Category The Chinese Air Force

By the end of World War II, the concept of airpower as an independent strategic weapon was firmly established. Although the CBO’s ultimate effect on the outcome of the war in Europe was indeterminate and military analysts and scholars have since debated what factors were most instrumental in forc­ing Japan’s capitulation, conventional wisdom immediately presumed that stra­tegic bombing had won the war—the atomic bombs had forced Japanese lead­ers to accept unconditional surrender.38 This appeared to be a harbinger of how future wars would unfold. Atomic weapons could only be delivered from the air, and only heavy bombers were large enough to carry them. Consequently, the emerging concept of atomic warfare seemed indistinguishable from strate­gic bombing, and airpower became widely accepted as the independent war­winning weapon that theorists had long claimed it to be.

It is ironic that at a time when the concept of strategic airpower seemed most transcendent, further development of airpower thought would grind to a halt. But that is what happened, largely as a result of the impact on thinking caused by the dramatic advance in destructiveness made possible by atomic and later nuclear weapons. Military and political leaders first saw atomic bombs simply as more powerful ordnance, weapons to be used in future wars to achieve military and political objectives more efficiently. But as USSBS investigators learned more about the extent of destruction wrought on the cit­ies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it became increasingly apparent that atomic bombs were weapons in a totally different class from anything used before. The following year, RAND analyst Bernard Brodie published his now classic book, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, in which he argued that atomic weapons were so potentially devastating that they would change the very nature of war.39 Thirteen years later, with the United States and Soviet Union both possessing growing stockpiles of nuclear arms, Brodie would write:

Perhaps the most elementary, the most truistic, and yet the most impor­tant point one can make is that the kind of sudden and overwhelming calamity that one is talking about today in any reference to all-out or total war would be an utterly different and immeasurably worse phenomenon from war as we have known it in the past.40

Much had changed by the time Brodie wrote those words. Soon after the end of World War II, America’s erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, had emerged as its rival in the long-term ideological struggle for geopolitical dominance that came to be known as the Cold War. The United States’ monopoly on atomic weapons was curtailed sooner than expected when the Soviets exploded their own atom bomb in 1949, and U. S. leaders were further distressed when the Soviets tested their first thermonuclear device in August 1953, less than a year after the United States had crossed that threshold. Even so, U. S. nuclear capabilities, both in terms of numbers of bombs and of long-range bombers needed to deliver them, suffi­ciently outstripped those of the Soviet Union that the Eisenhower administration opted for a “New Look” policy in which the United States would save money by reducing expenditures on conventional armaments, relying instead on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation to deter Soviet aggression in Western Europe. That meant that defense budgets would be slashed, and most of the remaining money would go into nuclear weapons, heavy bombers, and defenses against Soviet bombers, versus Army and Navy personnel and equipment.

As a result, between 1954 and 1961 almost half of the entire defense bud­get was allocated to the Air Force, with the remaining half divided among the other three services.41 Roughly half of the Air Force budget was, in turn, allo­cated to the Strategic Air Command (SAC), the early Cold War proprietor of the nuclear bombardment mission. Army and Navy leaders protested vehe­mently, of course, but to no avail. Despite the Korean War experience—one in which U. S.-led United Nations (UN) forces helped defend the Republic of Korea in a major conventional war against North Korean and Chinese efforts to unite the peninsula under communist rule—U. S. and British defense plan­ners argued that all future wars would likely swiftly “go nuclear,” and planned their force-structure and defense investment accordingly.

These decisions had dramatic effects on force structure and strategic thinking. The service made heavy investments in long-range strategic bomb­ers and tankers, and crew training and exercises for the units receiving them focused almost exclusively on skills needed to scramble the strategic force, get the bombers across the Arctic, penetrate Soviet airspace, and deliver nuclear ordnance. Conversely, as Air Force planners believed the threat of nuclear retaliation would deter Soviet aggression in Europe, the greatest threat to U. S. national security was a nuclear attack on the homeland by Soviet bombers. Con­sequently, the U. S. Air Force procured a series of fighter interceptors designed to maximize speed for bomber interception in lieu of designs that would have balanced speed, maneuverability, and armament—capabilities needed to make them effective weapons for winning air superiority against other fighters.42 Not even Tactical Air Command (TAC), the organization responsible for provid­ing air support to ground operations, was immune to the prevailing nuclear dogma. Starved of funding and support by an Air Force dominated by SAC bomber generals, TAC procured the F-105 Thunderchief, an extremely fast (Mach 2 capable) fighter-bomber designed to deliver a single tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield.43

More serious, though, was the effect that this thinking had on Air Force doctrine and strategy. Secure in the conviction that strategic bombing had won World War II and the belief that the next great war, if it occurred, would be won by nuclear bombardment, Air Force strategic thought and doctrine stagnated to the point of virtual paralysis. Air Force education focused on the history of strategic bombardment and largely neglected the other vital lessons learned regarding the use of airpower for CAS and interdiction. At the same time, due to the potential for catastrophic destruction entailed in nuclear war, political leaders concluded that strategy had now become too important an issue to be left in the hands of military professionals. Consequently, the next generation of relevant theories, those addressing such topics as nuclear warfighting, deter­rence, escalation management, and crisis stability, came not from the intellec­tual center at Maxwell Field or anywhere else within the Air Force, but from a group of civilian “strategy intellectuals” at the RAND Corporation and in aca­demia.44 Meanwhile, as political scientist Karl Mueller has noted, SAC planners occupied themselves compiling notional target lists and “continued in general to approach strategic airpower much as their wartime predecessors had during the Combined Bomber Offensive” largely oblivious to the theories and strate­gies debated by prominent intellectuals and political leaders.45

The impacts of these decisions manifested themselves when the United States found itself at war with both conventional and unconventional adver­saries in Vietnam, forcing hard-learned lessons on the national military estab­lishment in general and the Air Force in particular. Although not designed for conventional warfare, the F-105 Thunderchief became the workhorse of the Air Force conventional deep-strike and interdiction missions during the first several years of the war, completing over 20,000 sorties. From a combination of restrictive rules of engagement, poor operational concepts, and inadequate protection of its vulnerable flight control system, almost half of the 833 F-105s produced were lost in the skies over North Vietnam, mostly due to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and conventional antiaircraft fire. Air-to-air combat also brought some rude surprises. The North Viet­namese air force sought-out U. S. bombers and strike aircraft, but generally avoided combat whenever confronted by Air Force and Navy fighters. When they did confront their American counterparts, however, they often proved more of a challenge than anticipated, particularly early in the war. With U. S. aircrews inadequately trained for air combat, constrained by unrealistic rules of engagement and doctrine, and flying aircraft designed principally for intercepting bombers or conducting nuclear strike missions, they often found themselves at a disadvantage against more maneuverable Soviet-built fighters.

