Prospects for the PLA`s Operational Art Toward 2000: Tradition Versus Revolution

Abstract

Past decades have seen a proclaimed revolution of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in operational art, responding to and reflecting different policy agendas, threat perceptions, and conventional warfare. But lack of political, institutional, and technological means has forced the PLA to continue employing traditional human resource-oriented total war operations to fight contemporary high-tech, limited war operations. As a result of a glorious tradition’s straitjacket, the revolution remains uncertain, as do prospects for future operational successes.