Outlook · First Study | Raising the People's Army's Capability to Fight and Win
◇ Chairman Xi Jinping's important statements scientifically answer fundamental questions such as how to achieve victory and win wars in the new era, clearly establish the baton for vigorously grasping war preparedness and combat, and constitute a political mobilization directed at achieving the centenary goal of army building.
◇ Training must be oriented toward the battlefield, toward the force, and toward the future—soldiers must train the way they fight, train hard in whatever combat requires, and concentrate intensive training on whatever the force lacks most.
◇ Whoever first builds an intelligentized military system (智能化军事体系) will achieve faster operational decision-making, more accurate situational awareness, more optimal force allocation, and higher offensive and defensive effectiveness, thereby seizing the initiative on the future battlefield.
◇ Only by clarifying what wars will be fought in the future and how they will be fought can we anchor the logical foundation of war preparation and identify the correct direction for combat capability development.
Military history from ancient times to the present makes clear: an army can fully demonstrate the value and dignity of its existence only by achieving decisive victory on the battlefield. Having emerged from the flames of war, the People's Army has undergone nearly a century of arduous struggle and has developed into a powerful armed force comprising combined arms and services.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, Chairman Xi Jinping has strategically managed "the two overall situations" (两个大局), profoundly discerned new changes in the world situation, national conditions, and military conditions, and has made a series of important statements on raising the People's Army's capability to fight and win. He has placed particular emphasis on the requirement that "the entire military must focus all its energy on fighting, direct all its work toward fighting, accelerate the improvement of the capability to fight and win, and effectively fulfill the mission tasks of our military in the new era," and has set forth explicit requirements for "accelerating the development of advanced combat capabilities."
Chairman Xi Jinping's important statements scientifically answer fundamental questions such as how to achieve victory and win wars in the new era, clearly establish the baton for vigorously grasping war preparedness and combat, and constitute a political mobilization directed at achieving the centenary goal of army building.
On the new journey, the People's Army must implement the commander's orders through concrete action, effectively fulfill its mission tasks, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and make greater contributions to maintaining world peace and development.
[Photo caption: An Air Force aviation regiment conducts subject training (archival photo). Xinhua (photo by Liu Chuan)]
Solidly Advancing Combat-Realistic Military Training (实战化军事训练)
Military training is the basic means of generating and improving combat capability and is the most direct form of military struggle preparation. To this end, the 15th Five-Year Plan outline makes explicit arrangements to solidly advance combat-realistic military training.
Solidly advancing combat-realistic military training goes directly to the fundamental requirements of training, making clear that training must be oriented toward the battlefield, toward the force, and toward the future—soldiers must train the way they fight, train hard in whatever combat requires, and concentrate intensive training on whatever the force lacks most.
— Train command, forging the powerful brain that decides future victory. At present, the form of warfare is accelerating its evolution toward informatization and intelligentization, and the weight of "ten thousand troops looking to command" (千军万马看指挥) is becoming ever more pronounced. Looking back at several recent local wars, the decisive factor has often been not merely the density of firepower but who first cuts the other side's command chain.
Therefore, training command means putting commanders into complex electromagnetic environments to "smell the smoke of battle," into multi-service joint live scenarios to feel the time differential, and into adversarial exercises to think about how to remedy shortcomings. Training command means training both the decisiveness to make up one's mind and the flexibility to make real-time adjustments—especially under the intense pressure of severed communications and chaotic intelligence—so that the ability to plan well and decide wisely is engraved into commanders' neural reflexes. Under the new situation, commanders must also be adept at using artificial intelligence and other decision-support tools to achieve a profound shift from "experience-based command" (经验型指挥) to "data-driven command" (数据驱动型指挥).
— Train coordination, forging the iron fist of the system that wins through jointness. Victory and defeat in war depend not on numbers but on separation and combination. Modern warfare is always joint, and there is no victory without jointness; integrated joint operations (一体化联合作战) have become the basic form of operations, with platform-based combat, system support, tactical action, and strategic sustainment as defining characteristics.