Over time the Air Force reacquired the skills needed for air superior­ity and developed tactics for drawing the North Vietnamese out to fight, ulti­mately achieving a kill ratio of 2-to-1 over their adversaries. That was certainly better than the negative ratio suffered in the first months of the war, but unim­pressive when compared to the 10-to-1 kill ratio achieved in the Korean War. Complicating matters, U. S. air commanders were unable to achieve unity of command, having divided the airspace over Vietnam into six separate “route packages” and parceled out control over them to the Army, Navy, and Air Force, respectively.46

The most serious problems, however, stemmed from the overall con­cept in which airpower was employed to obtain U. S. political objectives in the war. Seeing the conflict as a war of aggression by communist North Viet­nam against a democratic South Vietnam and the southern insurgency purely as a product of northern subversion, U. S. political leaders believed the solu­tion to the challenge lay in compelling Hanoi to cease its aggression against South Vietnam. Air Force leaders, in turn, steeped in a heritage of strategic bombing against industrialized countries, concluded that the most reasonable course of action would be to execute an intense bombing campaign to destroy 94 industrial and transportation targets that they believed would break Hanoi’s will and capability to continue the war. They argued for such a campaign throughout the summer and fall of 1964 and again in February 1965 follow­ing a Viet Cong attack on the U. S. air base at Pleiku. But President Johnson was concerned about the political risks of too forceful an approach and opted, instead, for a more measured strategy.47

In March 1965, under President Johnson’s orders and direct supervision, Air Force and Navy aircraft began Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing cam­paign designed to gradually escalate in intensity and move progressively north­ward in an effort to interdict supplies headed southward and compel Hanoi to agree to peace. It was an abject failure. By the spring of 1968, U. S. aircraft had flown over 300,000 sorties and dropped over 860,000 tons of bombs, but had failed to interdict enough supplies to prevent communist forces from launch­ing a major offensive during the Tet holiday.48 More importantly, after 3 years of bombing, communist leaders in Hanoi remained as intractable as ever, vow­ing to continue the war until the United States left and Vietnam was reunified. Before the end of the year, Johnson announced that Rolling Thunder would soon end and he would not seek reelection as president.

Despite the discouragements encountered in Vietnam, the Air Force learned a great deal there that would make it much more effective in future conflicts. Old lessons were relearned, such as the need for skills and tactics for winning air superiority and the vital importance of unity of command. And while the Air Force continued to believe that the key to victory in war against an industrialized state would be the independent application of airpower, Air Force doctrine came to acknowledge that close air support and interdiction would also be important missions in future wars.

All of these insights had implications for force structure. Painfully aware of its technical inadequacies at the beginning of the war, the Air Force learned lessons in combat that informed designs for new, much more capable fighters, such as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and a plane specifically devel­oped for supporting ground operations, the A-10 Thunderbolt II (nicknamed the “Warthog”). By the end of the Vietnam War, the Air Force was fielding its first laser-guided munitions, making interdiction strikes against bridges and railroads much more effective and far less costly in planes lost and aircrew killed or captured. And as North Vietnam, with the Soviet Union’s material and technical support, developed what was then the world’s most sophisticated air defense system integrating fighter defenses with radar-cued, antiaircraft artil­lery and SAMs, the U. S. Air Force developed suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) systems and tactics to defeat the new threat.

Many of these emerging concepts and capabilities came to bear when the North Vietnamese army launched a major conventional invasion of South Vietnam in the spring of 1972. By then the bulk of U. S. ground forces had been withdrawn from the conflict under President Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamiza – tion” program, but U. S. airpower was still available, and the President ordered it to support the badly battered Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Operation Linebacker, an interdiction campaign put together to carry out that order, imposed a terrible toll on the communist invasion force.

Over the next several months, with U. S. and South Vietnamese air sup­port, the ARVN withstood the initial onslaught, fought the communists to a standstill, and began pushing the invaders back until Hanoi finally called for a halt and agreed to negotiate an end to the war. When those negotiations broke down, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to conduct Operation Linebacker II, the heavy bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong using B-52 Stratofortresses. The Air Force did so from December 18 to December 29, with a 36-hour break for Christmas, flying 741 B-52 sorties, along with 769 sorties flown by other Air Force and Navy aircraft, dropping a total of more than 20,000 tons of bombs.49 The cost was high, with 15 B-52s and 12 other planes lost, but the opera­tion was successful. When the integrated air defense system (IADS) protect­ing Hanoi lost the ability to coordinate its operations and then exhausted its supply of SAMS, North Vietnamese leaders agreed to return to the bargain­ing table and a final agreement was struck a few weeks later. Analysts debate whether that agreement resulted more from the coercive leverage of airpower or the concessions that U. S. leaders made during negotiations, but either way, the United States was out of the Vietnam War.50

Xiaoming Zhang

The rise of China as a global economic and political power in recent years raises concerns for many policymakers, strategists, and scholars about Chinese military modernization—concerns that might provide a new perspec­tive on global security for years to come.1 At the center of this concern is the fact that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force (PLAAF) has gained offensive capability by equipping itself with an increasing number of third – and fourth-generation fighters, airborne early warning aircraft, aerial refueling tankers, intelligence collection and jamming aircraft, and long-range antiair­craft missile systems. But what matters most is not so much the growth of Chi­nese airpower capability per se; rather, it is how China might use its new mili­tary strength, especially its air and naval power. One area of particular interest to defense analysts is the evolving influence of the PLAAF within the PLA and in China’s own national policymaking.

Airpower and its influence have primarily dominated in Western politi­cal thought. Given China’s growing economic and military power as well as changes in its bureaucratic politics, security interests, and technology, it is logi­cal to examine the following concerns as they relate to the PLAAF:

■ concepts for airpower as an instrument of statecraft

■ influence within the PLA and in national policymaking

■ vision of future roles and missions

■ organization, leadership, personnel, and doctrine

■ capabilities

■ political and military implications of all of the above for Taiwan and the United States.

In 2007, a U. S. Army War College and National Bureau of Asian Research project, Right Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military, produced two separate studies of the latest development of the PLAAF and its growing capability.2 Using different methodologies, these two studies—one a scenario-based approach to articulate impending developments of the Chinese air force, and the other focused on institutional and doctrinal developments since the 1990s—addressed concerns such as the PLAAF’s current status and influence within the PLA and what role the PLAAF currently plays in national policymak­ing. The studies contend that perceptions of the international threat environment, technological limitations, lack of advanced aircraft, and budget concerns would act as constraints on the PLAAF’s modernization efforts, and any significant prog­ress in force modernization would take at least 10-15 years to reach.3

This chapter is inclined to argue that while the PLAAF is transforming, the PLA’s political culture and organizational system pose a serious challenge to China’s current effort to embrace an air force that is capable of both offensive and defensive operations, and especially to the PLAAF’s own ambition to “bear the brunt of the operations, and play a sustained, independent role” in modern warfare. These challenges include the PLAs and PLAAF’s tradition, percep­tion of itself and each other, older way of doing things, outdated organizational structure, and limited funding under the current system. The PLAAF’s current development is about more than changing doctrine and buying advanced sys­tems. An appropriate organizational change is necessary. It will take far longer to nourish an institutional culture that enables the PLAAF to embrace both offensive and defensive capability as an independent strategic force.

Analyzing the current and future state of PLAAF modernization neces­sitates examining the historical development of the Chinese air force and its experiences (during the Korean War, the 1950s Taiwan Strait crises, and the air defense engagements against Nationalist and American intrusions); it also requires an examination of the historical evolution of the political culture of the PLAAF over the years, including utilization of the senior leadership’s mili­tary thought as guidance to keep the development of the air force politically correct and thus reliable. It is against this historical background that the author has made his assessment of the current development of the PLAAF. The con­clusion following from this is that the army-dominated organizational system and the emergence of different services’ cultures continue to limit the PLAAF’s influence within the PLA, its relationship with other services, and the role it currently plays in national policymaking. This situation exists despite China’s experiencing profound changes in bureaucratic politics, in its security inter­ests, and in its technology and military capabilities.

