From Informationized to Intelligentized: China's Next War Doctrine
Post 10 of 12 — From Clausewitz to Orbit: Strategy, Revolution, and the Future of War
Post 3 established a finding that bears repeating: when ONA analysts began examining what Chinese officers were writing about military transformation in the 1990s, they discovered that the Chinese were among the most thoughtful and attentive observers and commentators on the changing character of war. That observation was made a generation ago. It has not become less relevant. It has become more urgent.
China did not merely watch the 1991 Gulf War and take notes. It watched, studied, theorized, invested, and built — over thirty years, through three distinct doctrinal revolutions — a warfighting framework specifically designed to defeat the American military at the one operational task that matters most to Chinese strategic objectives: preventing U.S. intervention in a Taiwan contingency. This post traces that arc and examines what it means for the competition now underway.
Three Doctrinal Revolutions in Thirty Years
The pace of PLA doctrinal evolution is itself an indicator of institutional seriousness about the RMA that American defense establishments would do well to study.
The first revolution came in January 1993. In December 1992, PLA leadership began a formal analysis of China’s military strategy triggered by observations of the Gulf War. Within a month, the PLA had established a new strategic guideline: winning local wars that may occur under modern technology, especially under high-technology conditions [1]. This was China’s Gulf War lesson, distilled and institutionalized within weeks of the war’s end.
The second revolution came gradually through the 2000s and accelerated under Xi Jinping. In the summer of 2014, the PLA’s strategic guidelines advanced and emphasized the role of ‘informatization’ in warfare — the transition from the industrial age to the information age caused by the development and use of information technology [2]. The 2015 defense white paper called for China to focus on “winning informatized local wars” and explicitly identified space as a fifth domain alongside land, sea, air, and information [3]. The 2013 Science of Military Strategy had already declared that China needed to expand its battlespace beyond national borders to increase strategic depth.
The third revolution is the one underway now. China’s People’s Liberation Army has already moved beyond the era of ‘informationized warfare’ to what it calls ‘intelligentized warfare’ — a doctrine built around AI-driven command systems and autonomous platforms [4]. This is not a rhetorical relabeling. It represents a genuine conceptual shift in what the PLA believes the decisive variable in future warfare will be.
Systems Destruction Warfare
The operational concept at the heart of Chinese military doctrine is systems destruction warfare — and understanding it is essential to understanding why China’s military buildup is not simply an imitation of American capabilities but a direct response to them.
Krepinevich’s analysis of PLA operational thinking is precise: China’s operational system comprises five subsystems — the information-confrontation and reconnaissance-intelligence systems; the command and integrated support systems; and the firepower-strike systems. Within this context, the PLA sees the military competition centering on deconstructing the enemy’s reconnaissance-strike complexes [5]. The targeting logic follows: to defeat the American military, you do not need to match it system for system. You need to attack the connections between its systems — the battle networks, the satellite links, the command nodes — that make those systems function as an integrated whole.
In waging systems destruction warfare, the PLA sees computer-centered battle networks as the nerve centers of modern military forces. Information superiority is achieved primarily through the cyber and electromagnetic domains, and through strike forces resident in the physical domains [6]. The sequence matters: blind the adversary’s ISR first, disrupt its battle network, then strike its forces while they are operating in information poverty.
This is the direct inversion of the American way of war. The U.S. military derives its decisive advantages from integration — the ability to see the battlefield clearly through its satellite constellation, communicate that picture to distributed forces, and execute precision strikes at standoff range. Systems destruction warfare targets precisely that integration. It is, in the most literal sense, the weapon designed to defeat the American reconnaissance-strike complex.
A2/AD: The ONA-Identified Asymmetric Response
Marshall’s ONA had identified the strategic logic of A2/AD even before China had fully implemented it. One of the more significant insights that surfaced from ONA’s research was the realization that the PLA was aggressively pursuing anti-access/area-denial capabilities. The premise was that any serious adversary would surely seek ways to blunt or degrade U.S. capabilities to conduct precision strikes from forward deployed naval forces such as carrier battle groups [7].
China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile — with a range of nearly 1,000 miles, dubbed the “carrier killer” — is the canonical systems response to this logic [8]. It does not need to sink aircraft carriers to be strategically effective. It needs only to make carrier operations within its range envelope sufficiently costly that U.S. planners must operate outside it — beyond the effective range of carrier-based aircraft. The DF-21D is not a weapon that copies American capabilities. It is a weapon that negates them.
China has built the corresponding doctrinal framework: multi-domain precision warfare, designed to improve the PLA’s ability to fight by leveraging a C4ISR network; rapidly coordinate firepower using artificial intelligence, big data, and other emerging technologies; and identify and exploit U.S. vulnerabilities [9].
