New Book ‘China’s Evolving Military Strategy’ Charts Major Developments in the PLA’s Approach to Warfighting

CIRA China analysts released a new book, entitled China’s Evolving Military Strategy, that charts major new developments in China’s approach to military affairs. CIRA China analyst Joe McReynolds edited and co-authored this authoritative reference work, which includes chapters by both CIRA analysts and outside experts.

For over two decades, the People’s Republic of China has been engaged in a grand project to transform its military into a modernized fighting force capable of defeating the world’s most powerful militaries through asymmetric means. However, despite the considerable attention that has been devoted to cataloging Chinese advances in weapons and hardware, much less is known about China’s strategic thinking.

China’s Evolving Military Strategy fills this gap by offering sector-by-sector expert assessments of the latest trends in Chinese military thought under Xi Jinping, covering not only traditional battle-spaces such as the air and sea but also China’s strategy for the new domains of space, cyberspace, and electronic warfare. China’s Evolving Military Strategy is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the world’s most important bilateral national security relationship.

Roughly once every generation, a powerful, highly influential organization within the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) releases a new edition of the Science of Military Strategy (SMS), a comprehensive and authoritative study that details the strategic approach that the Chinese military will take in the coming years in response to the threats and challenges facing China. The recent release of a new edition of SMS signals the potential for dramatic shifts in the PLA’s approach to a number of strategic questions, but the book remains underutilized by many Western China analysts due to the lack of both an English translation and expert analysis to place these changes into context.

China’s Evolving Military Strategy aims to bring knowledge of these important developments to a mass audience of China watchers, policymakers, and the broader foreign policy community by providing a sector-by-sector analysis of changes in the PLA’s thinking and approach from the previous edition of SMS to the present. Each chapter addresses the implications for a different portion of the Chinese military, ranging from the air, sea, and space domains to cyberspace and electromagnetic warfare, and each is written by one of the world’s foremost experts on that subsection of China’s military development. China’s Evolving Military Strategy will serve as the cornerstone reference for a generation to come on one of China’s most important declarations of its military-strategic goals and intentions.

To read more, see: https://jamestown.org/product/chinas-evolving-military-strategy-edited-joe-mcreynolds/

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