The PLAAF’s education and training system (ЙМЛІШФФ1) consists of three main components: leadership and management system (^й^вїИФФІ); academic institution professional military education (PME) system (ідіЛКФФІ); and flight training system (^ТЛНШФФІ).76

The leadership and management system has five tiers: PLAAF Headquar­ters, MRAF Headquarters, corps, division (academic institutions, aviation troop training bases, brigades), and regiments. The Military Training Department (¥-ЩЛШМ / ¥ЛНнР) in the PLAAF Headquarters’ Headquarters Department is the highest organization for leading PLAAF education and training. Each of the other four tiers has an equivalent department for leading training at their level.77 Significantly, however, the Political Department’s Cadre Department (ШпнРТнРнР), not the Military Training Department, is responsible for manag­ing the Defense Student program.78 Based on a review of PLAAF-related books, journals, newspapers, and Internet articles, it appears that the Headquarters Department in each MRAF Headquarters and the 15th Airborne Corps Head­quarters has a Training Division (iJII^F,^); some divisions and brigades have a Training Office (ІЛІШ4), while others have a combined Operations and Train­ing Office (1ТШ4); and all regiments have a combined Operations and Training Branch (1TJJ№). There are no training organizations below the regiment level.

The PLAAF’s PME system is different from the USAF system. Basically, the United States Air Force Education and Training Command (AFETC), one of the USAF’s major commands, is responsible for enlisted and officer basic educa­tion, specialty training, and PME, throughout the member’s career. The excep­tion is the U. S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), which is a Direct Reporting Unit (DRU) under Headquarters Air Force. Upon graduation from USAFA, the new officers receive their specialty training under AFETC. The differences between the PLAAF and USAF education and training systems for enlisted personnel, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and officers are both numerous and signifi­cant. For example, whereas the USAF conducts basic training for all of its enlisted members at Lackland Air Force Base, the PLAAF does not train its new recruits and conscripts (who serve for 2 years) at a single location.79 Instead, they receive basic training at their operational unit or at a technical training unit. All PLAAF basic training occurs between early December and late January and the instruc­tors are assigned by that unit on a temporary basis. Upon completion of basic training, the new enlisted members either receive on-the-job training (OJT) at their operational base or at the technical training unit.

To achieve promotion, USAF NCOs must satisfactorily complete cor­respondence courses throughout their career, and selected senior NCOs take in-residence PME at a training organization, such as the Air Force Senior NCO Academy, for a few weeks. In contrast, the PLAAF emphasizes lengthier in-res­idence training. It has only one NCO school (specializing in communications), which students attend for 2 years. Several other PLAAF officer academic institutions offer separate 2- or 3-year associates degree programs for NCOs, including the Air Force Engineering University, Aviation University, Radar College, 1st Aviation (Aircraft Maintenance) College, Guilin (AAA and Airborne) College, Xuzhou (Logistics) College, and the 2d Flight College.80 Like the USAF, the PLAAF also provides correspondence courses for its NCOs, where they can receive a high school equivalency degree or an associate’s degree. If necessary, NCOs can attend a short course for squad leaders and for technical training if, for some reason, they did not receive it during their first 2 years as a new recruit/conscript.

The USAF’s officers come from graduates of USAFA, Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs, and college graduates who successfully complete a postgraduate Officer Training School (OTS) course. Upon gradua­tion, these officers then receive their specialty training. All officers must have a bachelor’s degree. In contrast, the PLAAF’s officer cadre comes from grad­uates of one of three PLAAF universities and 15 colleges, from Defense Stu­dent programs at 18 civilian universities, or from directly-recruited civilian college graduates with a science or engineering degree. The PLAAF ceased directly recruiting enlisted personnel as officers in the early 1980s. All cadets who attend a PLAAF academic institution also receive their technical training and are assigned directly to their operational unit upon graduation. Students who graduate from the Defense Student program or who are directly recruited after graduation are assigned to their operational unit, where they receive OJT.

USAF officers must complete PME correspondence courses at each level to be competitive for promotion. Some, though not all, officers also have the opportunity to attend in-residence courses sponsored by the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base. These programs include the 6-week Air and Space Basic Course for second lieutenants, 5-week Squadron Officer School course for captains, 40-week Air Command and Staff College course for majors and major selectees, and the 44-week Air War College course for lieutenant colo­nels and colonels. Some officers also have the opportunity to attend joint insti­tutions such as the National War College, or specialized training such as the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Students in these courses come from all specialties, as well as from other service branches and selected civil­ians in government service. In addition, the Air Force Institute of Technol­ogy (AFIT) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base provides a variety of graduate programs in science and technology-related subjects. Some USAF officers are sponsored to attend nongovernmental academic institutions such as the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University or other civilian insti­tutions, with majors ranging from military history to aerospace engineering.

Currently, the PLAAF’s officer PME academic education system is divided into two levels of education: basic and specialized education and advanced education (S^SW).81 Whereas all cadets who attend a PLAAF college, including pilots, receive both their basic education and specialty train­ing before they graduate, Defense Students do not receive any technical training until after they graduate. Pilot cadets who are selected from high school grad­uates receive 30 months of basic education at the Air Force Aviation Univer­sity (Й¥^Й^^). Upon completion, they are assigned to the university’s flight training base or to one of seven flight colleges, where they complete 6 months of flight training in a basic trainer and 12 months in an advanced trainer. Depend­ing on the type of aircraft they will eventually fly at an operational unit, they are then assigned directly to an operational base or for 1 year to one of seven tran­sition training bases. Pilot candidates who were recruited from PLA or civilian college graduates receive 2 years of training that includes basic flight theory and flying time in a basic trainer and advanced trainer. After graduation, they are then assigned to one of the seven transition training bases for 1 year.

Nonaviation PLAAF cadets receive basic education either at the Air Force Engineering University (AFEU) or at a PLAAF specialty college. Those finishing AFEU are then assigned to one of the PLAAF’s colleges to complete their specialty training and a bachelor’s degree. Cadets who do not attend AFEU remain at the same college to complete their specialty training and receive either a senior technical (associate’s) or bachelor’s degree. Upon grad­uation, all new officers are assigned to their permanent unit, where the first year is considered a probationary (Я^) period, during which they spend the first 6 months as a squad (enlisted troop) leader.82 Prior to graduation, some Defense Students spend a short period of time at an operational unit observing the daily activities. Upon graduation, Defense Students have several options, including attending graduate school. If they do not attend graduate school, they are assigned either directly to an operational unit or to a training organization where they receive specialty training. With the exception of new graduates who serve in remote areas, the first year is a probationary (Я^) period.83 Almost all Defense Student graduates serve in technical, rather than command, billets.84

Advanced education for intermediate – and senior-level PLAAF officers (lieutenant colonels, colonels, senior colonels, and major generals) is conducted in only a few military academic institutions. Only selected officers have the oppor­tunity to receive advanced PME or a graduate degree. For example, command track officers receive 1 year of intermediate – and senior-level PME at the Air Force Command College (Й¥1н№^й), which does not award a graduate degree, while some technical officers attend specialized programs for 2 to 3 years in various PLAAF colleges, such as AFEU, the Air Force Radar College (Й^га&^й), or Xuzhou Air Force (Logistics) College (ШИЙ^^й), to obtain graduate degrees. Certain command track officers, such as radar and SAM commanders, can attend specific graduate programs in a PLAAF college or a civilian university where they receive an advanced degree. Some officers (senior colonels and major generals) receive their senior-level PME at the National Defense University (ИШЛ^).

