"To Be a Commander, You Must Be the Kind That Makes the Enemy Despair"
Being the Commander Who "Makes the Enemy Despair"
■ Wang Guohong, Yu Haonan
"To be a commander, you must be the kind that makes the enemy despair." This is a phrase that Zhang Tianyi, company commander of the 1st Amphibious Armored Infantry Company of a certain brigade under the 73rd Group Army, keeps constantly on his lips. In adversarial exercises, he is "a terrifying opponent"; in training offensives, he is "a blade that grows sharper with every forging"; in the transformation toward war-readiness, he is "the crest of a surging wave" … Through training that approaches actual combat, Zhang Tianyi has forged a crack force that dares to fight and is determined to win, an unstoppable force, and has fought battle after battle of "brilliant engagements" that leave the enemy in despair.
Of all things that matter to the three armed services, nothing surpasses the general; of ten thousand troops and horses, the commander comes first. Chairman Xi has profoundly pointed out: "Whether the military can fight wars and win wars—command is a decisive factor." War is both a contest of the material strength of both sides and a competition of subjective guidance and the art of command. As the decision-maker who commands the fighting and the organizer of training and exercises, the commander sits at the center of the command tent, holding the authority of the command arrow; the strength or weakness of military competence, the level of training, and the capacity for command determine and govern, to a great degree, the outcome of war.
"So long as the commander's tent can produce a true general, what need is there for two or three layers of border walls?" Throughout our military's history of war written in blood and fire, commanders who made the enemy despair have never been lacking. Surrounded by the enemy's heavy troop concentrations in a situation of extreme peril, Su Yu resolutely made the combat decision to "take the head of a senior general from within a million-strong army," ultimately annihilating the powerful enemy's reorganized 74th Division in its entirety. Facing the enemy's arrogant clamor to "let artillery and machine guns do the debating," Qin Jiwei held firm to the conviction of "carrying coffins up to Shangganling," turning Shangganling into the American military's "Heartbreak Ridge." Han Xianchu, known as the "Whirlwind Commander," fought with ferocity and inspired awe in all directions—"wherever he led troops, the enemy on that strategic axis felt terror" … Victory lies in command; to fight a war is to fight its commanders—this is an iron law that has never changed, and it is an important reason why our military has been invincible and has overcome every obstacle.
Make the enemy despair, and victory has hope. In those years, after Peng Dehuai accepted command in a moment of crisis as Commander and Political Commissar of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, Comrade Mao Zedong remarked with deep feeling: "He who gains a good general gains strong troops and a prosperous nation." In the great affairs of the military, fate rests with the commander. The number of battle-hardened commanders and the strength of their capabilities bear on the outcome of the battlefield and influence and determine the future and destiny of an armed force. The reason our military was able to defeat a larger force with a smaller one on the anti-Japanese battlefield, to overcome the strong with the weak in the War of Liberation, and to prevail over a superior force with an inferior one on the Korean battlefield is, in important part, that our military held that "we cannot match them in manpower, we cannot match them in guns and artillery, but in command we must match them"—producing a large cohort of "war directors of great consequence" who were superior to the enemy in operational command, faster than the enemy, and stronger than the enemy.
A short rope cannot draw water from a deep well; shallow water cannot bear a great vessel. Of all capabilities, the true capability is the ability to lead troops in battle; of all skills, the true skill is the ability to win battles. Making the enemy despair depends critically on outstanding ability and superior skill—the courage to accept orders and go on campaign, and the capacity to decide victory on the battlefield. For a unit, how troops are trained, how battles are fought, and what quality and results are achieved depend critically on the commander's powers of judgment, decision-making, control, adaptability, and will. Pain in command capability is the fundamental pain; a gap in command capability is a fatal gap. If a commander's skills are not solid, if the exemplary role is not well played, if courage and fighting spirit are lacking, and if the problems of "two large gaps" (两个差距很大), "two insufficient capabilities" (两个能力不够), and "five incapabilities" (五个不会) are not thoroughly resolved, it is impossible to forge a crack force of brave and skilled fighters that strikes terror into the enemy.
Only when those who lead the army don armor and grasp sharp weapons can those who carry spears fight without retreating. At present, integrated joint operations are placing ever-higher demands on operational command in terms of strategic character, jointness, timeliness, professionalism, and precision, and "differences in the command level of armed forces will carry ever greater significance." Commanders at all levels should fix their gaze on "the next war," constantly harbor "concern" over capability, constantly raise "questions" about winning battles, and constantly reflect on the "responsibility" of leading troops. They must genuinely think about matters of war, genuinely deliberate on problems of war, and genuinely prepare for war—achieving true understanding of operations, true proficiency in command, and true mastery of joint operations—ensuring they have the capability and the confidence to win future wars and decide victory on future battlefields, making the enemy feel the despair of powerlessness, and letting officers and soldiers see the hope of invincibility.