Exploring China's Modern Military Strategies

Dahm, Informationized Warfare (2021), Part 1

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In part one of his lecture series on China's modern military strategies, senior national security researcher Mike Doan delves into China's informationized warfare—a term used to describe warfare transformed by information. He outlines how China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has adopted and evolved from U.S. military concepts to put information control at its core operational strategies, transitioning into intelligentized warfare with AI's integration. This lecture explores these concepts and the implications for U.S. military strategy, focusing on information superiority and how China aims to impose system of systems paralysis on adversaries by targeting C4ISR capabilities.

Highlights

Mike Doan discusses China’s comprehensive adoption of information-centric strategies in its military operations.
The transition from mechanized to informationized and now moving towards intelligentized warfare with AI integration.
China’s historical reference to ancient strategies like those of Sun Tzu’s to develop its modern military doctrines.
The U.S. military’s perspective on tackling Chinese strategies highlighting potential vulnerabilities in information warfare.
Discussion on the Chinese PLA's focus on information superiority as the path to maintaining operational initiative.

Key Takeaways

China's military strategy centers on achieving information superiority and imposing system paralysis on adversaries.
The PLA has transitioned from mechanized warfare to informationized warfare, heavily influenced by lessons from the Gulf War.
China adopted U.S. concepts but has evolved them into its own strategy that emphasizes offensive operations.
The PLA operates with a highly centralized, survivable C4ISR system, inspired by U.S. military strategies.
China views information control as crucial in warfare, positioning its military to dominate in a networked information age.

Overview

In a detailed assessment, Dr. Jared McKinney hosts a lecture exploring China’s evolution in military strategy towards information dominance. The foundation of this strategy lies in ensuring that the PLA controls the flow and access to information, offering a significant advantage over opponents whose systems they seek to disrupt or paralyze.

Mike Doan, a senior researcher, highlights how the PLA’s focus has shifted over years, from merely countering invasions to ensuring information superiority. This evolution, largely informed by global conflicts and technological advancements, particularly the U.S.'s post-Gulf War operations, has led to a Chinese military strategy that emphasizes offensive operations to destabilize enemies’ information systems before any kinetic confrontation.

As the PLA continues its shift towards intelligentized warfare, utilizing AI and advanced technology, questions linger regarding how the U.S. can counteract such strategies. The lecture prompts critical reflections on whether traditional means of warfare suffice or if new strategic paradigms are necessary to match the adaptive, information-driven tactics of the PLA.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Host Introduction The host, Dr. Jared McKinney, introduces the lecture series on contemporary China, specifically lectures five and six featuring speaker Mike Don. Dr. McKinney acknowledges Mike's contribution of time to cover the comprehensive topics on modern China.
01:00 - 02:00: Overview of Lecture Content The chapter introduces Mike, a senior national security researcher at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab. He specializes in foreign military capabilities, operational concepts, and technologies. Prior to his current role, Mike served as a U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer for over 25 years, with noteworthy positions including Senior Analyst in the U.S. Pacific Command's China Strategic Focus Group.
02:00 - 05:00: China's Military Doctrine and Historical Context In this chapter, the focus is on China's military doctrine and historical context. The lecture explores China's shift towards an information-centric strategy and the concept of 'informationized' and 'intelligentized' warfare. These strategies highlight the integration of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence into military operations. The discussion seeks to address critical questions related to how such technologies will influence future Chinese military concepts and operations. The insights are provided by a naval attache at the U.S. embassy in Beijing and a former senior naval intelligence officer for China, offering an in-depth analysis of these evolving military doctrines.
05:00 - 07:30: Understanding Informationized Warfare The chapter discusses whether China's military has adopted and evolved U.S. concepts of information and modern warfare into its information-centric strategies. It analyzes how the fundamentals of informationized warfare theory are reflected in the current Chinese military force structure and operational design.
07:30 - 10:00: Offensive and Defensive Strategy The chapter begins with an introduction to the webinar format, which includes a presentation followed by a Q&A session. Attendees are instructed to submit their questions through the chat module, with a focus on concise inquiries to facilitate an efficient discussion. Additionally, the recording of the webinar will be made accessible on ASU canvas eschools' media gateway for future on-demand viewing.
10:00 - 14:00: China's Shift to Informationized and Intelligentized Warfare The chapter discusses China's strategic shift towards informationized and intelligentized warfare. It appears to be a presentation or lecture setting, likely academic, with a focus on understanding and analyzing the implications of China's evolving military strategies. The presenter encourages feedback to improve future events and clarifies that the views expressed are personal and not officially representative of any governmental agency.
14:00 - 18:00: Elements of Campaign Power Introduction by Mike Fair outlining the focus of part two which discusses the reflection of informationized warfare operational concepts in military capabilities in the South China Sea.
18:00 - 21:00: Key Figures and Theories in Informationized Warfare The chapter titled 'Key Figures and Theories in Informationized Warfare' explores notable personalities and concepts within the realm of modern warfare influenced by information technology. It begins with an examination of Chinese military strategies, notably touched upon by the famous strategist Sun Tzu, who is often quoted saying 'to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.' This suggests a preference for non-kinetic means to achieve military objectives, reflecting a deep understanding of strategic nuances within the Chinese military philosophy. The chapter likely delves into the historical and contextual analysis of such statements, emphasizing their relevance in contemporary informationized warfare.
21:00 - 25:00: China's Military Strategy and Concepts The chapter discusses China's military strategy, particularly the emphasis on defeating opponents before they can properly organize. This approach is highlighted as the pinnacle of military skill, reflecting Sun Tzu's philosophy. The text outlines the PLA's (People's Liberation Army) aim to achieve this by neutralizing threats, such as aircraft, before they can be deployed effectively. The chapter suggests that even though China may seek to avoid direct confrontation, it doesn't shy away from using lethal kinetic action when necessary.
25:00 - 33:00: System of Systems Warfare and Cognitive Advantage This chapter is about the concept of 'winning without fighting' or non-contact warfare, highlighting the importance of information in modern combat. It presents a discussion on informationized warfare, an offensive operational concept derived from lessons learned by the Chinese military from the 1991 Gulf War and U.S. military strategies.
33:00 - 37:00: Challenges and Questions for the U.S. Military The chapter delves into the evolution of information warfare post-Cold War, focusing on 'informationized warfare' and its system of systems warfare approach including C4ISR. It also explores the transition towards 'intelligentized warfare'. The impact of informationized warfare on Chinese military operational design and force structure is discussed, highlighting the PLA's offensive strategy aimed at achieving system of system paralysis in adversaries.
