Modernization Doctrine

Military Forum | Grasping the Key Points for Accelerating the Development of National Defense Mobilization Capabilities

军事论坛丨把握加快国防动员能力建设着力点

PLA Daily (解放军报) 7 May 2026

Summary

Writing in PLA-affiliated media, Xia Wenxiang and Su Cao argue that China must accelerate national defense mobilization capability development by building military-civilian integrated systems capable of rapidly converting economic and technological potential into warfighting power, explicitly framing the 15th Five-Year Plan cycle and the concept of 'new-quality productive forces' as vehicles for that effort. The article is analytically useful as a doctrinal signal: it identifies current shortfalls—unclear military-to-civilian requirements transmission, path-dependent management structures, and gaps in unmanned and intelligent mobilization capabilities—and invokes recent U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict dynamics as justification for urgency, suggesting PLA planners are actively benchmarking mobilization readiness against observed high-intensity conflict. The emphasis on compressing the cycle from economic strength to combat capability, pre-positioned stocks, and cross-domain mobilization 'growth poles' reflects a continuing institutional effort to close the gap between China's declared whole-nation system advantages and its actual wartime sustainment capacity.

Translation

Grasping the Key Points for Accelerating the Development of National Defense Mobilization Capabilities

■ Xia Wenxiang, Su Cao

Introduction

National defense mobilization, as the bridge and link between national defense construction and economic and social development, is an important support for accumulating national defense potential, enhancing national defense strength, and winning future wars. At present, the international strategic landscape is undergoing profound transformation, the risks and challenges facing national security are growing increasingly complex, and the military revolution and the scientific and technological revolution are intertwining and compounding—all of which have placed new and higher demands on national defense mobilization. We must keep pace with the times, align closely with the requirements of war, and stay grounded in national conditions, so as to identify the key points for accelerating national defense mobilization capability development and provide support for winning modern wars and shaping a lasting advantage in great-power competition.

The Foundation Lies in Capability—Concentrating Efforts on Building a Multi-Dimensional, Composite Mobilization System Capability

The core objective of accelerating national defense mobilization capability development is system capability. The continuously accelerating tempo of modern warfare and the rapid evolution of operational patterns demand that national defense mobilization transition from single-domain capability to system capability. The U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict has demonstrated that national defense mobilization system capability has already become the focal point of competition among the parties to a war.

Grasping the connotation of national defense mobilization system capability. National defense mobilization involves broad-area coverage, demand-driven conversion, and concentrated application of advantages; its capability is not the traditional physical assembly of resources, but rather a system capability encompassing storage, dispatch, conversion, transportation, and employment. First is agile response capability: the ability to perceive the situation in real time, accurately assess requirements, rapidly decompose tasks, and immediately trigger mobilization mechanisms. Second is rapid conversion capability: relying on standardized contingency plans and flat command structures, the ability to rapidly convert potential in personnel, finance, materiel, technology, and intelligence into actual capabilities supporting combat or emergency tasks. Third is efficient integration capability: the ability to comprehensively integrate full-domain, multi-dimensional, and fragmented resources through integration, reorganization, and embedding, so as to build organizational power, supply power, support power, and combat power that reach directly to the battlefield. Fourth is dynamic balancing capability: the ability to rationally regulate the relationships between wartime support and peacetime construction, resource input and effectiveness output, core requirements and diverse adaptability, and emergency support and sustained endurance, achieving a reasonable balance and coordination between supporting combat operations and maintaining the functioning of society.

Strengthening the orientation of national defense mobilization system capability. The core objective of accelerating national defense mobilization capability development is to accelerate the formation and conversion of war sustainment capability. We must adhere to orienting toward and for war, and leading construction through war, aligning the orientation of national defense mobilization capability with the orientation of combat capability, and fully embedding the combat effectiveness standard into national defense mobilization planning and construction. We must conduct in-depth research into the mechanisms for achieving victory in informatized and intelligentized warfare, analyze future war mobilization requirements, and—grounded in extreme conditions, emphasizing cutting-edge advantages, and connecting to war preparation and fighting—ensure that the "supply side" of mobilization capability always closely tracks the "demand side" of winning and achieving victory. We must rectify the functional center of gravity of national defense mobilization in converting potential into reality and supporting victory in war, place the foundation of national defense mobilization preparation on supporting victory in the people's war of the intelligent era, adhere to "everything for the front, everything for victory," always focus on wartime, orient toward the battlefield, and cultivate combat power; stockpile resources, strengthen forces, improve mechanisms, and rigorously conduct exercises and training, so as to expeditiously complete construction of a new-era national defense mobilization system commensurate with military strategy and capability requirements.

