Military Strategy for the New Period

In the new era, the general strategy for coordinating the construction and employment of military power shall subject to and serve the national strategic objectives. All military work and construction must implement and reflect the requirements of the military strategic policy under the new situation. China’s socialist nature, the country’s fundamental interests, and the objective requirement of taking the road of peaceful development determine that China must unswervingly adhere to the strategic thinking of active defense. After the founding of New China, the Central Military Commission established a military strategic policy of active defense, and continuously enriched and developed the content of the military strategic policy of active defense according to the development and changes of the national security situation. In the new period, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, in accordance with the new situation in which the world’s strategic pattern was moving towards multipolarity and revolutionary changes in the world’s military field, established a military strategic policy for the new era, that is, to implement major adjustments in the strategic guiding ideology, and shift the base point of military struggle preparations from responding to local wars under general conditions to winning local wars under modern technologies, especially under high-tech conditions. This is a major development in the strategic thinking of active defense and a deepening of the strategic transformation of the guiding ideology of army building. For the first time, the White Paper on “China's National Defense in 2002” systematically elaborated the military strategic policy in the new period; in 2004, the Central Military Commission, based on the scientific judgment that high-tech war was essentially the informationized war, enriched and improved the military strategic policy in the new period, and further adjusted the base point of military struggle preparations to win local wars under the condition of informatization. In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed to “focus on solving prominent contradictions and problems that restrict the development of national defense and army building, strengthen military strategic guidance, and improve military strategic guidelines in the new period”.

In May 2015, the White Paper on “China's Military Strategy” improved and developed China's military strategic guidelines in the new period in accordance with national security and development strategies and adapting to the requirements of the situation and tasks in the new historical period. The first is to adjust the base point of military struggle preparations. Based on the evolution of the war pattern and the national security situation, take winning informatized local wars as the base point of military struggle preparations, highlight the preparations for military struggles at sea, effectively control major crises, properly respond to chain reactions, and resolutely defend the sovereignty, unity, and security of national territory.

The second is to innovate basic combat ideas. According to the security threats in all directions and the reality of army capacity building, adhere to the principles of flexible maneuverability and independent combat, employ the integrated combat power of all arms and implement information-led, strike-targeted, and joint operation system. The third is to optimize the military strategic layout. According to China's geo-strategic environment, security threats and military strategic tasks, make integrated strategic and military deployment featured by global overall planning, divisional responsibility, and mutual strategic response; respond to new security threats such as space and cyberspace and maintain common security; strengthen international security cooperation in areas crucially related to China's overseas interests and maintain the security of overseas interests. Implement the principles adhered to by the military strategy in the new period: subject to and serve national strategic objectives, implement the overall national security concept, strengthen preparations for military struggles, prevent crises, contain wars, and win wars; create a strategic posture that is conducive to national peace and development, adhere to defensive national defense policy, adhere to close cooperation in the political, military, economic, and diplomatic fields, and actively respond to the comprehensive security threats faced by the country; maintain the balance of safeguarding rights and stability, coordinate the overall situation of safeguarding rights and stability, safeguard national territory sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and safeguard peripheral security and stability; strive to take the strategic initiative in military struggles, actively plan military struggles in all directions and fields, and seize the opportunity to accelerate army building, reform and development; use flexible strategic tactics, give play to the overall effectiveness of joint operations, concentrate superior forces, and comprehensively use tactics; base on responding to the most complex and difficult situations, stick to the bottom line thinking, make all preparations in a solid manner, and ensure proper response and adequate treatment; give full play to the unique political advantages of the people’s army, insist on the Party’s absolute leadership over the army, attach importance to the cultivation of fighting spirit, strictly enforce the discipline of the troops, purify and consolidate the troops, strengthen relations between the army and the government and between the army and the people, and inspire the morale of the military; give full play to the power of the people’s war, insist on taking the people’s war as an important magic weapon to defeat the enemy, expand the content and methods of the people ’s war, and promote the transformation of war mobilization from manpower mobilization to science and technology mobilization; actively expand military security cooperation space, deepen military relations with major powers, neighbors, and developing countries, and promote the establishment of regional security and cooperation frameworks.

The establishment of military strategic guidelines in the new period not only adapts to the urgent needs of the intricate international environment, but also adapts to the objective requirements put forward by modern warfare, which points out a fundamental way out to solve the major contradictions facing army building and has a global leading role in national defense and army building.