Space as the Decisive Domain
In the PLA’s framework, space is not a support function. It is the domain whose control is the prerequisite for everything else. China’s 2013 Science of Military Strategy established the principle: seizing command of space network dominance will become crucial for obtaining comprehensive superiority on the battlefield [10]. This is not doctrine inherited from Soviet theory or adapted from American thinking. It is China’s own strategic conclusion, reached independently and implemented consistently.
The implementation is visible in the numbers. China has more than doubled its number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites since 2019, from 124 to 250 [11]. Its total satellite constellation, at 499 as of early 2022, is second globally only to the United States. China’s rapid progression in space capabilities, augmented by AI and cyber integration, reflects an omni-domain approach — fusing space, cyber, and AI — that illustrates Beijing’s ambition to command the strategic high ground of space [12].
The AI integration is already operational. In 2023, China successfully conducted an experiment where an AI system was given control of the Qimingxing-1, a low-Earth orbit remote sensing satellite. The AI control system autonomously operated the satellite for 24 hours without any human intervention, demonstrating a potent capability in developing and fielding autonomous systems for space operations [13]. AI-driven tools now empower the PLA to forecast, simulate, and execute space operations with minimal latency [14].
On the counterspace side, China has expanded its arsenal with jammers, high-powered microwave weapons, and fractional orbital bombardment systems for both nuclear and conventional strikes from orbit [15]. By the mid-to-late 2020s, the PLA is expected to deploy ground-based laser weapons high enough in power to physically damage satellite structures [16]. These are not aspirational programs. They are near-term deployments.
The U.S. government’s State of the Space Industrial Base report warned bluntly: China continues to compete toward a strategic goal of displacing the U.S. as the dominant global space power economically, diplomatically and militarily by 2045, if not earlier [17].
Algorithm Confrontation: The Third Doctrinal Revolution’s Core Claim
The conceptual foundation of intelligentized warfare is a specific claim about what the decisive military variable will be in future conflicts. Intelligentized warfare is rooted in the PLA’s assessment that war is transitioning from ‘system confrontation’ to ‘algorithm confrontation’ [18]. The system confrontation era was about which side could build and field more capable weapons platforms and connect them into more effective battle networks. The algorithm confrontation era is about which side’s AI can process the battlespace faster, generate targeting solutions more rapidly, and coordinate autonomous platforms at a scale that exceeds human cognitive capacity.
This assessment, if correct, has profound implications for every element of the four-component framework. Technology in the algorithm confrontation era is not primarily hardware — it is software, training data, and algorithmic architecture. Systems are not primarily platforms — they are the networks through which autonomous agents communicate and coordinate. Operational concepts must account for machine-speed decision cycles that no human command structure can match. And organizational adaptation requires building institutions that can develop, validate, and field AI-enabled warfighting systems on timelines measured in months rather than years.
The Taiwan Scenario and What the U.S. Would Need
All of this doctrine is calibrated against a specific operational context: Taiwan. The PLA’s systems destruction warfare concept, its ASAT buildup, its multi-domain precision warfare framework, and its A2/AD posture are all optimized for a Taiwan contingency in which the United States attempts to intervene and China attempts to prevent that intervention.
Jones, summarizing Admiral Paparo’s operational response, captures what the U.S. would need: “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything” [19]. This is an autonomous systems-heavy, ISR-dependent, precision-strike concept that mirrors China’s own systems destruction warfare logic — directed back at the PLA’s own reconnaissance-strike complex.
The problem Jones identifies is that the U.S. lacks both the operational concept and the acquisition to execute this. If the United States does not develop a joint concept of operation and follow through by making the necessary investments and acquisitions to offset Beijing’s numerical and industrial advantages, the United States risks losing a war with China [20]. The four-component diagnostic is stark: China has technology, systems, and concept. The U.S. has technology. The organizational adaptation question — can the Pentagon move fast enough to build the systems and develop the doctrine before the window closes — is the open and most consequential one.
Referenced Highlights
[1] “In December 1992, PLA leadership began a formal analysis of China’s military strategy. Within a month, the PLA had established a new strategic guideline that the Central Military Commission adopted in early January 1993. China’s goal would be ‘winning local wars that may occur under modern technology, especially under high-technology conditions.’”
The American Edge — Seth Jones. Open in Readwise
[2] “In the summer of 2014, the PLA’s strategic guidelines advanced and emphasized the role of ‘informatization’ in warfare — the transition from the industrial age to the information age caused by the development and use of information technology.”
The American Edge — Seth Jones. Open in Readwise
[3] “China’s 2013 Science of Military Strategy concluded that China needed to expand its battlespace beyond national borders to increase the country’s strategic depth. The Science of Military Strategy emphasized that modern war now included five major domains: land, sea, air, space, and information.”
The American Edge — Seth Jones. Open in Readwise
[4] “China’s People’s Liberation Army has already moved beyond the era of ‘informationized warfare’ to what it calls ‘intelligentized warfare’ — a doctrine built around AI-driven command systems and autonomous platforms.”
