Tuesday, June 23, 2015

PLA : So You Want to Be a PLA Expert?

SOURCE:
http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/so-you-want-to-be-a-pla-expert/?singlepage=1








So You Want to Be a PLA Expert?

So You Want to Be a PLA Expert?

  1. Dennis J. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century, 2nd Edition (New York: Routledge, 2012).
  2. Mark Ryan, David Finkelstein, and Michael McDevitt, eds., Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003).
  3. Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi, eds., The Science of Military Strategy (Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2005), which unfortunately is increasingly rare, or, for Chinese linguists, Academy of Military Science Strategic Research Department, The Science of Military Strategy, 2013 Edition (Beijing: Academy of Military Science Press, 2013); 军事科学院军事战略研究部, 《战略学2013年版》 (北京: 军事科学出版社).
  4. James Mulvenon and Andrew N.D. Yang, eds., The People’s Liberation Army as Organization: Reference Volume 1.0 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002). But keep your eyes peeled for Kevin Pollpeter and Kenneth Allen, eds., PLA as Organization v2.0 (Vienna, VA: Defense Group Inc., Forthcoming).
  5. Finally, pick a book related to your favorite PLA service. Those interested in the Second Artillery have to scrounge among journal articles, and those interested in the ground forces can stick with a close read of Blasko’s The Chinese Army Today. Bud Cole’s The Great Wall at Sea is a good starting point for the PLAN, and the more advanced The Chinese Navy: Expanding Capabilities, Evolving Roles. For the PLAAF, the best recent book is the freely-available The Chinese Air Force: Evolving Concepts, Roles, and Capabilities.
Here are my must read journal articles, reports, or book chapters on the PLA:
  1. Adam P. Liff and Andrew S. Erickson, “Demystifying China’s Defence Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate,” The China Quarterly, No. 216 (December 2013), 805–830.
  2. David Finkelstein, “China’s National Military Strategy: An Overview of the ‘Military Strategic Guidelines’,” in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell, eds., Right Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military (Carlisle, PA: Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), 69–140.
  3. Dean Cheng, “Chinese Lessons from the Gulf Wars,” in Andrew Scobell, David Lai, and Roy Kamphausen, eds., Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples’ War (Carlisle, PA: Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2011).
  4. Paul H.B. Godwin and Alice L. Miller, China’s Forbearance Has Limits: Chinese Threat and Retaliation Signaling and Its Implications for a Sino-American Military Confrontation, China Strategic Perspectives No. 6 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2013).
  5. Michael S. Chase, Jeffrey Engstrom, Tai Ming Cheung, Kristen Gunness, Scott Warren Harold, Susan Puska, and Samuel Berkowitz, China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) (Washington, DC: RAND and U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission, 2015).
With U.S. and Chinese forces in such close proximity in the East and South China Seas, the costs of failing to understand the PLA have risen exponentially. In an age when an analysis can be blogged and recycled almost endlessly, it is more important than ever to get it right the first time. Our minds too often and too heavily anchor to the first information we receive. If competition is more likely than cooperation to shape the next phase of U.S.-China relations, we need more than a few salty quotes from Sun Tzu to count as expertise on Chinese security issues.



Peter Mattis is a Fellow in the China Program at The Jamestown Foundation and a visiting scholar at National Cheng-chi University’s Institute of International Relations in Taipei. He also is the author of Analyzing the Chinese Military: A Review Essay and Resource Guide on the People’s Liberation Army.

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