The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China first felt the need to modernise its forces after its experience in the Vietnam War of 1979, which exposed critical weaknesses in command and control mechanisms and in the logistic support required in modern battlefield conditions. The process of modernising the country began with Deng Xiaopong’s ‘Four Modernisations,’—Agriculture, Industry, Science and Technology and Defence Forces. While defence modernisation held the fourth place, it was by no means neglected. Between 1985-1995, major changes were instituted in doctrinal and organisational aspects, with stress being laid on indigenous production of weapons and equipment. But it was the Gulf War of 1990-91, which changed Chinese perceptions of how modern wars are fought. The Gulf War was a practical demonstration of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) brought about through the application of high technology. What the Chinese observed here was the devastating impact which information and communication technology had on the battlefield when integrated with precision long range weapon systems. The US forces had integrated satellite and aerial reconnaissance capability and a highly developed Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) system to direct the battle along with highly accurate missile systems and modern mechanised forces with air support to enable application of force with pin point precision. This enabled them to win a decisive victory with minimum losses in just 42 days.
The Chinese military accordingly concluded that modern wars would be fought with greater mobility, speed and offensive power, necessitating smaller forces, with increased battlefield mobility and lethality and with modern C3I systems to achieve battlefield dominance. Another conclusion drawn was that high end military technology can achieve strategic intimidation to achieve strategic goals. In addition, many areas of high technology such as information, biological, microelectronic, laser and infrared technology have important military applications and that military technology is no longer a special field in itself. As technology advanced, the equipment manufactured earlier would achieve obsolescence at a much faster rate; to achieve technological dominance, it would thus be necessary to be ahead of the technology curve. As such, even when new equipment is fielded, it would be necessary to have work ongoing in developing a newer next generation systems to cater for faster obsolescence.
The Chinese military thus enunciated its strategy called Active Defence, which was predicated on the need to fight under what the Chinese termed ‘Local Wars Under Modern, High-Tech Conditions’, and which was later changed to fighting Local Wars Under Informationalized Conditions. Preparations for conflict were based on the following premises:
- Future wars will be shorter, perhaps lasting only one campaign;
- Will almost certainly not entail the occupation of China, although Chinese political, economic, and military centres are likely to be attacked;
- Will involve joint military operations across land, sea, air, cyberspace and outer space, and the application of advanced technology, especially information technology.
In its modernisation programme, the PLA laid emphasis on fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity wars along China’s periphery. This included scenarios for Taiwan, building counters to third-party, including potential U.S. intervention in cross-Strait crises and to conflicts along China’s land borders. Emphasis was laid on space warfare, psychological warfare (called Three Warfares to dictate the strategic terms of the conflict, by influencing domestic opinion, opposition will, and third-party support), Computer Network Operations (to seize the initiative and achieve electromagnetic dominance early in a conflict, and as a force multiplier), Missile Warfare to include both long range and short range ballistic missiles and Cruise Missiles, Air power and Maritime dominance. The modernisation process also included reforming military institutions, promulgating new doctrine for modern warfare and personnel development. China’s modernisation drive was supported by huge financial outlays as a result of which she has today a very capable and effective military with an impressive high-tech arsenal. However, despite China’s military capability, its lack of experience in modern combat was seen as a major liability and a potential disadvantage for the PLA. The PLAs ability to use modern weapons and equipment remains unproven without the test of combat and it is this lacuna which the PLA is now trying to overcome through “intelligentization”.
In his address to the 19th Party Conference, President Xi Jinping spoke of “…strengthening the military for the new era and the military strategy for new conditions, build a powerful and modernized army, navy, air force, rocket force, and strategic support force, develop strong and efficient joint operations, commanding institutions for theater commands, and create a modern combat system with distinctive Chinese characteristics”. He also stated that China “…will adapt to the trend of a new global military revolution and to national security needs; we will upgrade our military capabilities, and see that, by the year 2020, mechanization is basically achieved, IT application has come a long way, and strategic capabilities have seen a big improvement. In step with our country’s modernization process, we will modernize our military across the board in terms of theory, organizational structure, service personnel, and weaponry. We will make it our mission to see that by 2035, the modernization of our national defense and our forces is basically completed; and that by the mid-21st century our people’s armed forces have been fully transformed into world-class forces”.
In translating the vision of the President Xi Jinping in concrete terms, there is evidently a congruence of thought within the PLA of the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in future military operations. This too was alluded to by Mr Xi Jinping, when in the course of the same address he stated, “…We will develop new combat forces and support forces, conduct military training under combat conditions, strengthen the application of military strength, speed up development of intelligent military, and improve combat capabilities for joint operations based on the network information system and the ability to fight under multi-dimensional conditions. This will enable us to effectively shape our military posture, manage crises, and deter and win wars”.
