China's Nuclear Forces: Operations, Training, Doctrine, Command, Control and Campaign Planning

DefenceTalk.com ^

[DTAD]

Summary The major insights in this monograph come from exploiting sections of a doctrinal text published for People's Liberation Army (PLA) institutions of higher military education by the Chinese National Defense University, A Guide to the Study of Campaign Theory (Zhanyi Lilun Xuexi Zhinan). This book is an unclassified "study guide" for PLA officers on how to understand and apply doctrine in a restricted PLA book on campaign doctrine in warfare, The Science of Campaigns. Other recent books by PLA or Chinese government controlled publishing houses validate the insights in the monograph and demonstrate how the PLA is going about achieving its vision for modern war fighting.

These materials provide new insights into China's Second Artillery Corps, the "Strategic Rocket Forces." Chinese strategists believe that China must be prepared to fight in, and if necessary, control space; which explains the 2006 laser attack on a U.S. satellite from China and the 2007 anti-satellite missile test by the Chinese. PLA officers also believe that U.S. satellite reconnaissance from space could constitute a threat to China's nuclear deterrent.

China's leaders and military thinkers see the United States as a major potential threat to the PLA and China's interests primarily because of American military capabilities, but also because of U.S. security relationships in Asia.

[BenLurkin]

Chinese strategists believe that China must be prepared to fight in, and if necessary, control space; which explains the 2006 laser attack on a U.S. satellite from China and the 2007 anti-satellite missile test by the Chinese.

Some strategists advocate departing from the "no-first-use" policy and responding to conventional attacks on strategic forces with nuclear missiles.

[Paul Ross]

All this hot on the heels of JCS Chairman Peter Pace telling the Commies in Beijing that their ASAT test "confused" the West. And then Admiral Thomas Keating demanding transparency just yesterday...to "avoid miscalculations."

Chinese military officers greet
US Admiral Timothy Keating at the Beijing Airport

The idea that if we just demonstrate a whole slew of secret capabilities...rendering them no longer secret...will make us safer is not merely liberal, but clinically insane.

Appeasers Gone Wild.