China Copies US Wargaming, “Red Teaming” &  Data-Networking Tactics

Video Above: Air War in 2050 – Air Force Research Lab Commander on Golden Horde

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) There was an interesting and potentially somewhat telling phrase buried beneath the attention-grabbing weapons content cited in the Pentagon’s recently published 2021 China report, and that is the use of a People’s Liberation Army “system of systems” approach.

Chinese efforts to steal or copy U.S. weapons systems are by no means surprising, yet the report’s mention of China’s growing emphasis upon “networking” and preparing for “informationalized” warfare, introduces an extremely significant nuance.

“The goal of mechanization can be broadly understood as the PLA seeking to modernize its weapons and equipment so they can be networked into “systems of systems” and utilize more advanced technologies suitable for “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare,” the Pentagon’s “2021 Report on Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China,” states. The report goes so far as to suggest that networked “system-of-systems” kinds of tactics could help China annex or take over Taiwan.

“In 2020, the PLA added a new milestone for modernization in 2027, to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces, which if realized would provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency,” the Pentagon report says.

Joint All Domain Command and Control

This raises the interesting question as to whether China is seeking to replicate the Pentagon’s fast-moving, high priority Joint All Domain Command and Control program to engineer a multi-domain “meshed” network of interconnected nodes across the force capable of gathering, processing, organizing and transmit time-relevant data between otherwise disparate elements of the joint force.