PLA Reforms: Toward Winning 'Informationised Local Wars' by Michael Raska, The Interpreter
At the turn of the year, and officially launched by President Xi Jinping at this beginning of the week, China announced a series of major comprehensive reforms for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) that will likely shape China's military modernisation trajectory for the next decade.
The underlying rationale for the overhaul is to redefine the roles, missions and authorities of the PLA services, consolidate Party control over the nearly autonomous military branches, and ultimately attain new levels of combat effectiveness conceptualised under a new set of military guidelines of fighting and winning 'local wars under informationised conditions.'…