At present, following the formation of the new pattern in which the Central Military Commission (CMC) exercises overall control, the theater commands (战区) are responsible for warfighting, and the services are responsible for building, the joint logistics support and joint operations command organizations have successively taken their positions. The key is to truly implement the word "joint" in training—to drive the Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and Joint Logistic Support Force to find their respective interfaces and rhythms within the large joint training system, achieving "shared bloodlines" (血脉相通) among the services. For example, intensifying coordinated training among the services, advancing deep coupling of combat and training, and improving joint command, joint operations, and joint support capabilities. In recent years, a Navy brigade assembled multiple services to go to sea for training, the Air Force conducted base-level adversarial exercises with each side serving as the other's opponent, and the Information Support Force invited neighboring units to serve as examiners—"open-door training" (开门练兵) has achieved good results.
— Train the spirit, tempering the blood and courage (血性胆魄) to dare to fight and be certain of victory. Facing informatized and intelligentized warfare, long-range precision strikes, cognitive offense and defense, and sustained attrition place greater demands on the will and resilience of officers and soldiers than ever before. For example, unmanned aerial vehicle operators staring at screens for more than ten consecutive hours, electronic countermeasure units against unmanned systems operating blind under heavy jamming, and submarine officers and soldiers enduring long periods in sealed compartments—all require combat spirit.
Chairman Xi Jinping has pointed out that forces must be tempered and trained through arduous and rigorous training, in near-combat environments, and in severe and complex military struggles, guiding officers and soldiers to firm up their ideals and convictions, hone their combat will, and forge their combat style, always maintaining the tenacious combat spirit of "fearing neither hardship nor death" (一不怕苦、二不怕死).
Training combat spirit means placing forces in perilous situations, dangerous situations, changing situations, and difficult situations—on high plateaus and in cold regions, in distant seas and great oceans, in the Gobi Desert—and tempering and training them under conditions of high heat, extreme cold, high humidity, oxygen deprivation, fatigue, and hunger, so as to truly achieve both "daring to charge" and "fighting skillfully," binding combat spirit and the capability to fight and win firmly together.
Accelerating the Development of Advanced Combat Capabilities
Science and technology is the most active and revolutionary factor in military development; every major scientific and technological advance and innovation brings about profound changes in the form of warfare and the mode of operations. Modern military competition is to a large extent a contest of "time differentials" (时间差): whoever first transforms the technology in hand into systematized combat capability holds the entry ticket to the next war. To this end, the 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes accelerating the development of advanced combat capabilities.
Accelerating the development of advanced combat capabilities has become an inevitable measure for seizing the commanding heights of future warfare and achieving a leapfrog improvement in our military's combat capability.
— Better enabling combat capability development in all respects through scientific and technological innovation. In intense military competition, key core technologies cannot be obtained by asking, buying, or begging. Only by persisting in self-reliance, proceeding from national and military conditions, and vigorously advancing independent innovation and original innovation can we achieve more "zero-to-one" (从0到1) breakthroughs and create growth poles for new-quality combat capabilities (新质战斗力).
Therefore, we must unswervingly place scientific and technological innovation in a prominent position in building and strengthening the military. We must improve strategic perception of trends in military science and technology development—when disruptive frontier technologies are still in their embryonic stage, we must make sharp judgments, seize them resolutely, and continuously develop them, so as to stay one step ahead of the adversary and seize the initiative. We must fully leverage the institutional advantage of our country's socialist system in concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks, integrating high-quality resources from all parties to form a powerful synergy for collaborative breakthroughs. We must greatly improve the capability for operational application, resolutely bridge the "last mile" from scientific research to the battlefield, closely unify static laboratory technology with dynamic battlefield application, and ensure that the fruits of scientific and technological innovation enter the training ground, are embedded in operational formations, and permeate the system of operational methods (战法体系) at the earliest opportunity.
