Doctrine

Be Adept at "Assimilating" Enemy Situation to Our Side: Integrating the Knowledge of the Enemy, Understanding the Enemy, Controlling the Enemy, and Exploiting the Enemy

善于把敌情“我方化”，将知敌、识敌、控敌、用敌一体贯通

PLA Daily (解放军报) 2 June 2026

Summary

A PLA commentary by Zhang Xicheng argues that units are failing to translate enemy-situation research (敌情研究) into actionable tactics, identifying three specific deficiencies: analysis stays at surface-level open-source data, enemy-situation reports go unused by commanders, and live exercises lack realistic adversarial conditions modeled on a specific opponent. The piece prescribes building a professionalized Blue Force patterned on the actual adversary and requiring commanders to plan from the opponent's perspective — the framework 知敌、识敌、控敌、用敌 (know, understand, control, exploit the enemy). The framing points to a recognized institutional gap between intelligence consumption and operational planning that PLA professional military education has been pushing to close, though the article does not identify which units or echelons exhibit these shortfalls most acutely.

Translation

Be Adept at "Assimilating" Enemy Situation to Our Side

■ Zhang Xicheng

At a seminar, one participant spoke with great fluency when discussing the enemy situation he had researched, but when it came to methods and countermeasures, he was somewhat at a loss for words and had almost nothing of his own to offer. This tendency of being unable to "assimilate" enemy situation problems to one's own side (将敌情问题"我方化") is worth serious reflection.

The way of training soldiers begins above all with knowing the enemy, and its emphasis lies in defeating the enemy. Being adept at "assimilating" enemy situation to our side means that on the future battlefield, the enemy's strengths become risks we must avoid, the enemy's weaknesses become opportunities we can exploit, the enemy's movements become contingencies we must address, and the enemy's capabilities are converted into the degree of threat they pose to us. Its essential meaning is to integrate the knowledge of the enemy, understanding the enemy, controlling the enemy, and exploiting the enemy (知敌、识敌、控敌、用敌) into a unified whole — not only knowing the enemy's overall situation, but more deeply understanding the enemy's operational thinking, behavioral logic, habitual methods, and fatal shortcomings — so that through active design, flexible employment of forces, and tactical inducement, enemy situation becomes a resource and condition our side can exploit, achieving the transformation from "knowing how the enemy fights" to "knowing how we defeat the enemy."

"Assimilating" enemy situation to our side is an imperative requirement for preparing for war and winning wars. Without studying the enemy situation, training soldiers will be shooting in the dark; without transforming enemy situation, war preparation will remain superficial. When Montgomery fought in North Africa, he hung portraits of enemy commanders on the wall and constantly asked himself: "If he were me, what would he do now?" Zhukov also said: "To study every detail of the enemy is to make the enemy act according to my plan." From practical experience, "assimilating" enemy situation to our side can shift the training and fighting of soldiers from passive response to proactive design, from approximate targeting to precise victory, and from adapting to the opponent to commanding the opponent, making one the active agent and dominant force on the future battlefield.

Throughout history, ancient and modern, there are many famous battle examples of adeptly "assimilating" enemy situation to one's own side. During the Battle of Guiling in the Warring States period, Sun Bin accurately grasped the situation that Wei's main forces were away and the interior was empty, and guided events accordingly — surrounding Wei to rescue Zhao — creating a classic battle example of skillfully exploiting the enemy's force disposition to set an ambush and annihilate the enemy. During the Four Crossings of the Chishui River, the Red Army accurately grasped the Nationalist Army's pursuit routes, force disposition, and command contradictions, maneuvering flexibly and conducting flanking and enveloping movements, holding its own against an enemy several times its size, and transforming a complex and severe enemy situation into a favorable posture for breaking out, surviving, and annihilating the enemy in mobile operations. During the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, faced with U.S. forces whose equipment was superior, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army rapidly made targeted adjustments to its mobile warfare tactics, emphasizing more close-quarters combat and night combat to neutralize U.S. firepower advantages as much as possible, and emphasizing more small-scale annihilation engagements — "nibbling at the enemy piece by piece" (零敲牛皮糖) — ultimately achieving victory after victory.

Practice has proven that no matter how times change or how warfare iterates, attaching importance to the study of enemy situation and timely transforming it into one's own cognition, plans, and countermeasures has always been the way to victory in battlefield confrontations. However, looking at the current state of training and war preparation, certain individual units "research" insufficiently — limited only to surface-level data and open-source information online, lacking in-depth analysis of the opponent's operational thinking, tactical logic, and cultural characteristics; "apply" it poorly — some shelve enemy situation reports and are unwilling or unable to use them, and there are even individual commanders who cannot deploy forces and design tactics based on enemy situation; and "transform" it inadequately — lacking the awareness and atmosphere of training with enemy situation in mind, with considerable room for improvement in live-force exercises that transform enemy situation into a winning posture.

