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

vation that would result would inevitably bring profound
challenges for the United States.
In terms of meeting those challenges, U.S. strategic
planners would do well to better understand the
broader trends and benchmarks of China’s ongoing
defense reform. To date, the study of China’s military
modernization has been largely dominated by investigative
research and reportage—based on a close scrutiny
of defense related literature—to track capabilities
and their specific strategic implications. The hallmark
of this approach is the Pentagon’s annual military
report on the PLA, and the result is usually surprise
when a new system or capability surfaces. As defense
reform proceeds, and especially as CMI specifically
picks up steam, such strategic shockers will emerge
with greater frequency. More importantly, advances
in China’s defense industry input will grow harder to
detect and evaluate with several consequences. First, it
will be increasingly difficult to parse the specific military
application of China’s highly dual-use space or
telecommunications infrastructure. 152 Moreover, China’s
growing capability to conduct information-based
warfare will largely depend on breakthroughs in more
amorphous C4ISR components, many of which will be
difficult to assess. 153 Finally, and perhaps most significantly,
tracking technological progress for national
defense purposes, will be complicated as CMI blurs
the lines between civilian and military entities participating
in weapons R&D and productions.
All of these factors will require additional methods
to better measure and assess defense industry reform
at a systemic level. One example is to use a more
traditional approach. Rather than just looking at the
end-product weapon system (or the defense institute
responsible for applying a technology or developing
a core component), one may need to look further up
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