I wouldn't want to say China will never be a problem or peer competitor, but as I just don't get how China will ever obtain any military level of competence.
Why does everyone assume that these guys could ever perform?
Their are significant cultural limitations to Chinas ability to effectively project military power in a way that we understand. On what evidence do we all keep assuming that they have the capacity to improve?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Can you detail the cultural limitations that you are talking about? That descriptor is pretty vague.
I'd equate it to those limitations to those that were very apparent in Soviet Russia. Talk star wars, but when push comes to shove, act caveman.Originally Posted by tequila
In the same way that I never did rate the Soviet Army in any way, except for mass, I don't see anything in the PLA that makes me think they are any better. Modernisation will get them to about where we were in the late 1980's. I don't see training and leadership as anywhere near what most NATO armies have.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Agreed
I would tend to agree with you about the quality of the forces as a whole.
When you look at training good leaders (NCO's, Officers, Specialization of branches) they will always have problems with any real accomplishment in these areas as long as the cultural tendencies keep class, position, etc ahead of ingenuity, and capability of an individual.
Just as in any company you may train and have excellent skillsets among your workforce but hierachial thinking will keep you from taking advantages almost every time.
Not to mention throwing into the mix the efforts to play both sides of the table, (socialism / Capitalism) at the same time really does bring it's own set of challenges.
Right Sizing the People's Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China's Military Edited by Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell
-See particularly Chapter 7 by Dennis Blasko.
"PLA Doctrine on Securing Energy Resources in Central Asia" by Martin Andrew
-Description of the reorganization of some Group Armies into pseudo-Soviet-style Operational Manoeuvre Groups.
The PLA provides only two months' basic training after each yearly induction in November. After that, it's OJT; recruits, who serve for only two years, are considered "trained" six months after their induction. Each Battalion is on a 9-10 month annual training cycle, breaking for 2-3 months starting in November each year to provide Basic Training for recruits and the NCO Course and Basic Officer Training. And some people think our 12-month training cycle is bad (it is, but not as bad as the PLA's). Many officers recruited from University now only receive 2 or 3 months basic training before receiving OJT in their Battalions, although 3/4 of these are technical specialists; most Combat Arms officers still receive a year's training. NCOs, all of whom are former recruits selected to remain in the PLA after their 2-year obligation, perform nearly all technical tasks.
There is more initiative allowed than in the Russian Army, and training is often of rather better quality. In the past, the PLA relied on rigid obedience to orders from Platoon to Battalion because of a lack of radios, but that is now changed; the Squad level has normally featured a certain allowance for initiative. But Combined-Arms operations at Unit level still seem to be somewhat shaky in areas. Infantry weapons-handling and battlecraft (except in certain elite units) appears more akin to that of the US Army circa very early 1980's, in both content and performance.
Try this math test.
Now I did A level maths and chemistry - a very long time ago - but I loved this Chinese test for students considering a science based course.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/6589301.stm
How did you do? If you have kids thinking of University would they do?
Wow, that's quite an opinion. I note that you didn't provide much supporting information to it in response to Tequila's request. Perhaps you'll be more forthcoming in future posts. In the meantime, here are a few reasons why China should be regarded as a future military threat.
1. In most of it's 4,000 + year history, it has dominated Asia as a military and cultural power.
2. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is the world's oldest manual of military strategy, and his principles are still applied with success today.
3. Chinese martial arts are the origin of all Asian martial fighting forms, and have influenced those of the rest of the world, including our own.
4. The U.S. has no existing defense for implementation of an Unrestricted Warfare attack, as proposed by two Chinese Colonels in 1998, and which is being implemented in China's current cyberwarfare strategy.
5. "China continues to invest heavily in the modernization of its military, particularly in strategic weapons and capabilities to support power projection and access denial operations." Read the PREPARED STATEMENT OF
MR. RICHARD P. LAWLESS DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ASIAN & PACIFIC SECURITY AFFAIRS BEFORE THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2007
I don't disagree
that China is or would be a more than effective foe.
I think the big thing I look to is the fact that most of how their society works always seemed to be based in order vs chaos. Structure vs compromise.
All or nothing in unrestricted warfare while being a very real concern doesn't really seem to be as likely as some other forms of movement from them.
Chaos tends to stem from unrestricted conflict, and isn't that somewhat counter to their philosophical and social constructs.
To look at them in the same way as say a Hitlers Germany or Soviet union
doesn't seem to be a good comparison
(Wouldn't they be the first ones to look to get maximum effect from least effort being more patient than others.) SOFT Power
This will keep them on a path of growth but their not the only ones growing and their close neighbors are on schedule to out populate them within ten years or so plus I think have even more specialization in the maths and science areas.
Just asking these are some of what my assumptions or limited knowledge is in this regard. Please disabuse me of those which are incorrect or mistaken.
I think that even experts on the subject would disagree about how the evolution of Chinese government is progressing. It's certainly still a Communist regime, but not in the way that it was under Mao. If anything, I think we're observing something completely different from what China has been in the past, thanks to the success of capitalism in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I think the government is trying to find ways to embrace it's economic success with a totalitarian style of government, and will wind up with some kind of hybrid. What this conveys to me is that we pigeon-hole China to our detriment, and should try to avoid applying old dualistic concepts in our effort to understand today's People's Republic.
