PART FOUR:

Numerous facts show that we are in the midst of a new revolution in military technology in which electronic information technology is the central technology. This technology provides unprecedented applications for the development of new weaponry. Information acquisition will be the main distinction of 21st-century military forces. Military battles during the 21st century will unfold around the use of information for military and political goals.

Chang Mengxiong serves on the Committee of Science, Technology and Industry of the System Engineering Institute. This paper first appeared in China Military Science (Spring 1995).

The term information-intensified weapons may inspire a search for weapons that make full use of information. Foreign "smart land mines" and "smart water mines" may automatically head toward and destroy a target after acquiring information about it. Reactive armor on tanks also actually uses information acquired from attacking weapons and detonates them at once. In the 21st century, all weapons, with the exception of rifles and machine guns, will be information intensified.

Combat methods will consequently change: accurate over-the-horizon firepower attacks may become the primary form of firepower attacks; blind firing and carpet bombing will become antiquated combat methods whose cost-benefit ratio is not high; and damage outside the combat target area will also be greatly reduced.

Information-intensified soldiers will be able to receive all sorts of information about combat to receive highly concentrated commands and, when necessary, orders directly from a division commander. Because of this enhanced information, they will have the ability to make their own decisions about enemy bases in combat plans.

In addition to making full use of information about one's own side and the enemy, information-intensified platforms will also be fully able to counter the use of information about them by the enemy; they will have electronic warfare equipment that has detection, jamming, and deception capabilities.

Stealth technology will prevent the adversary from obtaining information through the use of radar and infra-red detection. Stealth aircraft and surface vessels already exist, and other stealth combat platforms will also appear.

Robot troops, vehicles possessing a certain amount of information-acquisition, information-processing, and lethal firepower, are a kind of unmanned information-intensified combat platform. As electronic information technology develops, these will develop into unmanned information-intensified combat platforms. Early in the next century, robot sentries, robot engineers, robot infantrymen, and even unmanned smart tanks may appear under some battlefield conditions.

Information-intensified combat platforms are bound to bring about major changes in operational concepts. Because the distance over which these platforms can fire accurately is vastly greater than the distance their operators can see, the scale, range, and accuracy of their coordinated operation will greatly exceed the level that non-information-intensified platforms can attain in the 20th century. It is foreseeable that by 2010 the conventional combat methods of the past several decades of groups of short-range fighter planes will be rare, as will attacks by tanks and simultaneous firing of thousands of artillery pieces. It is also possible that large aircraft combat groups will no longer be useful. Robot troops will be used in real warfare in large numbers.

Satellite space telecommunications, reconnaissance, monitoring, navigation, and locator systems are the important component parts of the C3I. With improvement of the entire C3I system and satellite performance and widening of satellite applications, by 2010, high-level commanders may be able to know at once about events occurring on any spot on the earth. This will enable pilots and tank drivers, as well as ordinary soldiers, to know accurately their own location on the earth at all times, and it will permit contact with higher-level command organizations anywhere. It will also provide real-time, continuous, accurate guidance information for pinpoint guidance of missile to targets as much as 1,000 kms away. The use of airplanes as carriers of highly mobile radar detection, command and control, electronic warfare, and telecommunications relay equipment or systems holds many advantages. The C3I system of the future will have increased shared information among those engaged in combat, which most likely will develop into an integrated national defense information system. There are two ways to integrate the C3I system into the "high-speed information highway" of individual countries: by resource sharing on the two-way communications portion of a network, and by serving as an integral part of the latter operating in coordination with it. Because the C3I system has such an extremely important position in information-intensified weapons and military units, attacking and protecting the satellites that are an integral part of the C3I system, airborne early-warning and electronic-warfare aircraft, and ground command sites and telecommunications hubs will all become important forms of combat.

On an information-intensified battlefield, many events are transparent. Information about installations of major military value to both sides, such as military bases, information hubs, and command centers, will be stored in a combat data bank to provide information about possible targets against which precision guidance weapons will be aimed. Military movements will find it difficult to fool an adversary's intelligence system. These movements will be reflected in real time in the adversary's data bank. If there is a gap between the information capabilities of the two sides, many events will be transparent only to one side. A statement by Sun Tzu in The Art of War applies to the one who has the strongest information capability: "By knowing the enemy and knowing yourself, you can fight a hundred battles and win them all."

The strategy, tactics, and campaigns suited to the information-intensified battlefields of the 21st century will differ from those of today. The distinction among the three will become blurred, and specific ingredients of each will change.

A realistic point of view on combat methods of information-intensified troops in the 21st century can be provided only after thorough study, and this article can make only some guesses. An analogy can be made about the major changes that will come about: Information-intensified combat methods are like a Chinese boxer with a knowledge of vital body points who can bring an opponent to his knees with a minimum of movement. By contrast, non-information-intensified combat methods are like fights between villagers in which heads are broken and blood flows, but it is hard to distinguish the winner from the loser.

Information warfare and firepower are closely linked. Information warfare is used to find and attack targets for firepower. Full use of information warfare is a prerequisite for full use of firepower. This is expressed clearly in precision guided weapons, as well as in the tracking, aiming, reconnaissance, and fire control of all guns. Information warfare includes countering C3I systems and ensuring the security and accessibility of ones own lines of communications, the effective operation of ones own detection equipment, making sure that it is not jammed or damaged; and the normal operation of ones own numerous combat command computers, protecting them from damage by computer viruses. At both the strategic and campaign levels in information warfare, it is important to decipher and analyze information and to prevent information from being obtained and deciphered.

A newly conceived weapon that will appear in the 21st century is the high-performance microwave weapon that will use powerful electromagnetism to destroy the opponent's electronic equipment and electronic telecommunications systems, thereby rendering enemy weapons ineffective. This is a special kind of information-intensified weapon for waging information warfare.

"Information capability" includes information support for command, operations, precision strikes, and logistical support that military units need to carry out missions. The equipment that supports this capability is the C3I system, electronic warfare systems, and precision-guided weapons. A military unit's information capability equals its combat capability. Like precision-strike capability or an air- defense capability, it is absolutely indispensable to high-technology warfare and may be the most important combat capability.

The term "information superiority" means the party that has the strongest information capability between two opposing parties in combat. In future high-technology warfare, not only will we have to gain air and sea superiority, but even more important, we will have to win information superiority first of all. Possibly new military terms like "contain information power," and "contain electromagnetic power" may appear.

Information warfare will be the most complex type of warfare in the 21st century, and it will decide who will win and who will lose the war.

"Information deterrence" may appear in the future. Because all weapons used in warfare and the various branches of warfare depend closely on electronic information technology, the power that has a strong information capability and holds the electronic information technology advantage has an overall advantage over the weaker information power. Moreover, if the power with a weaker information capability can deliver a crippling attack on the information system of the power with a stronger information system, it can likewise greatly decrease the capability of the adversary's war machine. In other words, even if two adversaries are generally equal in hard weapons, unless the party with a weaker information capability is able effectively to weaken the information capability of the adversary, it has very little possibility of winning the war. Conversely, if one side can effectively weaken the information capability of the other side, even if its capability in other ways is less, the other side will dare not take any ill-considered action. These two situations constitute "information deterrence." It can prevent war from breaking out. Adroit strategic employment of one's own information deterrence capabilities constitutes an information deterrence strategy.

Combining High Centralization With High Initiative The existence of centralized command, decentralized command, echelon-by-echelon command, transechelon command, and combined command are all recognized to be necessary, but centralized command and echelon-by-echelon command are the basic forms of command. The Gulf War attests that Iraq's highly centralized command system was unsuited to high-technology warfare.

The former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General J.W. Vessey, said: "Our command and control are based on the following principle: Make decisions at the lowest possible level. This not only gives flexibility to the on-the-ground commanders, but it also gives them resources, authority, and responsibility, thereby enabling maximum effective use."