37:00 - 39:00: Local War Under Informationized Conditions The chapter "Local War Under Informationized Conditions" explores the concept of modern warfare, focusing particularly on the balance between kinetic and non-kinetic operations. While the traditional approach of inflicting physical damage (kinetic effects) remains crucial in military strategy, the primary focus is shifting. The emphasis is now on leveraging information technology and non-kinetic means to achieve strategic objectives, particularly targeting command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. The speaker notes that kinetic operations, though still significant, are not the principal method of warfare under these conditions. The goal is to disrupt or incapacitate enemy information systems rather than purely physical attrition. The chapter also includes a promise of further detailed materials available through Air University for those interested in an in-depth study.
39:00 - 41:00: Discussion on AI and Data Collection The chapter titled 'Discussion on AI and Data Collection' emphasizes the importance China and its military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), place on information control. This focus is considered central to their operational concepts, which are detailed as methods for utilizing military capabilities. The distinction is made between operational concepts, which underpin operational planning and military force development, and concepts of operations, implying a more nuanced understanding of military strategy in this context.
41:00 - 43:00: U.S. Strategy and Initiative The chapter explores strategies and initiatives of the U.S. military, specifically focusing on the campaign level of warfare. It mentions how commanders can achieve specific missions or objectives and highlights the categorization of warfare into three levels: strategic, campaign, and tactical. The discussion is centered around information warfare, drawing parallels with the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) understanding of these levels. It emphasizes the importance of tactical actions within the campaign level of warfare.
43:00 - 45:00: Terms and Operational Concepts in Military Strategy The chapter discusses the concept of information superiority in military strategy, contrasting the U.S. and Chinese perspectives. The Department of Defense defines information superiority as an operational advantage, a definition that has been in place for approximately 25 years. The U.S. concept is compared to the Chinese concept of 'information power,' which is analyzed further in the narrative.
45:00 - 49:00: Influence of Western vs. China's Warfare Approach This chapter discusses the differences between Western and Chinese approaches to warfare, specifically focusing on the U.S. The speaker critiques the lack of a clear definition or operational concept in the U.S. for achieving information superiority in the operational battle space. The Department of Defense (DoD) is described as having inconsistent approaches when it comes to integrating information into combat operations, leading to various interpretations and confusion regarding information warfare. This sets the stage for a Q&A session addressing these issues.
49:00 - 55:00: China's C4ISR Network and Information Overmatch The chapter titled "China's C4ISR Network and Information Overmatch" delves into the concept of informationized warfare, which differs from traditional diplomatic, economic, and informational power tactics such as legal warfare, social media manipulation, or strategic narratives. Instead, it focuses on information's role at the operational level of war. This chapter aims to dissect how China employs its C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) networks to achieve information overmatch, thereby targeting operational information to gain a strategic advantage.
55:00 - 58:00: Speculative Strategies Against China's Information Warfare This chapter delves into the strategic aspects of information warfare, specifically in the context of China's tactics. It discusses the concept of 'battle space cognition,' which relates to how information within a battle space is perceived, collected, processed, and interpreted by friendly forces. Additionally, it examines how such information can be denied, disrupted, or manipulated by enemy forces. The goal is to understand the decision-making processes of the opposing forces (referred to as 'red' and 'blue') by either eliminating or multiplying perceived threats (represented by little red dots), thereby obfuscating the enemy's intentions.
58:00 - 71:00: Q&A Session The chapter titled 'Q&A Session' begins by acknowledging the challenges posed by China's vastness, particularly how it can impair their ability to respond effectively. The discussion sets the stage by identifying China as a major Asian country, and then introduces the Chinese military, known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It clarifies that the PLA is an umbrella term for all military branches, including the army, air force, and others. The focus of the briefing is predominantly on the PLA as a whole.

Dahm, Informationized Warfare (2021), Part 1 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 welcome everyone my name is dr jared mckinney and i will be the host for these two lectures with mike don we will be continuing our series on contemporary china with lectures five and six mikes has graciously given his time to focus on two lectures to cover the whole gamut of the modern
00:30 - 01:00 pla mike is a senior national security researcher at johns hopkins university's applied physics lab where he focuses on foreign military capabilities operational concepts and technologies before joining johns hopkins apl he worked as a us naval intelligence officer for over 25 years his most recent assignments included senior analyst in the u.s pacific command china strategic focus group assistant
01:00 - 01:30 naval attache in the u.s embassy in beijing china and senior naval intelligence officer for china at the office of naval intelligence today in lecture five part one we explore china's information-centric strategy informationized warfare and how artificial intelligence will play in future chinese concepts what the chinese call intelligentized warfare we will discuss questions such as how
01:30 - 02:00 did china's military adopt and evolve u.s concepts about information and modern warfare into its own information-centric strategies and how are the fundamentals of informationized warfare theory reflected in current chinese military force structure and operational design before mike begins his lecture i'd like to mention a few administrative items the webinar will last for about an hour
02:00 - 02:30 and 15 minutes it will be recorded and posted on the asu canvas eschools media gateway for secure on-demand viewing later the webinar format is a presentation followed by a question and answer period please use the chat module to pose your questions which i will then present to mr doan please value everyone's time and ensure your questions end
02:30 - 03:00 with a question mark at the end of the webinar i will invite your feedback on this presentation and your comments will help us shape future events as always the opinions conclusions and recommendations expressed or implied within this lecture are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of air university the united states air force the department of defense or any other u.s government agency and with that
03:00 - 03:30 over to you mike fair theory and operational concepts tomorrow in part two we'll discuss how informationized warfare operational concepts are reflected in military capabilities and operations in the south china sea so with that one of my underlying objectives is to overcome what i call a fortune cookie understanding of china first it's important to note that fortune cookies are not actually
03:30 - 04:00 a thing in china you can't get them in chinese restaurants in beijing but while the chinese are fond of pithy allegories you really need to understand the layers of meaning behind those sayings right for for example the master sanza has been credited with saying to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill and we've taken that to mean that the chinese military will use non-kinetic means to avoid direct military confrontation but if you look at the original ancient chinese and put it in historical context
04:00 - 04:30 as john sullivan did in his uh really well written strategy bridge article last summer what sunset was actually saying was routing enemy soldiers before they've had an opportunity to form orderly ranks is the height of excellence or acme of skill in this way not engaging in battle by destroying your aircraft on the ground is the pla's objective but just because you don't fight doesn't mean the chinese will not impart lethal kinetic effects as part of a
04:30 - 05:00 winning without fighting or non-contact warfare operation so on that sobering note this is what we're going to be discussing today in part one make no mistake this is a presentation about war and the use of information in battle or combat and we'll discuss informationized warfare as an offensive operational level comp uh concept chinese informationized warfare concepts were really born out of lessons learned from the 1991 gulf war in u.s military
05:00 - 05:30 post-cold war thinking on information warfare we'll talk about the fundamental tenets of informationized warfare with its focus on system of systems warfare and c4isr and how informationized warfare is evolving into intelligentized warfare we're also going to discuss how informationized warfare has affected chinese operational design and force structure it's important to understand that the pla has an offensive not a defensive strategy that seeks to impart system of system paralysis on its enemies largely by