The PLAAF’s various academic institutions are organized into two basic categories: flight colleges and all others.85 Each category has three main compo­nents: a command element ($й^ЛЙ), administrative departments (ШП), some of which also provide certain types of training, and academic departments (^).86

Flight training for all new high school graduates or enlisted personnel selected for pilot training begins at the Air Force Aviation University (Й^^ЙЛ ^), which was created in 2004 by combining the Changchun Flight College (R# ЛТ^й), 7th Flight College (Щ^ЛТ^й), and the 2d Aviation (Aircraft Mainte­nance) College (Щ“^Й^й). All new flight cadets spend their first 30 months at the university, where they receive their basic education. They then transfer to one of the seven numbered flight colleges for 18 months to receive their flight training.87

The Aviation University, which is located in Changchun, Jilin Province, has a commandant (RR), PC, and at least two deputy commandants and one deputy PC. The university has a Training Department (Х)\ШМ) that serves as well as the Headquarters Department. It also has a Political Department (&)n Ш), College/School Affairs (й#Ш / Й^Ш), and Scientific Research Depart­ment (HWH).88 The Scientific Research Department is responsible for over­seeing all of the institution’s technical training curricula and systems research work.89 The Training Department and Scientific Research Department also have subordinate classrooms and laboratories, where personnel from the departments provide training to the cadets. The College/School Affairs Depart­ment is responsible for managing facilities and logistics issues.

All seven of the PLAAF’s numbered flight colleges are division leader-grade organizations and are structured similarly to an operational air division, with a command staff plus four administrative and functional departments—Headquar – ters Department, Political Department, Logistics Department, and Equipment Department. Rather than academic departments, each college has a subordinate basic trainer regiment and one or more advanced trainer regiments. Table 4-5 shows the flight colleges, their location, and the types of personnel they train.90

Upon graduation, the pilots from the 1st and 2d flight colleges are assigned directly to their operational units. Pilots graduating from the other five colleges are assigned to one of the PLAAF’s seven transition training bases for about 1 year. Upon completing transition training, they are then assigned to their permanent operational unit, where they transition into that unit’s air­craft. Some of the graduates from the five colleges that train fighter pilots tran­sition into multirole or ground attack aircraft.

The PLAAF’s nonaviation colleges are organized differently from its avi­ation colleges. They each have a command staff, 2-5 administrative and func­tional departments, academic departments, and cadet teams.91 As shown in table 4-6, all nonaviation academic institutions have at least a Training Depart­ment and Political Department (ШпнР). Depending on the institution’s mis­sion, location, and curriculum, other administrative departments include a College/School Affairs, Basic Department (вїїнР), and/or Scientific Research Department. The Basic Department is responsible for providing instruction in certain required basic education courses that all undergraduates must take regardless of their specialty.92 The protocol order for the five departments is Headquarters, Political, College/School Affairs, Basic, and Scientific Research.

Each institution has several academic departments and associated spe­cialties, which prepare graduates to assume their operational duties. For exam­ple, the PLAAF’s Surface-to-Air Missile College (№Й^#^[й) has six academic departments—Command Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electro­Mechanical Engineering, Radar Engineering, Guided Missile Engineering, and Systems Engineering—and 12 academic specialties.93

Depending upon the academic institution, undergraduate students/cadets (^M) and graduate students are grouped into various organizations,

which are typically subordinate to the academic department to which they are affiliated. These include the student group (^M^PA), which is a battalion-level organization; student companies (^йй); student teams (^MKPA / ^MPA); and student squads (^Mffi). Of note, within the PLA, a cadet’s graduating class year is based on the year training begins, not the year of graduation. For example, the cadets who began training in summer 2010 are identified as the class of 2010. The reason for this is that not all cadets receive a 4-year degree. In addition, their total time-in-service includes their cadet time, not just their active duty time, once they become an officer.

Scientific Research System

The PLAAF’s scientific research system is incor­

porated into the broader Chinese research, development, and acquisition (RDA) structure.94 According to PLAAF 2010, RDA of a specific weapon or system usually involves multiple phases of development and related activ­ities by different organizations within and outside of the PLAAF. China’s RDA process allows it to plan properly and to lay a solid foundation for PLAAF modernization programs. Under the overall guidance of the GAD, the PLAAF Headquarters’ Equipment Department is responsible for over­seeing all of the PLAAF’s equipment and weapons systems development.95 The process involves the following sequential phases: Demonstration/ Development and Evaluation (iUffi); Proposal (Й"Щ); Engineering Develop­ment (ifMWfiJ); Design Finalization (ШТ^М) and Production Finalization (±^^M).96 Before the RDA process actually begins, preparatory research takes place for the chosen area of development under the official rubric “National Defense Science and Technology Preparatory Research.” Research­ers examine ongoing technology efforts that could meet operational require­ments and evaluate candidate technologies that could possibly mature into useful weapons.97

In February 2004, PLAAF Headquarters formally established the Air Force Equipment Research Academy (S^S^W^K), consolidating admin­istration of more than 20 PLAAF scientific research organizations.98 The acad­emy is a corps deputy leader-grade organization.99 Its administrative depart­ments include the Science and Technology (S&T) Department (ДЙН), Political Department (ikinH), and Academy Affairs Department (K^H).100 The S&T Department serves as the Headquarters Department, and the Acad­emy Affairs Department most likely manages the facilities. The academy has about 1,500 S&T officers and 490 senior technical billets.

A review of the academy’s activities since 2004 indicates at least two rea­sons the PLAAF, along with the PLA Navy and Second Artillery, created their own equipment research academy. The first was consolidating management of all RDA under a single organization. The second reason was to deal with the GAD and government RDA organizations on a more equal basis.

The academy has a dozen primary functions and responsibilities for equipment and weapons systems research and development (R&D/W$[I), which involve tracking foreign development of new military technology, equipment, and weapons systems; serving as the PLAAF’s top level organiza­tion for equipment and weapons system design, system development, regula­tions, and planning for new systems, modifying older systems and special-use equipment; and conducting research for the operational use, maintenance, and technical support for new and modified equipment.101 Some of the subordinate institutes are shown below.102 The research institutes are either division – or reg­iment-level organizations.103

■ Air Force Equipment General Demonstration (Development and Eval­uation) Research Institute a regiment-grade

organization, has an Organization and Plans Division (ШАра+£№), Political Division (Й/п&), and Management Division (®Щ&), and nine research labs (ШЙЙ)104

■ Air Force Aviation Equipment Research Institute (Й¥^Й^^ЭДЙ№), a division-grade organization, has an S&T Division (ДЙ&), Political Department (ШпнР), and Management Division, and several subor­dinate research institutes and labs105

■ Air Force Ground Air Defense Equipment Research Institute (Й¥±№

a regiment-grade organization, has an S&T Division, Political Division, and Management Division, six research labs, and one testing workshop (й$[№Й)106

■ Air Force Radar and Electronic Countermeasures Research Institute

a division-grade organization, has an S&T Division, Political Department, and Management Division, and sev­eral research labs107

■ Air Force Communications, Navigation, and Command Automation Research Institute (Й¥®1ШЩ^^1н№Шй1ЬЭДЙ№), has a General Office (ІЇ&Ш), several research labs, and a services subunit (Mi^^PA)108

■ Air Force Reconnaissance and Intelligence Equipment Research Institute (Й

with three research labs and a testing workshop109

■ Air Force Weather and Chemical Defense Research Institute (^ЩНМ PMhW^fff), which has an S&T Division, Political Department, and Management Division, as well as four research labs110

■ SAM Technical/Technology Services Research Institute (Щ#Й^Ш^ЭД

W111

■ Air Force Equipment Software Testing and Evaluation Center

(^ШШШПФй).112

Political Work System

The PLAAF’s political work (ШпІ"№) system mirrors the PLAs overall polit­ical work system.113 The PLAs political work system is the means through which

the Chinese Communist Party guarantees absolute control over the military. The PLAAF political work system consists of six main elements integrated into every organization within the PLAAF Party Congress system: Party Committee system; Party Congress system; political officer system; political functional and administra­tive department system; discipline inspection system; and judicial system.114

Chinese military publications identify four types of air force campaigns: air offensive campaigns, air defense campaigns, air blockade campaigns, and airborne campaigns. These can be either air force-only campaigns or, more frequently, air force-led joint campaigns that incorporate other services. These air force campaigns can also be part of broader joint campaigns, such as an island-landing campaign or joint blockade campaign. In all air operations, a great deal of emphasis is placed on surprise, camouflage, use of deception, meticulous planning, and strikes against critical key points.

