China's Evolving Military Strategy

Roughly once every generation, a powerful, highly influential organization within the Chinese People's Liberation Army releases a new edition of the Science of Military Strategy (SMS), a comprehensive and authoritative study which 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.

Joe McReynolds is a research analyst at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis with expertise in Sino-American national security issues, including China's defense science and technology development, cybersecurity, network warfare, and IT sector civil-military integration. His scholarly work focuses primarily on China's computer network attack capabilities, doctrine, and strategy. Mr. McReynolds has been invited to brief members of the U.S., Taiwanese, and Japanese governments on his research, and his research findings have been reported in publications such as the New York Times and China Daily.