Understanding Today’s PLA: Maneuver Warfare in Chinese History

Charles Anspach

Source Link

“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”

Long before the era of Mao Zedong, Sun Tzu discussed how “the difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain” in The Art of War.1 With clear parallels to the critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity of Marine Corps maneuver doctrine, it seems apparent that Sun Tzu was something of an ancient “manueverist” himself. Was this manueverist mindset solely Sun Tzu’s, though? Or was Sun Tzu simply writing about the Chinese way of war? And, if so, how do these methods differ from our own?

What the PLA Is Learning From Russia’s Ukraine Invasion

Ying-Yu Lin

Source Link

Soldiers from China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy march in formation during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing, Tuesday, October 1, 2019.Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine in what Moscow calls a “special military operation.” The ongoing war has already had a great impact on the whole world. China, in particular, has become a focus of attention in the international community because of its close interactions with Russia in recent years. Its stance on the armed conflict in Ukraine is a matter of great concern to many countries, especially to Western ones.

Yemen in the shadow of Russia’s war on Ukraine

Omer Karasapan

Source Link

On April 1, 2022, the warring parties in Yemen agreed to a U.N. brokered two-month truce. By April 7, under Saudi and UAE tutelage, Yemeni President Hadi had transferred power to a presidential council uniting forces opposed to the Iran-supported Houthi rebels with a view to facilitate negotiations between the two warring sides. The Saudi blockade on fuel imports was called off and Houthi-controlled Sanaa will be allowed limited commercial flights. The two Gulf countries also deposited $3 billion in the Central Bank of Yemen.

China looks to learn from Russian failures in Ukraine

DAVID RISING

Source Link

BANGKOK (AP) — With its ground troops forced to pull back in Ukraine and regroup, and its Black Sea flagship sunk, Russia’s military failings are mounting. No country is paying closer attention than China to how a smaller and outgunned force has badly bloodied what was thought to be one of the world’s most powerful armies.

China, like Russia, has been ambitiously reforming its Soviet-style military and experts say leader Xi Jinping will be carefully parsing the weaknesses exposed by the invasion of Ukraine as they might apply to his own People’s Liberation Army and his designs on the self-governed island of Taiwan.

Vladimir Putin Played Germany’s Aging Patriarchs for Fools

Alexander Clarkson

Source Link

Usually, parents don’t congratulate their children for ending up in detention at school. But for my Ukrainian mom in early-1990s Germany, there were some things that mattered more than what my teachers thought.

Having opted to learn Russian at my high school in the city of Hanover, I quickly discovered that the version of history my teachers embraced did not square with what I had experienced growing up in the Ukrainian tradition. My Russian teachers espoused a deep commitment to promoting reconciliation between Germany and the Russian people, having embraced the idea that all of German society shared a collective responsibility for the Nazis’ crimes during World War II.

Lessons of Ukraine Raise Doubts about PLA Modernization

David Chen

Source Link

In late 2021, ships from China’s North Sea Fleet conducted “Maritime Joint-2021” (海上联合-2021, Haishang lianhe-2021) with the Russian Pacific fleet, which was a joint naval exercise focused on securing sea lanes of communication. Not only did the exercise, “demonstrate the resolve of two great powers,” according to state media, it was also a chance for each side to observe the operational effectiveness of their counterparts (CCTV-7, October 15, 2021). Like all modern militaries, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is fundamentally a learning organization. Militaries must learn, adapt, and teach tactics and doctrine in a constant cycle. China’s military modernization and doctrinal reform have been largely informed by U.S. campaigns, which PLA observers have carefully parsed, including the Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo wars. From these observations, the PLA has embarked on a herculean effort to restructure, reform, retrain, and properly arm its forces. In its own words, joint training is the “bridge” or “ship” for ferrying the PLA to becoming a high-quality force. [1] For the past two decades, the PLA has been a ship being rebuilt while also underway. Now in the shadow of a Russian invasion of Ukraine that has seen a large and similarly reformed Soviet-style military largely fail to attain its primary objectives, the PLA must face the possibility that its own reforms are riddled with hidden weaknesses and fundamental faults.

