Category Archives: Perspectives

Wrestling with Complexity: How the PLA Assesses Combat Capability (Kevin McCauley) (December 2024)

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Key Takeaways:

  • New quality combat capabilities [新质战斗力], which Xi Jinping prioritized for development in 2022, feature in many recent People’s Liberation Army (PLA) articles. Changes in warfare, technologies, and production are creating new combat capabilities. This creates the need to develop new combat capability assessment methods based on informationized and intelligent technologies, analysis of new-type operational forces, the expansion of operational domains, and the interaction of civilian production and military technological requirements. While the PLA is searching for improved methods to analyze the complexity of future operations, it appears to fail to factor in important data that could improve the accuracy of current capability assessments.
  • The PLA appears to use many different assessment methods with no standard method and no uniformity of factors used to assess capabilities. Combat capability assessments are important to the PLA for supporting planning, command decisions, conducting operations, modernization, force development, and training, and the evaluation factors and missions included in capability assessments provide insight into planning, operations, and the factors the PLA considers important for successful future operations. Yet some assessments exclude important areas such as training, operational methods, officers’ professional military education level, and environmental factors. The PLA’s lack of a uniform method for assessing combat capability could lead to uneven and inaccurate assessments supporting decision-making for operations. The variation in assessment factors employed in assessments would also appear to lead to variations in accuracy between the evaluations.
  • Future warfare and technological developments are creating a more complex and dynamic battlefield. This is driving PLA researchers to examine more accurate and complex methods for evaluating combat capability. The PLA increasingly seeks data-driven and qualitative features that require accurate assessment methods compared to more traditional subjective and quantitative methods.

Gaza War’s Impact On The Middle East Strategic Landscape (Lucas Winter)(June 2024)

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Key Takeaways:

  • Three de facto strategic coalitions dominate the contemporary Middle East geopolitical landscape: the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance,” the Turkish-led “Political Islam Coalition,” and the U.S.-led “Arab Normalization” Coalition, anchored by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Hamas fits uneasily between the Axis of Resistance and Political Islam Coalitions, receiving tepid support from both but fully trusted by neither. The Arab Normalization Coalition does not support Hamas.
  • Members of the three de facto strategic coalitions responded differently to Hamas’ 7 October attacks and their aftermath: “Axis of Resistance” members contributed calculated, largely symbolic military support; the Political Islam Coalition supported Hamas in media and diplomacy; and the Arab Normalization Coalition sought to maintain a neutral distance from the war in Gaza.
  • Prior to 7 October, the Middle East was in the midst of a new era of regional détente, in which members of the different de facto strategic coalitions were re-engaging and de escalating their conflicts. The War in Gaza shifted the regional strategic calculus in ways that are not yet clear. Three scenarios are presented for how these changes may occur, and how China and Russia may seek to benefit from them. The first scenario involves increased Turkish-Iranian policy convergence, the second a deepening of Turkish-Egyptian relations, and the third a “grand bargain” that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. Russia is more likely to benefit from the first two scenarios, while China is likely to benefit most from the third.

Beyond Borno: Islamic State’s Expansion into Southern Nigeria (Jacob Zenn) (February 2024)

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Key Takeaways:

  • Although the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) has historically been deeply rooted in northeastern Nigeria, recent patterns demonstrate that it is expanding operations to the more economically prosperous and majority Christian south.
  • The most plausible explanations for ISWAP’s move south are to “outbid” the rival Sunni Muslim Group for Preaching and Jihad (JASDJ); to follow Islamic State (IS) “core” directives to attract attention by attacking Christians and other high-profile targets; and to divert the Nigerian army’s attention from the north and relieve counterterrorism pressure near ISWAP’s main bases.
  • Beyond these heightened risks, ISWAP’s southern expansion threatens U.S. interests in Nigeria, Nigeria’s national security, and West African security more broadly

Chinese-Tajikistani Security Cooperation Gaining Momentum (Matthew Stein and Peter Wood) (January 2024)

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Chinese-Tajikistani Security Cooperation Gaining Momentum (Matthew Stein and Peter Wood) (January 2024)

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Key Takeaways:

  • China and Tajikistan share a 477km border and have an estimated $1.78 billion in bilateral trade, which is significantly imbalanced in favor of China.
  • Recent years have seen a significant improvement in relations between China and Tajikistan, with China constructing a military base in 2016 near Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan and a November 2022 bilateral agreement to increase security cooperation.
  • China’s security cooperation with Tajikistan does not appear to conflict or cause friction with Tajikistan’s main security cooperation partner, Russia, but nevertheless advances Chinese interests in the region at a time when Russian support is limited due to its invasion of Ukraine.

