INSS China Center Senior Research Fellow Dr. Joel Wuthnow published a chapter on “PLA High Command in a Protracted War: Four Scenarios” in a new Army War College book edited by Joshua Arostegui, The 2024 Carlisle Conference on the PLA: Protracted War Against the PRC.

Dr. Wuthnow, in chapter 10, examines how the People’s Republic of China would manage a protracted war by analyzing the impact of its decision-making practices on the outcomes. Using four scenarios based on variations in the scale of the conflict and the degree of micromanagement, Wuthnow determines, though the People’s Liberation Army would face challenges in commanding forces as the scale of the conflict grew, a decentralized command model could improve battlefield performance as long as the Central Military Commission refrained from interfering excessively.

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Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University.