05:30 - 06:00 focusing on kinetic and non-kinetic effects against c4 isr i'm not going to spend a lot of time discussing kinetic effects to impart attrition attrition is certainly very important to chinese military operational designs but warheads on foreheads is just not the main line of effort a word of warning i'm going to move pretty quickly through these slides so we have time for q a at the end but i've provided air university a copy of the presentation and they're going to make that available to you
06:00 - 06:30 the big takeaway if you remember nothing else from this presentation is that china and the people's liberation army places information control at the center of its operational concepts to be clear an operational concept is nothing more than a method for employing military capabilities and i'm going to use that term a lot today operational concepts serve as the foundation for operational planning or military force development but this term is distinct from what you may have heard is a concept of operations
06:30 - 07:00 which describes specifically how a commander might accomplish a particular mission or objective so as i mentioned today we're going to be discussing information warfare or information in warfare the pla like the u.s military categorizes warfare into three levels the strategic the campaign level which is roughly analogous to the operational level of war and of course the tactical level today we're focused on the campaign level of warfare where tactical action
07:00 - 07:30 is translated into accomplishing strategic ends and here i'll cite the department of defense definition of information superiority which it should be noted is characterized as an operational advantage the us concept of information superiority is synonymous with the chinese concept of information power which we're going to be discussing a little bit more in a minute it's important to note that while dod does have that definition for information superiority which we have had now for some 25 years
07:30 - 08:00 the u.s still has no definition or really any operational concept discussing how one might achieve information superiority in the operational battle space i could really go on and on about this but dod is all over the map when it comes to discussing information as it may relate to uh or not relate to combat operations inevitably inevitably based on some of these muddled concepts of information warfare some of you may want to steer the q a to
08:00 - 08:30 things like legal warfare social media manipulation strategic narratives manipulating elections but that's not what this briefing is about absolutely china wields a huge amount of diplomatic economic and what might some might call informational power but that's not what informationized warfare is about informationized warfare is about information at the operational level of war it targets what i'm calling
08:30 - 09:00 battle space cognition how battle space information is perceived collected processed and interpreted by friendly forces or denied disrupted or manipulated by enemy forces ultimately if i'm red how do you make decisions as blue if you're in the cockpit or in the command center if i make all the little red dots go away or i double the number of little red dots and you don't know which are real and which are fake the lack of information or too much information obscures red's intentions
09:00 - 09:30 and impairs blue's ability to respond effectively so just to level set anyone i'm sure most of you know that china is a large country in asia the chinese military is called the people's liberation army or pla and the pla is not just the army that would actually be the people's liberation army army the air force is the people's liberation army air force but in this briefing i'll mostly refer to the chinese military as the pla
09:30 - 10:00 and i wish i had more time to dive into this but people from western cultures that's probably most of you do actually think differently from those who grew up in east asian cultures there's an emerging field of social science that's examining what they call cultural cognition and just to be clear this is different from the u.s military's excursion into what they called cultural terrain this is about how individuals at a cognitive level perceive the world and interpret data generally but not
10:00 - 10:30 absolutely by any stretch westerners are more analytic they emphasize the individual focus on and categorize objects and use formal logic to understand an object's behavior east asians largely based on cultural confucianism are generally more holistic in their thinking emphasizing the collective and excuse me emphasizing the collective and elements and assigning causality to relationships
10:30 - 11:00 i'd make the observation that western culture was about uh was was ideally optimized for industrial age mechanized warfare but these differences beg the question which way of thinking about warfare do you think will prevail in a networked information age if you need proof of the cognitive biases that we possess you really need to look no further than the us military we associate capabilities with platforms and weapon systems
11:00 - 11:30 that we organize and manage in program offices capabilities and platforms are categorized into different domains and we've created organizations and individuals to manage each domain and the platforms and weapons systems that operate in those domains and sure like i said the pla has an army an air force and a navy and they do categorize things much in the same way we do but at the end of the day bureaucratic inertia is difficult to overcome
11:30 - 12:00 but the east asian bias toward holistic thinking and a focus on the relationship between and among different elements lends itself to thinking about information information rather as an integrating force the pla places a heavy emphasis on relationships among forces and capabilities in the battle space and regards information as the critical element that connects and binds the joint force and enables all other elements of campaign power
12:00 - 12:30 the pla arrived at their conclusions about combat power and information in the battle space through their own experience but more than that an intensive study of the experience of others from the time the chinese communist party came to power throughout most of the cold war the pla characterized what they called the form of war in terms of a people's war a total war concept involving national mobilization to counter an invasion of china either by the us or the soviet union but as the cold war
12:30 - 13:00 ended and the threat of invasion dissipated china started to think of wars in terms of what they called local war under modern high technology conditions and as an aside remember what i said about fortune cookies you need to keep the context in mind so the chinese language context for local war is in contrast to total war so local war is probably better translated as localized war or partial war it's not
13:00 - 13:30 total war so when the pla talks about local wars they're not necessarily talking about wars that are local to china the term applies to localized wars in south asia the middle east or africa as much as it does localized wars in east asia the shift in 1993 to local war under modern high technology conditions was really profound and it was based largely on what the chinese saw from the us in operation desert storm and the 1991 gulf war keep in mind that
13:30 - 14:00 in 1991 the pla was still an army-centric force designed to counter an invasion of china they looked a lot like the iraqi military which had not done so well the pla needed to evolve and develop high technology weapons systems and precision strike capabilities to counter what they saw as a threat from the united states one of the kind of underappreciated chinese lessons learned from the gulf war was their need for a highly centralized survivable c4 isr system of systems
14:00 - 14:30 and i'll talk more about that in a few minutes but chinese perceptions of how the us you see for isr and what the us did to iraqi commanding control and isr led almost inevitably to the 2004 shift in the form of war to local war under informationized conditions by 2015 there was another shift to winning informationized local wars and this is more than just a word order change it signaled a qualitative change information had previously played an
14:30 - 15:00 important role in warfare by 2015 the chinese believed objectively that information played a leading role in warfare in 2019 the chinese estimated that intelligentized warfare and the use of artificial intelligence in warfare was now emerging as the prevailing form of war so informationized or informationalization seems like a very odd term in english and a lot of people struggle with it but what it means in chinese is warfare
15:00 - 15:30 transformed by information if you see my cursor there this character in the middle hua has a transformational quality so just as the industrial age led to mechanized warfare warfare transformed by machines you see the hua there highlighted in red so the information age has led to warfare transformed by information and what is emerging now is warfare transformed by intelligent systems or
15:30 - 16:00 intelligentized warfare so in addition to what the chinese saw in the gulf war from the from united st leaders in the late 1990s really resonated with them our definition of information superiority came from joint vision 2010 written in 1996. this was also the time of guys like admiral owens and admiral sobrowski developing concepts for net centric warfare the us military was actively advancing