An air offensive campaign can have one or more of several objectives: obtaining air superiority; destroying key enemy political, military, and eco­nomic targets; destroying the enemy’s transportation and logistic supply sys­tem; and destroying the enemy’s forces to isolate the battlefield and facilitate PLA ground and maritime operations. Obtaining air superiority is needed in order to conduct air strikes against targets, but the principal objective of an air offensive campaign is to strike political, economic, and military targets, rather than simply to achieve air superiority.78

Several types of combat groups are involved in air offensive campaigns: a strike group, an air defense suppression group, a cover group, a support group, an air defense group, and an operational reserve.79 An offensive air campaign is said to consist of four tasks: conducting information operations, breaking through enemy defenses, launching air strikes, and protecting against coun­terstrikes. The first three are generally conducted sequentially, beginning with information operations. The last is conducted throughout the campaign.80

A textbook on military operations lists three primary objectives for air defense campaigns: protecting the capital against air attack, protecting other important targets within the theater, and seizing and holding air superiority.81 Defensive air campaigns, according to Chinese military publications, can be national in scope or can be confined to a particular theater.82 Depending on the circumstances, the entire air effort in a given war could be defensive; a single phase could be defensive; or, in the case of a geographically wide-ranging con­flict, some theaters could be defensive, while others are offensive. In a war over Taiwan, for example, the PLA might conduct an offensive air campaign in the area opposite Taiwan while preparing for defensive air campaigns to the north and south in anticipation of possible retaliation or counterattack by U. S. forces.

Air defense campaigns are described as entailing three types of oper­ations: resistance, counterattack, and close protection. Resistance operations are actions to intercept, disrupt, and destroy attacking aircraft. Counterattack operations are attacks on enemy air bases (including aircraft carriers). Close protection operations are passive defense measures, such as fortification, con­cealment, camouflage, and mobility.83 China’s overall approach to air defense is to combine the early interception of enemy attacks with full-depth, layered resistance to protect targets and forces while gradually increasing the tempo of counterattacks on enemy bases.84

Air blockade campaigns are operations intended to prevent an adver­sary from conducting air operations and to cut off its economic and military links with the outside world.85 Some Chinese sources describe them as simply a special variety of air offensive campaign,86 but most authoritative sources regard them as a distinct type of campaign.87 They will usually be conducted as part of a broader joint blockade campaign but can be implemented as an independent air force campaign. Air blockade campaigns are regarded as hav­ing a strong political nature, being long in duration, and requiring a high level of command and control.88 Typically, an air blockade campaign will entail the establishment of one or more no-fly zones surrounded by aerial surveillance zones.89 Actions conducted as part of an air blockade campaign will include information operations, flight suppression operations, interdiction of mari­time and ground traffic, strikes against the enemy’s counterblockade system, and air defense operations.90

Unlike the U. S. armed forces, the PLAs airborne assault (paratroop) forces belong to its air force. Therefore, an airborne campaign in the PLA is an air force campaign, not a joint campaign. Airborne campaigns are regarded as inherently resource-intensive and difficult to organize and prosecute.91 For an airborne campaign to be carried out, information and air superiority must be seized (at least locally) and firepower preparation around the landing zone must be conducted. Then, air corridors to the landing zone must be opened up and kept clear, and enemy land-based air defenses near the landing zone must be suppressed while airborne forces are flown to the landing zone. Once they have landed, the airborne forces must clear and secure a base for receiv­ing additional forces and supplies, including, if they landed on or near an air­field, seizing the airfield and bringing it to operational readiness. Meanwhile, friendly air and missile forces will suppress and interdict nearby enemy ground forces. Finally, the air-landed forces can initiate ground operations.92

Although any of these four types of air force campaigns can be con­ducted as an independent single-service campaign, they are more likely to be conducted as part of a broader joint campaign, such as an island-landing cam­paign or a joint blockade campaign. Even if an air force campaign is conducted as an independent, single-service campaign, other services, particularly the PLAN and the Second Artillery, are likely to be involved in supporting roles. For example, conventional missiles of the Second Artillery will play a key role in air offensive campaigns, counterattack operations of air defense campaigns, and providing firepower support for airborne campaigns.

Similarly, the PLAN has responsibility for defending certain sectors of China’s airspace and would be the service with primary responsibility for conducting counterattacks against air attacks launched from aircraft carriers and, thus, would likely play an important role in an air defense campaign. The PLAN is also responsible for providing air defense for surface naval forces, including, presumably, a Taiwan-bound invasion force. Little information appears to be available in published Chinese sources, however, on how PLAAF and PLAN aviation and SAM forces would interoperate when conducting air operations—a potentially significant challenge, particularly given the huge engagement envelopes (150 kilometers or more) of the land-based and ship – based SAMs the PLAAF and PLAN have begun acquiring. Conversely, naval strike appears not to be an important mission for the PLAAF, meaning that naval strike operations are primarily the responsibility of the relatively small and less-capable PLAN aviation forces (along with, possibly in the future, the Second Artillery, if it acquires an antiship ballistic-missile capability).

Conclusion

Chinese military publications on air force operations are system­atic and comprehensive. Few militaries in the world have such extensive published documentation on the employment of air forces. The concepts described, moreover, appear to be realistic and practical, drawing on the expe­rience of other air forces in recent conflicts, particularly those of the United States (the PLAAF having had no significant combat experience since the 1950s), but remaining appropriate to the current and near-future capabilities of the PLAAF. Chinese military analysts are clearly engaged in a serious process of developing specific, practical concepts for the employment of China’s air forces.

In addition, although the PLAAF has traditionally emphasized defensive operations, that is no longer the case, and the United States and Taiwan would likely find the PLAAF to be an aggressive opponent in the event of a conflict. The PLA clearly prefers to achieve air superiority by attacking its enemy on the ground or water. Especially at the beginning of a war, the PLA will endeavor to attack enemy air bases, ballistic-missile bases, aircraft carriers, and warships equipped with land-attack cruise missiles before enemy aircraft can take off or missile attacks can be launched. These attacks, moreover, will be carried out not by China’s air force operating in isolation but in coordination with the Sec­ond Artillery’s conventional ballistic and cruise missiles.

By 2015 or so, the weapons systems and platforms that China is acquir­ing will potentially enable it to effectively implement the four types of air force campaigns described in the previous section. The significant numbers of mod­ern fighter aircraft and SAMs, as well as the long-range early warning radars and secure data and voice communication links China is likely to have by 2015, for example, coupled with the hardening and camouflage measures China has already taken, would make a Chinese air defense campaign, if conducted according to the principles described in Chinese military publications, highly challenging for U. S. air forces.93 Similarly, these same modern fighters, along with ground-launched conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, cruise mis­sile-carrying medium bombers, and aerial refueling aircraft, will enable China to conduct offensive operations far into the western Pacific.94

Whether China will actually be able to fully exploit its air force doctrine and capabilities, however, is less clear. Much will depend on the quality of the training and leadership of China’s air force, and it should be pointed out that the PLAAF last engaged in major combat operations in the Jinmen campaign of 1958, more than 50 years ago.

