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SPECIAL TOPIC: PLA SELF-ASSESSMENTS
The PLA highlights some self-assessed shortcomings publicly, likely to guide and accelerate force-wide modernization efforts. The PLA routinely use set slogans or phrases to describe these self-assessments to exhort the force to carry out specific campaigns. These evaluations also likely represent genuine anxieties among PRC leaders about the PLA's readiness and ability to conduct joint operations if tested under real combat conditions. The five PLA slogans are described on the next page.
- Leadership and Command. The PLA has regularly identified concerns about the quality and ability of its commanders and officers. Numerous PLA slogans have addressed this issue most pointedly expressing concern that its forces will be unable to seize the operational initiative at the level necessary for modern warfare, with previous annual training mobilization orders explicitly referencing the "Five Incapables" and "Two Inabilities."
- Lack of Combat Experience. The PLA's self-assessments often express insecurities about the fact that the military has not fought a war since 1979, with common references to the "peace disease" or “peacetime practices". For the PLA, the "peace disease" presents itself as both a lack readiness within the force and a lackadaisical attitude towards training and preparing for potential conflict.
- Exercise and Training Realism. For decades, the PLA has identified poor and unrealistic training as a key problem for military modernization. . The PLA has focused on both "formalism" and "bureaucratism" as the leading causes of substandard training. This means that training is stilted and formal rather than being appropriate for dynamic and unpredictable real-world conditions.
- Professional Military Education. The PLA has identified a lack of officers with knowledge of joint combat operations and is working to implement a true joint culture throughout the force. To rectify the gap in military education on joint warfighting, theater command headquarters have attempted to set up educational programs at headquarters to build joint proficiency. Additionally, the PRC's NDU launched the PLA's first training course for officers to receive joint post qualifications upon graduation.
- Fighting and winning modern wars. The PLA has utilized the slogan the "Two Big Gaps" to underline enduring concerns about its true capability for warfighting despite the long
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