16:00 - 16:30 the idea that we had to have informational superiority in the future battle space and even after the us became consumed with a very different kind of war in southwest asia after 2001 the chinese adopted and carried these ideas about information superiority forward in the 2006 edition of the science of campaigns a foundational chinese military doctrine publication they described information power as something very similar to our ideas about information superiority
16:30 - 17:00 the capability of the military to gather transmit process and control information as well as preventing the enemy from effectively employing information beside possessing a better i'm sorry the side possessing better information and using that information more effectively to gain understanding has a major advantage over its opponent a force that achieves this advantage and effectively uses it to affect enemy perceptions attitudes decisions
17:00 - 17:30 and actions has exploited information superiority that did not come from the chinese but in fact came from a 2001 us army field manual on operations in 2001 the us army identified information as the fourth of four elements of combat power the pla adopted information power as the operational expression of its informationized warfare strategy so remember these four elements information power firepower maneuver and protection
17:30 - 18:00 because you'll see them again here this is what we saw in chinese doctrine a few years later the basic elements of campaign power or operational power information power firepower maneuver power and protection power and of these basic elements of campaign power information power is the most important they say that explicitly in fact most of what the chinese call the derivative elements of campaign power reconnaissance electronic warfare and
18:00 - 18:30 command and control capabilities are all derived from information power information power according to chinese doctrine is the most important element and all of the other elements of campaign power rely upon it and again in the take it for what it's worth category the us military is all over the map when it comes to information we have effectively disaggregated what we used to call information power into command and control intelligence there's this information function
18:30 - 19:00 that frankly i don't really understand and even within the chinese operational support capability the chinese categorize things like communications meteorology and camouflage that we have buried deep inside of u.s military doctrine so as you start to peel back the layers on information power and informationized warfare major general dai qingman emerges as the thought leader for informationized warfare theory now some of you may have heard of him as the father of integrated network
19:00 - 19:30 electronic warfare or inew he wrote about that when he was the director of the pla general staff department that was responsible for electronic warfare and computer network attack but his writings on cyber and electronic warfare are dwarfed by his role in the overall development of informationized warfare even in retirement he was a member of the pla informationization leading group and director of the pla informationization expert advisory committee he authored a dozen books and over 60
19:30 - 20:00 articles on informationized warfare like with titles like on seizing information supremacy new perspectives on war and seeking the invisible place about military operations in the information domain so based on my research these are the highlights of chinese informationized warfare theory i'm going to run run through these quickly but again area university will have a copy of these slides if you'd like to review them later first and foremost information
20:00 - 20:30 superiority is necessary to seize and maintain battlefield initiative decisive action in the information space is necessary for decisive effects in the physical space active offense is the key to seizing information superiority we're going to talk more about offense versus defensive strategies in a couple of minutes but offensive action is necessary to weaken an enemy's information system as well as an enemy's informationized weapons and equipment information superiority is
20:30 - 21:00 a prerequisite for air and maritime superiority it is not that the chinese do not believe that air and maritime superiority are not important of course they do they are very important but it is critical to first paralyze an adversary's information system and then you achieve air and maritime superiority and retain information superiority in kind of a mutually supporting triangle c4 isr systems of systems are critical
21:00 - 21:30 friendly and enemy operational centers of gravity when a c4 is our nervous system is attacked or disrupted the combat power of a military force will be degraded if not eliminated and recall here the 1991 gulf war lessons learned about c4isr we had all the c4 isr in the world we had satellite capabilities we had long range communications we devastated the iraqi military and threw them into disarray
21:30 - 22:00 informationized development occurs in three stages digitalization basically the integration of i.t across the force networkization this is arguably where the chinese are right now this network enables system of systems warfare and then finally intelligentization where you impose ai on the network to enable human machine decision making leverage big data and conduct war at machine speeds
22:00 - 22:30 so informationized warfare is inherently system of systems warfare because of networkization everything is networked together it must be a system of systems informationized warfare operational concepts involved targeting networks and myriad link technology elements this type of system of systems has i'm sorry this type of system of systems transformed warfare is more extreme than previous forms of warfare and that leads us to system of systems versus system of systems confrontation it actually reads better in chinese but
22:30 - 23:00 this system of system versus system of systems confrontation no longer emphasizes the operational performance of individual platforms or even groups of platforms instead it highlights the overall effectiveness of a system of systems composed of and bound together by information and finally informationized capabilities must be diverse and redundant in the attack coordinated assaults must take place across an adversary's c4isr network in the defense c4isr network diversity
23:00 - 23:30 redundancy and survivability is critical again i refer you back to those lessons learned from the gulf war and we see these informationized warfare principles reflected in declared chinese military strategy china published its military strategy and parts of what it calls its military strategic guidelines in 2015 i call your attention to the last sentence in this passage integrated combat forces will be employed to prevail in system of systems operations
23:30 - 24:00 featuring in order of importance information dominance precision strike on keynotes and joint operations we spent a lot of time focusing on the pla's precision strike capabilities or their joint capabilities and again those are super important but not as important as the first element information dominance there's also this interesting phrase you fight your way i fight my way this is one of those chinese fortune cookie sayings that the pla took from chairman mao
24:00 - 24:30 a lot of people think this is about asymmetric warfare and correlation of forces you know you do one thing i do something different you hit here i hit there but actually when you dig into the chinese military doctrine and how the chinese explain the saying it is an operational concept of total initiative the armed forces will adhere to the principles of flexibility mobility and self-dependence so that the pla maintains total operational initiative so the chinese military strategy is to
24:30 - 25:00 conduct offensive operations that emphasize seizing and maintaining the initiative in system of systems warfare featuring what in order information dominance striking critical nodes and joint operations but despite being the declared open source strategy of the chinese military we in the u.s military focus on objects and capabilities in this case anti-access area denial or a2ad capabilities
25:00 - 25:30 sometimes referred to as counter intervention capabilities now china absolutely does have these capabilities to keep forces like the us military out of east asia long-range surface-to-air missiles and carrier-killer ballistic missiles are very real threats so it stands to reason that the chinese would have an a2ad or counter intervention strategy and we have spent the better part of the last decade coming up with concepts to defeat those strategies my personal favorite the joint concept for access and maneuver in the global
25:30 - 26:00 commons or jam gc the only problem is that china doesn't have an a2ad or counter intervention strategy sure the pl the pla definitely has plans and designs for employing those threats but u.s operational concepts seem to have been more focused on fighting stuff instead of directly adjust addressing chinese informationized warfare strategy and operational concepts if you're interested in an excursion on this i wrote an article for the website war on