The People’s Liberation Army’s Evolving Close Air Support Capability (Kevin McCauley) (January 2024)

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This monograph examines PLA close air firepower support based on authoritative PLA sources including internal publications, as well as PRC aviation industry research. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF), Army Aviation, and unmanned aerial vehicle close air firepower support, command and control, and the firepower support process are examined.

Turkey as a Drone Superpower: A Case Study of a Mid-Size Power Driving the Operational Environment (Karen Kaya) (March 2023)

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Key Takeaways:

• Turkey has emerged as a drone superpower on the world stage. In just the past few years,
Turkey has become one of a select group of countries in the world that can produce, use
and export armed drones extensively, trailing only the United States, Israel, and China.
• Turkey’s innovative use of its cost-effective Bayraktar TB-2 drone involves using drone
squadrons effectively as a mobile air artillery, thereby achieving overmatch by emphasizing
quantity over quality. This strategy has impacted geopolitical outcomes in several regional
conflicts, and has provided a strategy for middle sized powers to emulate. Several such
powers—including Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan—are buying these cost-effective systems
from Turkey with a view to do so. Other midsize countries with limited defense budgets
are likely to replicate this approach, changing the nature of local conflicts and even the
calculations of larger observing nations.
• Drones and anti-aircraft technologies that merge ISR with strike capabilities will increasingly
impact the trajectories of conflicts. The entry barriers to these technologies are falling,
making it easier for geopolitical issues to turn to war.

The Evolutionary Russian View of Peacekeeping as Part of Modern Warfare (Matthew Stein) (March 2023)

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Russia views peacekeeping operations as a part of warfare, specifically that they can be
utilized to achieve strategic objectives beyond conflict resolution
• Russia’s past peacekeeping operations have shown how these involved ending the conflict
as quickly as possible and enforcing terms of any cease-fire agreement, including taking
action that favored one of the belligerents as long as Russia remains in the dominant position
• Russia’s Nagorno-Karabakh peacekeeping operation ended a conflict and helped the
Russian government maintain influence in the Commonwealth of Independent States with
a Russian military detachment in place for the foreseeable future, which can help explain
how conflicts involving Russia are likely to end.

Cultivating Joint Talent: PLA Education and Training Reforms (Kevin McCauley)(February 2023)

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Cultivating joint command talent and promoting realistic and complex joint training at
    the campaign and tactical levels is critical to the successful implementation of integrated
    joint operations, transformation efforts, and enhancing the People’s Liberation Army’s
    [PLA] overall combat capabilities. The PLA is implementing a “Triad” military education
    program to address problems with joint talent and training.

  • The implications for the PLA of successful implementation of joint talent cultivation and
    improving joint training are significant for reaching its goal of an advanced military. While
    the PLA’s transformation will likely be a lengthy process, the PLA can still present a lethal
    opponent with its precision long-range strike and information warfare capabilities.

  • The PLA’s modernization effort faces the complex task of integrating mechanized warfare,
    informationized warfare, and intelligent warfare systems and operational methods into the
    force concurrently. Reported difficulties educating officers and staff for informationized
    warfare raise questions about the PLA’s ability to integrate fully intelligent warfare
    technologies and operational methods into the force.

People’s Liberation Army: Army Campaign Doctrine in Transition (Kevin McCauley) (January 2023)

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The PLA develops generic offensive, defensive, and special conditions campaign models
    to support planning and training for operational scenarios it believes are relevant to
    potential conflicts. These generic campaigns provide planning factors, force organization,
    and operational methods for combat.

  • The choice of campaigns reveals that Taiwan and Indian conflict scenarios are the key
    scenarios for which the PLA is planning and training.

  • Some of the campaigns do not appear to represent operational situations the PLA is likely
    to face in the near to mid-term.

  • PLA doctrinal change is evolutionary, and in the past slow. The available PLA sources on
    Army doctrine appear to show incremental change to date due to developing technologies
    such as artificial intelligence or research on operational methods exhibited in recent foreign
    conflicts such as the United States military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The Islamic State’s “African Turn”: Why the African Continent Is Showing Outsized Importance for IS” (Jason Warner) (November 2022)

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The Islamic State Central is increasingly publicizing the achievements of its affiliated African
    provinces, leading to what the FMSO’s Foreign Perspectives Brief authors call “The Islamic
    State’s African Turn.”
  • The authors detail six potential benefits that IS Central might gain with such an “African
    Turn,” as well as what downsides might also accompany such a turn.
  • Overall, the authors assess that the Islamic State’s African Turn is likely more tied to
    temporary successes of African provinces than it is an attempt to change the Middle Eastern
    character of the group.