In recent years, studying the development of our military's equipment and operations has increasingly become a prominent discipline in the Western military community; from the U.S. military to Rand and other large think tanks, to various civilian open source intelligence Analysts are studying the People's Liberation Army in the new era, trying to find out the strengths and weaknesses of our army so that they can estimate the odds of winning for both sides and find ways to defeat the enemy in possible future regional conflicts. Many of the views are quite interesting. .
For example, in the past two days, American experts published an article in the "National Interest" magazine, saying that China has an advantage that other major military powers do not have, that is, it has not conducted any actual combat operations in the past half century. This makes The major military powers have far less understanding of the People's Liberation Army than other militaries. It is in sharp contrast to many people on the Chinese Internet who insist that the People's Liberation Army cannot do it without actual combat experience. I have to say that many of the views in the full text are insightful and logical and worth reading.
But I have to complain first. This American expert has not learned the history of our military very well and needs to make up for it. After all, our military has not fought for nearly half a century. Even if the exchange of fire stopped in 1990, 93 The two-mountain battle that only ended in February 2018 is not that famous, right? The self-defense counterattack between Vietnam and Vietnam more than 40 years ago is not completely unheard of, right? Seriously, we have not had large-scale ground military operations. That is only about 30 years since the end of the Cold War, which is far less than the so-called half century. Of course, our army 30 years ago is not the same as our army now. It's really completely different.
Going back to this expert’s article, the core point is that on the one hand, the People’s Liberation Army has not actually conducted actual combat operations, which makes it impossible for opponents such as the United States to infer our military’s combat methods and find our military’s strengths through past actions. By making targeted preparations based on weaknesses, our military can take advantage of this information gap to achieve a surprise victory. On the other hand, the absence of actual military operations also means that there will be no unnecessary pollution of the combat environment, and one can focus on building targeted strength against the imaginary main opponent without being distracted by unnecessary actions in other directions. War preparation.
The army that enters the field for the first time can win by surprise, but the second time it enters the field, it will be targeted and restrained. This is a lesson learned; for example, the Russian army's outstanding combat in 2014-15 also caused certain damage to this year's Ukraine operation. trouble; because although the Russian army's combat operation using battalion-level battle groups in 2014 was very brilliant, it also allowed the West to understand the basic combat routines of the Russian army's elite troops, as well as the shortcomings and problems of the Russian army's new organization. For example, due to the extreme lack of infantry, the ability to maintain the battle line is not strong. For example, the firepower is too heavy and relies on logistical supplies, but the logistical supply organization ability is relatively poor. For example, although the Russian army has excellent electronic warfare systems, these electronic warfare systems are high-level and can only be fixed. Deployment, once a large army is deployed, it will focus on one thing and lose another, etc.
This year’s Ukrainian army and Western consultants took advantage of these problems of the Russian army to create a lot of trouble for the Russian army in the first month or so. For example, they bypassed the main mechanized cluster of the Russian army and focused on transportation in the rear. Troops and artillery clusters on the march; for example, try to avoid field battles as much as possible, avoid battalion-level or above troop operations to create opportunities for the Russian artillery, etc., and indeed try to avoid a repeat of the 2014 brigade-based system that was completely destroyed by the Russian army in the early stages. The tragedy of annihilation. However, the West has obviously not seen how our army conducts real military operations, and has no way to sum up experience, find weaknesses and exercise restraint.
But for our military, they have not found a clear winning idea; of course, this is because the U.S. military's intelligence work capabilities have deteriorated too seriously compared to the Cold War era, and it can even be said that it has lost the necessary intelligence research and judgment capabilities.During the Cold War era, the US military's military attention to the Soviet army and its ability to analyze and judge the Soviet army could predict every transformation of the Soviet army. However, in fact, the US military was not aware of the changes in our army's combat methods after 17 years. When it comes to exploring military ideas and combat doctrines, we cannot say that we have a blind eye, but at most we can only say that we have only a partial understanding. It is indeed possible that our army will be surprised and defeated by our own ideas.
On the other hand, not participating in actual military operations for many years does mean, as this article says, that there will not be too much unnecessary interference in military construction; in this matter, Americans may be the most negative teaching materials. Since the beginning of the new century, almost all the military difficulties encountered by the US military can be traced back to the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning of the century. These two wars have now proven to have almost no benefits. The military operation completely destroyed the military superiority accumulated by the US military over the years.
In terms of equipment construction, the U.S. military developed and purchased a large number of urban warfare components, anti-mine vehicles and other equipment for these two security battles, which occupied the budget that should have been spent on regular equipment. Many regular equipment instead They had to use the legacy of the Cold War to make up the numbers; on the other hand, the huge military budget spent on security wars also slowed down the US military's research and development of new equipment. In order to collect money to maintain the Middle East front, the US military launched a series of cross-era efforts in the new century. Advanced equipment, including amphibious combat vehicles and the hypersonic missile , etc., have had to be postponed or canceled, leaving a large gap in capabilities for the US military, which has left it far behind its competitors in many equipment fields.
Similarly, this also made the US military forget how to fight high-intensity wars with equal opponents, and there was a major deviation in military construction thinking. The two precious projects Littoral Combat Ship and DDG1000 were used as direct Needless to say about the products; more importantly, the artillery forgot how to quickly set up artillery and quickly withdraw and move, the mechanized infantry forgot how to seize and control towns, armored forces forgot how to carry out impact and counterattack, etc., this has no impact on As far as the US military is concerned, it is even more deadly.
In the opinion of American experts, our military has huge advantages in these two aspects compared with all the mainstream military powers in the world. It has not fought in the past few decades, has not exposed its strength, and has not been needlessly The drag and misdirection of the battlefield can obviously help us achieve surprise victory in the main direction; on the contrary, actual combat experience is of no use.