Information-intensified weapons systems create the material conditions for highly centralized combat command at a high level. It enables theater commanders to do across-the-board planning of their tactical moves. During the Gulf War, plans for the daily 2,000-sortie aerial combat missions of the allied forces were drawn up by the U.S. Air Force information system, and assigned to each country and to each branch of service for implementation. This capability and trend continue to be strengthened. Information-equipped weapons systems enable independent combat commands. Dispersed C3I systems will be highly resistant to destruction. They will ensure that lower level commanders receive the detailed combat information that they need. This will enable them to make on-the-spot decisions about dealing with ad hoc situations on the basis of the overall combat plans of higher headquarters, thereby gaining maximum combat results.

Combat command during the 21st century is certain to be a combination of high centralization and high independence, the number of echelons is bound to decrease, and existing command systems and doctrine are destined to be revised.

Required key technology is electronic information technology, including virtual reality technology, which employs computer technology to create a simulated imaginary world and uses computers to generate a simulated world and a three-dimensional visual environment. Operators can visually wander around in this visual virtual world, and operator actions can change this visual virtual world in real time. This world may be a weapon, a battlefield, a factory, etc. This environment is very helpful when examining a large volume of problems requiring assistance from visual thinking (including visual memories and visual associations). Virtual reality technology has broad prospects for military application.

Further development of the "synthetic environment" that Americans have conceived will provide a unified environment for virtually all military activities including setting requirements for designing and producing prototype machines and manufacturing weaponry; troop training and war preparations; drawing up joint combat doctrine; drafting emergency plans; post-mortem evaluations; and historical analysis. This synthetic environment will help create a relatively smooth transition from virtual (imaginary) weapons and virtual (imaginary) battlefields to real weapons and real battlefields and thus have far-reaching effects on military activities.

Because information-intensified military units make full use of all kinds of information, the intensity concept must be introduced. So-called intensity means the number of events occurring within a certain time and space. The history of warfare shows that real military superiority really means only superiority at certain times and in certain places, or superiority in a unit of time or a unit of space. When one has this superiority, one is victorious within these limits.

Firepower and Destruction Intensity
Once an information-intensified military unit discovers the enemy disposition, it can make a judgment within a very short time and decide what to do. It can concentrate powerful precision-guided firepower to attack the enemy, its firepower figured in terms of unit of time and unit of space, i.e., its firepower intensity is unprecedentedly great. The strike accuracy of precision guided weapons is very high, far higher than the firepower intensity that non-information-intensified weapons can attain. Furthermore, although the total consumption of ammunition is very great for non-information-intensified forms of combat such as blind firing, enemy firepower suppression, and carpet bombing, when looked at in terms of the targets of attack, the intensity of this firepower is really very low.

However, the intensity of destruction is a more direct and more basic concept than the intensity of firepower. It connotes the amount of damage done to an attacked target per unit of time and space.

The intensity of firepower and destruction of information-intensified military units made up of information-intensified weapons, soldiers, combat platforms, and weapons systems tied together by a C3I system is unprecedentedly great. The total firepower that a non-information-intensified military unit can bring to bear may also be very great, but in terms of "intensity," such a unit's firepower and the damage it causes is very small.

Mobility Intensity
Mobility intensity as applied to combat troops and combat platforms means the distance in space possible to move per unit of time (day, hour, minute, or second). Applied to military units, it means the quantity of combat troops that can move at the same time. The continued development of power technology enables continued increases in the dynamic properties of combat platforms. The continued development of electronics technology makes possible accurate coordination of movement on a large scale. By 2010, global mobile warfare by joint forces (a combination of army, navy, and air forces) may be possible. A single highly mobile army battalion may be able to defeat two or more mobile army battalions.

Information Intensity
The special feature of information-intensified military units is full use of information. Information intensity is the amount of information that an organizational unit can use, or prevent the use of, within a unit of time or space. Information intensity is an important indicator of accurate strike, coordinated warfare, command and control, and electronic warfare capacities. A military unit whose information intensity is very low cannot fight a high-technology war. A difference in information intensity between two military forces is bound to translate into a gap in combat capabilities.

Supply Intensity
Supply intensity means the amount of supplies of various kinds that an organizational unit can provide per unit of time to a prescribed area. The total amount of logistical supply for information-intensified warfare during the 21st century will likely be less than for today, but the intensity of supply will increase to meet the requirements of highly destructive and highly mobile warfare.

In the future information society, everything will be affected by the extent to which society uses information. Weapons will become information-intensified weapons; military units will become information-intensified units; and combat will become information-intensified combat. The destructiveness of weapons will increase greatly, but their numbers will decrease. The combat effectiveness of military units will increase greatly, but their numbers will also decrease. Warfare in general will not only become more a mental than a physical contest in which the technology content is high, but this will also be the case in limited warfare and even in soldier-to-soldier combat. This means that the education and technical skills of military officers in the future information society will have to be higher than that those of civilians; otherwise, even with information-intensified weapons, defeat in war will be possible.

The contribution of electronic information technology to weaponry is manifested in the following:

• A very great increase in accuracy, meaning "they hit the mark"
• A great increase in the ability of commanders to understand their own and the enemy's situation
• A great increase in the coordinated combat capabilities of military units.

However, information-intensified weapons do not rule out the application of other new conventional technologies. New technical capabilities will be added. Information-intensified weapons require the support of aerospace, naval, ground, and nuclear technology. One cannot concentrate on electronic information technology to the neglect of other technologies, nor can one proceed with all equally without any particular emphasis.

The war between Greece and its dependency, Corfu Island, in 664 BC was the first naval battle with a reliable recorded history. Since then, naval warfare has gone through the wooden-warship age, the sail-warship age, the steamship and large-ship cannon age, and the guided missile warfare age. The seas and oceans always having been directly tied to mankind's vital interests, they are going to be tied even closer in the 21st century. In the last decade or two, ever-growing numbers of countries have been realizing the importance of the seas and oceans as a "21st-century resource" for human survival and development. As all countries gain a stronger sense of the values, rights, and interests of the seas and oceans, disputes over matters such as maritime economic zones, continental shelves, and sea-area boundaries are likely to intensify, thus making it hard to prevent sharper conflicts and even outbreaks of war. Today, on the eve of the 21st century, we need to study naval warfare history and experience to determine the naval warfare development track of the new century.

Naval Captain Shen Zhongchang is the Director of the Research and Development Department of the Navy Research Institute, Beijing. Naval Lieutenant Commander Zhang Haiying and Naval Lieutenant Zhou Xinsheng serve as staff officers at the Navy Research Institute. This paper is from China Military Science (Spring 1995).

As the 21st century is also going to be an age of rapid scientific change, with certain cutting-edge technologies likely to be applied first to naval warfare, we need to forecast and explore 21st century naval warfare from the perspective of the coming trends of the scientific and technological revolution.

Future naval warfare will display the following types of engagements:

• In land-sea combat, naval surface ships, submarines, carrier-based aircraft, and possibly other new service arms will generally have the capacity to conduct strategic offensive attacks in great depth and even against intercontinental land-based targets. As land-based arms will be sharply improved in reaction capacity, strike precision, and range, they will be able to powerfully strike formations at sea, and even individual warships and cruise missiles.
• In sea-air combat, electronic warfare and missile strikes, particularly long-distance strikes by warships, their carrier-based aircraft and aerial combat fighters will become the essential forms. Submarines will be capable of making missile strikes on air targets. Sea-air combat will also develop in the direction of low- and super low-altitude engagements.
• In surface-undersea combat, as submarines resolve technically the obstacles to very deep operations, their higher capability in very deep communications and ability to monitor and reconnoiter submarines and surface ships will sharpen surface-undersea confrontations. While the submarine will rise in status to become a major naval warfare force, the development of ASW reconnaissance and combat methods will sharply restrict future activities of submarines in shallow-water zones, underwater levels, and continental-shelf zones. The appearance of underwater aircraft carriers and undersea mine-laying robots and even the construction of seabed military bases will sharpen surface-undersea combat. In sea-space combat, space based methods and forces will have a very conspicuous status in future naval warfare.

