"Rightsizing Chinese Military Lessons From Ukraine" - By CWP Alum Joel Wuthnow
- Analysts should question assumptions about whether, how, and to what effect the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is learning and adapting based on foreign conflicts. China’s openness to learning might be less or different than it was in the 1990s.
- Many of the potential “lessons learned” from Ukraine confirm strategies the PLA has been considering for years, including joint operations, nuclear signaling to deter U.S. intervention, achieving information dominance, decapitation strikes, political work, personnel development, and logistics support.
- A few potentially impactful lessons have received less attention: a reassessment of the PLA ground force’s near-complete shift to battalions and brigades, insights on successful deception in a Taiwan scenario, and greater PLA focus on protracted conflict.
- If the PLA adopts these lessons, it could be less vulnerable to the U.S. and Ukrainian approaches that hindered Russia’s offensive in 2022. However, there are numerous steps the United States and Taiwan can take to preserve advantages.
By Joel Wuthnow Strategic Forum 311 - NEWS | Sept. 1, 2022
Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National Strategic Studies at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. In addition to his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
His recent books and monographs, all from NDU Press, include Crossing the Strait: China's Military Prepares for War with Taiwan (2022, lead editor), The PLA Beyond Borders: Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context (2021, lead editor), System Overload: Can China's Military Be Distracted in a War over Taiwan? (2020), Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (2019, co-editor), and China's Other Army: The People's Armed Police in an Era of Reform (2019). His research has also appeared in journals such as Asian Perspective, Asia Policy, Asian Security, The China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Strategic Studies, and in edited volumes.
Prior to joining NDU, Dr. Wuthnow was a China analyst at CNA, a postdoctoral fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University, and a pre-doctoral fellow at The Brookings Institution. His degrees are from Princeton University (A.B., summa cum laude, in Public and International Affairs), Oxford University (M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies), and Columbia University (Ph.D. in Political Science). He is proficient in Mandarin.
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