26:00 - 26:30 the rocks about a year ago where i pointed out that we can't think of things in terms of a us offensive against chinese a2 and ad i'm sorry chinese a2ad defenses counting up weapons and targets is a convenient shorthand to assess material power but such an approach does not address the merits of chinese in china's information-centric strategy so a rhetorical question what is the us strategy to defeat china's information-centric strategy maybe it's the joint warfighting concept
26:30 - 27:00 we'll have to see circling back for a moment to western versus east asian cognition and this chinese idea of system of systems warfare some of you may be familiar with the game of go or weichi the game provides an apt analogy for how the chinese think about military operations the objective of the game of go is to occupy territory or space on the board fundamentally stones are lost to the player with superior position and
27:00 - 27:30 control of territory the game represents the chinese military's approach to restrict literal and figurative space for maneuver in action and constrain enemy decision-making if fighting is necessary the chinese want to be in in the optimal position to deliver decisive effects quickly from that advantageous position before enemy ranks are formed right this is the winning without concept uh winning without fighting concept the us on the other hand wants to play chess a
27:30 - 28:00 game of maneuver and attrition both approaches have their advantages and merits but you have to at least acknowledge that the u.s and china may be playing very different games on the same board that's what you have to consider in any net asset excuse me in any net assessment not just stuff on stuff so i came up with this framework to understand how chinese offensive and defensive capabilities work synergistically to achieve
28:00 - 28:30 information superiority these capabilities include reliable secure c4 robust layered isr interference and destruction which includes both kinetic and non-kinetic effects and counter reconnaissance in 2016 the pla created the strategic support force to develop and coordinate many of these capabilities but today rather than spending time going through different examples of those capabilities and how they might be applied in combat operations we're going to discuss that much more tomorrow in part two
28:30 - 29:00 on south china sea military capabilities if you do get a hold of these slides there are some backup slides here in this presentation where i do offer some examples i'd like to offer a word of caution about highly centralized c4isr in china there are misperceptions that the china that china has a soviet-style centralized command and control system and i know there are a lot of folks out there that think if you cut off a pla commander from beijing he's just going to go stupid and is not
29:00 - 29:30 going to know what to do but go back to chinese lessons learned from the gulf war at the end of the day operation desert storm was huge and highly orchestrated it was the only way the us could have pulled off an operation of that size you have to think about highly centralized command and control as being built in to operational design and campaign plans in many ways this mitigates threats of human or machine errors in combat all you have to do is follow the plan and we'll talk about ai in a minute but
29:30 - 30:00 ai may be a particularly attractive built-in feature because machines usually do what they're told so what happens if you cut off a pla unit from higher headquarters in many cases probably nothing in most cases in most scenarios that you're familiar with the us military is responding to some chinese transgression right the china china is going to invade taiwan china has seized some islands or is about to but in any case the pla is usually
30:00 - 30:30 starting with the operational initiative and they are starting on plan so following the plan for them is much easier than responding to the plan which is the position that we would normally be in so the translation that the chinese government provided of their 2019 defense white paper states war is evolving in form towards informationized warfare and intelligent warfare is on the horizon
30:30 - 31:00 and if you stop and think about that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense i mean the form of war is already informationized warfare right so how could it be evolving in form i what the chinese language version says is better translated as the form of war is accelerating toward an informationized warfare evolution there are indications intelligentized warfare is emerging and that makes a lot more sense given our understanding of the three stages of
31:00 - 31:30 informationized development digitalization and networkization are happening and we're evolving into intelligentization so it's not so much an intelligentized revolution as an evolution on informationized warfare and again if you'd like an excursion on this you can take a look at this article on chinese debates on the military utility of artificial intelligence again you'll find it on the war on the rocks website the ultimate goal for the chinese
31:30 - 32:00 military appears to be cognitive advantage the ability to adapt one's system of systems faster than one at than one's adversary and so for air university i'll inver i'll invoke colonel boyd here and the ooda loop the chinese believe that battlefield advantage will go to the force that can dominate the cognitive domain perceiving adapting and acting faster than an opponent to impose or reverse what they're calling system of system paralysis
32:00 - 32:30 so what have we learned china's military strategy is to conduct offensive system of systems operations featuring information dominance with the goal of cognitive advantage and system of systems paralysis so it stands to reason that in any military conflict china will target an advocate an adversary c4isr system of systems and trying to understand how that will play out one of the challenges to
32:30 - 33:00 consider is the balkanization of our own c4 isr system of systems that impairs a comprehensive evaluation of what may be some very complex vulnerabilities given that our c4isr system of systems is the object of china's affection what do you think are the potential cascading effects that may be created across the system of systems as key links and nodes are disrupted or destroyed and even if you understand all of that what if you're fighting as a us-led
33:00 - 33:30 coalition do you understand allied dependencies and vulnerabilities in an expanded c4 isr system of systems so that leaves us with some pretty big questions to consider china has an offensive information-centric strategy with an operational imperative to achieve information superiority what is the u.s strategy to counter china's strategy we should have the debate will a fires and maneuver centric approach overcome china's approach to battle
33:30 - 34:00 space information overmatch maybe it will what dependencies and vulnerabilities within the u.s and allied c4 isr system of systems will be targeted and what cascading effects will be will be created and what can we do to mitigate those effects china probably starts most military con confrontations on plan with the operational initiative even if two planes go bump in the night china's there and we're not they're
34:00 - 34:30 going to get on plan faster so what is the u.s plan to get china off plan and gain the operational initiative china will not wait patients that will not wait patiently like iraq did in a defensive crouch while the u.s generates mass how will the u.s military shape perceptions of the operational battle space to disrupt or undo the execution of pla plans if the pla is on plan and you do cut them off from beijing
34:30 - 35:00 they're going to stay on plan until you give them a reason to get off plan will kinetic effects be enough what is the role of information warfare capabilities what is the role of future ai so if you're interested in reading ahead for the next lecture which will be tomorrow at the same time you may want to check the south china sea military capabilities series that are posted on the apl website the web address is there these studies are going to serve as the basis for part two of our
35:00 - 35:30 tour of china's artificial islands and i'm happy to report for anyone who has look looked at these previously that just a few days ago we published the offensive and defensive strike publication which is the 10th and last in the series so that is all i have pretty much finishing on time uh these are the things that we covered today i won't bother reading through that again but uh jared i will turn it back over to you for questions
35:30 - 36:00 thank you mike i'll take the moderator's privilege here and get us started with one and i would encourage everyone else to post them in the chat box if you'd like mike to address anything in more detail mike given how c4isr systems are globally interlinked and dispersed and how chinese doctrine calls for going on the offensive is a local war under informationized conditions even possible
36:00 - 36:30 the local war part of it specifically sure so what what we would call escalation control what the chinese call war control is of great concern in beijing um they they they are preparing for and they do believe in this idea of localized warfare um but but they are very concerned about about war control and about things getting out of control um the chinese do believe that you know with the advent of china's nuclear
36:30 - 37:00 deterrent they do not have the kind of nuclear arsenal that we have but they have advanced this idea of a credible second strike capability with with lots of survivability and mobility built into their nuclear uh forces um that you know you can have these localized wars the chinese look at things like you know russia and the united states at loggerheads over syria but the the prospect for you know great power war and the