UW takes a holistic approach, known in contemporary terms as a systems approach, to warfare. In this way, their educational priorities are a part of UW. Corporate espionage is a part. WMD development is a part. Energy alliances is a part. And so on. Mechanistic theory, which the West has operated on for the past 150 years, breaks things down into separate components. Systems theory looks at how each part interacts and connects with the whole. That's what UW does as well.All or nothing in unrestricted warfare while being a very real concern doesn't really seem to be as likely as some other forms of movement from them.
Chaos to a westerner may not be viewed as chaotic to someone well-read in the Tao, or in Zen Buddhism. It's a different way of perceiving reality then Westerners are used to.Chaos tends to stem from unrestricted conflict, and isn't that somewhat counter to their philosophical and social constructs.
I agree, and that reminds me of Max Boot's flawed advice on exporting Democracy to the Middle East from the barrel of a gun. "We did it in Germany and Japan. Why not Iraq and Iran?"To look at them in the same way as say a Hitlers Germany or Soviet union
doesn't seem to be a good comparison
Speaking as someone whose employer has engineers from both countries, and operations in both countries, China is ahead of India in technology-based R&D. That's just my observation, not the result of an independent study.This will keep them on a path of growth but their not the only ones growing and their close neighbors are on schedule to out populate them within ten years or so plus I think have even more specialization in the maths and science areas.
But more importantly, China is aggressively pursuing building strategic relationships with lots of other countries, including India. It's not operating in a vacuum.
1. I think Japan managed to dominate Asia, far more than China in recent history. Modern China is a product of an adaptive form of Communism, not it's 4,000 years of culture. They got their asses handed to them on a plate by the Vietnamese in 1979.
2. Sun Tzu's art of War/Strategy is not highly regarded by the Chinese military, at least not the former PLA members I have talked to. Even Mao came unstuck when they tried to export "On Guerilla Warfare" to non-Confucian based cultures.
3. Martial Arts is nothing to do with warfare.
4. The two Chinese Colonels are no better informed than anyone else. It's a typical product of Chinese military thought, that sounds clever, but that probably falls short in performance.
5. So they say. The Chinese military budget is smoke and mirrors of the worst order.
NOW - I am not saying the Chinese are not a threat, but I work in the Far East, I have worked with the Chinese, and they are no more skilled, cunning or clever than we are. They just don't have democracy to hold back ambition, but they are severely constrained by things like status, face and image.
Why would we assume them to be more capable than the Russians?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I think the "Japanese moment" in Asian history is over. Japan, because of its cultural cohesiveness resulting from its position as a mountainous island, has always been able to embrace massive and radical change more quickly than most other countries. It did it during its rise as a unified state during the Nara period, when it embraced a massive infusion of cultural and governmental innovation from China and Korea, and it did it during the Industrial Revolution. However it cannot compete as a local power against a strong China.
If China in the modern age was going to be held back by things like ancient cultural traits, China could never have accomplished the economic transformation that has occurred over the past 35 years. The changes that have occurred in a single generation have gone directly against so many of the fundamental classical traditions of Chinese history as to constitute a genuine revolution, more so even than in 1948.
Culture matters, but cultures are not fixed constants. They undergo constant change to adapt to the underlying fundamentals of the societies they inhabit, and no more so than when the economic superstructure has changed as radically and completely as it has in China in the past generation. Old assumptions need to be revisited.
I was going to spend more time on this, but when I read your above reply to my point of Lawless's report, I decided against it. I'm happy to debate facts, but there's no debating a refusal to consider facts.
Similar things could be said about the U.S. defense budget, which the government has literally given up on accounting for.
There is enormous waste and fraud in every defense budget - more so when they are swathed in official secrecy. China is hardly an exception. But what is largely not disputed is that China is spending large amounts of money in an attempt to modernize and professionalize its armed forces. While this is hardly the easiest thing to do in the world, China has built in the last thirty years some of the world's most advanced industrial processes and efficient factories. They do not compete only in low-rent textiles and assembled goods but also in consumer electronics, automobile and machine parts, steel, computers, etc. etc.
If one believed that some sort of cultural model barring China from modernization and professional competence was an accurate descriptor, one would have to answer how it is possible for China to build a world-competitive industrial economy across the panoply of manufacturing and services but yet prove incapable of creating a competent military force.
Good basic primer on the China/U.S. dollar relationship, from James Fallows in The Atlantic.
China Brief, 14 Feb 08: Soldier Scholars: Military Education as an Instrument of China's Strategic Power
....There is another element of China’s military transformation that tends to receive much less attention: professional military education (PME). Over the last three decades, China has undertaken significant efforts to enhance the quality of its military education system. The expansion of non-commissioned officer (NCO) education over the last decade within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) illuminates an important—yet understudied—element of China’s broader military modernization efforts. Washington policymakers should take note of Beijing’s investments in military education as they may yield key insights into Chinese military strategy as well as its grand strategy.....
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