As is so often the case following an unsuccessful war, U. S. military lead­ers entered the post-Vietnam era with a strong conviction that they needed to reform their institutions. Morale in the U. S. Army, in particular, was seriously damaged, having fought “a series of battles that were, at best, tactical stale­mates,” and having sunk into “a deep malaise brought about by an unpopu­lar war, an inequitable draft system, a progressive unraveling of small-unit discipline, and a severe questioning of the competence and integrity of its senior leaders.”51 Air Force leaders were also deeply disturbed by the Viet­nam experience. While many of them clung to the belief that Linebacker II demonstrated that the United States could have won the war had President Johnson allowed the Air Force to conduct an intense bombardment of the 94 targets it proposed in the very beginning, others, particularly those in TAC where most of the war’s operational lessons had been learned, were less san­guine that strategic bombing would be the principal war-winning element of all future conflicts.52 But SAC and the bomber pilots still dominated the Air Force. As a result, Air Force doctrine throughout the remainder of the 1970s blandly sought to relate the role of airpower “more directly to national pol­icy and national security strategy,” suggesting that the independent, strategic application of airpower remained the paramount conceptual model in official U. S. Air Force thinking.53

It should not surprise that, as the U. S. Army turned its attention from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the central challenge of defending Western Europe from attack by a large, mechanized, and heavily-armored Soviet Army, it would find U. S. Air Force TAC to be a willing and necessary partner in its doc­trinal reforms. Still the bastard son of a SAC-dominated Air Force, TAC had also refocused on the challenges of fighting a war in Europe. During the Viet­nam War the Army and TAC had relearned the World War II lesson that they needed to cooperate with each other to be effective. So, following a series of exploratory meetings in late 1973, TAC and the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) opened a joint office to study integration issues—the Directorate of Air-Land Force Application (ALFA)—at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, in July 1975.54 It marked the beginning of a resurgence of thought about the use of airpower at the operational level of war.

During the next 15 years, the TAC-TRADOC relationship produced doc­trinal innovations in three phases. In the first, running until 1979, the part­ners worked out ways in which airpower would integrate with ground forces in support of the Army’s newly developed doctrine of Active Defense. However, as Army officers studied the new concept, they began to worry that it was too defensively oriented. Given the successive waves of Soviet formations that could be thrown at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, it would only be a matter of time before the defenders were overrun.55 Therefore, in the sec­ond phase of doctrine development starting about 1980, Army planners began considering ways to extend the battlefield to engage second – and third-eche­lon Soviet forces before they could be brought to bear. As the primary means available for delivering firepower in the deep battle area would be airpower, this required developing procedures to closely coordinate air interdiction strikes with those from Army deep fire assets, such as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), and with closer fires from artillery and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), while also providing CAS to U. S. and Allied troops in con­tact with Soviet forces. The Army called the new concept “AirLand Battle Doc­trine.” Further development over the next several years led to the third phase of innovation emerging in the mid-1980s: the evolution of AirLand Battle Doc­trine into an offensive, deep-battle concept emphasizing close integration of air – power with high-speed ground maneuver operations.56

While all of this was happening, the U. S. Air Force was undergoing a transition in leadership—fighter pilots were beginning to outnumber bomber pilots in the highest ranks of the service. Due to the fact that more fighter pilots had seen combat in Korea and Vietnam than had bomber pilots, the majority of rated officers favored by promotion boards in succeeding years hailed from the tactical air forces. By the 1960s the effects of these pressures were beginning to be felt in the lower general officer ranks, and by the 1970s a growing num­ber of three – and four-star generals had come from fighter cockpits. Yet even as late as when the ALFA stood up in 1975, “bomber generals still outnumbered fighter generals on the Air Staff by two to one, and the major (four-star) com­mand positions by four to three.”57 But that ratio was finally about to change. By 1982, fighter generals outnumbered bomber generals in the major com­mands and no bomber generals remained in Air Staff positions. The transi­tion culminated that year when a fighter pilot, General Charles A. Gabriel, was appointed Air Force Chief of Staff.58

The present understanding of the PLAAF’s development cannot be dis­associated from an overview of its early experiences. The doctrinal guidance for PLAAF development was Chinese defensive thinking. From the outset, the PLAAF leadership preferred to build an air force that possessed more fighters than bombers. Its theory was that the role of fighters dovetailed well with the defensive cast of Chinese military thought. Bombers attacked enemy countries and terri­tories—an aggressive act—but fighters were defensive in nature and, if success­ful in fending off attacks, would ensure air superiority.4 The PLAAF’s immediate mission, therefore, was to attain air superiority over the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, provide support to the planned amphibious assault on Taiwan, and then develop itself into a force capable of defending China’s airspace and waters.

The Korean War provided the impetus for the rapid expansion of the air force in both aviation personnel and equipment. A large number of officers and troops were transferred from ground forces to form 26 aviation divisions, four independent regiments, and eight aviation and three mechanical schools operat­ing throughout the conflict on the Korean Peninsula.5 The existing ground force structure was simply grafted onto the air force, and army officers were chosen to command the air force. The PLAAF leadership was accustomed to believe that the building of an air force on the foundation of the ground forces was a nec­essary principle for its future success. Thus, its primary mission was to provide support for ground troops, and the air force would take the victories of ground operations as its own.6 The air force was created as an independent service of the PLA under the direct control of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the highest military authority of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).7 This ground-centric army bias accounts for the PLAAF leadership’s inclination at the time to perceive the air force as a support unit of the PLA. They did not consider airpower essential in a strategic sense, valuing it only for the tactical support it could provide to the ground forces during operations.8 Such thinking, moreover, justified an army-centric and – dominated PLA system that subsequently pre­vented the air force from operating as an independent service.

The Korean War experience was a driving force for the PLAAF to fur­ther emphasize air defense and procurement of fighters to constitute the larg­est and most important element of the Chinese air force. The Chinese lead­ers gleaned a mixed understanding of airpower from the Korean conflict. While recognizing America’s air superiority, Chinese leaders discounted the role airpower had played. They found it particularly interesting that air bom­bardment inflicted fewer casualties upon Communist forces than ground fire. Given their confidence in the human factor—that men could overcome weap – ons—and their own guerrilla war experience, they remained convinced that PLA ground forces could overwhelm stronger opponents and win any future war.9 It is thus not surprising that Chinese political leaders and generals main­tained their view that future wars would be conducted in the context of ground operations, with airpower used to supplement the power of the army. This air defense experience thus resulted in the PLAAF’s continuing to emphasize an air defense strategy and the development of fighter planes, radar, and ground antiaircraft systems, while devoting only a small portion of the overall force structure to delivering limited air-to-surface ordnance.

Throughout the 1950s, the PLAAF constantly engaged in air combat against the Nationalist Chinese air force for the control of airspace over the coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces (right across the strait from Tai­wan). Air battles over the Taiwan Strait intensified in the summer of 1958.10 As during the Korean War, the PLAAF took a passive stance and waited to respond to intrusions by the Nationalist air force, which was much smaller, but was thus free to choose the time and method of aerial combat. The PLAAF, by contrast, had to depend on ground control intercept (GCI) to scramble its fighters. Furthermore, the capability of the air force was restricted by politi­cal considerations and the limited range of the MiG-17 fighter. Nevertheless, operations against the Nationalists over the southeast coastal areas in the 1950s gave the Chinese valuable experience in employing airpower in air defense.

