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

transformation in military affairs. With this top-down
support, the PLA has gradually initiated an acrossthe-board
transformation in the last 15 years, establishing
a professional officer education and promotion
system; an integrated logistics supply system (联勤供
应系统); new armament production and acquisition
systems; a more effective medical support system;
restructured military industry; integrated transportation;
dual-use railroad, highway, water transport, and
air transport systems; joint and combined military exercises;
and many other initiatives. 28
ASSESSING THE PLA’S CAPABILITIES
It is against this backdrop that the PLA conference
took place in September 2009. More than 70 noted China
observers gathered at the U.S. Army War College
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to share their assessments of
the PLA transformation and its implementation. The
discussion was structured as follows: in the opening
section, three presentations set out to analyze China
and the PLA’s views on China’s changing security
landscape, the operational requirements of China’s
2008 Defense White Paper, and China’s changing civilmilitary
relations and the impact of those relations on
the PLA’s new mission. The second section examines
the PLA’s performance at home, with emphasis on the
PLA’s developments in informationization and management
of diverse military tasks (DMT) and military
operations other than war (MOOTW). The third part
of the volume looks at the PLA’s interactions with foreign
militaries and its first combat operation abroad,
the anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden. The final
section examines the PLA’s support systems. The two
chapters look at China’s efforts to transform its de-
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