The U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) held a five-day course discussing how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thinks and operates militarily.
Twenty-three servicemembers and civilians participated in the “China Way of War” to build a “nuanced understanding of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army’s actions,” according to a press release.
Captain Carlo Orciga, U.S. Army Pacific Operations and Training and a coordinator for the course, said in a statement, “USARPAC leadership directed us to develop a course that would enhance general knowledge of China and their military capabilities.”
One of the course’s activities had students “representing the [People’s Republic of China], utilizing the knowledge they learned throughout the week to wargame a strategy to sabotage landing strips of the opposing team and cut off port access,” the press release described.
“As an intelligence officer, it’s incredibly important to know what the enemy thinks; so that you can try and predict what the enemy will do and why they make the decisions that they do,” said Major Louis Crist, a participant in the course.
The China Way of War course comes as the CCP has researched “cyber-enabled influence operations” (IO).
By adopting “cognitive domain operations,” the Chinese military is focused on a “psychological or cognitive decision to surrender, as compared with the 20th century construct of total warfare and complete physical exhaustion of adversary military capabilities and resources,” according to RAND Corporation policy researcher Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga.
Representative Frank Lucas (R-OK) recently said during a talk at the Hudson Institute that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building an “empire reminiscent of the colonial period,” raising security concerns.
Similarly, Lucas wrote on X, “Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific poses a significant challenge for the U.S. and our allies,” adding, “We must act now to counter China to preserve international order and maintain U.S. leadership abroad.”