The concept of an “intelligent military” and “intelligent operations” (zhinenghua zuozhan, 智能化作战) as enunciated by China is still in the evolutionary stage. An article in the official Xinhua state news service has defined intelligent operations thus: “Intelligent operations have AI at their core, and use cutting-edge technologies throughout operational command, equipment, tactics, and other areas… they must be understood by the core concepts of ‘system intelligence is central,’ ‘full use of AppCloud,’ ‘multi-domain integration,’ ‘brain-machine fusion,’ ‘intelligent autonomy,’ and ‘unmanned struggle for mastery'” in the battlefield environment.
What intelligent operations imply is integrating new technologies into combat operations. It also aims to address perceived weaknesses in the Chinese military which pertains to lack of operational experience of its commanders, rigidity in command structures and its ability to fight joint operations.
A tool for enhancing realism in training and to give a feel of actual combat is war gaming and coopting new training techniques and operationalising new technologies, especially AI to its concepts, structures and training. Towards this end, the launch of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan (Xinyidai Rengong Zhineng Fazhan Guihua), is significant. This plan seeks to use AI to support the military decision making process, for purposes of simulation and in war-gaming.
Towards this end, in April 2018, the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), convened a tournament called “Decisive Victory”. Here, human players from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University were pitted against an artificial intelligence commander, and reportedly it was the human players who were defeated six to two. Increasingly, PLA commanders will be put through exercises wherein their opponent is a machine. They will be given the opportunity to war game, using all the assets at their command, during which jointmanship too will be practised. AI technologies are increasingly being recognised by China as vital to modernisation of the PLA to enable and enhance a range of future military capabilities. President Xi Jinping has clearly stated that he expects the Chinese military to be of world class by 2050, and AI will be exploited to enhance the complete range of Chinese military capability.
Towards this end, in July 2017, the State Council of China released the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” outlining a strategy to build a domestic AI industry, which would make China a leading AI power by 2030. The expectation is that by 2020, Chinese companies would be at the same level as leading countries like the United States and by 2025, would be in a position to achieve a breakthrough in some select disciplines in AI. This plan also calls for the PRC to “Strengthen the use of new generation AI technologies as a strong support to command decision-making, military deductions (war-gaming and operations research), and defense equipment, among other applications.
The PLA’s apparent progress in the use of AI in war-gaming provides an initial indicator of its attempts to explore new concepts of operations for the dynamics of “intelligent operations”. It also seeks to enhance the acumen and preparedness of its officers and personnel for future warfare. Through integration of AI into wargaming, we see the potential use of AI to train commanders in developing greater skills in developing strategic thinking and command decision making, which, as brought out in the beginning of this article, remains a weakness for the PLA as their leadership has not been tested in combat.
A lot of focus by China, with respect to AI is also on hardware. Here, we are talking about robots, drones, remotely piloted submarines et al, for military use. Development of improved weapon systems using AI along with the use of big data for analytics, the Internet of Things (IOT) and cloud computing, when integrated together could be truly devastating. But this would still be merely an extension of technology, which a commander would be enabled by to achieve battlefield dominance. If such technologies could be integrated into planning for operations and into real time decision making, it could be another step towards the next major revolution in military affairs—Intelligent Operations conducted in real time and leading eventually to what could be termed as “War at the Speed of thought”. We are looking at a potential next wave revolution in military affairs, which can break through as stated by the PLA, traditional time and space limits of cognition, reconstruct the relationships between humans and weaponry and bring about entirely new models of command and control. This is intended to be achieved through gaining complete supremacy over one’s opponents in the cognitive sphere, through superior understanding and awareness of the battle space, and through intelligent unmanned systems to greatly reduce the “observation-judgement-decision-action cycle”.
There is of course the real danger that relying on AI may miss out on the complexities of real operations. The US and NATO forces achieved a quick victory in the Iraq war and later in Afghanistan, but found to their cost that sustaining operations over long periods of time was an entirely different matter. Intelligent operations, as envisaged by the PLA are designed to impact and provide advantage in the cognitive domain, but there are still many imponderables. Will this be enough to eliminate what Clausewitz termed the “fog of war”. Or will it lead to additional complexities, especially as technology can also be used to deceive and the Chinese will not be the only players in the game? How will nuclear issues be addressed? As of now, the threat of conflicts degenerating and spiralling out of control to nuclear warfare, has actually contributed to strategic stability. The ability to know and understand the battle space in the cognitive domain along with the means to disrupt enemy systems and integrating the same with long range precision weapon systems is certainly a force multiplier, but it will come with a fresh set of challenges, many of which perhaps have not yet been considered. Having said that, it is a truism that cognitive advantage is a battle winning factor and AI will be in the forefront to provide the means to achieve the same.
India too needs to move towards futuristic technologies to address the multiple challenges she faces on her land borders, in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and in internal conflicts. But it must always be remembered that such technologies would require to be used with due care and circumspection. Too often, it is not the external enemy but the internal political rival who can become the target and such technologies can lead to monopolising power by shaping opinions and eliminating threats to political power. For the PLA, “intelligent operations are still perhaps a few decades away, but whether they can be a substitute or a panacea for the weakness which the PLA perceives it has, will only be determined over time.
For Scholar warrior, September 2019.
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