Evolving Chinese Concepts of Joint Aerospace Power

The PLA and supporting defense industry are in the midst of a potentially dramatic transformation in aerospace concepts and capabilities. While still in a state of flux, basic aerospace concepts appear to be guiding an ambitious force modernization program. Heavily influenced by American and other foreign strategists, basic Chinese aerospace theory is founded upon the notion that un­impeded access to skies over a region not only enables operational success on the surface, but also has intrinsic value as an instrument of national power.

Aerospace power is among the most flexible and effective of coercive tools available to political decisionmakers. At the strategic level, airpower, and more broadly aerospace power, have the potential to influence the cost-benefit calculus of an opposing political leadership. Aerospace power seeks to achieve effects at the strategic, theater, or tactical level. Unlike surface warfare, airpow – er is usually concentrated to directly achieve objectives with theater-wide sig­nificance, bypassing tactical objectives. Airpower, if used properly, can serve political as well as military objectives. A single airstrike may have strategic sig­nificance, in that it can produce a political outcome. In measuring the effec­tiveness of a coercive air campaign, one relies more on judgments of strategic, rather than tactical, effectiveness, e. g., how well bombs, missiles, and electron­ic attack affect targets. Strategic effectiveness describes how the destruction of target sets attains political goals.

At the operational level, air superiority determines success in a campaign for sea control, an amphibious invasion, or physical occupation of territory. As time goes on, the same may be said for space control. In a conflict, the side that enjoys unimpeded access to the skies over a region gains an overwhelming ad­vantage on the surface.8 Colonel John A. Warden III, a key architect of modern U. S. airpower thought and doctrine, once observed, “no country has won a war in the face of enemy air superiority, no major offensive has succeeded against an opponent who controlled the air, and no defense has sustained itself against an enemy who had air superiority.” As Warden noted, “to be superior in the air, to have air superiority, means having sufficient control of the air to make air attacks on the enemy without serious opposition and, on the other hand, to be free from the danger of serious enemy air incursions.”9

The PLA, led by the Second Artillery and increasingly the PLAAF, un­derstands the potential role aerospace power plays in strategy and modern warfare. For a PLAAF seeking to integrate more offensive roles and missions, the goal in a conflict is to gain local or limited air superiority, which permits freedom of flight over a limited area for a finite period of time. Limited air su­periority is differentiated from theater air superiority, or supremacy, in which air assets can operate anywhere within the entire combat theater with impu – nity.10 Attainment of air superiority requires neutralizing or suppressing as­sets that can interfere with air operations, including fighters, ground-based air defenses, sensors such as radar systems, jammers, and various supporting in­frastructure. Like all other systems, air defense has points of failure that could have system-wide effects if neutralized. For countering fighters and other long-range precision strike assets, history has shown that targeting runways, logistical support, aircrews, and aircraft on the ground is more cost-effective than fighting air battles, if operational surprise can be achieved.11

The PLA strategic studies community notes that the predominant trend transforming traditional notions of airpower (ЙФЛж) is the seamless integra­tion of the air and space domains, expansion of the strategic battlespace, as well as nonmilitary uses of airpower such as disaster relief.12 A key focus is develop­ment of long-range precision strike capabilities in order to gain strategic lever­age in future crises, complicate the ability of the United States to intervene (e. g., “counterintervention” (ST^) operations), and ensure air superiority in terri­torial disputes around its periphery. Developmental efforts include extended range aerodynamic platforms and follow-on variants of conventional ballistic missiles, including those able to engage moving targets at sea. Over time, as its persistent sensor, data fusion, and command and control architecture increas­es in sophistication and range, the PLAs ability to hold at risk an expanding number of targets throughout the western Pacific Ocean, South China Sea, and elsewhere around its periphery is expected to grow.13

Over the years, the PLA has made significant advances in developing a force capable of applying aerospace power in a joint environment.14 Expansion of Second Artillery conventional missile infrastructure, PLAAF long-term force modernization, and a conceptual body of literature suggest that the PLA is in the midst of a fundamental shift in joint aerospace power doctrine. PLA analysts have traditionally viewed application of aerospace power as a form of “firepow­er warfare,” which involves the coordinated use of PLAAF strike aviation assets, Second Artillery conventional theater missiles, and information warfare.

The PRC’s ballistic missile forces could operate independently in support of a deterrent or coercive campaign or in support of air, maritime, or informa­tion operations. The Second Artillery’s most important mission likely would be suppression of enemy air defenses in order to facilitate air superiority and follow-on air strikes. Centrally commanded and controlled at the theater lev­el, the Second Artillery’s basic principles stress surprise and preemption, con­centration of resources, and rapid reaction. The Second Artillery’s force mod­ernization program requires a significant increase in accuracy and increased numbers of ballistic missiles. At the same time, it is developing sophisticated warheads that could increase the destructiveness of the ballistic missile force.

Four evolving theoretical concepts of aerospace power shape the opera­tional requirements needed to support national security needs:

■ integrated attack-defense operations

■ integrated information-firepower

■ strategic strike

■ integrated air and space (aerospace) operations.

While degree of emphasis varies between services, all reflect a belief in the expanding nature of the battlespace that drives long-range operational re­quirements, and possibly a future realignment of roles and missions.15