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The militaries of China and Russia share a potential weakness, according to a new US report

2022-09-16T13:37:26.524Z


A report from the US National Defense University identified a potential difficulty that the Russian and Chinese militaries would share, though they are cautious.


Why is China's support for Russia important at this time?

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SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) --

China's military leaders share a potential weakness that has undermined their Russian counterparts in Ukraine and could hamper their ability to wage a similar war, according to a new report from the National Defense University. from the United States.

The report identifies a lack of cross-training as a possible Achilles' heel within the People's Liberation Army (PLA), but analysts remain cautious about underestimating China's capabilities and caution against comparisons with Russia.

The report delves into the background of more than 300 of the PLA's top officers in its five services—the army, navy, air force, rocket force, and strategic support force—in the six years leading up to 2021. Leaders in each service were found to be unlikely to have operational experience in any branch other than the one in which they began their careers.

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In other words, PLA soldiers are still soldiers, sailors are still sailors, and airmen are still airmen.

They rarely venture out of those bunkers, the report said, drawing a stark contrast to the US military, where cross-training has been a legal requirement since 1986.

The 73-page report goes on to say that this "rigidity...could reduce China's effectiveness in future conflicts," especially those that require a high level of joint action, and suggests that PLA forces would be bogged down by the same. kinds of problems that have plagued their Russian counterparts in Ukraine, "where the overall cohesion of the forces was low."

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Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of its neighbor seven months ago, the shortcomings of the Russian military structure have become apparent to outside observers.

In the recent defeat of Russian forces by a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Moscow's ground forces lacked air cover, analysts say, while earlier in the war, logistical problems wreaked havoc on Russia's ability to resupply Russia. their strength: their trucks lacked tires suitable for the terrain and continued to break down due to lack of maintenance.

According to the report's author, Joel Wuthnow, the PLA's top brass could face similar problems due to their lack of cross-training.

"Operational commanders, for example, rarely have a logistics background, and vice versa," says the report by Wuthnow, a senior fellow at the university's Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs.

"Operational commanders who have never needed to acquire a high level of understanding of logistics or sustainment may not use those forces optimally, paralleling another Russian failure in 2022."

In a comparison of four-star commanders in 2021 — such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the head of the Indo-Pacific Command in the United States or the leaders of the Central Military Commission or theater commands in China — all 40 American officers had joint service experience, compared to 77% of their 31 Chinese equivalents, according to the report.

He also pointed out another key difference: In the United States, almost all four-star commanders had operational experience.

In China, nearly half were "professional political commissars."

Do not underestimate the EPL

Carl Schuster, former director of operations for the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, said the new report "is the best assessment of where China is and where it is going that I have seen."

However, he warned that it should not be used as an indicator of how the PLA would fare in a Ukraine-like war, as it has many other advantages over the Russian military.

China gives better training to new recruits and no longer relies on conscripts, he said, while the Russian military "relies on seven-month conscripts for 80-85% of its enlisted personnel."

And, unlike Russia, China has a professional NCO corps, he added.

Schuster, who now teaches at Hawaii Pacific University, estimated that China lags about four or five years behind the United States in joint operations capabilities, but warned that recent exercises "suggest that they are catching up." ".

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He cited as proof of this the recent Chinese operations, such as those carried out around Taiwan after the visit of the president of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to the island in early August.

"The study's unstated implication that the PLA may be unable to conduct effective joint operations is misplaced," Schuster said.

The report by Wuthnow, who is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University in Washington, also found demographic differences between Chinese and American leaders.

"Senior (Chinese) officers were homogeneous in terms of age, education, gender and ethnicity," the report said.

Among the four-star ranks, Chinese officers were older on average than their American counterparts (64 vs. 60) and had more years in the military (46 vs. 40).

"The US leadership was also more diverse, with two women and three African Americans, compared to a homogeneous leadership of the PLA (all male and 99% Han Chinese)," the report said.

And one last stark difference: 58% of American officers had served in a foreign country, while none of the Chinese officers had foreign experience.

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The Xi Jinping factor in the Chinese military

The report also points out how Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tightened his control over the PLA leadership since taking over the Chinese Communist Party in 2013.

Through his role as chairman of China's Central Military Commission, Xi has been personally involved in the selection of senior officers, he said.

"All PLA officers are members of the Chinese Communist Party and must have enough political acumen to demonstrate loyalty to Xi and his agenda," he said, noting that Xi rotates senior officers geographically within China to prevent them from developing "sponsorship networks." "that may one day threaten his leadership.

But he also noted that Xi has been careful to reward loyalty and patience in the senior officer corps.

"Xi Jinping has not skipped over a generation of people who had waited their turn to promote young Turks more familiar with modern conflict," it said.

As those older officers reach the retirement age appropriate to their rank — up to 68 for those of the Central Military Commission — their successors will bring more modern battlefield experience, including newer technologies, according to the report.

But the bunkers, bolstered by tradition and organizational culture, are expected to remain, according to the report.

ChinaRussian News

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-09-16

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