PLA Daily 2005-07-27
Asking a bitter enemy to be your partner sounds against the logic thinking
and beyond comprehension. And yet, it is exactly in the rival's approach of
"attacking your vulnerable point rests the "magic bullet" of enabling you to
identify your "Achilles' heals", so to speak. In other words, the only effective
way of enhancing the combat effectiveness steadily and firmly is to set the
sight on fighting powerful foe. Only by envisaging a stronger opponent,
elevating the level of training and constantly increasing the degree of
difficulty in training, can one be sure of prevailing over the powerful
enemy.
If war is regarded as a textbook, then the opponent will be the
best teacher. In conducting military operation, attention must be paid to
deploying troops in accordance with the enemy you confront and to get upper hand
of the enemy by knowing for sure its situation. The decisions commanders made
and the actions taken by military units will depend principally on the enemy's
situation. To some degree, it is the opponent who "leads" you to study war and
teaches you how to fight. An army's combat effectiveness is not only affected by
the performance of your own weapons and equipment, your level of military
training and the quality of your own officers and men, but also checked by your
opponent's means, ways and capability to carry out the war. It can be said that
the combat effectiveness is forged in the tit-for-tat or life-and-death
struggles against the opponents. Therefore, in building up combat effectiveness,
the awareness of the enemy's situations must be consolidated and heed must be
paid to studying and knowing your opponent, and particular attention must be
paid to study your opponent's special features, means and methods of conducting
combat. Only by basing itself on fighting against powerful opponent in training,
can the army remain not panic-stricken while confronting serious situations, and
be able to deal with them with ease in the field.
By Yu Shuzhong,
Zhang Heyong, Yue Shengjun
(July 27, PLA Daily)
|