With Russian Route Blocked, Uzbekistan Looks to Indian-Iranian-Afghan Chabahar Port Project

Vali Kaleji

Source Link

The Russo-Ukraine war, the extensive Western sanctions against Russia, and the growing possibility that European border states will block east-west transit corridors traversing Russian territory into Europe are having far-reaching implications for the landlocked countries of Central Asia, which have historically relied on road and rail corridors through Russia to reach markets there and beyond. Prior to the war, Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus had all hoped to be part of the “New Eurasian Land Bridge” linking Europe to East Asia. But those aims were derailed when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24. This has created a severe headache for China, endangering as it does its Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI) northern route, which crossed Russia and the Black Sea via Central Asia (South China Morning Post, March 12).

Russians at War Putin’s Aggression Has Turned a Nation Against Itself

Andrei Kolesnikov

Source Link

In early April, the coffin containing the body of 75-year-old Vladimir Zhirinovsky—the ultranationalist and populist who was a crucial pillar of the Russian state for two decades—was taken to the Hall of Columns in central Moscow for people to pay their respects. Sixty-nine years ago, it was there that Stalin had lain in state, in the process killing one last wave of Russians, who were crushed to death in the huge crowds that had gathered to bid farewell to the Soviet dictator.

Patriots vs globalists replaces the left-right divide

GIDEON RACHMAN

Source Link

 It was France that gave the world the concepts of the left and right in politics. Now it is France that is leading the way in the destruction of this divide and its replacement by a new politics, one in which the two dominant camps are nationalists and internationalists. 

The left-right cleavage has its origins in the French revolution of 1789 — when supporters of the royal veto stood on the right of the National Assembly and opponents stood to the left. Over the following two centuries, left and right became the central philosophical divide in western politics.

How the BBC Risks Eroding Its Neutrality

Henri Astier

Source Link

When Tim Davie took over as director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in September 2020, he called for “a radical shift in our focus from the internal to the external, to focus on those we serve: the public.”

Announcing an end to navel-gazing was a remarkable act of contrition for the UK’s public broadcaster. It was prompted by Davie’s concern that on current trends the BBC “will not feel indispensable enough to all our audience.” In an effort to avert a fatal slide into irrelevance, he promised to create “an organization that is much more representative of the UK as a whole”: one that is 50% women, 20% ethnic minority and 12% disabled.

How China Would Wage War Against The ‘Great Wall In Reverse’

James Holmes

Source Link

Could China defeat a “Great Wall in Reverse”? Suppose General David Berger, the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, gets his way and transforms the corps into an island-hopping, missile-toting force able to transmute the first island chain into a “Great Wall in reverse”—a barricade against sea and air movement between the China seas and the Western Pacific. Chinese Communist Party magnates might be deterred for a time from misadventures in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, or East China Sea, but they would not meekly acquiesce in their imprisonment within coastal waters. After all, China must take to the high seas to make its “dream” of national rejuvenation come true. The leadership sees compelling economic, military, and diplomatic reasons to make China’s weight felt in world affairs.

War in a World that Stands for Nothing

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

Source Link

LJUBLJANA – The so-called oligarchs in Russia and other ex-communist countries are a bourgeois counterpart to what Marx called the lumpen-proletariat: an unthinking cohort susceptible to political manipulation because its members have no class consciousness or revolutionary potential of their own. Unlike the proletariat, however, the lumpen-bourgeoisie who emerged in these countries from the late 1980s onward control capital – lots of it – thanks to wild “privatization” of state-owned assets.

Global Island Sustaining Taiwan’s International Participation Amid Mounting Pressure from China

Jacob Stokes, Alexander Sullivan and Zachary Durkee

Source Link

China under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping has ramped up political, economic, and military pressure on Taiwan. The roots of Beijing’s pressure campaign, including Xi’s personal interactions with Taiwan policy, go back decades. But recent events have deepened and intensified China’s efforts, which include seeking to block Taiwan from engaging the rest of the world as part of a comprehensive strategy to force Taipei to move toward unification with the mainland on Beijing’s terms.

Taiwan sees lessons in Ukraine

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

Source Link

Many Taiwanese see Ukraine's response to Russia's invasion as a lesson in how to repel a future Chinese military assault.

Why it matters: "If Ukraine can do it, then Taiwanese people should be able to do it as well," I-chung Lai, president of the Taiwan-based think tank Prospect Foundation, told Axios.

