“Cultivating Joint Talent: PLA Education and Training Reforms” by Kevin McCauley (2021-10-12)

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

This paper examines the PLA’s reforms targeting the development of joint commanders and staff, and efforts to improve joint training. Qualified joint officers and a well-trained joint force are fundamental requirements to propel the PLA into the echelons of the world’s advanced militaries. The PLA’s military education reform effort is to improve the quality of personnel in general, but an important emphasis of the current military educational reforms is focused on joint commanders and staff. The PLA intends to instill a general level of joint knowledge throughout the entire military as it pushes joint operations capabilities down to the tactical level. While the detailed outline of these reforms is known, the full extent and quality of implemented reforms is difficult to gauge.


“People’s Liberation Army: Army Campaign Doctrine in Transition” by Kevin McCauley (2020-09-01)

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This monograph examines current People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Army campaign doctrine, with a discussion of PLA theorists’ vision of the evolutionary development of warfare to provide context for current doctrine as well as potential future direction. The PLA develops doctrinal joint and service campaign scenarios for possible offensive and defensive operations. PLA campaigns represent the operational level of war between strategic operations and tactical combat. The PLA’s current focus on specific campaigns provides insight into Beijing’s perception of potential conflict scenarios. The campaign scenarios provide commanders and staff data on command and control, coordination, combat actions, support, and other critical campaign elements for specific operational environments. The description of each campaign’s operational environment and combat actions provides valuable support to operational planning and a context for staff and unit training for their specific operational mission. The Army campaigns are executed as components of a joint campaign, or as a primarily independent Army campaign with support from other services.