Exercises Doctrine Political Work

Political Cadres Must Enter the Field with "Enemy-Situation Awareness" (敌情意识)

政治干部必须带着“敌情意识”进场

PLA Daily (解放军报) 24 August 2026

Summary

A political cadre assigned as a '政工评估员' (political work evaluator) at an unidentified naval base describes a live-force air-defense exercise in which a ship's leader publicly celebrated shooting down six of eight target drones simulating incoming missiles — drawing a low score because the two that penetrated the defense were never addressed in the mobilization. The article documents a structured effort to reform wartime political work by replacing process-compliance metrics with 'enemy-situation compatibility' (敌情适配度) scoring, a 'wartime political work problem ledger' (战时政治工作问题台账), and multi-party evaluation panels designed to break the pattern the article names directly: political work that is 'self-designed, self-cycling, and self-evaluated' (自我设计、自我循环、自我检验). The specific failures catalogued — Party committee meetings held while Blue Force missiles were inbound, merit-citation campaigns run mid-engagement — confirm a persistent institutional gap between political work procedures and combat tempo that the base is now trying to close through co-developed evaluation criteria, though the article does not identify the base, the fleet, or the timeline for full implementation.

Translation

A jarring alarm suddenly blared, and multiple aerial targets came surging in from different directions. This was a live-force exercise organized by the base, using high-speed target drones to simulate "enemy" missiles and test the air-defense and anti-missile capabilities of the participating units. "Report! Drone engagement complete — eight launched, six shot down, the remaining two have entered the recovery flight path." After the first round, the assistant gunner aboard the escort vessel called out the results at full volume.

Hearing the results, one of the ship's leaders was elated. He grabbed the broadcast handset and called out to the entire ship: "Comrades! We took down six in the first round — hold steady, keep it up, and let's make the next round even better!"

At that moment, I and several other political cadres, wearing "political work evaluator" (政工评估员) badges on our chests, were observing and assessing from the side.

When the exercise concluded, we conducted our scoring and commentary. When some officers and soldiers saw that the mobilization had received a low score, they were puzzled: "Haven't leaders always done their mobilization this way? Why is it wrong now?"

I explained to everyone: Shooting down six is genuinely good — it shows our training is solid. But the problem is, the target drones in this exercise were simulating incoming "missiles." So what do those two that weren't hit mean? They mean the "enemy" missiles successfully penetrated our defenses. In a real combat situation, that could mean the ship is destroyed and the crew is dead. At a moment like that, the first thing a political cadre's mind should go to is: What is the worst-case scenario? How do we ignite the fighting spirit of the officers and soldiers? How do we provide psychological guidance to the troops? Not, as we just saw, simply celebrating and cheering them on while remaining completely detached from the "enemy situation" (敌情).

After this analysis, the participating officers and soldiers fell into deep reflection. This commentary was not "Monday-morning quarterbacking," but rather the prescribed action of "immediate after-action review and immediate correction" (即时复盘、即时纠偏) in political consolidation training (政治整训). The political work in every live-combat exercise cannot only ask "was it done?" — it must also ask "was it done correctly?", "was it done thoroughly?", and "was it done at the point most needed for actual combat?" To dig deeper into the problems, the base has implemented a "wartime political work problem ledger" (战时政治工作问题台账) system — every mobilization, every pledge of resolve (决心书), and every psychological counseling session must be scored for "enemy-situation compatibility" (敌情适配度) against real combat scenarios. A mobilization like this one — full of enthusiasm, but lacking any crisis response to "enemies that slipped through the net" — is a textbook case of "the aim drifting off target" (靶心跑偏).

During the after-action analysis, we also enumerated and examined a number of problems observed in political work conducted during previous exercises —

In one joint exercise, after the force reached its designated position and Blue Force missiles came screaming in, the Red Force side was still holding Party committee meetings and operational meetings in accordance with procedure, just to ensure the standardized process was followed.

In one live-force confrontation, while the vessel was locked in a fierce engagement with the "enemy," the unit was simultaneously busy conducting democratic appraisals (民主评议) and merit-citation campaigns (立功创模), all to avoid missing any elements during the evaluation and to score more points.

In other cases, before the battle was even over, people had already started thinking about the withdrawal — and as for tasks like casualty evacuation and martyr designation, no one gave them any thought, because those items were not on the evaluation scoring sheet……

Over the past several years, in order to make political work evaluation accurate and substantive, the base has deployed us to exercise and training sites to collect frontline data. Having discovered so many problems, I have become increasingly aware: the reason some individual political cadres conduct their work in ways that cannot integrate with combat operations, cannot keep pace with the tempo, cannot connect to actual warfare, and lack that vital energy — is ultimately that the string of "fighting a war" in their minds is not pulled taut. They have not placed themselves in a battlefield of life-and-death trial. Their work "runs through the motions" (跑流程) and carries no "smell of gunpowder" (硝烟味).

Political consolidation training is not about starting from scratch — it is about "breaking and building in tandem" (破立并举). What to break? Break those habitual practices disconnected from actual combat, those ineffective processes, and those formalistic paper trails (形式主义留痕). What to build? Build a set of political work operating norms that can anticipate conditions before battle, keep pace during battle, and conduct after-action review after battle.