In short, on the 21st-century naval battlefield, undersea space, outer space, and electromagnetic space will all become complicated technical fields. Their mutual independence and limitations, with mutual impact and roles, will make future naval battlefields ones of integrated sea-land, sea-air, surface-undersea, and sea-space combat operations, putting the combat activity of sea-land, sea-air, surface-undersea, and sea-space confrontations into a state of alternating and intricate military struggle.

• Nuclear technology will be widely used in naval propulsion systems, as means of supporting the development of larger naval ships. This will enable naval vessels to carry larger quantities and types of weapons systems and electronic equipment, providing solid grounds for making naval warships faster, larger, and more electronic, with more missiles, more aircraft capacity, and longer range.
• Microelectronic technology will make warships essentially electronic, with the next century bringing widespread consideration of electronic equipment first in warship design to make both ships and their weapons systems smarter.
• Stealth technology will grow sharply, with antivisible light, antiradar, antisonar, anti-infrared, and anti-electronic reconnaissance being widely deployed in naval ship, ship-based aircraft and guided missile equipment (including new naval service arms), and naval ships and cruise missiles becoming stealth capable.
• Infrared technology will be widely used as a naval offensive and defensive means, being able to find and distinguish targets earlier, as well as providing all sorts of data for central intelligence and command systems.
• Precision-guidance technology will sharply raise the accuracy of all naval weaponry, genuinely achieving the stage at which "detection means destruction;" this will apply to long-range precision strikes as well.
• Satellite technology will be fully emphasized by all countries, with systems such as the satellite-based C I and C4I systems, the GPS [global positioning system] navigation positioning system, remote sensing technology, space-based attack systems, and space-based, large-scale monitoring and warning systems being used by most maritime countries. Satellite technology can, in future space development, ensure better command control of naval operations.
• The development and use of superconduction technology will bring superconductor ships to the naval order of battle, enabling ships to travel faster without noise and bringing a quality leap to naval combat capability.
• New materials technology will make it possible for undersea weapons systems, particularly deep-water weapons systems, to form a complete system. Submarines will be able to go faster and deeper, with the sea bed being the ideal place to build military bases.
• Laser technology will make it possible to employ tactical laser weapons with the technology to cause personnel injury and blindness and weapons damage, which is likely to be used first in antiship missile defense systems.

• Its reconnaissance and observation equipment will be improved, with long-range observation, precise target acquisition, and integration with guidance systems, for an improved weapons-system reaction rate.
• The lethality of weapons will be sharply higher, with a significant improvement in destructive power.
• Naval combat forces will have rapid mobility, expanded operational scope, and quicker victories.
• There will be a marked improvement in protective and survival capabilities.
• Emphasis will be placed on developing electronic jamming and attack systems.
• All-dimensional space will be brought into naval warfare service.

The appearance of this new equipment will certainly pose a grim challenge to traditional marine strategies, naval warfare campaigns, tactical theory, and naval warfare patterns. On the 21st-century naval battlefield, there will be more long-range that short-range combat, more missile combat than gun battles, electronic warfare across the whole battlefield, and both combatants making full use of smart weapons and drawing on modern command methods of fighting. In future naval warfare, the multidimensional battlefield will reveal naval targets and the marine battlefield perspective, making it impossible for surface ships without air force cover to operate in high-threat maritime zones. Deep strikes by shipboard aircraft will also be unable to do without support and safeguards in the fields of outer space, the atmosphere, and electromagnetism, with a particular need to organize thorough electromagnetic convoys. As future naval forces will be stereoscopically surrounded by air, surface, undersea, space, and electromagnetic threats, naval warfare will put more emphasis on diversified, three-dimensional, and composite service arms, which will constitute the basic form of 21st-century naval warfare. No matter how powerful the isolated service arms, ship types, and power systems, they will be victorious only by luck in the coming highly electromagnetic and high-threat environment.

In 21st century naval warfare, tactics will change sharply, with new tactical concepts proliferating and being used more flexibly and changeably. The concept of using tactical mobility of all weapons-delivery platforms to first seize advantageous positions and then attack will likely become obsolete or even disappear, with long-range battle concepts such as "remote grappling" and "over-the-horizon strikes" becoming the key forms of battle in future naval warfare (such as attacks against surface ships, missile defense, air defense, and strikes on land- or space-based targets). From the local wars since the 1980s, particularly the high-tech Gulf War, it is not hard to see that trend. In future naval warfare, long-range battles will become the major form of battle mainly because:

• Weaponry developments will make remote warfare not only possible, but also essential.
• Remote warfare can achieve better operational results. Remote warfare more easily achieves first-strike concealment and surprise.
• Remote warfare can strike more targets on a broader and deeper scale. As the possibility of remote warfare and more powerful weapons can make conventional tactical naval strikes universally achieve their campaign-strategy objectives, future naval warfare campaigns and tactics are likely to be integrated in many cases.

High-tech weaponry is dozens or even hundreds of times costlier than ordinary weaponry. In 21st-century naval warfare, while the use on the naval battlefield of large amounts of high-tech weaponry will raise troop operational efficiency, the material input and expenditure will also be unprecedentedly higher. In the recent Gulf War, the multinational forces headed by the United States used over 20 new types of missiles and nearly 10 types of precision-guided bombs, with guided weapons undertaking almost 80 percent of the assault missions, for ideal combat success. The expenditures on both sides were enormous.

In the next century, as technologies such as electronics, lasers, and new materials are further improved and developed, directional weapons such as lasers, particle beams, and microwave beams will also be employed in naval warfare, so that naval warfare weaponry movement and development rates will be faster, strike precision higher, and lethality greater. With much weaponry being guided, personal, and smart, and command and control being automated, mobility and strike precision will be easier. The high input, high expenditure, and destructiveness of warfare will force coming naval warfare to be more time effective, shortening sustained time, speeding up the rhythm, and making battlefield conditions sharply changeable. The content of both sides' forces in naval warfare will change quickly, with belligerent stances also changing in a short time.

S&T developments are making the world smaller. As growing world economic integration more easily subjects naval warfare to economic, political, and diplomatic limitations, shorter battle times and controlled belligerency scales are bound to become new requirements for future naval warfare. When a naval war starts, there will be an attempt to end the fighting before the other side makes an all-out military response, in order to avoid subjecting national human and financial resources to the huge battle expenditures of sustained combat. So 21st-century naval battles will break out much faster, with suddenness likely to play a decisive role in winning wars. Lightning attacks and powerful first strikes will be more widely used in coming naval battles. As both sides will strive to make lightning attacks and raise their first-strike damage rates, while doing all possible to organize a rapid and effective counterattack, speed against speed will become the crux of future naval victory.

In the age of peace and development, the limited objectives of future naval warfare will restrict the scale of battle. The high input, high expenditure, and time effectiveness of naval warfare will all make control of the scale of future naval warfare not only possible but also essential, so it will be very hard to see in future naval battles the past grand scenes of "decisive fleet engagements." As the forms of battle change, there will be few naval engagements beyond the scale of battles; instead, there will be ever-growing numbers of medium and small conflicts with high-tech, small forces.

But that certainly does not exclude the future possibility of large-scale naval warfare. This is because the following conditions will still exist in the next century:

• In medium and small naval battles, in which both sides might be balanced, meaning no quick victory, one side might sustain great damage, causing a large-scale retaliatory naval war, or one side might be unable to achieve its war aims, yet refuse to cease fire.
• If the glaring conflicts in world maritime development and delimitation intensify, it might lead to war.
• Large-scale naval developments will provide the forces and therefore the possibility of large-scale naval warfare.