— Growing and strengthening new-type combat forces such as unmanned intelligent systems. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Party emphasized "increasing the proportion of new-domain new-quality combat forces (新域新质作战力量), accelerating the development of unmanned intelligent combat forces (无人智能作战力量), and coordinating the development and use of the cyber-information system (网络信息体系)"—this is a forward-looking deployment oriented toward the future. In multiple wars in recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles have shifted from supporting roles to leading roles. First-person-view (FPV) unmanned aerial vehicles guided by fiber optic cable, costing only a few thousand dollars, can destroy armor worth millions of dollars. Cyberspace and the electromagnetic domain have shifted from a support domain to a primary combat domain, and the cognitive domain has become a new battlefield for subduing the enemy without fighting.
Therefore, we must advance the scaled, combat-realistic, and systematized development of new-domain new-quality combat forces, accelerate the development of unmanned intelligent combat forces and countermeasure capabilities, and strengthen the upgrading and transformation of traditional combat forces. Unmanned intelligent combat forces should be integrated into the operational system in the posture of a main force and leading actor: give them a position in the organizational structure, give them opponents in training, and give them scenarios in operational methods. Strengthen strategic pre-positioning for operations in new domains such as cyberspace, deep space, and the deep sea to enhance strategic initiative. Persist in using the new to lead the old and integrating new and old—be adept at using the penetration capability of unmanned swarms to open gaps for conventional firepower, and adept at using cyber-electromagnetic disruption to pave the way for long-range precision strikes, while strengthening cognitive offense and defense capabilities.
— Accelerating the development of an agile and efficient intelligentized military system. If advanced weapons and equipment and new-quality combat forces are the sharp spear and solid shield, then the intelligentized military system is the operating system that commands these assets and forces. In today's world, intelligentization has become the theme of the new round of military revolution, and warfare competition has entered a new stage of algorithm-based victory (算法制胜). Whoever first builds an intelligentized military system will achieve faster operational decision-making, more accurate situational awareness, more optimal force allocation, and higher offensive and defensive effectiveness, thereby seizing the initiative on the future battlefield.
Accelerating the development of an intelligentized military system with the characteristics of our military requires emphasis on systemic thinking and exerting effort at multiple levels.
At the perception level, focus on building an intelligent intelligence reconnaissance system, using artificial intelligence technology to achieve automatic collection, intelligent analysis, and precise delivery of massive amounts of information, advancing battlefield situational awareness from "seeing" to "understanding."
At the decision-making level, focus on developing intelligent command-and-control and operational decision-making systems, converting algorithmic advantage into decision-making advantage, and achieving a leap from human-brain decision-making to "human-machine collaborative decision-making" (人机协同决策).
At the action level, focus on building an intelligent offense-defense and support system, forming a complete intelligentized operational chain encompassing perception, decision-making, offense and defense, and support.
At the comprehensive level, focus on improving institutional norms, talent systems, and training mechanisms, coordinating intelligentized technology research and development, equipment iteration, and operational method innovation, and effectively resolving problems such as poor integration of intelligent systems, insufficient algorithm adaptation, and weak operational effectiveness.
Profoundly Grasping the Laws and Characteristics of Modern Warfare
At present, the form of warfare and the mode of operations in the new era are undergoing disruptive changes. "Overall, modern warfare has indeed undergone profound changes. These changes may appear dazzling, but there are laws to be found behind them; the fundamental change is that the mechanism for achieving victory in war (战争的制胜机理) has changed." Chairman Xi Jinping has pointed this out. Therefore, the report of the 20th National Congress of the Party made explicit arrangements for "studying and mastering the characteristics and laws of informatized and intelligentized warfare." The 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes accelerating the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization (机械化信息化智能化融合发展).
Only by clarifying what wars will be fought in the future and how they will be fought can we anchor the logical foundation of war preparation and identify the correct direction for combat capability development.
— Advancing with the times to innovate military strategic guidance. As the top-level design for war preparation and war conduct, military strategy that is scientifically accurate represents the greatest probability of success.
Today, the temporal and spatial attributes of warfare have long surpassed traditional understanding; military strategy must change as circumstances change, examining and planning for war with an entirely new perspective.
First, closely follow the major trends of the era with keen perception. As the group breakthroughs of emerging scientific and technological achievements redraw the face of warfare, adversaries' operational thinking and tactical forms continue to evolve and iterate, and the form of warfare is leaping from the physical domain to the information domain and cognitive domain. Only by closely tracking these deep-level changes can we formulate strategic guidance that conforms to objective reality.
