text: Chapter 6
  are fired by shaping public discourse, influencing political positions, and building international acceptance
  of Chinese interests.
  6-19. China’s psychological warfare is broadly similar to U.S. military information support operations in
  that it is intended to influence the behavior of a given audience. Psychological warfare is the deliberate
  manipulation of psychological reactions in target audiences, designed to create and reinforce attitudes and
  behaviors favorable to China’s objectives and guide adversary behavior towards China’s preferred outcomes.
  6-20. Legal warfare for China is the setting of legal conditions for victory—both domestically and
  internationally. Legal warfare seeks to unbalance potential opponents by exploiting international or domestic
  law to hinder their military operations, to create legal justification for People’s Liberation Army operations
  worldwide, and to support Chinese interests through a valid legal framework. It guides how the People’s
  Liberation Army trains to treat prisoners of war, detainees, and civilians, and it guides how the People’s
  Liberation Army abides by international legal conventions, codes, and laws.
  6-21. During armed conflict, China employs systems warfare in combination with the other threat methods,
  such as preclusion, isolation, and sanctuary. China employs these threat methods throughout all domains and
  at all levels of warfare. Systems warfare involves—
  (cid:122) Bypassing enemy systems’ areas of strength, thus gaining a combat advantage by approaching
  them asymmetrically.
  (cid:122) Developing systems that excel at exploiting perceived weaknesses in enemy systems, thereby
  offsetting their strengths by undermining the systems’ ability to perform assigned missions.
  (cid:122) Undermining international alliances through diplomatic efforts.
  (cid:122) Conducting cyberspace attacks to disable air or seaports.
  (cid:122) Using special operations forces to undermine civilian morale through covert operations.
  Note. China uses the term “special operations forces” to identify their special forces units per
  ATP 7-100.3. Russian doctrine uses the term “special purpose forces” for their special forces units.
  For brevity, this manual uses “special operations forces” to describe special forces units employed
  by an adversary or enemy.
  6-22. Although many actors on the world stage have embraced the concepts of systems warfare, including
  Russia, China has woven the idea into every aspect of their warfighting capabilities and methods. The systems
  warfare concept consists of two basic ideas: creating purpose-built operational systems that combine key
  capabilities under a single command, and the use of these operational systems to asymmetrically target and
  exploit vulnerable components of an opponent’s system. The People’s Liberation Army believes that by
  effectively destroying, isolating, neutralizing, or offsetting key capabilities, it can degrade the enemy’s will
  and ability to resist enough to achieve victory.
  6-23. At the tactical level, systems warfare centers largely on targeting high-value battlefield systems such
  as radars, command and communications nodes, field artillery and air defense systems, and critical logistics
  support means. China relies on heavy employment of long-range fires at maximum standoff distance to target
  friendly joint enablers and command and control (C2) nodes. Examples of tactical system warfare include
  using heavy rocket artillery to defeat or destroy enemy radars and artillery systems, electronic warfare to
  suppress or neutralize enemy command and communications networks, and deception operations to target
  enemy leaders’ situational understanding.
  RELATIVE ADVANTAGES DURING ARMED CONFLICT
  6-24. Army leaders must anticipate enemy advantages and have a plan to overcome them. Army forces avoid
  attacking directly into enemy strengths. They best overcome enemy advantages by creating their own
  advantages to exploit in pursuit of assigned objectives. Army formations most effectively achieve overmatch
  through the integration and synchronization of joint and multinational capabilities employed from positions
  in multiple domains that create cascading dilemmas and defeat the enemy’s operational approach.