In A Fortnight

PLA HOLDS HIGH-LEVEL SEMINAR ON DEVELOPING INFORMATIZED TRAINING

Over one hundred flag and field-grade officers participated in a ten-day conference on informatized military training. The “All-Army Special Topic Group Training in Military Training Under Informatized Conditions” conference was held at the National Defense University and lasted from January 8-17 (Xinhua, January 17). During the conference, the officers discussed methods and strategies to incorporate informationization into military training. At the conclusion of the conference, the participants released a five-point consensus on how best to transform the military training of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA): 1) Develop informatized armed forces and warfighting strategies to win informatized warfare; 2) Emphasize training in complex electromagnetic environments and incorporate training in such environments into standard training procedures; 3) With joint training and operations as the foundation, establish the ability to conduct operations in informatized wars as the objective of transformation; 4) Create a “scientific system of military training under informatized conditions”; 5) Focus on the objective, “rectify the ideology guiding training” and maintain discipline in the unit. This emphasis on creating an informatized training doctrine has been consistent with the PLA’s emphasis on joint operations and informationization as elements crucial to a “revolution in military affairs with Chinese characteristics.”