Second, persist in and develop "you fight your way, I fight my way" (你打你的、我打我的), be adept at leveraging comparative advantages, and seek strategies for defeating the enemy through asymmetric competition.
Third, better combine the profound power of people's war (人民战争) with the advantages of modern technology. Although informatized and intelligentized warfare has a high technological threshold, justice remains the political logic that determines victory or defeat; we must be adept at using new technologies and new means to empower people's war, so that this traditional advantage radiates new vitality in the new era.
— Focus on thoroughly researching the mechanism for achieving victory in intelligentized warfare. The mechanism for achieving victory is the internal, determinative operational law and causal relationship of warfare; failing to understand the mechanism for achieving victory will cause one to lose direction. The key to winning mechanized warfare lies in destroying the adversary with physical energy; the key to winning informatized warfare lies in paralyzing the enemy's system through precision strikes. Several recent local wars indicate that penetrating the secrets of victory in future warfare requires grasping the underlying laws—knowing not only what is so but also why it is so—to provide solid theoretical support for operational method innovation.
Therefore, we must profoundly understand the leading role of information, recognizing that information is the core element running through modern warfare—whoever possesses real-time, precise, and comprehensive information superiority will seize the initiative on the battlefield. We must profoundly comprehend the effectiveness of "system emergence" (体系涌现), recognizing that modern warfare, under the powerful support of network systems, involves the resonance and synergistic release of information flows, energy flows, material flows, and cognitive flows, with victory and defeat increasingly dependent on the power of system emergence. We must profoundly grasp the "ubiquitous intelligence" (智能泛在) effect, recognizing that artificial intelligence technology endows operational systems with an unprecedented powerful intelligent brain, and that this empowerment is making operational actions more precise and swift. We must pay close attention to the decisive significance of speed, recognizing that in intelligentized warfare "detection equals destruction" (发现即摧毁) has become the norm—whoever can preempt the enemy within the "observe-orient-decide-act" (观察—判断—决策—行动) closed loop will gain battlefield advantage.
— Strengthening the normalized and diversified employment of military forces. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, our military has innovated the mode of military force employment, achieving a historic leap from "raising troops for a thousand days, using them for a single moment" (养兵千日、用兵一时) to "raising troops for a thousand days, using them for a thousand days" (养兵千日、用兵千日). The People's Army, closely aligned with its mission tasks, has optimized its strategic posture and force disposition, driving a profound transformation in force employment from passive response to active shaping, from phased tasks to normalized operations, and from single-service actions to joint operational system employment, effectively expanding the temporal and spatial dimensions of military struggle.
Looking to the future, we must better leverage our military's strategic functions in shaping the situation, managing crises, deterring conflict, and winning wars.
Dialectically unify the training of troops with the employment of troops. The understanding that training is actual combat and that missions are the test is becoming a universal consensus and operational standard throughout the military; through the dynamic process of executing diversified tasks, we should better verify training effectiveness, expose problems and shortcomings, and improve operational capability in real time.
Combine military struggle with strategic deterrence. Through normalized combat patrols, maritime patrols, distant-sea joint exercises and training, and other actions, clearly demonstrate the resolve to defend core interests, convey credible and reliable deterrence signals, and shape a strategic posture favorable to us.
Link single-direction actions with overall systemic employment. Strengthen the coordinated linkage of actions across strategic directions and military domains, flexibly employing diverse forms such as rights-protection escort, combat patrols, maritime patrols, and distant-sea exercises and training, forming a systemic combined force that integrates near and far and combines offense and defense.
A strong nation must have a strong military. In 2027, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will mark the centenary of its founding. Meeting the requirements of the Party and the people, comprehensively improving the capability to fight and win, and achieving full-time combat readiness and the ability to fight at any moment—this is the finest tribute this glorious and heroic force can offer.
(Authors: Zhou Junjie, Wang Luying | Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military Research Center | Outlook, 2026, Issue 31)