Obviously we’ve all been hearing a lot about CHINA, usually in the context of very unpleasant scenarios that might involve the deployment of their military. A recent thread about the competence of military leadership and problems between officers and enlisted men, and an article discussing such problems in Arab armies, made me wonder if China has the same issues and whether it lessens the effectiveness of their military.
Does anyone here know how the military of China compares to the US in terms of:
[ul]
[li]Good communication between higher level officers and subordinates[/li]
[li]A level of trust between officers and NCOs[/li]
[li]Education level of enlisted soldiers[/li]
[li]Effectiveness of training, whether it’s infantry tactics or technical abilities[/li]
[li]Anything else that might be worth discussing[/li][/ul]
They are a force still in transition from their old conscript driven military towards one with high tech equipment, mostly volunteer junior enlisted, and professional leaders, including NCOs.
A look at their reform efforts from 1999-2011 gives a good start to the answer. Obviously, there’s a big gap in there but it does a pretty good job of looking at the issues they were still working on earlier this decade. When you are looking at completely reforming a personnel system to produce better senior leaders significant change takes time.
They have gigantic corruption problems.
Theft of troop’s pay, theft of rations (for resale), theft of parts reserves, theft of essential gasoline, theft of government vehicles…the list goes on forever.
Another problem I see is they really are surrounded by enemies or possible enemies. Vietnam, Japan, Korea (if it ever unified), Mongolia, Russia, the former Russian states, Taiwan, India, etc… Anytime you start acting all tough, the people around you start to react.
When did China last fight an actual war against an organized opponent? It’s been since 1979, really, which is forever ago.
Any war involving a state that is new to the war, or to that type of war, will probably reveal them as unprepared. Honestly, I cannot think of too many exceptions; if you look at literally any conventional war ever fought in modern times, basically every state actor that wasn’t coming off, or already involved in, a similar recent war was found horribly wanting. Every combatant in World War II made horrific errors when entering the war, excepting arguably Germany, and even they made terrible errors when new types of war happened - the Battle of Britain, for instance, was a catastrophic waste of their air force.
Both sides in Korea? Unprepared. Both sides in Vietnam, unprepared. The Arabs in 1967, unprepared. Israel in 1973, unprepared, Both sides in the Iran Iraq War, unprepared. World War I, my God. Pakistan was hopelessly unprepared for war with India in 1971. Even the little Falkland Islands war was full of very unpleasant surprises. Hell, how ready was either side for the U.S. Civil War?
I am completely, one hundred percent confident that if China got into a full blown war they would find their armed forces deficient in a hundred ways, only half of which they would have previously feared. This isn’t an indictment of China; it’s just how wars work.
More accurately, pre war presumptions about enemy intentions were wrong.
Problem was the were waaay too prepared. Industrial bases proved able to keep nations in war despite unimaginable losses
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Were as prepared as could have been. In Bangaldesh, there was no chance, 1965 is a better example, misreading of enemy intention.
Now, those are wars niether side expected.
If they get into a full blown war, their military will be up to the task. They are trained, they ave wargamed and trained their soldiers and officers to the maximum. Their problem is that, countries rarely tend to get into wars they planned to fight and often end up in wars that they never anticipated.
The point is, every country is unprepared for war, even wars they expect, because wars never go the way you expect. Then the question is, can a country prevail in a war that they are unprepared for. And that depends on their war aims. What exactly is the point of the war? If all you want to do is send the foreigners back home that’s one thing, if your aim is to conquer and pacify and rule over the conquered people indefinitely that quite another, much more so if you hope to run your conquest for profit.
If all China has to do is inflict horrendous unacceptable losses to any invaders, well, they can certainly do that. If they want to invade Colorado (go Wolverines!) that’s another thing.
This is the first thing that occurred to me. This is a military that has never been tested. They have no history to rely on, no battlefield experience. They do have boots though.
I would imagine that their military is about as professional as anyone else and would fare as well, depending on who the opponent was. I’d hazard that their weak link is the logistics chain. How fast can they replace beans and bullets after the prepositioned stuff is either used or wiped out, how fast they can replace their high tech ammo. Any conflict that they get into now, is either going to be against a smaller nation that they can overwhelm, or a conflict between the States or Russia. So a win for the states, but expensive. A tie against Russia, A win against India by a small margin.
Professional? I don’t really know, but let’s say they are. What you point out are the systems, not the soldiers, and yes, that’s where it will fall apart. They have capabilities and resources but it’s like a beta version of their military.
No doubt there is a big difference between armies comprised of soldiers with real experience versus those that just train. There was a body of opinion that said that Northern Ireland was a significant component in keeping the UK’s army’s capability sharp. Further, those countries involved in various skirmishes around the planet are those that are keeping their forces at a higher level.
But when it comes to large standing armies, and possible conflict, it is likely no-one has any clue as to how things might unfold. Simply because we have no idea what such a conflict might be. It is unlikely China has any immediate desire to get into a serious conflict, and they have shown little interest in conquest by military means. So the army is only likely to be fighting for China if one of its neighbours becomes belligerent. Which is also unlikely. China is a nuclear country, and that changes things.
After that, the most likely option is that China is drawn into some external conflict, some new version of Afghanistan or the like. They are probably very ill prepared for such a thing. These conflicts are not about driving tanks all over the place or large scale engagements. They are messy and low level.
Probably the thing that most worries China is the Korean standoff. How they might manage things going pear shaped down there is anyone’s guess. But here perhaps a million troops flooding the region might be their current option. You don’t need well trained troops here. Just speed and force of numbers. What happens next is harder.
China is using Africa as a proving ground/training area for its military - actual boots-on-ground involvement. So it seems they’re well aware of the deficiencies in a completely inexperienced military.
The problem with, say, India - or even Russia - is how?? There’s a natural barrier in the Himalayas, or Siberia. Even the USA found that to simply hold a small country like Afghanistan (as Russia found) or Iraq against geography and a determined guerilla force would cost far more than simply dropping a few bombs to prove a point. You wonder whether Beijing or Delhi is willing to gamble the other side will not sacrifice one of their major cities to take one of yours in a tit-for-tat nuclear exchange. But - unless you are prepared to turn the other side into glass, you would want to win and occupy - and the logistics for that are frightening. They might hold eastern Siberia for a time, at the risk of making their occupying troops sitting ducks. Could China maintain a supply line deep into Siberia? It’s supply lines that are the problem. Near China, I’m sure it’s air superiority would be fairly complete and allow the initial incursions to proceed. Certainly there is too much geography and population to hold any part of India for a long time.
So the real question is - what is the military going to do and how? The Argentines thought if they de facto occupied the Falklands they would become the Malvinas and Britain would give up. However, Britain chose not to involve the Argentine mainland (except for a few commando incursions). They could have, and Argentina would be powerless to stop or retaliate in kind. Would China try the same game with Taiwan? There’s an interesting field of speculation. Probably not with Japan or S. Korea… it’s just the threat that they could cause chaos that helps restrain those neighbours and makes Taiwan tread carefully.
We mustn’t also forget the sheer manpower they can throw at a problem. My late friend who served in the Korean war recounted several nights of major battles where they machine-gunned attackers by the hundreds or thousands until the Chinese figured out they weren’t going to take that hill.