Space Is Key to the Army’s Long March to a Connected Force — Sandra Erwin. Open in Readwise
[5] “China’s operational system comprises five subsystems: the information-confrontation and reconnaissance-intelligence systems; the command and integrated support systems; and the firepower-strike systems. Within this context, the PLA sees the military competition centering on deconstructing the enemy’s reconnaissance-strike complexes — what the Chinese call ‘systems destruction warfare.’”
The Origins of Victory — Andrew F. Krepinevich. Open in Readwise
[6] “In waging systems-destruction warfare, the PLA sees computer-centered battle networks as the nerve centers of modern military forces and activity... Information superiority is achieved primarily through the cyber and EM domains, and through strike forces resident in the physical domains.”
The Origins of Victory — Andrew F. Krepinevich. Open in Readwise
[7] “One of the more significant insights that surfaced from this body of research was the realization that the PLA was aggressively pursuing anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. The premise was that any serious adversary would surely seek ways to blunt or degrade U.S. capabilities to conduct precision strikes from forward deployed naval forces such as carrier battle groups.”
Net Assessment and Military Strategy — Thomas G. Mahnken and Andrew W. Marshall. Open in Readwise
[8] “China had developed the DF-21D, an antiship ballistic missile with a range of nearly 1,000 miles dubbed the ‘carrier killer,’ which posed a threat to U.S. ships — including aircraft carriers — in the Pacific.”
The Pentagon’s Missing China Strategy — Seth G. Jones. Open in Readwise
[9] “The PLA developed a concept called ‘multi-domain precision warfare,’ designed to improve the PLA’s ability to fight a war by leveraging a C4ISR network; rapidly coordinate firepower using artificial intelligence, big data, and other emerging technologies; and identify and exploit U.S. vulnerabilities.”
The American Edge — Seth Jones. Open in Readwise
[10] “The 2013 Science of Military Strategy anticipates that future wars will begin in space and cyberspace, arguing that ‘seizing command of space network dominance will become crucial for obtaining comprehensive superiority on the battlefield and conquering an enemy.’”
The Origins of Victory — Andrew F. Krepinevich. Open in Readwise
[11] “China has more than doubled its number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites since 2019, from 124 to 250.”
Chinese scientists call for plan to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites — Ben Turner. Open in Readwise
[12] “China’s rapid progression in space capabilities, augmented by AI and cyber integration, helps realize a new phase in China’s military strategy. A strategy characterized by a very comprehensive, omni-domain approach — fusing space, cyber, and artificial intelligence — illustrates Beijing’s ambition to command the strategic high ground of space.”
China’s Fast Growing Military Space Capabilities — Amir Husain. Open in Readwise
[13] “In 2023, China successfully conducted an experiment where an AI system was given control of the Qimingxing-1, a low-Earth orbit remote sensing satellite. The AI control system autonomously operated the satellite for 24 hours without any human intervention.”
China’s Fast Growing Military Space Capabilities — Amir Husain. Open in Readwise
[14] “AI-driven tools now empower the PLA to forecast, simulate, and execute space operations with minimal latency. Machine learning algorithms enhance surveillance and satellite-based reconnaissance systems, positioning China very well in terms of orbital warfare preparedness.”
China’s Fast Growing Military Space Capabilities — Amir Husain. Open in Readwise
[15] “Since then, China has expanded its arsenal with jammers, high-powered microwave weapons, and fractional orbital bombardment systems for both nuclear and conventional strikes from orbit.”
War in Space Is Not a Future Problem: It’s Happening Now — Christopher Stone. Open in Readwise
[16] “’Aside from missiles, the PLA has fielded multiple ground-based laser weapons able to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellite sensors. By the mid-to-late 2020s, we expect them to deploy systems high enough in power that they can physically damage satellite structures.’”
How China Is Expanding Its Anti-Satellite Arsenal — Audrey Decker. Open in Readwise
[17] “The U.S. government’s State of the Space Industrial Base report bluntly warned, ‘Strategic competition in space remains a paramount concern — China continues to compete toward a strategic goal of displacing the U.S. as the dominant global space power economically, diplomatically and militarily by 2045, if not earlier.’”
The American Edge — Seth Jones. Open in Readwise
[18] “Intelligentized warfare is rooted in the PLA’s assessment that war is transitioning from ‘system confrontation’ to ‘algorithm confrontation.’”
The Origins of Victory — Andrew F. Krepinevich. Open in Readwise
[19] “’I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.’”
The Pentagon’s Missing China Strategy — Seth G. Jones. Open in Readwise
[20] “Technology is important, but it has never been sufficient to win wars. The United States needs to develop a joint concept of operation and follow through by making the necessary investments and acquisitions to offset Beijing’s numerical and industrial advantages. If it does not, the United States risks losing a war with China.”
The Pentagon’s Missing China Strategy — Seth G. Jones. Open in Readwise