defence services - Air Marshal's Perspective

PLA’s Strategy Textbook: Science of Military Strategy (SMS)

China has two premier institutes – the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) and National Defence University (NDU). Over the last three decades, they have produced several editions of the publication titled Science of Military Strategy (SMS). SMS is the core textbook for senior PLA officers on how wars should be planned and conducted at the strategic level. The publication is considered to be a doctrinal teaching material and it provides a glimpse into the Chinese military thinking.

In August 2020, the latest version of SMS, influenced by structural military reforms adopted under Xi was published. The 2020 version as compared to the previous one of 2017 has some new additions. These include wartime political work, “intelligentisation” concepts, China’s military strategic guidelines, major war operations, joint logistics and the People’s Armed Police. The changes have been justified as necessity in order to “better adapt to the major trend in the form of warfare shifting from informationisation to intelligentisation.

The SMS is a 450 page document, divided into three parts with 24 chapters. The first part consists of general abstractions on strategic theory, planning, evaluation, and related topics. The second part covers special topics on strategic warfare, including crisis management and prevention, deterrence, war control, and operational guidance; it also includes chapters on military operations other than war and overseas operations. The third focuses on force development for each of the traditional services (army, navy, air force and rocket force), as well as space and cyber forces, the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and reserve forces.