37:00 - 37:30 consequences of great power war have really um have really mitigated the threat of total war and will and will ultimately keep things localized now look at the end of the day the chinese believe that you can operate within that localized cylinder and they expect to be able to dial up escalation and dial down escalation that's the way they think about it as a practical matter i don't know that that that uh you know that that's going to hold water when push comes to shove
37:30 - 38:00 interesting taylor asks with respect to ai these structures need large amounts of data to function what types of data are the chinese collecting and how do they collect it so it depends on what kind of data you're talking about the chinese are collecting all kinds of data all the time i've read things about even chinese corporations buying up large data sets they're not quite sure why they would
38:00 - 38:30 buy up these data sets this is largely consumer information things like that but the chinese believe that there is this future potential for ai that you know eventually the technology is going to catch up with the warehouses of data that they're compiling look a lot of people uh heard about the uh the hack of the office of personnel management and all of the dd not what are they the sf-96s the which have all of your personal
38:30 - 39:00 information probably all of my in personal information uh related to my security clearance right that information is being warehoused somewhere within the chinese intelligence community what are they going to do with it well they're warehousing that data and eventually they're going to be able to call through that with ai uh and send crawlers across the data to you know pick out patterns and things that they're interested in um on a more operational level they're correct you know they're collecting a lot of information about
39:00 - 39:30 u.s operations in the east china sea in the south china sea in the pacific in the indian ocean and they're compiling all of that isr data and they write they write actively about the fact that the commander or a commander cannot possibly process all of this information all of this information that's being ingested by their own isr network so they're looking to the prospect of ai and human machine teaming to sort through that data
39:30 - 40:00 to to interpret the operational battle space for the commanders another question is if the chinese strategy is focused on an early offensive that gains the initiative what do you think the united states would have to do to reverse that dynamic and gain the initiative for ourselves that is a that isn't
40:00 - 40:30 that is an interesting air university war college question don't you think um so you know i'm the problem guy right i'm the red guy you don't want me commenting on blue strategies um but yeah it you know we in the war games that i've been involved in even the the kind of table top open source stuff right china usually comes out swinging does something drunk and stupid and then you know we execute the o plan and and we start marching across the
40:30 - 41:00 pacific um china has adopted this idea of what they call active defense right and if you if you want a good book on this taylor travell's book uh active defense was published uh i think last year the year before uh it's an excellent historical retrospective on how they came up with this idea of active defense active defense means being strategically defensive right we're not gonna you know we're not gonna fight anybody unless they fight us first we're a defensive nation china's all peaceful and everything
41:00 - 41:30 but active defense the active part of that means being operationally offensive so the way i've heard it described is like if you if you pull back to punch right that's enough for the chinese to go bam right they're going to come at you when they believe but they're not going to wait for the punch to land right so i i think there's a lot to be said for a strategy that that you know we i i've heard about these
41:30 - 42:00 things about the blunting force and the contact force and all that we need to get into the battle space fast you need to be able to deliver effects in the chinese battle space maybe even adopting not a win strategy but a don't lose strategy which is more deny china whatever whatever its objective is right without having to sail into the battle space or fly into the battle space beat back the iads you want to be able to deliver effects
42:00 - 42:30 into the battle space that denies whatever it is that china's after in their offensive campaign if they want taiwan how can you deny them taiwan from far far away if they want a small south china sea island how can you deny them that island from far far away tom asks how do we think of this language of information dominance or supremacy is this really necessary
42:30 - 43:00 and he observes that the us joint community has moved away from the supremacy language and moved toward advantage what do you think the chinese think about this and do the terms matter i think the terms do matter and i think we have to you know i i really liked i really liked what general mattis said uh even before he was secretary of defense right the enemy gets a vote so we have been in this position for the
43:00 - 43:30 last 20 or 30 years of uh you know being the sole remaining superpower but but even we now are talking about near pure competitors or you know pacing threats in terms of china or or even russia they have evolved their own concepts of warfare and we can we can kick back and say well we're still the superpower we have the best concepts we have the best ideas of warfare everybody else needs to follow our lead but i am you know the the chinese have
43:30 - 44:00 studied the united states intently and this is the strategy they've come up with to defeat us i think we have to address that um they talk about information dominance they talk about information supremacy they talk about information warfare in a very different way and i think we need to recognize that and acknowledge that and some of this you know it's just an introduction it's a 30 minute lecture but i think you know some of you know things like this will help us to understand kind of where china is coming
44:00 - 44:30 from and where the pressure points might be um i don't hold out a whole lot of hope for how the joint staff is going to define information advantage only because they haven't done a great job of defining information warfare or anything like that for the last 20 or 30 years but you know hope springs eternal so we'll have to see what information advantage is when uh i think it's supposed to be published soon the uh the joint warfighting concept
44:30 - 45:00 interesting another follow-up on that um somebody observes that a common refrain is that the chinese just copy us and aren't efficient and what is the biggest barrier for senior u.s commanders to understanding that the opera operationalization of information warfare um seems to be an innovation well and and again if if you look at some of the things that i said even in
45:00 - 45:30 this presentation some of this is just going back to basics we know this stuff right i mean you know the us military and and our you know kind of officer fitness reporting cycle um you know evaluation cycle whatever you call it um you know people roll in and out of the pentagon and they have to come up with their own ideas they have to come up with their own way of of of spinning things but the chinese have built their informationized warfare
45:30 - 46:00 doctrine on the backs of our ideas so they did copy this right but for the last 20 years they've been advancing their own ideas looking at what the russians did in georgia looking what the russians did in ukraine studying how the us executed the global war on terrorism uh looking for the seams and and fractures in you know the u.s operating concepts and u.s capabilities so they have evolved our ideas but we
46:00 - 46:30 know this stuff and and i guess if i were advising you know senior us us military leadership i would say i would invite them to kind of go back and look at what admiral swabrowski said about net centric warfare look at what we said in the late 1990s about commanding control warfare and some of these concepts because at the end of the day it provides a better framework i think for how the chinese are thinking about warfare and and would inform possible counters
46:30 - 47:00 to those approaches mike if we could go back to the theme of local warfare under informationized conditions sure um if u.s command and control and cyber connections are based in the so-called homeland u.s and if there is a local conflict in the east china sea or the
47:00 - 47:30 south china sea where do you think attacking these nodes is on a chain of escalation and what sort of priority would that be do you think so when the chinese talk about deterrence um and when the chinese talk about escalation control or what i called war control before um they don't spend a lot of time talking about horizontal escalation
47:30 - 48:00 that's a very us thing right that that you know oh we're gonna you know there's there's war in the east china sea we're gonna attack chinese banking or we're gonna attack you know western china uh and and get the uyghurs all riled up or whatever horizontal escalation the chinese think is dangerous and it it it is antithetical to war control and it means that things might spin out of control so i think the chinese are going to be very careful
