Posted on 11/25/2014 1:31:53 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In 1991, Chinese military officers watched as the United States dismantled the Iraqi Army, a force with more battle experience and somewhat greater technical sophistication than the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The Americans won with casualties that were trivial by historical standards.
This led to some soul searching. The PLA hadn’t quite been on autopilot in the 1980s, but the pace of reform in the military sector had not matched that of social and economic life in China. Given the grim performance of the PLA in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union, something was bound to change. The Gulf War provided a catalyst and direction for that change.
Learning
To get a sense of why the Gulf War matters for the PLA, we need to take a quick detour into organizational theory. Armies learn in several different ways; experiments, experience, grafting (taking members from other, similar orgs), vicarious learning and scanning. In 1991, the PLA lacked any relevant experience in modern warfare since the disastrous campaign against Vietnam in 1979. It lacked the funds and the political wherewithal to undertake the kind of large-scale exercises necessary for modern war. Grafting is notoriously difficult for modern military organizations, as it’s become awkward to simply hire sergeants and colonels from foreign countries.
This leaves scanning and vicarious learning, both of which involve trying to learn as much as possible from the environment (scanning), and from the experiences of other armies. In 1991, the Gulf War made apparent both what worked (the United States military) and what didn’t work (the Iraqi military). It’s not surprising, in this context, that the Gulf War would have such a big effect on the PLA.
Equipment
One big problem came on the equipment side.
By 1990, the technical sophistication of the PLA had deteriorated to the degree that Iraqi forces enjoyed a considerable advantage over their Chinese counterparts. The Iraqi Air Force included MiG-23s, MiG-25s and MiG-29s, while the PLAAF relied on Chinese-produced copycats of the MiG-21, as well as older aircraft such as the MiG-19. Similarly, the Iraqi air defense system, which had failed to incur major damage on waves of attacking American aircraft, was at least as sophisticated as the systems China was capable of employing.
The Chinese had also discovered, through access to Iraqi tanks captured by the Iranians in the Persian Gulf War, that the Iraqi T-72s that presented no challenge whatsoever to the U.S. Army were considerably superior to extant Chinese tanks. Although the Gulf War didn’t involve serious naval combat, it wasn’t hard to infer that the problems likely afflicted the naval sector, as well.
The balance between quality and quantity has shifted back and forth historically. In the Chinese Civil War and in Korea, the PLA took advantage of numbers and tactical effectiveness to defeat (or at least level the ground with) more technologically sophisticated opponents. In Vietnam, injections of critical anti-access technology had helped blunt U.S. air offensives. Historically, the PLA had hoped that numerical advantage would help even the playing field against one of the superpowers, but the U.S.-led coalition cut through quantitatively superior Iraqi forces like a hot knife through butter. Iraq demonstrated that, at least as far as conventional warfighting was concerned, the balance had shifted heavily in favor of technology.
This understanding of the Gulf War helped drive PLA modernization. Especially in air and naval forces, China took immediate steps to update its military technology, generally through purchasing the most-advanced Soviet hardware. Strapped for cash, Russia was eager to make deals, and didn’t worry overmuch about the long-range consequences of technology transfer. China also attempted to acquire technology with military applications from Europe, but sanctions associated with the Tiananmen Square massacre hamstrung this effort. Finally, China accelerated efforts to increase the sophistication of research and development in its own military-industrial base.
Along with the changes in technology came changes in doctrine and in expectations for how war would play out. The PLA began to emphasize airpower more than ground power, and in particular, investigated the potential for long-range precision strike. Historically, the PLA has never had the opportunity to carry out significant, operationally relevant strikes behind enemy lines, cooperation with guerrilla formation in the Civil War notwithstanding. Indeed, the PLA even lacks experience with traditional, “deep battle” maneuver warfare, in which the exploitation of breakthroughs gives armored spearheads the ability to disrupt enemy logistics and command.
While the Gulf War did not demonstrate that deep strike could decisively win modern wars, it undoubtedly did show that long-range precision strike could help disrupt enemy operations, and even seriously attrite fielded enemy forces. The PLA immediately began to develop its capability in this area. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) grew in importance relative to the ground forces of the PLA (although, this has as much to do with the disappearance of the Soviet threat and the decline in importance of North Korea as it does with a new understanding of technology), and both began to concentrate on platforms that offered long-range strike opportunities. The two services also began to shift towards smaller numbers of higher-technology systems.
For its part, the Second Artillery shifted its focus from nuclear deterrence to long-range precision strike, with both ballistic and cruise missiles. Developing a modern appreciation of military-systems integration, the PLAN, PLAAF and Second Artillery have also emphasized joint operations, with a focus on developing command, control and communications procedures that allow the efficient, coordinated use of military force. However, it’s hard to evaluate the success of such planning in the absence of wartime experience.
Conclusion
Did the Chinese overstate the implications of the Gulf War? Yes and no. Revised scholarship on the Gulf War has made clear that whatever the impact of “shock and awe,” the coalition’s conventional military superiority carried the day. American and British forces had significant technical advantages, but they also had much better training than the Iraqis, the experience of the Iran-Iraq War notwithstanding. The air war set the stage for coalition victory, but the coalition still needed to excel at conventional maneuver warfare in order to succeed.