Future high-tech developments will bring a crucial change to naval composition, with the naval force structure being sharply adjusted to meet naval warfare needs:

• Streamlining will eliminate unnecessary intermediate links, ensuring command effectiveness and efficiency. For instance, the U.S. Navy's land command agency has installed many command agencies on ships, no longer using a separate shore command, to reduce command levels. This structure is very likely to become the generally used battle-command form of the future.
• The force establishment system will be optimized. With the navy being a developing service arm, the future is going to see certain new service arms, such as special naval units, deep-sea troops, rapid response and deployment troops, robot units, high-performance fleets, electronic warfare troops, flight-instrument units, and even space troops. Meanwhile, certain traditional service arms and units will have less status and a less important role, being eliminated, shrunk, or merged. For instance, shore defense units will be incorporated into the army establishment.
• Crack-troop compositions will raise combat capability. Because of the sharp increases in future weaponry automation and fighting efficiency, relatively fewer personnel will be needed, but they will have to be of higher quality. The inevitable trend will be crack troops and weapons forming naval superiority. The future naval warfare force organization will grow ever smaller and more multifunctional. During World War II, a carrier battle fleet normally was composed of three to five carriers and a corresponding number of surface ships, submarines, and other protective ships. In contract, the modern carrier fleet is generally made up of only one or two carriers.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence of precision-guided weapons, high-efficacy bombs, "smart" bombs, and "ingenious" bombs brought a sharp rise in the "hard casualty" capability. "Soft casualties," characterized mostly by electronic jamming, also showed new might. At present, studies and applications are developing rapidly in the use of high-tech methods such as biochemical and electronic, radio frequency, and secondary waves for "soft casualties" against weapons systems and personnel "internal organizations." Ever-diversifying "soft casualty" means in the 21st century are likely to become even more perfected, with their antipersonnel effects making it ever-harder for certain hard-strike weapons to keep up, as well as making protection correspondingly more difficult. The widespread use and efficiency of "soft casualty" weapons in coming naval warfare will have a crucial impact on war at sea.

Modern, high-tech, local wars often start with an electronic battle, and also occur in a dense, complex, and changeable electromagnetic environment. Future combat systems, especially command and weapons systems, will grow ever more dependent on electronic technology. Many international figures hold that the development of electronic technology in future wars will be no less important than that of the atomic bomb during World War II. A comprehensive overseas study weighing all S&T factors affecting overall military combat capability, which were the eight criteria of deterrence, interchangeability, economics, comprehensiveness, long-term effectiveness, possibility, technology and capacity, and adaptability, noted that electronic technology has the most impact. At present, the more advanced naval ships and aircraft are equipped with electronic warfare instruments, in some cases forming a comprehensive electronic warfare system.

Maintaining efficient communications with and effective command over troops is a prerequisite for the use of naval force. Because using guided weapons to attack enemies is a basic means of naval attack, the "electromagnetic" advantage will become the focus of rivalry between opponents. The Gulf War showed that electromagnetic dominance is a prerequisite for control of the air, sea, and battlefield. The more electronic and smarter naval equipment, combat command, and information controls of the 21st century will pose very high demands on electromagnetic dominance. Steadily developing "electronic warfare technology" equipment and new means of electronic confrontation will push electronic warfare at sea to new heights. Before long, systems such as the C3I multi functional confrontation system, comprehensive combat ships, and enormously powerful electronic confrontation neutralization aircraft and computer "coded virus" confrontation systems will play a joint role in the electronic confrontations of naval warfare.

"Secondary wave radiation" casualties and "beam-capable weapon" casualties are "soft casualty" categories now under development. As such beam-capable weapons are now being developed very quickly, they are expected to be put into the testing stage early in the next century. With future "soft casualties" not only coming in many forms, but also being easy to use, the defensive difficulty will grow steadily. The ingenious "soft casualties" of naval warfare combined with fierce "hard strikes" is an unavoidable development trend.

Twenty-first-century naval warfare will be a coordinated operation of triphibious, comprehensive, and multiservice operations. Therefore, naval commanders will have to have an overview of the whole battle, be able to quickly learn about ever-changing battle conditions, and then computerize, analyze, and judge data to make a quick response, as well as command troop coordination in a timely and accurate way. This will tie command, control, communications, and intelligence systems into a tightly connected whole, giving it advantages such as remote operation, good communications secrecy, and fast data processing. It can then be applied to both strategic command and battle-tactics command, and even command of individual ships, planes, and troops, thus ensuring battlefield-command efficiency, continuity, stability, and flexibility. This will play a crucial role in the rivalry over naval dominance.

Since the C I system was established in the early 1980s, it has played an enormous role in several recent local wars. In future naval warfare, on the one hand, the participating forces will be more complex in makeup, putting high demands on overall coordination, and even higher demands on better centralized command and better controlled overall command efficiency. On the other hand, the development of C I systems has provided a powerful means for better command efficiency, thus driving battlefield command and control to develop in the direction of more automation. While this will speed up the integration of command, control, communication, and intelligence systems, along with raising command and control efficiency, it will also increase command and control complexity:

• It will make command and control activity more dependent on automated and electronic equipment, while the extent of automation and the complexity of electronic equipment and procedures will increase simultaneously.
• As the C I system will be the "nerve center" and "force multiplier" of future naval warfare, it is bound to become a crucial item in jamming and attacking opponents. As this will give command, control, communications, and intelligence systems more confrontational capability, it will make command more complex and difficult.
• As future naval warfare will involve enormous amounts of information, putting higher demands on the effectiveness and accuracy of the C I system, it will sharply increase battlefield command and control difficulty.

The enormous destructiveness of future naval warfare, with its extensive spatial limits, diversified participating service arms, and its rapid tempo, will make it more dependent on logistics security:

• Naval warfare will put extremely high demands on battlefield-technology security. Because the navy is a technically complex service arm, and future naval weapon will have higher comprehensive operational capacity, which will spur weapons to be more precise and complex, the technological aspects of naval security are going to become more evident in the next century. In addition, the higher precision, newer technology, and greater destructiveness of naval weaponry will also sharply raise the battle damage rate of naval weaponry. War will mean expending large amounts of human and material resources on weapons maintenance and upkeep, which will necessarily make battlefield technical-security harder.
• Logistics survival will face a great challenge, making logistics security harder. As high technology has given the battlefield all-dimensional awareness and deep strike capability, future maritime supply lines and logistics security bases will find it hard to survive, with a stiff challenge being posed not only to maritime security operations, but also to logistics base protection. It will be very important to organize and effect maritime logistics security, to raise logistics-security efficiency and reliability and ensure a high survival rate for logistics systems.
• The diversification of large amounts of material consumption and security will add to the difficulty and complexity of logistics security. Future naval warfare will sharply increase the load on combat logistics security. The Gulf War's daily ammunition expenditure was 4.6 times that of the Vietnam War and 20 times that of the Korean War; its oil consumption was over $26 million, for oil consumption of around 19 million gallons a day. In the several local wars prior to that, material consumption was also enormous. Material consumption in future naval wars will be not only large in volume, but also diverse in category and level. And that will put even higher demands on logistics-security, effectiveness, and comprehensiveness.

Anew military revolution refers to the historical military trend in which warfare is changing from a war of mechanization to a war of information. The Navy is a force that requires high technology. The new military revolution will inevitably have an important impact on sea warfare and naval construction.

Naval Captain Shen Zhongchang is the Director of the Research and Development Department of the Navy Research Institute, Beijing. Naval Lieutenant Zhou Xinsheng and NavalLieutenant Commander Zhang Haiying serve as staff officers at the Navy Research Institute. This paper originally appeared in China Military Science 1 (1996).

Control of Information Is Important
Like nuclear deterrence, information deterrence is a new concept of victory without war and can even prevent escalation of sea warfare. Electronic information is needed to facilitate both naval and land operations and the command and control of vessels and aircraft. The new military revolution will accelerate the digitization of the naval battlefield, increase modes of communication, strengthen the capacity for information processing and improve the efficiency of command and control. High-speed platforms and long-range precision missiles will, to a great extent, rely on effective combat information systems in order to achieve combat efficiency. In addition, such systems will significantly improve the power of platforms and weapons, resulting in a sharp increase in the role of information, control of which then becomes a new and important deterrent. The side controlling information will be able to manipulate the beginning, middle, and end of the war, attack the enemy with advanced information weapons to paralyze enemy aircraft, vessels and various command systems, and destroy important targets with precise firepower. It will be difficult for the other side to initiate sea war against an opponent who controls information, and once a war starts, it will not be able to win. Hence, future naval warfare needs a strategy not only in the air and sea but also in information control.

