All for Winning the Next War: The Socio-Political and Technological Attributes of PLA Modernization through Continuing Force Transformation

Military modernization is a complicated process of force building by which a nation fulfills its defense requirements. Professionally, it is measured by the sophistication of the combat capabilities of a country’s armed forces as defined by the effectiveness of strategies and doctrines, commanding heights, soldier training, organization and structure, and the jointness of services and weapons systems. Technological progress is a primary driver for a military to modernize through transformation. More broadly, military modernization is an integral component of a country’s overall modernization, either facilitating or obstructing its socio-political, economic, and technological development. Military modernization is also affected by the nature of a country’s political system, as it determines the relations between civilian leaders and the top brass, the status of the military in society, and the internal shape of the organization, i.e., officer corruption and force cohesiveness. Yet, whether the system of state governance decisively impacts the patterns and pace of military modernization is a subject of debate. As discussed in detail in this paper, one-party rule is a specific political structure that can affect military modernization either positively or negatively. Positively as in the case of China, systemic factors such as the undisrupted CPC control of the military, concentrated inputs of resources into force building, and targeted capability acquisition contribute to the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a beneficiary of one-party rule. Negatively, one party-rule may disrupt military/society interactions and is prone to structural corruption, undermining the quality of military modernization.