The future war studies community and the Chinese revolution in military affairs

Abstract

This article traces the origins and evolution of the ideas and concepts associated with the Chinese revolution in military affairs (RMA). It identifies the PLA Daily's 'Study Military' column and 'Military Salon' as core elements of a future war studies community that has been a major force advocating a forwardlooking approach to military studies and defence planning since the early 1980s. It examines their studies and activities, and argues that this community was at the forefront of studying foreign military theories and ideas and introduced RMA-related concepts to China and adapted them to the Chinese context. More specifically, in the early 1980s, they contributed to the reassessing of the international security environment and shaped the Chinese leadership's threat perception, which eventually led to the shift of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) strategic thought from preparing for imminent all-out war to peacetime army-building. In the late 1980s, they proposed major PLA-wide future war studies initiatives, which resulted in introducing the concepts of local war and high-tech wars into the PLA. They were a major intellectual force that laid the theoretical foundation for the PLA's doctrine of 'local war under high-tech conditions', announced in 1993, which paved the way to the RMA with Chinese characteristics.