Second, changes of naval combat doctrine and concepts will inevitably impel more effective use of the navy. Development of platforms and weapon systems depends both on the fusion of combat concepts and techniques and on the development of these concepts into a comprehensive combat doctrine. New doctrine will ultimately employ naval technical revisions to improve combat power. Future naval combat doctrine and concepts will abandon the old and obsolete elements and replace them with new and improved ones to suit naval combat requirements. Therefore, doctrine will adapt to the need for more effective firepower.

Third, the establishment of a high-quality navy during the new military revolution will provide a solid foundation for improvement of joint combat effectiveness. To meet the needs of information warfare, countries with a strong navy are reforming the entire naval system. The steps include:

• Downsizing and investing in high-tech weapons
• Removing or combining duplicate or worthless units, simplifying links and improving command efficiency
• Adding new joint departments, such as a joint coordination department for the navy and other services
• Improving command systems. Some command organizations can be moved from land to sea. The naval command system is networked.
• Retraining forces and allocating them to ships, air units and submarines to improve training levels and strengthen combat ability.

Another character of quality navy restructuring is the emphasis on establishing rapid deployment forces, among which naval forces are an important component. The U.S. rapid deployment forces have aircraft carriers and amphibious ships; the British task force and Japanese fleet both have rapid deployment forces.

One requirement of winning information combat is to strengthen the "soft" systems in vessels and aircraft, including systems of reconnaissance, monitoring, communication, navigation and meteorology. These systems can create favorable conditions in the information war to control information and help one survive. In information war, the efficiency of vessels, aircraft and equipment is largely determined by the quality of soft systems. Without the assistance of such systems, ships and aircraft cannot carry out tasks. Today, soft systems are becoming an important symbol of estimating the combat force of vessels. Consequently, during the development of modern vessels, soft systems, especially communication facilities, target- determining installations, and electronic war systems are increasing and becoming more complicated. In designing and building ships, the U.S. Navy gives priority to electronic equipment, installing electronic jamming facilities in many vessels in order to enhance their defense capability. The tactical information data system is a sound comprehensive combat system installed in large vessels. The system can not only command all weapons in the vessel, but also coordinate and command weapon control systems in other vessels in the formation through a data chain. It can integrate the entire formation into one unit. It can be foreseen that the naval C I system based on satellite and computer technologies will be developed as an important soft system during the military revolution and will become compatible with the C I system of the air and land forces.

To prepare for information war, weapons used in the navy will be produced more precisely and with advanced intelligence. These weapons include intelligent missiles, shells and torpedoes. Missiles are the main weapons not only for modern sea war but also for future sea information war. The character and rule of missile operation will dominate the developing trend of sea warfare. Today, there are more than 120 types of missiles in the world that can be used in marine operations. These missiles will be upgraded with information processing technology. Antivessel missiles will be updated to travel at supersonic speed, function at minimum altitude, be precision guided, and use anti-interference features. Air defense missiles will have air defense and antimissile features and have a combination of long, medium and short ranges. Hence, the flexibility of weapons can be improved.

Various combat platforms will be featured with new characters, one of which is the concealing technology. In digitized sea battlefield, platforms face the dangers of being monitored, detected, and attacked from space, air, land, sea, and submarine. It is thus particularly important for vessels and aircraft to conceal themselves well. It is vital to develop and apply stealth technology and upgrade the covertness of navy platforms. Navies in each country have already shown concern about this issue. Another feature is the development of submarine forces, which have higher covertness. It is difficult to determine if information technology will be developed to detect submarines effectively. Therefore, submarines will receive less impact from reconnaissance technology than other platforms. In addition, submarines have a greater attacking power under water. Accordingly, it is an important aspect of navy restructuring to develop and maintain submarine forces. Countries will choose to develop vessels according to situations in neighboring countries and national conditions larger countries will place importance on developing aircraft carriers and amphibious ships; medium-size and small countries will increase destroyer, corvette, minesweeper and minelayer capabilities. However, each country will give attention to developing submarine forces.

China's neighboring countries are already focusing on purchasing and developing submarines for instance, Korea will buy 11 submarines from Germany. Indonesia will increase the number of its submarines from 3 to 5, and Australia plans to build 6 submarines. Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are also establishing submarine forces. After the Cold War, Russia and the United States downsized their submarine forces but strengthened the modernization of the troops in order to maintain their operational ability. We can conclude that during the First World War, the dominant vessel was the battleship, and in World War II, it was the aircraft carrier. In future global wars, the most powerful weapon will be the submarine. In addition, the navy and other armed forces will develop some new equipment, such as directional weapons, subsonic radiate weapons, high-energy electromagnetic wave weapons and computer virus, to increase the power of weapons.

With the development and broad application of information technology, it is necessary for navy personnel to upgrade their education and improve professional skills. The new technological revolution has doubled and redoubled the navy's combat capacity; indeed, such is the result of human talent. The navy is a special arm with intensive knowledge and techniques, and navy personnel must be empowered by updated skills. Navy officers must have the ability to command in a high-tech war, and be familiar and coordinate operations with the other services.

To narrow the gap between training and actual operation, future training of navy personnel will be conducted through computer simulated systems, which can simulate sea battles. Such simulated training can replace large-scale maneuvers, save materials and money, and effectively improve the skills and command ability of navy personnel.

In the last decade of the 20th century, along with other grand changes in the international situation and patterns of war, the air battlefield will become decisively significant.

Air warfare weapons and equipment in the 21st century mainly will be smart ammunition, thinking operational platforms and integrated automatic C3I systems.

Colonel Ming Zengfu serves at the Air Force Command Institute, Beijing. This paper is from "New Changes in Air Defense Operations," in Chinese Military Science (Spring 1995).

Informationized Platforms
An early aircraft was only a machine able to fly in the sky. Only after it was used in war did it become an operational platform. Aircraft have undergone a development course from a mechanical platform to an informationized operational platform and finally to an intellectualized operation platform. The first generation aircraft were jet-propelled and pursued supersonic speed; the second generation could reach bi-sonic speed and a height of over 20,000 meters. On this basis, information equipment on board second generation aircraft began to hold an important position. Fire-control radars were generally used in second generation aircraft. Information equipment in third-generation aircraft holds a more important position. What are generally used on board include pulse Doppler radar, forward-looking infrared devices, night vision devices, low-light TV, navigational and digital headsup displays, etc.

Equaling 50 to 60 percent of the total cost of common aircraft (or over 60 percent of the total cost of stealth planes), information equipment aboard fourth-generation aircraft holds a far more outstanding position. For example, there are more than 700 computers on a B-2 bomber. For this reason fourth-generation aircraft have become intellectualized operational platforms, which have three apparent advantages: they can extensively collect information; they can deal with all kinds of information; and they can carry all kinds of ammunition. With the help of the fire-control system, they can automatically distribute targets and control a number of warheads to attack simultaneously. Their electronic warfare system can authoritatively judge the threatening sources and provide the pilot with conduct methods for him to select. Additionally, their operations assisting system can help drive the aircraft. Nowadays, modern aircraft has become an information-dominated weapon. Compared with that of WWII, the efficiency of the battle aircraft of the 21st century will increase more than 100 times.

Integrated and Automated C3I Systems
Radar is an information-collecting device which was designed to adapt to aerial warfare weapon's characteristics. Its emergence made it possible to control air warfare and brought to an end the epoch when air warfare equaled blind men touching an elephant. However, in the long period ever since, because of low-level of information technology, the command system was restricted to the realm of manual operation, thus the operation or capability of air power was heavily limited. Since the 1950s, when collecting, transmitting, processing and using information were fused, the command system of air warfare has witnessed such a rapid development process "manual operation command became semi-automatic command, which became automated command," resulting in the eventual appearance of integrated and automated C3I systems.

