The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

According to the 2008 Defense White Paper:
This guideline [the MSG] focuses on enhancing the
capabilities of the armed forces in countering various
security threats and accomplishing diversified military
tasks. With the focus of attention on performing the historical
missions of the armed forces for the new stage
in the new century and with raising the capability to
win local wars in conditions of informationization at the
core, it [the MSG] works to increase the country’s capabilities
to maintain maritime, space, and electromagnetic
space security and to carry out the tasks of counterterrorism,
stability maintenance, emergency rescue and
international peacekeeping. It [the MSG] takes military
operations other than war (MOOTW) as an important
form of applying national military forces, and scientifically
makes and executes plans for the development of
MOOTW capabilities. 17
And how does the PLA define MOOTW? There
does not seem to be a doctrinal definition but according
to four officers from the Shenyang Military Region
headquarters, writing in 2008, in Chinese Military Science,
MOOTW:
. . . refers to the direct or indirect use of the armed forces
in a non-violent manner . . . to achieve certain political,
economic and military purposes, safeguard national
interests, maintain social stability, respond to natural
disasters, and defend the people’s peaceful labor, lives
and property, or in certain conditions, military actions
enforced with the use of limited violence. 18
MOOTW encompasses internal security and external
security missions and the range of tasks are
numerous and challenging. According to the officers
from the Shenyang MR, these MOOTW operations include:
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