Still, the Gulf War provided Chinese military and civilian decision makers with a ready example of what modern war looked like, and gave some lessons about how to fight (and how not to fight) in the future. The PLA has become a radically more sophisticated organization—with much more effective learning capacity—than it was in 1991. We have yet to see, however, how all the pieces will fall together in real combat.
We would be hard pressed to repeat the 91 gulf war today.
Great article, VERY informative read! Thanks for posting, 2nd!!!
And Zero has so antagonized our allies that no such coalition could be put together.
Their basic goal is to eject the US Navy from the South and East China Seas in order to secure their sea lanes.
When you total up the number of islets and reefs they're building up, it's eye-opening; it's not just 3, or 5, or 10.
In many ways the China of today is the Japan of the 1930's.
Eventually, this is something that might involve us. :(
Possibly. It was probably our best military campaign ever.
From wee acorns do might oaks grow...
The Chinese and Russians have the severe disadvantage of being “war-less” for too long. All that pretty shiny stuff is great unless it doesn’t survive combat.
People have been dismantling Soviet hardware for a long time in different places. The Chinese don’t even know if they can get their military to battle because they haven’t done it since they fought Vietnam in the late 70’s(except for the India dustup).
That was basically President Reagan’s cold war military that made the Soviet Union throw in the towel. That force doesn’t exist anymore and I doubt if we could recreate it if we wanted to, which we don’t.
I wonder if the Chinese learned that settling for a cease-fire rather than completing the job, when you have the upper hand,
will lead to more war,
which will lead to the MSM vilifying your son,
which will result in a new leader with no relevant experience whose only desire is to act on a radical political agenda that will set your country back to third world status
Besides that do the Chinese really want to die for the glory of the Party or open up Mercedes-Benz dealerships and get rich?
Nonsense. There has never been a better equipped more battle hardened military.
I wish we could say we haven’t benn in a war for forty years.
Can you imagine the cool stuff we would have? And the generations of good people.
However, when he wrote; “While the Gulf War did not demonstrate that deep strike could decisively win modern wars, it undoubtedly did show that long-range precision strike could help disrupt enemy operations, and even seriously attrite fielded enemy forces.”. . .he was wrong, deeply wrong.
The strategic air campaign was never about attriting fielded forces. We didn't do a body count. Estimates ran up to 30,000 enemy troops killed but we don't know. A body count was not a measure of effectiveness. Drop a single bridge and you effectively isolated/removed enemy forces from the battle because they could not move. . .they were essentially 'dead.' Blow up fuel, pull the power and the army dies in place. . .they become combat ineffective. Body count, not a factor. Body count is interesting but look for weak points, centers of gravity that if hit properly, the effect is way beyond the tactical (body count) value.
Col John Warden and his Center of Gravity (CoG) ‘Five Rings” strategic targeting theory was employed and devastating. . .the strategic air campaign destroyed the Iraqi forces ability to:
1) Command troops (destroyed communication nodes, senior leadership isolated and muted)
2) Operate on the battlefield (hitting decisive points to knock out lines of communication, dropped bridges, closed highways, interrupted supply and maneuver avenues from the highest levels to the tactical level)
3) Support fielded forces (Can't communicate with them, can[t resupply them, can't organize them. . .it's over).
The deep strike part of the Gulf War, the strategic air campaign, was instrumental in winning the war decisively and quickly as we did. Without it we still would have won but at a much higher cost and taken much longer. The strategic air campaign (deep strike), the 42-day strategic air campaign was highly effective and that was why we waited before the ground war—we were knocking the stuffing out of them and they could not move (no gas, not order, no clue) and dies in place, and those that stayed in place died as well.
The unclassified Gulf War Air Power Study (GWAPS) details how effective the technology we had was, but most importantly, it diagrammed why the strategic (deep strike) air campaign was so effective.
Bottom line: The deep strike (strategic air campaign) DID demonstrate that deep strike could decisively win modern wars. I submit that Gulf War I was the first time in history air power was the primary fire with ground forces supporting. This in no way is meant to insult or minimize the ground war--I was in it as a FAC--I am just saying the ground part supporting the air campaign, that the air campaign did more that 'disrupt' enemy operations. . .it stopped effective enemy operations.
More recent battle experiecne. . .the Iran/Iraq war. What ‘worked’ then was not a smart thing to do when facing us. . .
Actually, the statement is true.
Iraq fought Iran.
Then they met a real military force.
Some of what the US learned in Desert Storm was how well or how bad our equipment fared - but the clearest lesson is the US trains effectively. The people did well, and for the most part really KNEW what to do!
“China took immediate steps to update its military technology,” or hack into American systems and copy.
Plus China and Russia are getting very cozy. Think Russia and China are selling each other secrets? Now that is a trade agreement.
Do you think China has empire plans in the future? With the destruction being implemented from D.C. do you think we are actually in danger? China and Russia are hacking our systems continuously and China has been watching and joining our international training maneuvers. Can’t rule out the 50,000 Chinese exchange students each year either.
They had an eight year static war the UN finally ended with a brokered peace deal.
Didn’t work for them in ‘91. Digging tanks into a hull-down position? Didn’t matter really, moving or standing still the Hellfires found them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.