Establishing the benchmark for national defense mobilization system capability. National defense mobilization bears the functional mission of deterring war, participating in war, supporting war, and sustaining war. We must take forging system capability commensurate with modern warfare as the core benchmark of national defense mobilization, running it through every link and the entire process of national defense mobilization. Adhere to simultaneous struggle, war preparation, and construction; solidly carry out preparatory work for mobilization to lead off, be applied throughout, and be adjusted as needed; refine and improve the rapid peacetime-to-wartime transition mechanism; and always maintain a good state of full-time readiness and ability to fight at any time. Improve the system for testing and evaluating mobilization capability, using war design as the source, mobilization actions as the main thread, and system capability as the benchmark, to comprehensively evaluate national defense mobilization capabilities across all domains step by step, guiding iterative optimization of national defense mobilization capability. Adhere to promoting construction through use, and leverage major disaster relief operations, military-civilian joint exercises and training, and special mission practices to survey the status of potential resources, examine the validity of case verification and case development, check the connectivity of command chains, test the combined employment of forces, and analyze the effectiveness of mobilization implementation, so as to comprehensively test and improve the level of national defense mobilization in war preparation and construction.

The Key Lies in Construction—Jointly Building a Military-Civilian Integrated Capability Emergence Mechanism

Accelerating national defense mobilization capability development is an arduous strategic task and a complex systems engineering project; grasping the connotation, essential meaning, and methodological principles of construction is of critical importance. We should focus on the complexity of national defense mobilization, grasp the requirements of the era with strategic vision, break through development difficulties with innovative thinking, consolidate the foundation of construction with pragmatic measures, and drive comprehensive upgrading through key breakthroughs, so as to progressively build a military-civilian integrated national defense mobilization capability emergence mechanism.

Adhere to demand-driven construction, activating the source of capability emergence. Demand-driven planning and planning-led resource allocation are the basic laws of strategic management and the basic basis of national defense mobilization. The current main bottlenecks and difficulties are unclear channels for transmitting requirements and undefined methods for converting them; the key to resolution is to establish a military requirements decoding system, with accurate submission, scientific conversion, rapid confirmation, and efficient implementation as the main thread, effectively converting requirements from the military domain into technical indicators and task requirements for national scientific research, production, and construction. We must break down the professional barriers between the military and civilian sectors, open up secure channels for transmitting national defense mobilization requirements information, ensure that requirements are accurately translated, completely transmitted, and thoroughly understood and implemented, and truly put into practice. Emphasize focusing on capability "gaps": both give full play to the military's leading role in researching, demonstrating, and putting forward requirements, and give full play to the local sector's active role in anticipating tasks, matching military requirements, and driving capability improvement, so as to bidirectionally calibrate the target orientation of national defense mobilization capability development and activate the inherent potential of the supply side.

Emphasize planning-led construction, seizing the key to capability emergence. The scientific formulation and successive implementation of five-year plans is an important experience of our Party in governing the country and a major institutional arrangement for advancing the modernization of national defense and the armed forces. Accelerating national defense mobilization capability development must be coordinated and advanced within the larger strategic framework of Chinese-style modernization (中国式现代化), incorporated into the national security system for sound top-level design, integrated into the process of high-quality advancement of national defense and military modernization for synchronized deployment and implementation, and the 15th Five-Year Plan for national defense mobilization construction and related special plans must be scientifically compiled and implemented. We must focus on improving the contribution rate to serving and supporting victory in high-end warfare, emphasize asymmetric counterbalancing, adhere to planning-led resource allocation, prioritize resolving critical capability shortfalls, emphasize improving scarce and urgently needed capabilities, and leverage overall capability to advance comprehensively to a higher level.