48:00 - 48:30 when um the chinese are going to be very careful when it comes to targeting things in the united states that are not directly related to whatever conflict is going on wherever it's going on whether it's south asia or the east china sea or whatever um so this idea that you know oh we're going to go to war in you know east asia and china's going to turn off the power grid in los angeles probably not going to happen as far as you know the ground segment of u.s space
48:30 - 49:00 capabilities or some kind of attack against you know national command and control in the united states i think the chinese would see those as legitimate targets but their expectation is that we would strike back against this or that we would have already struck against those types of targets in china right that we're going to go after chinese national command and control that we're going to go after chinese military cyber type targets and so there's so so that's within the
49:00 - 49:30 bounds of kind of localized control even though it is geographically you know across the globe right space uh you know cyber capabilities in the united states and things like that but i would just disabuse people of this idea that you know they're going to go after the banking sector or the power sector you know make life miserable for americans and things because frankly they are much more afraid of us cyber capabilities and the things that we could do to the chinese populace into the chinese
49:30 - 50:00 economy uh using u.s cyber capabilities jeremiah asks about gray zone warfare can you first tell us what you think of this concept which of course has gotten a lot of attention recently do you think it's a useful way to think about strategic and operational realities and then as a follow-on to that how do you think informationization plays into chinese so-called gray zone tactics
50:00 - 50:30 um so i think a lot of times we make gray zone i think we make the gray zone too complicated um the us and you know we have these legions of lawyers that will tell you that you know armed conflict is here right anything above this is armed conflict anything below this is not armed conflict and china doesn't have those lawyers they say that you know armed conflict
50:30 - 51:00 starts here and and the delta between where they think conflict starts and where we think conflict starts that's the gray zone right so and you know this is just my simple military explanation of of what the gray zone is and there there might not be broad agreement on that but but i but i think it's informative because you know the chinese have uh especially you know we'll talk about the south china sea tomorrow but
51:00 - 51:30 um this this is a great example it's going on right now where the chinese are using the maritime militia to push out philippine uh ships from philippine claimed reefs in the south china sea um coast guard cutters and pla navy ships are providing overwatch for these you know ragtag bunch of fishermen that are out there uh inform you know enforcing chinese territorial claims well come on the maritime militia is a part of the pla navy
51:30 - 52:00 the coast guard is a part of the people's armed police these are all military organizations they are engaging in military conflict and and we kind of ring our hands and it's like well they're civilian fishermen and it's gray zone and it's this they have simply defined where conflict starts and what forces they're going to use in that conflict and and i think we kind of get ourselves twisted into this idea well it's not big gray hull ships throwing cruise missiles at each other
52:00 - 52:30 what are we going to do um so we need to come up with some some plans and some tools for dealing with this but our reticence to engage military forces that are that are conducting military operations or at least address them as such is really not helpful to our cause as far as the role of informationized warfare and again this will go right into the south china sea discussion tomorrow
52:30 - 53:00 they have created these artificial islands and deployed forces to the south china sea that provides them with all the information about the south china sea that they would have in their own coastal waters they have information dominance and information overmatch in the south china sea or pretty much in any place they're doing this gray zone warfare that they want to have they have information overnight with the japanese around the senkaku islands they have information over match with the uh you know with the
53:00 - 53:30 philippines and the vietnamese in the south china sea they have information over match with the indians on the high tibetan plane so they are you know collecting information and positioning c4 isr in a way that that gives them superior battle space awareness when they're conducting again what i would argue are military operations dana asks if you can speculate on an asymmetric strategy
53:30 - 54:00 a way to respond to the chinese theory of victory how do we convince the chinese our priority that their theory won't work so that's an interesting question again getting a red guy to commit to you know blue guy strategy so i i had that one suggestion where it's like you know we need to adopt a different approach now some of that is wrapped up in those a2ad capabilities the fact that china has made it so hard to get into the battle space
54:00 - 54:30 but you would need to have an information system of systems a c4 isr system of systems that allowed you to again reach into the battle space with long-range precision strike or some other type you know cyber capability or whatever to deny china their operational objective right at the end of the day china doesn't want to go to war with the united states but china is going to want whatever it wants it's going to want territory in the south china sea it's going to want taiwan back it's going to want the senkakus
54:30 - 55:00 it's going to want to defend its interests overseas in the not too different distant future so there's a strategy that could be adopted to really go after denying china what they want as opposed to this traditional u.s way of war where again we march up to the line we roll back the iads we destroy their air defense systems we start plinking targets until they cry uncle the other strategy which kind of
55:00 - 55:30 addresses informationized warfare strategy more directly is you have to make the chinese believe whether it's true or not you have to make them believe that they are not going to have information dominance if your adversary believes that what you need is information dominance to conduct military operations to achieve air and maritime superiority you have to convince them that they are not going to have that and there are lots of different ways that we can talk about how you might do
55:30 - 56:00 that one of the things that i that i thought was interesting about uh something that the former pac fleet commander said um admiral swift when he was the commander of pacific fleet was this idea of sailing orders right that he was gonna this is you know harkening back to the days of world war ii he was going to send his ships out of pearl harbor they had orders to go to a box and kill everything in that box and they weren't to return to pearl harbor until they were out of weapons right
56:00 - 56:30 and it feeds on this idea of of china not wanting to lose war control the chinese would be very very worried if they thought pacific air forces or the pacific fleet was going to keep coming and wasn't going to stop regardless of what type of information control they had that's how things would spin out of control it would be very destabilizing if if they thought that their strategy to switch off usc for isr or at least
56:30 - 57:00 create so much chaos within our networks uh and isr networks if they thought you know switching that off is not going to achieve the desired effect that would probably have a deterrent effect as well but right now i'm not sure what we would do if you know everything got turned off or we you know these frictions were created within the c4isr system of systems that denied us that necessary battle space information
57:00 - 57:30 what do you make of where would you point to the most useful sources available in english on this topic i know that the china aerospace studies institute recently translated the 2013 science and military strategy so that translation is now available and i can link it
57:30 - 58:00 to the group here is there any other sources you would point to yeah i think i think the china aerospace studies institute and the naval war college's uh china middle china maritime studies institute um are both excellent sources for uh for english language uh information on these things and principally again because you know these are china guys who have lived and worked in china and they understand the context
58:00 - 58:30 um a lot of times you just end up you know with with translations or kind of you know two-dimensional interpretations of of chinese strategies so i think both of those are are excellent uh rand and the center for naval analysis also have uh um excellent uh china studies programs and china experts i know many of them by uh i've known many of them for several
58:30 - 59:00 years and so i think um yeah both of those both of those organizations and of course the applied physics lab south china sea studies shameless plug mike how do you think the chinese link this uh focus on information with other instruments of power including the diplomatic and the economic so i wouldn't give the chinese military
59:00 - 59:30 too much credit um if if you think the us government is stovepiped you you ain't seen it doesn't have anything on chinese bureaucracy right um the chinese have this approach and i don't want to put too fine a point on this because the the pla does have a very active what they call political warfare department um and they are looking at messaging and strategic influence and some of those things that i said i wasn't going to talk about but i will