The big picture: Taiwan and Ukraine face similar threats, from China and Russia respectively, which have publicly-known intentions to subsume some or all of their territory.

Solomon Islands becomes unlikely epicenter of U.S.-China competition

Dave Lawler, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and Zachary Basu

Source Link

A U.S. delegation led by the top White House and State Department officials for Asia is heading this week to the Solomon Islands, a South Pacific archipelago with fewer than 700,000 inhabitants that has unexpectedly become ground zero for U.S.-China competition.

Why it matters: A planned security agreement negotiated with Beijing, which could allow China's navy to dock warships on the islands, sent the U.S. and its allies in Australia and New Zealand into diplomatic hyperdrive.

China Eyes Mountainous Tibet’s Ample Wind for Clean Energy

Source Link

China has identified enough wind energy potential in Tibet to power the U.K., Germany and France combined, and plans to further develop the region to help meet its ambitious climate targets.

Tibet has enough sites with strong, steady wind to install 600 gigawatts of turbines, with another 420 gigawatts possible in parts of the plateau in neighboring regions including Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan and Xinjiang, China’s National Climate Center said in a report last month. The National Energy Administration followed up shortly after with a guidance to accelerate construction of clean energy bases in Tibet.

Yemen’s Cease-fire Is Challenging Popular Notions of How Wars End

Erica Gaston

Source Link

Earlier this month, the lead U.N. representative for Yemen announced a two-month cease-fire, the first major breakthrough since 2015 in the conflict between the Houthi rebels and Iran on the one side and the Yemeni government and its Gulf backers on the other. The news was a ray of hope in an otherwise unremittingly troubling international context.

China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Mess Proves Autocracy Hurts Everyone

Li Yuan

Source Link

Long before the “zero Covid” policy, China had a “zero sparrow” policy.

In the spring of 1958, the Chinese government mobilized the entire nation to exterminate sparrows, which Mao declared pests that destroyed crops. All over China, people banged on pots and pans, lit firecrackers and waved flags to prevent the birds from landing so they would fall and die from exhaustion. By one estimation, nearly two billion sparrows were killed nationwide within months.

Russian Cyberattacks May Be Coming. What Might Be an Optimal Strategy for Responding?

Samuel Charap

Source Link

Russian cyberattacks may be coming. Last month, the White House issued its starkest warning yet that “evolving” intelligence indicates Moscow is planning major cyber operations against the United States in retaliation for the economic penalties that the country has imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. It may only be a matter of time before these warnings become a reality.

Competition and Restraint in Cyberspace The Role of International Norms in Promoting U.S. Cybersecurity

Michael J. Mazarr, Bryan Frederick, Emily Ellinger, Benjamin Boudreaux

Source Link

Recent years have seen a mounting concern in the United States over foreign efforts to harm election security or legitimacy through cyber means, increased cyber espionage, and attacks of growing sophistication. The United States has been engaged for almost a decade in international negotiations over agreed normative constraints on such activities, but the prospects for a comprehensive international agreement appear dim.

How Extremism Operates Online

Alexandra T. Evans, Heather J. Williams

Source Link

Recent demonstrations and violent attacks have highlighted the need for an improved understanding of the role of internet-based technologies in aiding and amplifying the spread of extremist ideologies. Since the early days of the internet, radical groups and movements across the ideological spectrum have demonstrated their intent and ability to harness virtual platforms to perform critical functions.

BATTLEFIELD METAVERSE Inside new military race to dominate the metaverse as US and China prepare for cyber warfare

Christopher Eberhart

Source Link

Most of the metaverse's potential uses in the US have been tied to commercial and recreational civilian purposes.

But China is prepping for metaverse warfare that "affects the opponent's thinking, cognition and action decision making," according to a March 2022 report by an Air Force think tank.

Elmer Francisco, CEO of VetCoin Foundation, told The Sun that the metaverse the next evolutionary step in weaponry after drones.

Beijing Is Used to Learning From Russian Failures

Oriana Skylar Mastro

Source Link

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a double disaster for President Vladimir Putin, as he faces a poorly performing military combined with an inability to shield his country from economic punishment. Both of these possibilities historically have also been sources of apprehension for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But China’s leadership turned its anxiety into action about 10 years ago, deliberately working to fix many of the problems and minimize the risks currently plaguing Russia in Ukraine.