Strengthen military-civilian integration, opening up channels for capability emergence. National defense mobilization connects the demand and supply ends, involves both the military and civilian lines, and runs through both the economic and defense domains; accelerating its capability generation must emphasize military-civilian linkage, coordinated planning, and system-level effort. We must adhere to military-civilian coordination, strengthen the "one board" (一盘棋) thinking among military and civilian organizations at all levels, advance the alignment of mobilization concepts between military and civilian, the joint establishment of command organizations, the unified integration of plans and schemes, and the fusion of force reliance, so as to efficiently advance national defense mobilization capability improvement. Emphasize consistency between construction and use: based on typical task scenarios of national defense mobilization participating in, supporting, and sustaining war, connect the construction management chain with the command and employment chain; both accurately grasp "what is available, how much there is, and where it is," and thoroughly analyze "what to use, how much to use, and how to use it," so as to promote coupling between combat and mobilization and consistency between construction and use.

The Essential Point Is Acceleration—Rapidly Forming a Capability Leap Path That Is Fast, Good, and Economical

In all martial arts under heaven, only speed is unbreakable (天下武功，唯快不破). Sufficient speed can often compensate for systemic weakness. Recent international conflicts such as the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict have demonstrated that the trends toward linkage, suddenness, and variability in modern warfare have placed increasingly urgent demands on the efficiency of generating and releasing national defense mobilization capabilities, objectively requiring an acceleration of the speed of national defense mobilization capability generation—the two characters "accelerate" (加快) highlight the essential meaning of the times for national defense mobilization capability development.

Strengthen strategic coordination to plan for speed, leading capability leaps in planning and design. Fully leverage the system advantages, institutional advantages, and scale advantages of the national defense mobilization system; seize the opportunity of China's vigorous development of new-quality productive forces (新质生产力); and put in sufficient effort and make full use of the space for speed in coordinated planning. As an important component of the national strategic system, national defense mobilization has the distinctive characteristics of military-civilian integration, peacetime-wartime integration, and front-rear integration; through efficient strategic coordination, it must both effectively enhance the state's capacity to respond to war and emergencies and empower high-quality economic development, so as to fully leverage the advantages of the whole-nation system (举国体制). In particular, as an important carrier for the efficient fusion and bidirectional driving of new-quality productive forces and new-quality combat capabilities (新质战斗力), national defense mobilization must possess efficient coordination capability in order to aggregate industrial advantages, scientific and technological advantages, talent advantages, and organizational advantages into strategic system advantages, laying a solid foundation for consolidating and improving the integrated national strategic system and capabilities.

Deepen management innovation to seek speed, driving capability leaps through institutional mechanisms. Management is also combat effectiveness. We must innovate the strategic management operational chain of national defense mobilization, improve the agile response and rapid conversion mechanism for advanced technologies, abandon traditional path dependencies, and accelerate efforts in technology empowerment, mechanism innovation, and system reconstruction, so as to shorten the national defense mobilization capability generation cycle. Strengthen cross-military-civilian governance, break down the barriers of the military-civilian dual structure, differences in thinking and concepts, and the restrictions of vertical-horizontal segmentation, and through process loading, functional fusion, and digital-intelligent support, build a cross-military-civilian working framework in which each fulfills its responsibilities, cooperates closely, and operates in a standardized and orderly manner. Integrate military and civilian procurement standards, simplify mobilization procurement links, optimize the redundancy design of pre-positioned and pre-fabricated stocks, and through management innovation and institutional innovation compress the cycle for converting economic strength into combat capability, maintaining and enhancing the resilience of industrial and supply chains.

Emphasize science and technology empowerment to promote speed, supporting capability leaps in methods and means. Science and technology have improved the efficiency of human production and labor and the efficiency of human perception and understanding of the world; the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization is systematically and comprehensively empowering the process of war and war preparation. We must emphasize updating mobilization concepts, innovating mobilization models, and reforming mobilization actions; emphasize the construction of strategic science and technology forces, the research, development, and production of cutting-edge weapons and equipment, and the optimized organization of new-quality force teams; and rely on science and technology empowerment to lead the accelerated "metamorphosis" (蝶变) of national defense mobilization capabilities and drive the overall transformation of national defense mobilization. Accelerate the supply and stockpiling of unmanned intelligent combat and counter capabilities, lower access thresholds, expand participation pathways, enrich scenario applications, and effectively open up the mobilization conversion chain for the effective aggregation and release of modern science and technology, continuously cultivating and expanding new-domain, new-quality mobilization growth poles (新域新质动员增长极), and driving national defense mobilization capabilities to improve rapidly, innovatively, and with enhanced effectiveness.

