air power has become a means for statesmen to advance a variety of goals, opening up new possibilities and problems in times of peace as well as war. The Influence of Air Power upon History examines the many ways in which aviation technology has impacted policymaking since 1903. It analyzes air strategy in nations around the world and explores how a country's presumed technological capability, or lack thereof, has become a crucial aspect of diplomacy. Together, the essays in this insightful volume offer a greater understanding of the history of military force and diplomatic relations in the global community.

Located in the center of Asia with one of the largest land frontiers in the world and 14 neighbors whose dispositions could not easily be predicted, China has long been obsessed with security. In this handbook, an internationally renowned team of contributors provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of contemporary thinking about Chinese national security. Chapters cover the PRC's historical, ideological and doctrinal heritage related to security, its security arrangements and policies targeting key regions and nations of the world, the security aspects of the PRC's ground, air, sea, space and cyber forces, as well as the changing and expanding definition and scope of China's security theory and practice.