This year, the base brought in academic experts to work together with training-organization cadres and frontline political cadres to research and develop a political work evaluation system. To address the problems of political work directives not reaching the lowest levels and situation-handling being insubstantial, we re-sorted the processes, set evaluation indicators closely aligned with actual combat, and designed, advanced, and tested them in synchronization with military operations. Inspection and evaluation is also no longer determined by just a few people — instead, we invite personnel from the exercise directorate, academic experts, and the units under training to participate together, striving for objective and impartial assessments, and resolutely breaking out of the old path of political work being "self-designed, self-cycling, and self-evaluated" (自我设计、自我循环、自我检验).

Political consolidation training has no endpoint, because "enemy" missiles may always come flying in from an unexpected direction. When every political cadre habitually examines their own work through the lens of "what if it hadn't been shot down," and when every wartime political work contingency plan can withstand the interrogation of cannon fire, political consolidation training will have truly realized its value.

I believe that those two incoming "missiles" that were once overlooked have become the most clear-eyed "sparring partners" (陪练员) on the road of consolidation training. They remind us at every moment: the brutality of the battlefield is never discounted by negligence — every political cadre must enter the field with "enemy-situation awareness" (敌情意识).

Original Chinese

刺耳的警报骤然响起，多个空中目标从不同方向突袭而来。这是基地组织的一场实兵演练，通过高速靶机模拟“敌”导弹，检验参训部队防空抗导能力。 “报告！靶机抗击完毕，放飞8架，击落6架，剩下两架已转入回收航路。”首轮打完，护卫舰上的副炮手大声报出战果。听到战果，一名舰领导很是欣喜，一把抓过广播话筒，对全舰喊道：“同志们！咱们首轮就干下来6架，大家稳住劲，再接再厉，争取下一轮打得更漂亮！” 此时，我和其他几名政治干部胸前挂着“政工评估员”的标识，在一旁观战评估。演练告一段落，我们进行打分点评。当看到那次动员评分不高，有些官兵不明所以：“以前领导不都这么动员吗？咋这次就不行了？” 我向大家解释说：打下6架，确实不错，能看出咱们训练有素。可问题是，这次靶机模拟的是来袭“导弹”，那没打中的两架意味着啥？意味着“敌”导弹突防成功了！真在战场上，那就可能是舰毁人亡。这个时候，作为政治干部，脑子里第一个想的应该是：会出现什么最坏的情况？该怎么激发官兵斗志？官兵心理怎么疏导？而不是像刚才那样，光顾着高兴鼓劲，完全游离在“敌情”之外。一番分析下来，参演官兵陷入了沉思。这番点评不是“事后诸葛亮”，而是政治整训中“即时复盘、即时纠偏”的规定动作。每场实战演练的政治工作不能只看“做了没有”，而要追问“做对了没有”“做透了没有”“做到打仗最需要的点上了没有”。为了把问题挖深，基地推行“战时政治工作问题台账”制度——每一次动员、每一份决心书、每一次心理疏导，都要对照实战场景进行“敌情适配度”打分。像这次动员，虽然热情饱满，但缺乏对“漏网之敌”的危机应对，就是典型的“靶心跑偏”。复盘分析时，我们还列举剖析了以往演练中开展政治工作存在的一些现象问题—— 一次联合演练，部队抵达预定阵位，蓝方导弹呼啸而至，可红方这边还在按程序开党委会、作战会，就为了落实规范流程。那次实兵对抗，舰艇接“敌”打得正胶着，结果这边还忙着搞民主评议、立功创模，就为了评估时不漏要素能多加点分。还有的仗没打完，就开始琢磨撤收的事，至于伤员后送、烈士评定这些工作，没人考虑，因为相关内容不在评估打分表里…… 这几年，基地为了把政治工作评估做准做实，把我们撒到演训场上去收集一线数据。发现问题多了，我更加意识到：个别政治干部开展工作融不进作战、跟不上节奏、联不上实战、没那股鲜活劲，说到底就是脑子里打仗弦绷得不紧，没把自己摆进生死考验的战场，工作“跑流程”，没有“硝烟味”。政治整训不是另起炉灶，而是“破立并举”。破什么？破那些与实战脱节的惯性做法、无效流程、形式主义留痕。立什么？立一套战前能预判、战中能跟紧、战后能复盘的政治工作运行规范。今年，基地请来院校专家，与组训骨干和一线政治干部一起研究制订了一套政工评估体系。针对政治工作指令传不到底、情况处置不实的问题，我们重新梳理流程，紧贴实战定下评估指标，跟军事行动同步设计、同步推进、同步检验。检查评估也不再是几个人说了算，而是请导演部骨干、院校专家、受训部队等人员一起参与，力求评价客观公正，坚决跳出政治工作“自我设计、自我循环、自我检验”的老路子。政治整训没有终点，因为“敌”导弹永远可能从意想不到的方向飞来。当每一名政治干部都习惯性地用“如果没击落会怎样”来审视自己的工作，当每一份战时政治工作预案都经得起炮火的追问，开展政治整训就真正实现了它的价值。我相信，那两枚曾经被忽略的来袭“导弹”，已成为整训路上最清醒的“陪练员”。它们时刻提醒我们：战场的残酷从不因疏忽而打折，每名政治干部必须带着“敌情意识”进场。