This trend continued into the late 1950s and then the 1960s as one major focus of the PLAAF’s day-to-day activity was constantly scrambling its fight­ers to intercept intruding Nationalist and American aircraft, many of them spy planes (in sequence, the McDonnell F2H-2P, Lockheed RF-80C, Lockheed P2V-5, Martin P4M, North American RF-86A/F, Republic RF-84F, North American RF-100A, Martin RB-57A/D, McDonnell RF-101A, various Lock­heed U-2s, Lockheed RF-104G, and unmanned Ryan Firebee drones that routinely flew over Chinese airspace), but also engaging and shooting down aircraft that accidently approached or overflew its borders, including, shortly after the Korean War, a Cathay Pacific DC-4 airliner, and several American aircraft shot down during the Vietnam War.11

The incidents of intruding overflights took place in the midst of an upsurge in political radicalism within the PRC that emphasized political fac­tors and the promotion of Mao’s cult of personality. The downing of every intruder was described more like a political victory than a military one. Cele­brations were held and awards were given to those involved in combat actions. Senior party and state leaders, including Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, always received the men responsible for the shoot-downs, making head­line news across the country. Senior military leaders also used these events to promote the air force, proclaiming that “all military services must learn from the air force.”12 Chinese accounts of the PLAAF’s role in these conflicts, including a claim that the PLAAF is the only air force in the world to have ever defeated the U. S. Air Force (USAF), have become important components of the service tradition, continuing to influence the Chinese air force to think of itself in a continuum linking the past to the present, and thence to the future.13

The PLAAF’s logistics support system (й’ШЖШФФО consists of six pri­mary components: materials (ЙЙ), finances (ИШІАЙ.), medical services (ій ■RB), equipment maintenance and repair (Ш&ШШ), transportation (Й®ш$і), and engineering (ifM).115 These are managed by the second-level departments within the PLAAF Logistics Department’s system, down to the regiment level. Of particular interest are the field stations (ЙЩ) that support air regiments. According to PLAAF 2010, a field station is an independent logistics support unit subordinate to the air division. Depending on their location and function, some field stations can also be directly subordinate to an MRAF Headquarters. The commander (Щ^) serves as the airbase commander with responsibility for all facilities and operations. He also organizes the supply of materials and equip­ment to each tenant air regiment at the airbase and provides logistics support for flight operations and training. A field station has three components: a command staff, functional and administrative branches, and subordinate company-level organizations. Although the field station serves as the logistics support organi­zation for an air regiment, it also incorporates certain organizations within the Equipment Department system, such as munitions and air materiel.116

Kevin Pollpeter

On November 1, 2009, Chinese news outlets published an interview with People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Commander General Xu Qiliang that was interpreted by many as an official Chinese statement endors­ing the development of space weapons and the establishment of a space force based on the PLAAF. Xu proclaimed that the 21st century was “an informatized century” and “an air and space century.” Xu went on to say:1

The air and space era and information era have arrived at the same time and the domain of information and domain of space and air have become the new commanding height for international strategic com­petition. Considering the global trend of a new revolution in military affairs, competition among armed forces is moving toward the air and space domain and is extending from the aviation domain to near space and even deep space. Such a “shift” represents an irresistible trend, such an “expansion” is historically inevitable, and such development is irre­versible. In a certain sense, having control of air and space means having control of the ground, oceans, and the electromagnetic space, which also means having the strategic initiative in one’s hands.

In ground operations, the commanding height is to be found on the hill­top; in three-dimensional operations, the commanding height is to be found in the air. Since the air force’s “sphere of activity is high up in the heavens,” it is heaven’s favored one and boasts the combination of a sci­ence gene, an expedition gene, and a military gene. The air force is a young military service branch, yet its appearance on the scene has at once twisted the curve of the evolution of two-dimensional warfare and has quickly established a status that is on a par with the land force whose history goes back several thousand years and the naval force whose history goes back several hundred years. It has evolved from a supporting subordinate force into a decisive strategic force. Since the air force is a science – and technol­ogy-based service branch, it has always occupied the commanding height of knowledge…. On the surface of the earth, the area of land is limited and so is the area of oceans and seas, only the space and the sky have no limits.

In facing the particular nature of the developing competition in the domains of air and space, the people’s air force must establish a con­cept of air and space security, of air and space interests, and of air and space development. It must establish an air force that corresponds to our country’s building and development needs, that is in keeping with the development needs of the air and space age and that will help maintain regional stability and world peace by properly forging a sharp sword and shield capable of winning peace.

In order to develop an air force that is capable of carrying out this agenda, Xu advocated that the PLAAF should focus on carrying out the “historic mis­sions of our armed forces in the new century” by extending the “boundary of security” to “wherever there are national interests” and by building a ser­vice capable of winning an informatized war, integrating air and space, acquir­ing defensive and offensive capabilities, and developing reconnaissance, early warning, air strike, antimissile air defense, and strategic airlift and airdrop capabilities.2

Even though Xu did not explicitly propose that China develop antisat­ellite (ASAT) weapons, Xu’s call for the air force to forge a “sharp sword and shield capable of winning peace” and his assessment “of the inevitability of mil­itary competition in air and space” were widely interpreted as a call for the development of space weapons and for the PLAAF to be the PLA’s space force. Even the Chinese new agency Xinhua reported that Xu had advocated devel­oping “an air force with integrated capabilities for both offensive and defensive operations in space as well as in the air”3

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, reacting to the interview, denied that China would ever participate in a space arms race. According to foreign min­istry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, “China has all along upheld the peaceful use of outer space. We oppose the weaponization of outer space or a space arms race. China has never and will not participate in an outer space arms race in any form. The position of China on this point remains unchanged”4

Speaking 10 days after his interview, Xu clarified but did not retract his remarks. He stated that China’s policy toward outer space had always been con­sistent and that the air force would firmly carry out the policies of the coun­try. It supported using outer space for peaceful purposes and it opposed car­rying out an arms race in space and deploying weapons in outer space. China also followed the principle of peace, development, cooperation, and peaceful exploration and utilization. At the same time, Xu stated that his earlier remarks were an “objective analysis” that recognized that “some countries are develop­ing weapons for space deployment, and some phenomena of not being secure have appeared in outer space”5

Xu Qiliang’s remarks in his November 1, 2009, interview offer provoca­tive insights into the PLAAF’s attitudes toward the use of space, and Xu’s state­ments regarding space are supported by a substantial body of literature written by PLAAF researchers in the years preceding the interview. This correlation between Xu’s remarks and PLAAF research indicates that PLAAF doctrine is shaped by an interaction between PLAAF scholars and PLAAF leadership. This doctrine regards space-based assets as the primary source of information and the seizure of the initiative in outer space as a prerequisite for victory in the domains of the ground, air, and sea. The necessity to seize the initiative in outer space requires the PLAAF to achieve space supremacy—defined as the ability to use space and deny its use to others.

Moreover, the correlation of this research and Xu’s remarks indicates that the PLAAF has committed itself to become both an air and space force in which the PLAAF is the main orchestrator of space-enabled operations. Under the rubric of an “integrated air and space force,” the PLAAF describes itself as the service most responsible for the PLA’s space enterprise. In this role, the PLAAF will be the primary entity facilitating network-centric warfare and jointness in the PLA and the main defender of China’s interests in outer space. Because of this, PLAAF analysts argue that the air force is the ideal institution to lead the PLAs space efforts. Consequently, the doctrine of integrated air and space operations is not only about how the PLAAF should conduct future operations, but also about the PLAAF position within the PLA hierarchy.