Russia Adds 11 Battalion Tactical Groups In Ukraine

David Vergun

Source Link

There are now 76 Russian battalion tactical groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine and in the country’s southeast. About 11 of those were added over the last several days, a senior Defense Department official said today.

So-called BTGs are typically composed of combined-arms elements, such as air defense, armor, tactical vehicles, artillery, helicopters, engineering and logistical support.

Besides the 76 BTGs, there are about 22 BTGs north of Ukraine that are likely being resupplied and refitted, the official said.

Ukraine Becoming For Putin What Afghanistan Was For Brezhnev – OpEd

Paul Goble

Source Link

Adam Michnik, a senior Polish dissident and editor of Warsaw’s Gazeta Wyborcza, says he is “certain” that the war in Ukraine will become for Vladimir Putin precisely what the war in Afghanistan was for Leonid Brezhnev,” a trap from which there is no easy or obvious way out.

Putin has driven Russia into a trap because he is “a gangster psychopath,” Michnik says, describing himself as “an anti-Putinist Russophile” much in the same way he earlier identified as “an anti-Soviet” one. Putin and many others have made the fundamental mistake that Ukrainians are not a separate and distinct nation (ekhokavkaza.com/a/31793555.html).

Nero Is Fiddling In Milan: Sri Lanka’s Neglected Crisis Of Diplomatic Representation – Analysis

ALA Azeez

Source Link

In a series of political appointments made by the Sri Lankan government in the past few months even as the economic crisis was looming large, the latest one pertains to the diplomatic position of Consul General at Milan, Italy.

As of writing, the foreign ministry, under mounting public pressure, has clarified via its latest press release, that the person concerned “will not be appointed the consul general in Milan”.

The Russia–Ukraine Crisis Is Bad News For China’s Economy – Analysis

East Asia Forum

Source Link

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the unprecedented sanctions imposed against Russia by the United States, Europe and other countries are negatively impacting the global economy. The European economy is under particular strain due to its dependence on Russian energy and the huge flow of refugees it is absorbing. The direct impact on the Chinese economy is expected to be relatively muted though still negative, at least in the short run.

How Ukraine War Is Changing The World Order – OpEd

Greg Pence

Source Link

The change in history has been triggered by the Ukraine war, in the heart of Europe and it has given rise to a new order that is going to affect the international arena for decades. In other words, with Washington and Moscow, as the world’s greatest military powers, going head-to-head against one another, new world order is inevitably upon us which will drastically change the nature of international relations.

For Russia and the West, the Moskva’s Sinking Is Truly Historic

Sumantra Maitra

Source Link

In 2019, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, was invited to Japan by Admiral Hiroshi Yamamura. The caption in the photo-op, posted on social media by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, was relatively benign, simply stating that “ADM YAMAMURA Hiroshi, Chief of Maritime staff, invited officially ADM Nikolay Yevmenov, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy. They discussed about the current situation and the Japan-Russia defense exchange, promoted mutual understanding.”

In War, the Economic Weapon Is No Silver Bullet

Lars Erik Schönander

Source Link

Some books are timely because their authors felt a need to address a specific issue at a specific moment. Other books are timely because history just so happened to make the subject matter relevant. Nicholas Mulder’s The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War falls into the latter category.

Mulder sets to illuminate the early history of sanctions—known then as “The Economic Weapon,” as the press dubbed them—starting from the first blockades of World War I. From there, he expounds on sanctions’ evolution to the interwar years; their further development during the brief period where the League of Nations thought it figured them out (as seen with the sanctions on Italy during the invasion of Ethiopia and the Japanese interventions in China); and ultimately, their reinvention during World War II, where the “positive economic weapon” had its time in the sun. Through all this, Mulder shows how the “positive economic weapon” would be the preferable option when deploying economic tools for the purposes of warcraft, despite being tragically left on the wayside due to the ease with which sanctions can be implemented—in comparison to the considerable logistics effort that spinning up positive aid programs (such as the Lend-Lease program) requires. It is an enlightening tome, with lessons for experts and policymakers on the application of sanctions in contemporary conflicts.