Air Deterrence
Compared with actual combat, deterrence has some limitations. However, because its functions are broad, one may both launch an attack and make peace, achieving goals without sacrifice. So deterrence can be used separately or as the precursor of actual combat. In the 21st century, air deterrence will become the first-choice mode of employing air power.

High-tech conventional deterrence is a new mode of deterrence developed after nuclear deterrence. Although the effect of nuclear deterrence is very strong, its actual value has decreased because of the height of the "nuclear threshold." High-tech warfare requires deterrence strength capable not only of maneuvering rapidly in vast battle space, but also of moving about freely and quickly within hostile borders. It further requires the deterrent force to be able to attack and withdraw quickly after destroying the enemy's strategic targets. Air power happens to possess these characteristics. Air deterrence has three advantages:

• It is highly effective for a fixed period with wide coverage. Modern air forces are capable of carrying out supersonic maneuvers and intercontinental missions and can cover any target in any part of the world.
• There is low political risk. Modern air forces can attack strategic targets with precision of less than 1 meter. On the one hand, this ability can ensure target destruction and, on the other, avoid unfavorable political effects, which is the inevitable result of killing or wounding civilians or destroying civilian facilities.
• It can operate under a range of conditions. It can function both separately or jointly with the Army and the Navy, and it can also function both in conventional conditions and nuclear conditions.

No-Fly Zones
A "no fly" zone is a forbidden airspace set up in a conflicted area, using air power as its main force. In the no-fly zone, none of the opponent's air actions is permitted, nor can any opponent install ground-to-air weapons that may threaten one's own air actions. No-fly zones are a new application mode of air power in the last decade of the 20th century. For example, the United States, Britain and France set up a no-fly zone in Iraq to protect the Kurds, and the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution to set up a no-fly zone in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Characteristics.

• It is ordered in accordance with U.N. authorization.
• Because it is restricted to attacking military targets directly threatening peacekeeping missions, it is small scale.
• It is restrained by political and diplomatic actions, thus it is strictly controlled.

Characteristics.

• Sea blockade and air blockade are inseparable.
• Air blockade's role will increase further.
• Struggles between the blockaders and the antiblockaders will be more complex.

• It is high speed. Modern air transports are able to cover a distance of 800 to 900 km per hour while cruising, which is 10 times that of land transports. Because air transporters commonly take a direct route, air transport is the most rapid means of transport.
• Air transporters can cover a long distance. Modern strategic transports can travel thousands of miles. With air refueling, they are able to carry out global lift.
• Air transport is highly maneuverable and seldom restricted by geographic conditions. It can transport troops and military equipment to any airport in the world.
• Air transport has large freight volume. For example, an An-124 can carry 150 tons per sortie; the An-225, over 200 tons; the U.S. C-5, 120 tons. Modern air power is capable of transporting strategic troops. During Desert Shield in the Gulf War, the U.S. Army used 90 percent of its strategic transport and commandeered part of the civil aircraft fleet to air lift more than 500,000 personnel, equaling 99 percent of the total, and over 500,000 tons of material.

Characteristics.

• It is up to the supreme authorities to make the decision to order such an air strike, so the strategic objective can be obtained directly.
• Comparably fewer troops can be used. Israel dispatched only 14 to 16 planes to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and the PLO Headquarters in 1985.
• It takes a short time to strike. For example, it took the U.S. Air Force 18 minutes to strike Libya; the Israeli Air Force took 3 minutes to bomb PLO HQ and 2 minutes to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor.
• Its concealed action makes it possible to do long-range strikes. To bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor, Israeli planes made a 2,000 km round trip, and to bomb PLA Headquarters, a 5,000 km round trip; U.S. planes went more than 10,000 km to raid Libya.

Characteristics.

• It is large scale. In the Gulf War, the multinational forces used more than 2,700 planes, and 2,600 sorties were dispatched each day.
• It lasts a rather long time. The Gulf War can be divided into four stages strategic air strikes, seizing local air dominance, battlefield preparation, and ground operations. Missions in the first three stages were done in 38 days, equaling 90 percent of the total time of the war.
• In large-scale air offensives, there is a direct confrontation for victory and domination. In the Gulf War, air operations reduced the Iraqi troops' operating capability by 50 percent, which ensured that the U.S.-led multinational forces would win the ultimate victory.

Characteristics.

• Air power is in an equal partnership with the army and the navy. Air power is mainly used in strategic depth and campaign depth.
• Air power is able to function in more special fields, such as reconnaissance, warning, electronic warfare, aerial mining, artillery and anti-aircraft strike tasks, road blockades, feints, protection of supplies and communications, etc.

Along with the further development of the operational mode, joint air strikes were invented. In the Gulf War, a typical daytime strike group of aircraft of the multinational forces comprised 60 aircraft, in addition to the stealth aircraft. The daytime strike formations included 24 F16-A/Cs, "Tornados," and A-10s, escort formations of 12 F15Cs and Mirage-2000s, accompanying jamming formations of EA-6Bs, EF-111As and one EC-130H, and finally hard-target electronic warfare formations of F-4Gs and A-6Fs equipped with antiradiation missiles. There were also some airborne early warning aircraft and air refueling aircraft participating in actions. Joint air strikes became the main operational mode the multinational forces used in the Gulf War.

As the basic operational mode, joint air strikes completely alter the operational state of air battle space. Thus, joint air strikes have the typical characteristics of nonlinear operations. What may be pointed out is that the way air battlefields were dominated by air power completely changed in the Gulf War. Participants in air operations also included army helicopters, navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, reconnaissance satellites, communication satellites, and global positioning systems comprising over 30 satellites. This change lifts the joint air operation to a new height, unlike previous small joint operations. While a great number of digitized troops are going to be established and a large number of digitized battlefields are taking shape, the three-dimensional air strikes that developed in the Gulf War will become a basic mode of air operations in the future.

Global Strike and Global Reach
When the operational mode of global strike and global reach is applied, the battle space is enlarged, and traditional theories and ideas about the battlefield are broken. Any target in any part of the world is within striking range of air power. After the Gulf War, the main military powers in the world decided to enhance their air power's ability to carry out global strike and all-depth operations. In May 1993, the Russian Air Force organized a large-scale intercontinental maneuver operational exercise from its European region to the Far East. According to the military strategy of "forward presence plus troop transport," the U.S. Air Force established an operational doctrine of "global reach and global operations."

Over-the-Horizon Air Combat
Air combat is the main means of air power used to annihilate the enemy air force. According to distance, it is divided into visual air combat and beyond-the-horizon air combat. The main concept of air combat has been to attack from behind at a distance of hundreds to thousands of meters. The precondition of attacking is the occupation the advantageous position at the rear of the opponent, called short-range air combat.

In the Gulf War, most planes of the multinational forces belonged to the third generation. These planes are of advanced performance, their airborne fire-control radars are capable of surveilling a distance of more than 100 km, simultaneously tracking quite a number of targets from scores of kilometers away, and carrying out attacks over a wide range of altitudes. These capabilities provide a reliable launching platform to make beyond-the-horizon attacks. According to materials the U.S. Defense Department released after the Gulf War, 38 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed in air combat, among which 28 were destroyed by Sparrow AIM-7M mi-range missiles; 10 were shot down by Sidewinder AIM-9L short-range missiles; and the rest were ruined by aircraft guns. The Gulf War was the first rather large-scale regional war in which the number of aircraft destroyed in beyond-the-horizon air combat exceeded those destroyed in visual air combat. It indicates that beyond-the-horizon air combat technology is maturing.

Deep-Strike and Stand-Off Munitions
Ever since air weapons came into being, the way to attack ground targets was to bomb right over the targets after penetrating the ground-to-air defense. In the past 10 years, this method has been used less frequently. Instead, a method that has been used more and more often is to stand off and launch munitions from a long range. This tendency is bringing great changes to air-to-ground operations. Primarily because of stand-off air-to-ground missiles, air power is capable of launching attacks from a long distance, out of range of the defense.