As the saying goes, "Without an opponent, there are no countermeasures." "Assimilating" enemy situation to our side should first be reflected in the deep transformation of enemy situation research: on the basis of thoroughly studying the opponent's command processes, coordination methods, and operational habits, these elements should be transformed into our training subjects, exercise conditions, and assessment standards, so that every training session has a clear enemy situation orientation and a realistic enemy situation backdrop. Second, it should be reflected in the realistic construction of adversarial training: building a professionalized Blue Force modeled on the opponent, leading forces to adapt to the opponent's tempo and familiarize themselves with the opponent's methods through genuine combat-like opposition, and honing the ability to defeat the opponent. At the same time, it should also be reflected in the cognitive reshaping of command decision-making: requiring commanders to think from the opponent's perspective, anticipate the opponent's possible actions, and devise countermeasures in combination with their own actual circumstances, so that decisions and countermeasures always revolve around the opponent — truly achieving "knowing the enemy, anticipating the enemy, and defeating the enemy" (知敌、料敌、胜敌) — and ensuring that training soldiers and employing soldiers are integrated, and that war preparation and actual combat are consistent.

Original Chinese

善于把敌情“我方化” ■张西成在一次研讨会上，一位与会者讲起研究的敌情来，头头是道，但一论起办法对策来，就有点言不逮意，几乎没有自己的东西。这种不善于将敌情问题“我方化”的倾向值得深思。练兵之道，首在知敌，重在制敌。善把敌情“我方化”，就是在未来战场上，将敌人的优势变成我要避免的风险、敌人的弱点变成我可利用的机会、敌人的动向变成我要应对的方案、敌人的能力换算成对我造成威胁的程度。其内涵要义是，将知敌、识敌、控敌、用敌一体贯通，既知晓敌人总体情况，更深刻理解敌人的作战思维、行为逻辑、惯用套路和致命短板，通过主动设计、灵活用兵、战术诱导，让敌情成为我方可利用的资源和条件，实现从“知道敌人怎么打”到“知道我怎么打赢敌人”的转变。把敌情“我方化”，是准备战争、打赢战争的必然要求。不研究敌情，练兵就会无的放矢；不转化敌情，备战就会浮于表面。蒙哥马利在北非作战时，把敌军将领的画像挂在墙上，时刻自问：“如果他是我，现在会做什么？”朱可夫也讲：“研究敌人的每一个细节，就是为了让敌人按我的计划行动。”从实践经验看，把敌人情况“我方化”，可以使练兵打仗由被动应对向超前设计、由概略瞄准向精确制胜、由适应对手向驾驭对手转变，成为未来战场的主动者、主导者。古往今来，善把敌情“我方化”的著名战例很多。战国时期桂陵之战中，孙膑精准掌握魏军主力在外、国内空虚的情况，因势利导、围魏救赵，创造了善用敌人的兵力布局进行设伏歼敌的经典战例。四渡赤水作战中，红军精准掌握国民党军的追击路线、兵力配置和指挥矛盾，灵活机动、穿插迂回，与数倍于己的敌人周旋，将复杂严峻的敌情转化为突围求生、转战歼敌的有利态势。抗美援朝战争中，面对装备占优的美军，志愿军迅速对运动战战术做针对性调整，强调多打近战、夜战，尽可能消弭美军火力优势；强调多打小歼灭战，“零敲牛皮糖”，最终取得了一个又一个胜利。实践证明，无论时代如何变迁、战争如何迭代，重视敌情研究，并将其适时转化为己方的认知、方案和对策，始终都是战场对决的制胜之道。然而从目前练兵备战情况看，个别单位“研”得不透，仅限于表面数据和网上开源信息，缺乏对对手作战思想、战术逻辑、文化特性的深度剖析；“用”得不好，有的把敌情报告束之高阁，不想用、不善用，更有个别指挥员不会依据敌情排兵布阵、设计战术；“化”得不力，缺乏带着敌情进行练兵的意识和氛围，把敌情转化为胜势的实兵演练还有很大提升空间。正所谓“没有对手，便没有对策”。把敌情“我方化”，首先应体现在敌情研究的深度转化上，在深入研究对手指挥流程、协同方式、作战习惯等基础上，把这些内容转化为我方的训练课目、演练条件和考核标准，让每一次训练都有明确的敌情指向，都有真实的敌情背景。其次体现在对抗训练的逼真构设上，以对手为蓝本构建专业化蓝军，引领部队在真打实抗中适应对手节奏、熟悉对手套路，磨砺打赢对手的本领。同时，还体现在指挥决策的思维重塑上，要求指挥员站在对手的角度思考问题，预判对手可能的行动，结合自身实际拿出反制之策，让决策和对策始终围绕对手展开，真正做到“知敌、料敌、胜敌”，确保练兵与用兵一体、备战与实战一致。