Author: COL Susan M Puska
The 1999 PLA Conference, which was hosted jointly by the American Enterprise Institute and the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, convened September 10-12, 1999, at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The goal of this conference was to comprehensively examine Chinese military modernization efforts. The meeting drew together leading experts on the PLA army, navy, air force, missile forces, and national defense industries and included PLA experts with opposing views on the pace and likely success of Chinese military modernization. Lively debate continually probed analytical differences and prejudices, as well as the sources of information upon which conclusions were based. The conference also included a preliminary yet timely examination of the PLA s potential application of information warfare. An initial discussion of the post-Kosovo implications for China s Taiwan strategy and China s foreign military relations also took place.