Stealth Penetration
In the first air raid in the Gulf War, 30 U.S. Air Force F-117A stealth fighters directly attacked Baghdad after flying beyond Iraqi air-defense troops, instead of attacking air-defense radars and neutralizing airports and air-defense ground positions to open a penetrating corridor for followup units. This new operational method is characteristic of nonlinear operations. It stops the enemy from organizing effective defenses by harassing the enemy's air-defense rhythm. Relying on stealth fighters' being difficult to be detect, stealth penetration neutralizes the enemy's old formula of air-defense operations, which can be described thusly: find incoming targets; judge the nature of the targets and degree of threat; assign targets; order air defense troops to annihilate the targets. With stealth, the enemy is attacked before they detect the incoming targets. Because it is the crucial positions of the enemy's air-defense system that are first attacked by stealth planes, the enemy's air-defense troops have been paralyzed before they are put into action, so it is impossible for them to arrange organized resistance against the air -raid. Therefore, the air raid attacks predetermined targets without facing resistance. Using this method in the Gulf War, the U.S. Army reduced the ratio of assault troops to service troops to 1:1, and kept the loss rate at 0.03 percent. More and more stealth planes will be rushing into the air battlefields of the 21st century, and stealth penetration bombing will be more commonly applied.

All-Weather and Round-the-Clock Air Strikes
The performance of airborne fire-control-radar is being improved, and night-vision devices such as infrared and low-light devices and space-based precision guidance systems are being added. Many midrange air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, infrared-guided bombs and laser-guided bombs are being used. Air power has greatly enhanced its ability to attack air and ground targets at night and in any meteorological conditions. Meanwhile, air power can perform all-weather and round-the-clock attacks. This was the case in the Gulf War. Throughout the Gulf War, all-weather and round-the-clock continuous operations were carried out by the multinational forces, in which sorties dispatched at night equaled 70 percent of the total. Characteristics. Because all-weather and round-the-clock operations are widely used, the better equipped side benefits from the night and bad weather, which previously favored the less well equipped side. Because of high-technology, night battlefields become transparent. Bad weather is no longer an obstacle to the better equipped side. Meanwhile, the poorly equipped side can no longer utilize the night and bad weather to change its unfavorable situation. This operational mode greatly intensifies operations and speeds up the rhythm of war. Attacking Joints and Ripping Fabric The third generation of precision-guided bombs has an accuracy of less than 1 meter. Modern air strikes tend to be "one bomb, one target." Air power's ability in precision strike is increasing and the mode of long-range precision strike is used. It is possible through joint strikes to achieve fabric ripping.

According to systematic opinions, modern military strength is entirely composed of various services and various weapon systems with different functions. Joining various weapons is decisive in the operational system. We call this striking the seams and ripping the fabric in order to "take down" the enemy's operational system, to weaken or even to paralyze it by way of precisely attacking the system or its crucial positions with a certain number of weapons.

It was by way of attacking the seams of the Iraqi air-defense system that the multinational forces ripped the fabric of the Iraqi air-defense system in the Gulf War. The multinational forces took the Iraqi C3I system as the main target to assault. Twenty hours before the first air raid, electronic warfare began to jam and neutralize the Iraqi C3I system. In the first air raid, Iraqi targets such as command and communication centers were heavily attacked by Tomahawk cruise missiles and F-117 stealth fighters of the multinational forces. Because Iraq's C3I system had been violated, even though it had preserved a great deal of weapons and equipment with the help of advanced defense systems, its anti-aircraft guns could merely fire separately, its ground-to-air missiles could only be launched without aim, and its operational aircraft could not take off. It is predicted that the operational concept of assault on the seams and fabric violation will be commonly used in the air battlefields of the 21st century.

The new military revolution has brought about changes to the entire military sphere, particularly to the reforms in the air force. To study the impact of the revolution on contemporary air power is of momentous significance to China's defense modernization and air force development.

Since the 1950s, information technology has been developed worldwide. Automatic control and artificial intelligence technology have advanced quickly. Modern information technology was first applied in air weapons. Because of computers, automatic equipment and artificial intelligence, weapons have been invented, such as precision-guided weapons, telemetry and remote-sensing systems, electronic confrontation technology, and automatic C I systems. Air weapons have become the epitome of contemporary information technology. The special requirements of developing air weapons are the incentive for developing information technology. The mutual acceleration and simultaneous development of air weapons and information technology have resulted in the following accom-plishments:

Major General Zheng Shenxia is President of the Air Force Command College, Beijing; Senior Colonel Zhang Changzhi is an Assistant Professor at the Air Force Command College, Beijing. Their essay is from China Military Science, (Spring 1996).

• The transition from nonguided weapons to precision-guided weapons. Ground-to-air missiles have been developed in four modes high-altitude long range, medium-altitude medium range, and low-altitude and ultra-low altitude short range. Air-to-air missiles come in long, medium, and short range. Air-to-ground missiles come in two types strategic and campaign tactical . It is predicted that by the end of the 1990s, more guided weapons will be produced with higher intelligence that can identify the enemy force, avoid interference, and attack targets selectively. Such weapons will become the most important conventional equipment.
• The transition from "hard-kill" weapons to "soft and hard kill" weapons. Radio and eletro-optical equipment has become the core of modern air weapons. The electronic equipment is 33 percent of the cost of planes, 45 percent of missile costs, and 66 percent of the cost of unmanned aircraft. The comprehensive aerospace electronic warfare system under development will even bring acoustic frequency into the weapon system, which can function to defeat radar, telecommunication, navigation and guided weapons.
• The transition from manual command to automatic command. The C I system has become the "nerve center" of modern air combat. The U.S. Air Force established the Strategic Air Command, the North America Air Defense Command, the ballistic missile long-range warning system, and the space monitoring systems. In addition, it possesses tactical air command centers, an air surveillance center, and AWACs. The future aerospace automatic command system will retain high reliability, confidentiality, confrontation, and information processing capacity.
• The combination of air defense, aviation and space defense and weapons. Since the end of the 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union have developed ground-base anti-missile weapons and established layer antimissile systems. In the 1980s, military satellites, space aircraft, airships and space stations were developed. It is expected that by the end of the century, military utilization of flying machines can protect ground and air forces operations. By the early 21st century, attacks on space, air, ground and sea targets will have materialized. Air defense and space weapons will be able to fly both in the outer space and in the atmospheric layer.

• Higher precision. Precision-guided weapon technology helps to produce space weapons that can attack various objects thousand kilometers away around the clock. The deviation of cruise missiles is only around a dozen meters, and that of various tactical missiles is 1 meter. The percentage of hits can amount to 98 percent. High-speed, antiradiation missiles can automatically shun radar inference and strike the target. Short-range missiles can fly at a speed three times faster than sonic speed. The range of precision glide bombs reaches 80 km. The highest speed of long-range air-to-air missiles is 43 Mach and the range is 110 to 165 km. Laser-guided missiles are able to go through the vents of fortifications, windows, or doors and explode inside the building. Antitank missiles, after being launched from aircraft, can search for a target automatically at an altitude of several thousand meters.
• Increased stealth. The development of stealth aircraft reduces radar determining range from a few hundred kilometers to a bit more than a dozen kilometers. Further advances in stealth aerospace weapons will make sudden attacks realistic and disable the air-defense warning system and entire air-defense systems.
• Improved night vision. The infrared observation system installed in aircraft makes it possible that a pilot can position at night, discover and destroy targets. The wide application of new technical night vision equipment will bring an end to airmen's "night shift."
• Increased long-range attack ability. Advanced aviation power, impetus technology, and new materials have greatly improved the mobility of aircraft. Accompanied with in-flight refueling and space technology, an air force can realize the legend of combat at the global range.
• Increased destruction power. High-tech equipped weapons have more power to attack and destroy targets. Ordinary aircraft, when equipped with new weapon systems, are doubled and redoubled in combat ability. An operational assignment that needed 230 B-17 bombers during World War II can now be accomplished by eight F-16 fighters.
• Increased command and control capacity. Infrared, laser, telemetry, and remote-sensing technologies have greatly improved the function of air and space reconnaissance systems. The side with technical advantages will take the initiative of the war by controlling information, and use the highly automatic C I to control air operations effectively. The prewarning command aircraft can improve the combat effectiveness by a few dozen times.
• Increased electromagnetic confrontation capacity. Electron confrontation technology provides air electromagnetic combat with high efficiency, complete coverage, and strong power.

