The just ended Iraq War answered a lot of questions of the people and left many unexpected wonders. If we say that the Gulf War is just the beginning of a high-tech war, then the Iraq War is a swift and violent tide of information war.

"Fast traffic lane" for new military changes

Peng Guangqian: The aim of new military changes is to capture a favorable position and strategic superiority in the global strategic set-up of the 21st century. It is not only a physical expansion of the fighting efficiency, but also an intelligent expansion. It is not only a revolution of military technology, but also a revolution of military structure and military theory. The connotation of this new military changes includes: to develop advanced military means and equipment on the basis of information technology, to develop information-oriented operational platform, ammunition, equipment and information-oriented battlefield system, energetically boost IT and intelligent application in weaponry and equipment so as to realize a historic leap from mechanization to IT application; to bring forth new military theory with focus on information war; and to build scientific system and establishment with information-oriented troops as its main body so as to realize the optimum combination between people and equipment, and structural transformation of the army.

Hong Bing: The current theme of new military changes is how to win a war in information era. Main character is high informationization of the troops and weaponry and combat operation. To strengthen the force of the army will be through the controlling "software" instead of the "hardware"of weaponry. So the current military changes mean "to release the energy of the information times by command and control technology."The fighting capacity will integrated pool of power of various armed forces and weapons.

Yao Yunzhu: The US army has been at the forefront in the promotion of military changes since the Gulf War. During the Gulf War, the US army used precision missiles, which was only 8% of the whole ammunition used in the war, but in the Iraqi War, missiles used occupied 68% of the whole ammunition. It shows that new high-tech has increased the fighting forces of the US Army. After that, from the 1990s, the US Army experienced three stages in the changing military theory. Many US Army official and generals put forward new theories including reorganizing the army and giving away "war of attrition" and "war of annihilation" of the times of mechanized war, and to create new theories conforming to the law of modern war.

Wang Baocun: We can see clearly through the Iraqi War, the achievements of the US military changes include: having built a military equipment system with advanced information technology, especially a global comprehensive electronic information system; having raised new operational concept on information warfare and information war; having built up a mechanism of producing fighting forces; and having founded ways for information construction of the army. All this made the US Army's fighting capacity increased rapidly in a short time and left the armies of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and Russia.

The material foundation of new military changes is technological changes with information technology as the core. All countries, whether rich or poor, strong or weak, get themselves wittingly or unwittingly involved in this smokeless contest that originated from technologically advanced countries. The international position and national security of a country in the future will depend on the results of the contest.

Impact of military changes

Peng Guangqian: Generally speaking, there are four major military changes in human society. The first was when the military system in an agricultural society was established by replacing wooden and stone weapons with metal weapons. The second was when gunpowder weapons superseded cold weapons in the context of workshops and handicraft industry. The third was when the industrialization was completed and mechanized weapons substitute hot weapons.

The fourth was when information technology begins to prevail on modern battlefields in an information world. Between the third and fourth changes there was a military change characterized by nuclear weapons. The present military changes are a result of changes from an industrial age to an information age.

This change can be traced back to the 1970s when "smart bombs" were dropped in Vietnam and the 1980s when precision-guided weapons were used in the War over Islas Malvinas between the U.K. and Argentina. The Gulf War in the early 1990s was an important turning point that marked the beginning of the changes.

　　An epoch-making change would take place in war form and mode

Deng Xiaobao: New military changes promote the change of war form. Following trends are emerging.

The limit that separates local and global wars will be not so definite. From the perspective of one country, in a mechanized war characterized by fire strikes and motorized troops, the impact of war is restricted to a region while in a war utilizing information technology, the range of offensive and defensive information activities is more extensive. Furthermore, such a war in the future will involve more and more direct precision strikes at an enemy's core or crucial political and military targets, aiming to turn a small fight into a big success.

The difference between war and non-war will also be blurred. There might be no definite demarcation between war and peace under informationization condition. Military strikes and dispatch of troops mark the beginning of a mechanized war while in information war, it may start by information attack, which makes it difficult for the attacked countries to decide whether their enemy troops have started war or whether they should turn their country into a state of war. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have indicated, the start of a war as well as the end of war are difficult to determine. American troops are still afflicted with irregular fighting after they have occupied the whole of Iraq.

Difference of fighting modes will be blurred, too. As troops apply more and more information technology to war activities, traditional modes of war are being changed or replaced by new modes of war such as network center fighting and network-electronics integration fighting. New modes of war with information technology as their core stress the systemization and integration of fighting activities. Any specific fighting modes all belong to concerted battles and tactics, whose reconnaissance and surveillance, command and control, and strikes and reinforcement are the same in activities and procedures. Troops in future wars utilizing information technology will be multifunctional. Fighting modes will change and convert constantly and the time needed for these changes and conversions will be shortened or eliminated.

Different services of the armed forces will become more integrated in the future. There are different systems of services in the modern world, from one to five services. But the integration of different services will gradually close the gap between the functions of different services. Navies in many countries are developing air and land forces while the land forces are using more and more air forces. Land defense not only make's air force strengthen air attack and land defensive and offensive power, but also integrate's the air and outer space forces. In the future information war the systems of the armed forces will be centered on missions and will no longer be differentiated according to fighting platforms. Barriers between different services of the armed forces will be torn down through integrating air, land and navy forces according to regions and missions. The armed forces will consist of small, multifunctional units and form specific groups consisting of modules according to required missions.

Forces taking part in fighting will loose their principal or subordinate positions in the whole forces. In the integrated armed forces, technical support systems, striking systems and command systems are all the same in importance. In non-contact wars personnel stationed at battlefronts and mainland have the same fighting environments. Any faulty part of the whole forces will reduce the fighting abilities of the forces as a whole. In network wars and special battles civilians can also become members of the armed forces and civilian institutions can also take part in military activities. Wars in the information world rely more on the participation of social technologies and social safeguard. The first operators of weapons using new technologies will be their designers and manufacturers. Many technical and social military missions will be entrusted to companies by ways of laws and contracts. So the traditional principal or subordinate positions of armed forces services will become more and more blurred.

　　New warfare mechanism will dominate the battle stage

Deng Xiaobao: The change from mechanization to informationization reflects the change of the key of war from material resource to information resource. Information resource will become crucial for winning. The advantage on informationization will become the prominent advantage in military strength contest.

The essence of informationized war is intelligent war. The informationized weaponry in the future will reflect the will of the human beings even better. The informationized war will embody and meet the will of a state even better.

In informationized war, personnel and weaponry will be repositioned to realize a even closer combination. In the conception of the future "network-centered war", the U.S has presented the idea that the war in the future will be carried out in the field of cognition, information application and physics, trying to lead the contradiction between personnel and things to an integration in informationized war.

　　World peace and regional security will meet even greater challenge

Peng Guangqian: New military changes create high-tech battle and various battle method's, making the controlling capacity on modern war stronger. This provides a low-risk, high-efficiency choice for reaching political and economics aim by using military means. The combination of the newest technological achievement of new military changes with power politics will provide new material and technology support for realizing the strategic intention and stimulate the development of military interventionism, military expansionism and saber-rattling. Especially under the situation of the widening military strength gap, the limitation on using force is lowered; therefore, the road of peace and development will become even hard.

Wang Baocun: Boosted by the new military changes, the mechanized equipment of western countries are transiting to informationization quickly. In the near future, the utterly remodeling of an intelligent, integrated and informationized weaponry system will be realized. The formation of the army is undergoing fundamental changes. Theories on war are also undergoing qualitative change. Armies in the developing countries should recognize this point to narrow the gap between armies of developed countries so as to safeguard their countries.

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