Original Chinese

把握加快国防动员能力建设着力点 ■夏文祥粟操引言国防动员作为国防建设与经济社会发展的桥梁与纽带，是积蓄国防潜力、提升国防实力、打赢未来战争的重要支撑。当前，国际战略格局深刻演变，国家安全面临风险挑战日趋复杂，军事革命和科技革命交织叠加，这些都对国防动员提出了新的更高要求。必须紧跟时代发展、紧扣战争需求、紧贴国情实际，找准加快国防动员能力建设着力点，为打赢现代化战争、塑造大国博弈持久优势提供支撑。根本在能力——聚力打造多维复合的动员体系能力加快国防动员能力建设，核心指向是体系能力。现代战争节奏持续加快，作战样式演化加速，要求国防动员从单域能力向体系能力转变。美以伊冲突表明，国防动员体系能力已经成为战争各方博弈的焦点。把握国防动员体系能力的内涵。国防动员广域覆盖、依需转化、聚优运用，其能力并非传统的资源物理调集，而是涵盖储、调、转、运、用等方面的体系能力。一是敏捷响应能力，要能够实时感知态势、精准研判需求、快速拆解任务，即时触发动员机制。二是快速转化能力，依托标准化预案和扁平化指挥，要能够将人、财、物、技、智等潜力快速转化为支持作战或应急任务的现实能力。三是高效整合能力，要能够把全域、多维、碎片的资源进行统筹整合，通过集成、重组、嵌入等方式，构建形成直通战场的组织力、供给力、保障力和实战力。四是动态平衡能力，要能够合理调控战时保障与平时建设、资源投入与效能产出、核心要求与多元适配、应急支援与持久续航的关系，实现支持作战与维持社会运转的合理平衡协调。强化国防动员体系能力的导向。加快国防动员能力建设，核心指向是加快战争持续能力的形成与转化。必须坚持向战为战、以战领建，把国防动员能力的指向与作战能力的指向一致起来，把战斗力标准全面落位到国防动员规划建设中。要深入研究信息化智能化战争制胜机理，研析未来战争动员需求，立足极端条件、突出尖端优势、对接备战打仗，使动员能力的“供给侧”始终紧贴打赢制胜的“需求侧”。要归正国防动员化潜为实、支撑胜战职能重心，把国防动员准备的基点放在支撑打赢智能时代的人民战争上，坚持“一切为了前线、一切为了打赢”，始终着眼战时、面向战场、培塑战力，储备资源、建强力量、完善机制、抓实演训，加紧建成与军事战略和能力要求相适应的新时代国防动员体系。树立国防动员体系能力的标尺。国防动员担负着慑战、参战、援战、保战的职能使命，必须把锻造与现代战争相适应的体系能力作为国防动员的核心标尺，贯穿于国防动员的各环节全过程。坚持边斗争、边备战、边建设，扎实做好动员率先展开、全程运用、随需随调的准备工作，细化完善平战快速转换机制，始终保持全时待战、随时能战良好状态。完善动员能力检验评估制度，以战争设计为本源、以动员行动为主线、以体系能力为标尺，一步一个台阶全面评估各领域国防动员能力，引领国防动员能力迭代优化。坚持以用促建，利用重大抢险救灾、军地联合演训、专项任务实践等时机，摸潜力资源现状、看验案制案效度、查指挥链路贯通、拉力量组合使用、析动员实施效能，全面检验提高国防动员战建备水平。关键靠建设——合力构建军地一体的能力涌现机制加快国防动员能力建设，是一项艰巨的战略任务，也是一项复杂系统工程，把握建设的内涵要义和章法遵循至关重要。应聚焦国防动员的复杂性，以战略眼光把握时代要求，以创新思维破解发展难题，以务实举措夯实建设根基，以重点突破带动全面升级，逐步建构军地一体的国防动员能力涌现机制。坚持需求牵建，激活能力涌现源头。需求牵引规划、规划主导资源配置是战略管理的基本规律，也是国防动员的基本依据。当前主要堵点难点是需求的传播渠道不清、转化方式不明，解决的重点是建立军事需求解码制度，以精准提报、科学转化、快速确认、高效落实为主线，将军事领域的需求有效转化为国家科研、生产、建设等领域的技术指标、任务要求。