The fullest analysis and comprehension of Xu Qiliang’s remarks and PLAAF writings on the role of space in the PLAAF strategy of integrated air and space operations (Й^—ФІТіК) first require examining the role of space in the strategic guidance of the “New Historic Missions.” This examination will provide context for the importance of space in future operations and the organizational changes proposed by PLAAF researchers to effectively carry out space missions.

One might have expected the ascendance of fighter generals to result in the U. S. Air Force abandoning the concept of airpower as an independent war­winning instrument, but that was not the case. In 1988, Colonel John Warden, an F-15 pilot, published a book entitled, The Air Campaign: Planning for Com­bat, based on a thesis he wrote as a student at National Defense University.59 Warden’s argument in that treatise was reasonably evenhanded, balancing the need for offensive and defensive operations and conceding that in some conflicts the chief use of airpower might be “the destruction—or neutralization through maneuver—of some or all of the enemy’s forces.”60 Nevertheless, the very title of the book ruffled Army feathers in the suggestion that an air campaign might be fought separate from an Army-led joint campaign. To the Army’s growing irrita­tion, Warden’s ideas would soon become much more provocative.

By 1990, Warden had become chief of Checkmate, the Headquarters Air Force strategy analysis center. There, he developed the idea that an enemy state is a system, somewhat akin to a human body, with eyes, nerve centers, a brain, and other subsystems to provide infrastructure, organic essentials, and defense mechanisms. Warden proposed that one need not destroy an enemy’s infra­structure, organic essentials, or even his defenses to defeat him. The most effi­cient way to victory would be to attack selected “centers of gravity” (COGs), key nodes in essential subsystems, particularly the enemy’s brain and nervous system.61 If the correct COGs were struck simultaneously, the enemy system would be unable to adjust to compensate for the failure of multiple functions. It would go into “strategic paralysis” or collapse. Warden asserted that pre­cision weapons had provided airpower the ability to carry out such “parallel attacks” and thereby defeat enemy systems quickly, with less blood and trea­sure expended on both sides.62

Another prominent airpower thinker who emerged in the same era was David Deptula. As a lieutenant colonel, he was Warden’s deputy in Checkmate and, after the latter’s retirement, continued in the Air Force, reaching general officer rank.63 Deptula, who served in Secretary of the Air Force Donald Rice’s Secretarial staff group, had been principal author of the service’s Global Reach – Global Power strategic planning framework, issued in June 1990 and subse­quently forming the conceptual framework for the restructuring of the Air Force over the next 3 years. Deptula championed Warden’s ideas and carried them a step forward, emphasizing the need to conduct “effects-based opera­tions”—that is, identifying the correct COGs and striking them to create the system effects Warden advocated, versus striking targets simply to destroy the enemy’s materiel.64

Warden and Deptula got the first test of their ideas in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, which hinted strongly at the conceptual convergence of opera­tional and strategic airpower. At the request of Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General John M. Loh, the Checkmate team developed an air-targeting con­cept called “Instant Thunder” which they believed would be sufficient to force the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. The Instant Thunder plan entailed rapid, intense attacks on command, control, and communications systems to paralyze Sad­dam’s ability to coordinate his forces and additional attacks on industry and infrastructure targets to compel him to withdraw from Kuwait. Warden briefed the plan to Loh, then to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Colin Pow­ell, and then, at Powell’s request, to U. S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, who requested that Warden fly to Saudi Arabia and brief the U. S. Central Air Force (USCENTAF) Commander, Lieutenant General Charles Horner.65 Horner accepted elements of the plan as a starting point, but considered it inadequate as it stood, putting its emphasis on the putative coercive effects of strategic attack without considering whether the Iraqi army, if unmolested from the air, might go on the offensive. There­fore, he sent Warden back to Washington, though retaining Deptula in theater to work with USCENTAF planners under the direction of Brigadier General Buster Glosson to flesh out a broader air strategy in support of the USCENT – COM plan for Operation Desert Storm.66

On January 17, 1991, USCENTCOM launched Desert Storm, and for the next 38 days, coalition airpower subjected Iraq to one of the most concentrated aerial bombardments seen in history. Over the first week, air strikes focused largely on strategic targets in the original Instant Thunder plan, dismembering the air defense system and hitting electrical power and command, control, and communications nodes in and around Baghdad. Then the emphasis shifted to interdiction targets and, increasingly, to Iraq’s Republican Guard and regular army forces in southern Iraq and Kuwait.67

On February 24, USCENTCOM launched its ground offensive, follow­ing 38 days of air attack. With AirLand Battle Doctrine guiding U. S. Army operations, airpower was employed in support of coalition ground forces while continuing strategic attacks against Iraqi command, control, and infra­structure targets. The application of combined arms was devastatingly effec­tive. One hundred hours into the ground operation, with Kuwait liberated and Iraqi forces in a desperate rout to escape envelopment in the now famous “Hail Mary” maneuver, all political objectives were accomplished and President George H. W Bush called the offensive to a halt.

Over the years, the PLAAF developed a unique political culture that has not only influenced its development, but is crucial to understanding the Chinese air force. The PLAAF is accustomed to use the Chinese leadership’s instructions and speeches as guidance to define its doctrine, mission, and force structure in order to maintain political support. This PLAAF tradition continues to influ­ence thinking and efforts to pursue development of a modern air force. Despite their long revolutionary experience, Chinese leaders, particularly Mao Zedong, the founder and strategist of the PLA, had no knowledge of air and naval war­fare. Even so, the PLAAF codifies their sporadic instructions as profound mil­itary thought guiding the development of Chinese airpower.14 This approach is attributed partly to traditional Chinese filial piety and partly to the Chinese Communist Party’s highly doctrinaire and centralized institutional system.

At the onset of its establishment, the PLAAF used the chairman’s mes­sage of encouragement to the air force, “creating a powerful air force to elim­inate the remnant enemy [the KMT legacy forces that had evacuated the mainland for Taiwan] and consolidate national defense,” to characterize the air force’s contemporary and future task.15 While recognizing the importance of airpower in national consolidation and development, none of the Chinese leaders offered any systematic thinking on the air force and airpower employ­ment. One common view shared by these political and military leaders was the use of air force to ensure command of China’s airspace through air defense. Although a few of them occasionally talked about the use of bombers to strike deeply into the enemy’s rear positions, they never seemed to imply any offen­sive action beyond China’s own territory.16

Studies of the military thoughts of Chinese leaders on the air force and its employment dominated the PLAAF’s theoretical inquiry. As a result, for most of its existence until recently, no serious efforts were made to explore the differ­ing means of employing airpower within the framework of China’s defense strat­egy. Even now, PLAAF studies still incorporate the military thoughts of these past political leaders in their current pursuit of modern airpower theory. Thus, PLAAF thinking and doctrine are still imbued with the PLAs traditional politi­cal jargon. This at-best pseudoscientific approach accounts for the PLAAF’s fail­ure to ascribe the military thoughts of the earlier leaders to the PLAAF’s long­time perception of itself as a homeland defense force, whose task was, first and foremost, to defend China’s airspace and thus maintain only a limited role and modest capability to support the army and navy.17 The legacy of the Chinese leadership’s minimalist understanding of the actual role that airpower can play is evident in the PLAAF’s self-perpetuating view of itself in an unbroken string of memories about victories and heroism in the past, including a claim that it is the only air force in the world to have ever defeated the USAF. The PLAAF’s self-aggrandizing depiction, however intellectually dishonest it may be, has nev­ertheless become an important component of its service tradition.18