The annual Conference on the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) took place at the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on October 22-24, 2010.1 The topic for this year's conference was the "PLA's lessons from Other People's Wars." Participants at the conference sought to discern what lessons the PLA has been learning from the strategic and operational experiences of the armed forces of other countries during the past 3 decades. Why did observers of the PLA want to study what Chinese military analysts might learned about non-Chinese wars? The answer is twofold. First, the PLA has not fought an actual war since 1979. Yet, during the last 3 decades, fundamental changes have taken place on the battlefield and in the conduct of war. Since the PLA has not fought since 1979, it had no experience in the changing face of war, and thus could not follow Mao Zedong's admonition to "learn by doing"; instead, it must look abroad for ways to discern the new pattern of warfare in the evolving information age. Studying Chinese military analysts' observations of non-Chinese wars therefore provides us a glimpse of what the PLA takes from others' experience to improve its capability and to prepare itself for dealing with China's national security issues, such as Taiwan, the South and East China Sea disputes, and internal unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, to name the most obvious ones. Second, Chinese military analysts have noticeably more freedom in assessing and commenting on the strength and weakness as well as the success and fail¬ures of other countries' wars. Indeed, for political reasons, Chinese military analysts have to emphasize the heroics and triumphs of the PLA's war experience and downplay setbacks and failures.2 While there is certainly recognition of the daunting challenges-in Korea, for example, accounts readily acknowledge that the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) were totally unprepared logistically and devastated by airpower-there are limits to the levels of candor. To date, there is no critical analysis of the PLA's claimed success or dismissed failure in the Sino-Vietnamese Border War of 1979 by Chinese military analysts (however, there are a few studies done by scholars outside of China3). Studying Chinese military analysts' observation of other people's wars, therefore, provide us key hints as to what Chinese military analysts consider important aspects of current and future military operational success and failure.
About the Author: ANDREW SCOBELL is Senior Political Scientist at RAND's Washington, DC, office. Prior to this he was an Associate Professor of International Affairs at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service and Director of the China Certificate Program at Texas A&M University located in College Station, TX. From 1999 until 2007, he was an Associate Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College and an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Dickinson College, both located in Carlisle, PA. Dr. Scobell is the author of China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (Cambridge University Press, 2003), he co-authored China's Search for Security, with Andrew J. Nathan, (Columbia University Press, forthcoming, 2012), he has written more than a dozen monographs and reports, as well as several dozen journal articles and book chapters. He has also edited or co-edited 12 volumes on various aspects of security in the Asia-Pacific region. He is a co-editor with Mr. Kamphausen and Dr. Lai of The PLA at Home and Abroad: Assessing the Operational Capabilities of China's Military (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2010). Dr. Scobell holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. DAVID LAI is a Research Professor of Asian Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College. Before joining the SSI, Dr. Lai was on the faculty of the U.S. Air War College. Having grown up in China, Lai witnessed China's "Cultural Revolution," its economic reform, and the changes in U.S.-China relations. His teaching and research interests are in international relations theory, war and peace studies, comparative foreign and security policy, U.S.-China and U.S.-Asian relations, and Chinese strategic thinking and operational art. Dr. Lai is a co-editor with Mr. Kamphausen and Dr. Scobell of The PLA at Home and Abroad: Assessing the Operational Capabilities of China's Military (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2010). Dr. Lai holds a bachelor's degree from China and a master's degree and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Colorado.