要打破军地之间的专业壁垒，打通国防动员需求信息传递安全通道，确保需求翻译准确、传播完整、理解贯彻到位，真正落地抓实。突出聚焦能力“差值”，既注重发挥军队研究需求、论证需求、提出需求的牵引作用，也注重发挥地方主动预想任务、匹配军事需求、倒逼能力提升的能动作用，双向校准国防动员能力建设的靶标指向，激活供给侧的内在潜力。突出规划领建，扭住能力涌现关键。科学制定和接续实施五年规划，是我们党治国理政的一条重要经验，也是推进国防和军队现代化的重大制度安排。加快国防动员能力建设，必须置于中国式现代化的大棋局中统筹谋划推进，纳入国家安全体系中搞好顶层设计，融入高质量推进国防和军队现代化进程同步部署实施，科学编制实施好国防动员建设“十五五”规划和相关专项规划。要着眼提高服务支撑打赢高端战争的贡献率，突出非对称制衡，坚持规划主导资源配置，优先解决关键能力短板，突出紧缺急需能力提升，撬动整体能力全面进阶升位。强化军地一体，畅通能力涌现渠道。国防动员连接需求与供给两端，涉及军队与地方两线，贯通经济与国防两域，加快其能力生成必须注重军地联动、统筹谋划、体系用力。要坚持军地协同，强化军地各级各部门“一盘棋”思想，推进动员理念军地契合、指挥机构军地联合、方案计划军地统合、力量依托军地融合，集约推进国防动员能力提升。突出建用一致，基于国防动员参战援战保战典型任务场景，贯通建设管理链路与指挥运用链路，既把“有什么、有多少、在哪里”等情况掌握准，也把“用什么、用多少、怎么用”等能力分析透，促进战动耦合、建用一致。要义是加快——快速形成多快好省的能力跃迁路径天下武功，唯快不破。足够的快，往往能够弥补体系的弱。美以伊冲突等近几场国际冲突表明，现代战争的联动性、突发性、多变性趋势，对国防动员能力的生成与释放效率提出了更加紧迫的要求，客观上要求加快国防动员能力生成的速度，“加快”二字凸显了国防动员能力建设的时代要义。加强战略统筹谋快，在筹划设计上牵引能力跃迁。充分发挥国防动员体系优势、体制优势、体量优势，抓住我国新质生产力蓬勃发展机遇，在统筹谋划快上下足功夫、做足文章。国防动员作为国家战略体系的重要组成，具有军民一体、平战一体、前后一体的鲜明特性，要通过高效的战略统筹，既有效提升国家应战应急能力，又赋能经济高质量发展，才能充分发挥举国体制优势。尤其是作为新质生产力同新质战斗力高效融合、双向拉动的重要载体，国防动员必须具备高效的统筹能力，才能将产业优势、科技优势、人才优势、组织优势集聚为战略体系优势，为巩固提高一体化国家战略体系和能力奠定坚实基础。深化管理创新求快，在制度机制上推动能力跃迁。管理也是战斗力。要创新国防动员战略管理运行链路，健全先进技术敏捷响应和快速转化机制，摒弃传统路径依赖，在技术赋能、机制创新、体系重构上提速发力，缩短国防动员能力生成周期。强化跨军地治理，破除军地二元结构壁垒、思维理念差异、条块分割限制，通过流程加载、职能融合、数智支撑，构建各司其职、紧密协作、规范有序的跨军地工作格局。融合军地采办标准，简化动员采购环节，优化预置预制的冗余设计，通过管理创新、制度创新压缩经济实力转化为作战能力的循环周期，保持和增强产业链供应链韧性。突出科技赋能促快，在方法手段上支撑能力跃迁。科学技术提高了人类生产和劳动的效能，提高了人类感知、认识世界的效能，机械化、信息化、智能化融合发展，正在系统而全面地赋能战争和战争准备过程。要注重动员理念更新、动员模式创新、动员行动革新，突出战略科技力量建设、尖端武器装备研发生产、新质力量队伍优化编组，依靠科技赋能引领国防动员能力加速“蝶变”，推动国防动员整体转型。加快无人智能作战及反制能力供给与储备，降低准入门槛，拓展参与路径，丰富场景运用，切实打通现代科技有效聚合释能的动员转化链路，持续培育壮大新域新质动员增长极，助推国防动员能力加快提升、创新提升、增效提升。