After the Gulf War, the U.S. military gradually increased research centered on information combat. U.S. Defense Secretary Perry put forward the proposal of "military revolution" in early 1994, which officially confirmed the existence of the revolution. A special group was organized to conduct research on how the Pentagon can obtain and maintain decisive military superiority within the next two and three decades. Therefore, modern high technology, the key to the new military revolution, has caused the development of contemporary air power. The application of air power in Desert Storm, on the other hand, is the "trigger" of the new military revolution. It is predicated that future air strength will have much greater development under the influence and acceleration of the revolution.

• Acknowledge that air power is the dominant force in contemporary local war.
• Maintain a stable or increasingly growing air force.
• Keep a relatively higher input of military expenditure in the air force. Emphasize the role of the air force as the nucleus in the theory of war as a breakthrough of reforming the contemporary military.
• Strengthen the buildup of ground forces and naval air forces.

• The demands of the information age. The Gulf War revealed the power of information combat. Western countries, particularly the United States, are keen in their preparing for information combat to consolidate their military positions through highly efficient military construction during the new military revolution. Although various military forces will play different roles in future information war, air strength will possess a unique superiority that is more adapted to modern war.

From the viewpoint of electromagnetic combat, armed strength in ground and marine battlefields will be greatly heightened by electromagnetic domination obtained through integrated electronic combat. Air and space are the major fields of electromagnetic confrontation in modern war. Air electronic confrontation equipment, compared to that on the ground, can cover a wider space and have a higher fighting efficiency. The U.S. Army has developed more than 600 electronic combat devices, of which 70 percent is installed in aircraft. Electronic combat in air raids can use electronic devices to reconnaissance, interfere, search, position and monitor an opponent's targets, as well as to cope with enemy electronic mechanisms, in combination with automatic command system and electronic suppression and deceiving devices. Thus, enemy communication will be cut off and radar and guided weapons disabled. Losses on one's own side will be reduced to minimum.

As for firepower, the destruction power has seen great improvement because of the combination of space electronic measures, firepower, and application of weapons with high precision and coverage. One prominent change is the growing proportion of air firepower in modern war. According to statistics, the U.S. Army's air munitions have increased dramatically. Today's stockpile is four times that of WWII, three times that of the total ammunition used in the Korean war, twice that of the Vietnam War, and a fifth more than that used in the Gulf War. In addition, 70 percent of casualties and injuries to enemy troops in the Vietnam War was caused by U.S. air firepower. Half the Arab tanks damaged during the fourth Middle East War was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force. During the Falkland Islands war between Britain and Argentina, 90 percent of the 29 vessels that were lost was due to air strikes. All the above indicates that with the rapid development of air weapons, the focus of modern war is gradually shifting to the air. Air firepower is becoming the backbone of joint military forces.

An important feature of information combat is the speed. Strategic air transport serves as the key to releasing and expanding the operational potential of strategic mobility. Speed and strength are the two core elements of measuring the combat effectiveness of strategic mobile force. In contemporary conditions, the contrast of strategic strength is not determined by the military force in a certain area but by the strength of strategic mobility. In modern times, partial wars break out quickly in a vast space, which allows very limited time to carry out an effective reaction. Only through speedy delivery of combat forces to favorable positions can decisive impact be exerted. Among various delivery measures, air transport is the most effective action because of its strong mobility, fast speed, and less restrictive geographic conditions. Air transport in modern times has a greater effect because of its capability of delivering force in large freight size, over a long distance, and at a fast speed between continents. To a certain extent, air transport is the amplifier of the combat strength of the strategic mobile forces of military powers and is an important condition in winning an information war.

• New and higher demands for air force are needed with the change of war format in the information era. Strategically, the focus of international military struggle in the information era has been changed from actual combat to menace. To be able to threaten other nations, one should possess a powerful attacking force. Currently, each country has some kind of means to threaten others. However, air threat takes a predominant position owing to its features of high technology, large capacity, multifunctions, all levels, and speed. Air intimidation shortens the distance between the antagonistic parties, although physically they might be thousand miles apart. Each action will arouse the opponent's vigilance. An air force can facilitate speedy and effective attacks on the enemy. Modern strategy enhances the need of air combat capacity and its function of achieving the strategic goal. This is inevitably a great impetus to develop air force.

• The limitation on use of nuclear weapons in the information era also provides opportunity to develop air force. Since the 1970s, the United States and the former Soviet Union have made fundamental changes in designing future operational conditions. This is because the quantity and quality of the strategic nuclear weapons of both sides was increased quickly, and both parties have had the nuclear capacity to destroy the other. Therefore, they believe that using nuclear weapons surpasses the purpose of war. In nuclear war, there is no winner. On the other hand, the conventional operational ability of air force has been greatly improved with the materialization of information technology. The number of weapons with comparable strength to small nuclear weapons has been increased. Currently, a heavy bomber's fatal efficiency index can reach 207 million, compared to 170 million of a 1,000-ton equivalent nuclear warhead. This means that informationized air weapons not only can replace nuclear weapons to a certain extent, but also have larger application in war. As individual weapons, most aircraft cannot compete with nuclear weapons in terms of power. However, the gap between the added effect of multiple use of air weapons and small nuclear weapons is narrowing.

This analysis shows that strengthening the air force is an inevitable outcome of the development of the new military revolution, and the changes in war format and the world nuclear situation. Further development of the air force will eventually increase the struggle among nations in fighting for air superiority. Future information war will rely more and more on air superiority. The air force will no longer be an important independent strategic force but an effective conventional campaign force that all services will depend upon. Each service will own a troop of airmen. Such a trend will further spur the conventionalization of high-tech equipment, development of information war and nonlinear operation of combat modes, therefore, strengthening the polar position of air force in modern military strategy.

After the Gulf War, each key country adjusted its military strategy and the structure of its armed forces to adapt to the transformed military threat and to ease the tension between demand and possibility of armed force establishment. The core of the adjustment is to promote quality military establishment. As a high-tech-equipped service, the air force will be given these considerations:

• Consensus on a small but high-quality army. To adapt to new military strategy and tasks, large countries have adopted the policy of reducing the size of their air forces. The U.S. Air Force has taken a large step in this regard. Within 5 years, the U.S. Air Force has reduced its service staff from 600,000 to 400,000 and the number of aircraft in service has been cut from 7,000 to 5,000. The Russian Air Force has been cut by half because of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the downsizing of troops (its military force was cut to 250,000). Both the British and German Air Forces have been reduced by one-fourth and their aircraft by 20 to 50 percent.

• Seek quality through restructuring. To adapt to the new military strategy, the U.S. Air Force has undergone the largest system adjustment after the war. In order to guarantee its strategic tasks, the U.S. Air Force eliminated the command headquarters of the strategic air force, tactical air force, and military air transport and reorganized air operation and air mobility command headquarters, which is responsible for all combat aircraft and provides global operational force. The air mobility command headquarters also manages weapon development and procurement for the entire air force. The air force training command headquarters and the air force school were merged into the air force education and training command headquarters, which administers the air force training programs. In accordance to the needs of partial war and speed reaction, a composite formation unit was established to support speed deployment of ground forces and implement multiple tasks.
• Promote quality establishment by applying high and new technology, which has become an increasingly important material foundation and combat strength for the modern air force. Each country pays great attention to modernization of weapons. Because of different technical and material conditions, each country takes different steps to reach their goals. The United States and Russia basically sped up the replacement of old weapons by new ones, strengthened renovation of key weapons, and developed key high-tech equipment. Western European countries choose to develop and produce a new generation of weapons. India, Korea, and Japan imported some modern weapons and, concurrently, improved their self-reliance. The common goal of each country was to modify their development plans for high-technology weapons and accelerate the quality establishment of air force.