59:30 - 60:00 talk about it here um so so they do think about political warfare and they do think about legal warfare and those types of things uh more at the strategic level but i would i would first observe that the pla's you know the pla is a party army right many of you know that it's a party military the china does not have a national military the pla is beholden to the chinese communist party
60:00 - 60:30 chinese communist party is about 90 million people governing 1.3 billion people right the only way that 90 million people govern 1.3 billion people is by controlling information so the link between china you know pla ideas of information control and the what and the reason why u.s ideas about information control in combat resonated
60:30 - 61:00 so much with the pla is because it's right in line with how the chinese communist party does business if you control the information you can control the narrative you can control the people so the pla like seized on that like this is great this is exactly what we need to be doing tanks and mechanization man that's all in the past we need to focus on controlling information so that's that's the link between the you know the chinese government the chinese communist party and and the pla as it relates as it
61:00 - 61:30 relates to information i think you know realistically um china still has a very disjointed approach to kind of what the ministry of foreign affairs does and says and what the ministry of defense says they can work out those differences they can coordinate to be sure uh but they are very different organizations and they feel institutionally like they have very
61:30 - 62:00 different responsibilities so maybe they don't need to coordinate that much um my experience when i was in beijing was you know there was really very little coordination behind the scenes the pla saw it saw itself as an entity unto itself you know working directly for the central military commission whereas those other government guys they worked for the state council right they that was a that's a completely different part of the chinese leadership apparatus um so those are just some of my
62:00 - 62:30 observations i don't know if that answered the question since i brought up the science and military strategy one of the themes developed in this sort of theorization and doctrinal book educational book is that the the pla should try to seize the high ground with the high ground today being space and cyberspace and information and basically there's a chapter in which the
62:30 - 63:00 authors basically complain that the united states has huge advantages because it you know created the internet it laid the cables it has more satellites than other countries so how do you think the chinese hope to deal with this because at least in the 2013 document they're basically saying the united states is ahead and we need to do better do you think that's still true so so i think the chinese do think that the us
63:00 - 63:30 is ahead and i think the chinese do believe that the chinese need to do better 2013 in you know in this i mean in the current era 2013 was a long time ago right i mean chinese economy has come a long way in eight years chinese technology base has come a long way in eight years you just look at the number of satellites that china has launched in the last eight years um now they're nowhere near closing the gap right but one of the things that we often do and i saw this when i was in beijing
63:30 - 64:00 right man you tried to you tried to congratulate a chinese naval officer on you know their chinese aircraft carrier and the fact that they had just landed aircraft on their aircraft carrier which is something that happened when i was there and they're like oh no no no no it's just a training carrier you know we're we're so far behind um nothing to see here and and you you started thinking like they're just downplaying their own capabilities
64:00 - 64:30 but they were being sincere the chinese military compares apples to apples right the us has a global force presence we can deploy forces aircraft ships anywhere in the world and sustain them and we have been doing that for the last what 70 years right 80 years the pla has a base in djibouti and deploys three ships to the gulf of aden on a routine basis
64:30 - 65:00 right they understand when when xi jinping says he wants to have a world-class military by 2050 pla is like man that's a tall order in the next 30 years they have to be able to deploy forces globally and sustain them that's the apples to apples comparison so we have a lot more satellites to be sure but we have this requirement for global coverage right we need global communications
65:00 - 65:30 global isr coverage china's isr is focused on east asia chinese community communication satellites in geo are focused on east asia china puts all of its focus on east asia they're starting to expand out they can get some coverage in africa now they've got low earth orbit satellites to be sure that are you know given them some global coverage but again the orbitology which i understand is not a word but the orbital mechanics mean that most of those low earth orbit
65:30 - 66:00 satellites are passing over east asia and china so so they're addressing the disparity by focusing on their own backyard to begin with but they understand the task ahead and they are sincere when they when they say that they're behind in order to build out their c4isr system of systems and get that global coverage to enable you know global operations they've got a long way to go
66:00 - 66:30 but look at what they're investing in right carriers large deck amphibious ships marine brigades heavy lift uh heavy transport aircraft uh i think the y20 they just they just saw something in open source where the y20 their new kind of c17 like aircraft has an aerial refueling capability um the follow-on to the h6 the vaunted h-20 bomber uh probably coming online
66:30 - 67:00 in the next in the next several years these are not capabilities for fighting a war local to china right these are going to be capabilities that they're going to need to defend chinese interests overseas and expand out into that world-class military two of our attendees want to know if we can convince you to offer an opinion on two different
67:00 - 67:30 famous or maybe notorious works one the 1999 unrestricted warfare book and second michael pillsbury's 100 year marathon what do you make of these two oh don't want to criticize you another china guy not a huge pillsbury fan i'm going to leave that at that um unrestricted warfare not everything so so there are two ways of there there are two ways to consider
67:30 - 68:00 chinese works and again this is about understanding the context and why you really need a a good china guy like from cassie or or the naval war college or one of the one of the other think tanks there are there are the works that you know from the academy of military sciences or that are published in not all sections but certain sections of the pla daily this is the party telling their own
68:00 - 68:30 military how to think about a particular issue there's another category of chinese works that well it's in the floating ideas category right just because something is published by the national defense university press or you know published in chinese doesn't mean it has necessarily been adopted by um the party or the pla leadership
68:30 - 69:00 as gospel right and i would put the um you know the unrestricted warfare is it could be a communication to the west it could be a you know hey here's the idea you know here's an idea that because because we often you know i i've seen this actually even within the intelligence community uh when i when i used to work there that you know some g some pla general would say something
69:00 - 69:30 whether it's open source or something you got it sigint or whatever and you know i see analysts would be like oh my gosh he's gone rogue he's off the reservation like what are we gonna do and it's like dude it's it the decision hasn't been made right he's advocating for his service he's advocating for his organization he's advocating for his ideas um the the debates within the pla and even within the pages of some of the commentary sections of the pla daily
69:30 - 70:00 can be very oppositional right and it doesn't mean that you know they're tearing at the fabric of of you know the the pla or pla discipline or whatever it means that the debate is still going on and people are throwing their ideas out there into the into the public commons and they're fighting it out and eventually the academy of military sciences the central military commission will make a decision and then everybody has to get
70:00 - 70:30 in line but i wouldn't put too much in the unrestricted warfare pub good i think we've pushed you enough for today i'm going to put up a slide where you are invited to offer feedback before you leave though i want to remind you that we have a second lecture tomorrow it'll use the same zoom link and if you've registered for this first one you're confirmed and invited to the
70:30 - 71:00 second one so i would encourage you one to offer feedback here as i post the link and two attend tomorrow with that mike we really appreciate you sharing with us today it's been um i think very productive for us that there's a huge hunger to learn about these issues and i think you've stated some of it and we appreciate that thank you very much for the opportunity jared i appreciate it and i'll see you again tomorrow