Chapter 20 "RMA" key figure, appreciate Kovashnin, the man of the Kosovo war

Someone once asked Xiong Guangkai which contemporary foreign military general he admired the most in his contacts with the international military community.Xiong Guangkai publicly stated that he admired Russia's General Kovashnin the most. General Kovashnin was the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces during Yeltsin's period and Putin's early days in power. He is considered a young wing of the Russian army.During the Kosovo War, in the face of the US and NATO’s advance and bombing of Kosovo, General Kovashnin made a strong voice: “If Russia faces a choice of life and death, then all weapons and equipment of the Russian Armed Forces, especially nuclear weapons, should be used. At the end of the war, Kovashnin adopted the method of cutting first and playing later, and without Yeltsin's consent, he ordered more than 200 Russian paratroopers to appear at the airport in Pristina, Kosovo, thereby disrupting the entire deployment of NATO. NATO's wishful thinking of carrying out peacekeeping missions alone in Kosovo fell through.

After Putin came to power, Kovashning and Russian Defense Minister Sergeyev had a very heated debate on the development strategy of the Russian military.Sergeyev once stated that the threats to Russia by other major powers, especially the United States, and the competition and competition among superpowers are all carried out through nuclear weapons.As the former commander-in-chief of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, he wanted to spend on nuclear weapons the cost of reducing the conventional army.Kovashnin, on the other hand, advocated that the money spent on nuclear weapons be used for conventional power building, because "Russia's most direct security threat comes from its nearest neighbors."The victory of the Russian army in the war against Chechnya seems to further support Kovashnin's point of view.Therefore, President Putin is prepared to sacrifice "nuclear weapon development potential" to develop Russia's conventional forces.However, as the world situation changed, President Putin realized that Kovashnin's rejection of nuclear weapons had actually weakened Russia's military deterrence, which was incompatible with his idea of ​​a military power.In order for Russia to follow the direction of balanced development of strategic nuclear forces and conventional forces, Putin decided to readjust Russia's military development strategy, and in 2001 he removed Kovashnin as chief of the general staff.

In Xiong Guangkai's view, aside from the controversy over Kovashnin, Kovashnin is a military strategist with great achievements in Russia's military reform and military diplomacy.For example, he was the first to propose that Russia should not carry the heavy burden of the strategic rocket force, and should turn it into a strategic rocket force. At the same time, he established an aerospace arm to become the future "heavenly soldier", because future space wars are likely to intensify. .He proposed that the Russian army be divided into three branches (i.e., navy, army, and air force) and three arms (i.e., airborne troops, strategic rocket troops, and space troops). This is a great reform.

Xiong Guangkai believes that it is never enough for a senior general to have the courage to go to the battlefield, especially in modern warfare, the research and strategic innovation of military strategy are crucial.In fact, since he entered the General Staff, he has not relaxed his innovative research on military strategy, and has achieved impressive results. On the afternoon of April 16, 2003, General Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, suddenly appeared in a suit in the Great Hall of the People.Today, as a professor, he gave a special report on "New Military Transformation Issues" for the "Chinese Scientists Humanities Forum" sponsored by the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The original English text of the concept of "new military revolution" is Revolution in Military Affairs, abbreviated as RMA.As early as 1991 during the Gulf War, the U.S. military and strategic academic circles began to use this formulation and conducted a lot of discussions.Before that, due to the end of the Cold War, a new military revolution had quietly sprouted.The basic judgment at that time was that firstly, the bipolar pattern disintegrated and a new pattern had not yet formed, and a world war would not be fought for a long period of time, but local wars would still ebb and flow; The rapid development has had a significant and far-reaching impact on the development of weapons and equipment, changes in military thinking and warfare, and the adjustment of military construction and establishment systems. In January 1994, the then U.S. Secretary of Defense Perry approved the establishment of a "senior steering committee" to lead the U.S. military's research work on RMA.This is the first time that the U.S. government has publicly recognized and used the phrase RMA.

China's attention to the new military transformation is in step with the world. As soon as the Gulf War ended in 1991, Jiang Zemin keenly observed the fact that high-tech was more used in modern warfare. Construction provides useful reference.Xiong Guangkai, who was then the assistant chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army, began to systematically study the characteristics of the new military reforms in various countries in the world, and became the main researcher and important think tank of China's new military reforms. Xiong Guangkai's report this time mainly revolves around the Iraq War.He divided the Iraq War into three stages: decapitation, deterrence, and expansion of the results.He believes that this largest local war after the Cold War reflects the three major trends of the world's new military revolution, namely, the intelligentization of weapons and equipment, the streamlining of the military establishment system, and the systematization of combat styles.The intelligence of weapons and equipment is manifested in the fact that all kinds of precision-guided weapons have become the protagonists of war, and the proportion of precision-guided weapons in the total war ammunition has increased significantly: 0.2% during the Vietnam War, 8% during the Gulf War, and 35% during the Kosovo War , the war in Afghanistan reached 60%, and the war in Iraq will be even higher.The streamlining of the military establishment system is specifically manifested in the reduction of the number of troops, the improvement of quality, the transformation from quantitative scale to quality and efficiency, and the transformation from population-intensive to technology-intensive; command and control automation uses digital technology and uses computer systems as the nerves of war. The center is used to command and control the war; in terms of multi-dimensional combat space, in the past, it was generally three-dimensional land, sea, and air, but now it has been increased to five-dimensional sea, sky, air, ground, and electromagnetic; the systematization of combat styles includes integrated air-ground warfare , Air-Land-Sea-Sky Integrated Battle, Coordinated Operations of All Arms, etc.

In his view, China must sum up the Iraq War in a timely manner on the basis of studying the new military changes in the world, so as to actively promote the new military changes with Chinese characteristics. "China should do something and not do something in terms of national defense construction, but it can't be too ambitious." "The defense capabilities of the Chinese military in local wars under high-tech conditions are gradually increasing." In response to the irregular resistance by the Iraqi side in the middle of the Iraq War, Xiong Guangkai believes that this cannot be regarded as a people's war in the true sense.He analyzed: "We should neither ignore the application of high technology in war, nor ignore the role of people in war." It falls on man, who is still the decisive factor in war."

On June 5, 2003, Xiong Guangkai, dressed in civilian clothes, appeared in the conference hall of the Central United Front Work Department with the steps of a soldier.This time he was invited by the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee to give a report on the new military revolution in the world for people outside the party.People saw all the glory carried on the shoulders of a wise Chinese soldier.