Bøger af Andrew Scobell

This volume addresses the role of the Chinese military in shaping its country's security environment. The PLA itself is shaped and molded by both domestic and foreign influences. In the first decade of the 21st century, the PLA is not a central actor in China's foreign policy the way it was just a few decades ago. Nevertheless, the significance of the PLA should not be discounted. The military remains a player that seeks to play a role and influence China's policy towards the such countries and regions as United States, Japan, the Koreas, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Taiwan. It is important not to overlook that, in times of crisis or conflict, the role and influence of the PLA rise significantly.

The author seeks to assist planners and decisionmakers in thinking about and preparing for possible future contingencies concerning North Korea. He does not dwell on war or conflict scenarios involving North Korea because military planners have already focused considerable effort and attention on these. It is entirely possible that the fate of the country as a political, territorial, and juridical entity is intimately bound up with the fate of the Kim Jong Il regime, but one should not assume this to be so. In other words, the collapse of the Kim regime may not lead to the collapse of North Korea as a state. Moreover, one should not assume that even if the regime collapse is followed by state collapse that these events would inexorably lead to Korean unification.

North Korea's conventional capabilities have eroded but remain significant, including its sizeable contingent of special operations forces. Meanwhile, Pyongyang continues the vigorous development of its nuclear and missile programs, and has ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs. Perhaps the biggest unanswered questions concern North Korea's military intentions. Does the Korean People's Army have an offensive or defensive doctrine? Does Pyongyang intend to use its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles to replace the threat posed by its eroding conventional forces? Or is its intention to use conventional and unconventional forces in what it might view as a winning combination? In theory, U.S. forces could carry out preemptive precision attacks to destroy known North Korean nuclear facilities and missile emplacements, but such attacks might provoke North Korean retaliation and trigger a general conflict. Washington and Seoul cannot overthrow the North Korean regime by force or destroy its strategic military assets without risking devastating losses in the process. Meanwhile, North Korea cannot invade the South without inviting a fatal counterattack from the United States and South Korea. Thus, the balance of forces that emerged from the Korean War, and which helped maintain the armistice for more than 50 years, remains in place.

The importance of China stems not only from its current international role and its influence on the Asia-Pacific region in particular, but also because China's impact on global developments will likely continue to grow. One of our enduring imperatives is to accurately survey China's experiences as a means to grasp its existing perceptions, motivations, and ambitions. More than ever, solid, evidence-based evaluation of what the PLA has learned from the use of force and conflict elsewhere in the world is needed to shed light on the prospects for its cooperation, or rivalry, with the international community. This volume provides unique, valuable insights on how the PLA has applied the lessons learned from others' military actions to its own strategic planning.

This volume addresses how the leadership of China and the PLA view what size of PLA best meets China's requirements. Among other things, this analytical process makes important new contributions on the question of PLA transparency, long an issue among PLA watchers. A great deal of emphasis has been put on understanding not only how, but also why a military modernizes itself. Some of the determining factors are national policies and strategy, doctrine, organizational structure, missions, and service cultures. While this list is not exhaustive, it does begin to paint a picture of just how broad and deep military interests run. It is important when we look at the structure and strategy for growth within the Chinese military that we see the world as China sees it. We need to see a world in which the "Taiwan issue" as well as that of North Korea and others are not viewed as short-term concerns, but fit into how China sees itself in a long-term leadership role in the region and in the world.

To explore what extended competition between the United States and China might entail out to 2050, the authors of this report assessed how successful China might be at implementing its grand strategy goals over the next three decades.