Why China disbanded once-touted Strategic Support Force: Implications for India

It is yet another pivotal step in PLA modernisation, what China now calls the “four services and four arms”. Image: AFP

As a part of the most touted major security structure reforms, Chinese President Xi Jinping created the Strategic Support Force (SSF) in December 2015. And now, on April 19, 2024, the SSF met its death knell in yet another restructuring of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA now has three independent branches: the Information Support Force (ISF), the Cyberspace Force, and the Aerospace Force.

China is known for its lack of transparency. Whether this change has been done to enhance military operational capability or to exercise greater political oversight and direct control over various elements is being analysed. Could corruption have played a part in Xi’s decision, is being speculated.

The Ukraine conflict has surely highlighted the importance of the logistics and information domains. Space and cyber are other very dominant operational domains. Aerospace force could mean the partial merging of air and space domains. It may be recalled that China created the “Near Space Command” in November 2023.

Erstwhile SSF

The 2015 PLA reforms brought in major structural changes, including the formation of theatre commands. The then-newly created SSF was focused on space, counter-space, and information warfare capabilities. It was meant to improve the PLA’s ability to fight what China calls “informatised conflicts” and to simultaneously enhance the PLA’s power projection capabilities in space and cyberspace. SSF was designed to ease intelligence sharing and coordination with departments of the different branches.

The nearly 250,000 personnel force represented nearly 10 per cent of the military. The SSF was on par with the other military services and the PLA’s five operational theatre commands. Later, the overall responsibility for national and joint military communication networks was also shifted to SSF control.

The SSF oversaw all units responsible for psychological warfare, information warfare, space warfare, cyberwarfare, and electronic warfare operations. With so many tasks, command and control were spread thin, and individual units were vying for resources. Also, the expertise required to command such a multifaceted force was complex.

The SSF consolidated all the PLA’s space-based C4ISR systems. The conduct of strategic reconnaissance using the spy balloons flying in ‘near space’ was also part of the SSF domain. When the Chinese spy balloons shooting down became a public spectacle, Xi was reportedly unhappy with SSF. Splitting SSF will now allow more focus on each sector.

The SSF used to report directly to the all-powerful China’s Military Commission (CMC), headed by President Xi Jinping. The SSF’s previous mandate encompassed a wide array of responsibilities, potentially hindering operational effectiveness. It was therefore split within just a little more than eight years.

China’s Military Commission and reduced layers

The CMC wanted to give independent focus and importance to information, cyber, and space domains as stand-alone forces. It is yet another pivotal step in PLA modernisation, what China now calls the “four services and four arms”. The four services being the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Rocket Force, and the four arms include the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force, and the Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF). All these, in addition to the theatre commands, now report directly to the CMC, the top political party organ that oversees China’s armed forces.

With the intermediary SSF now having been removed, Xi will have more direct control of the information domain. The new structure means the four forces plug into the PLA’s joint operations system more easily due to fewer management layers. Operationally, the new structure is good for China’s military. The SSF was as powerful as the PLA’s five theatre commands. The current four support forces are now one level lower. The theatre commanders may have greater access to the support forces’ assets without hierarchal complications. The four support forces, having become stand-alone, can now concentrate on their own specialised functionality with a reduced management layer.

The overall reform is much smaller in scale than what happened in 2015. The changeover will thus be smoother and faster. Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership places high priority on aggregating information and network operations.

Information Support Force

China emphasises that network information systems are the largest variable for improving the combat effectiveness of the military, as modern warfare is a confrontation between systems. The Information Support Force (ISF) will perhaps be responsible for the entire PLA’s integrated computer architecture, including network information systems and communications support. The ISF will be responsible for command and control, information security, and intelligence dissemination. They will also coordinate the defence of their own cyber networks and be responsible for maintenance and repairs.

The military considers the information domain as important as the four traditional air, land, sea, and space domains. The ISF tasks are crucial for modern competitive warfare in contested domains. The ISF is China’s answer to the US military’s advanced network capabilities associated with Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

Cyberspace Force

The Cyberspace Force will be responsible for offensive cyber operations such as computer network attacks and active defence. Their mission will be to reinforce national cyber border defence, promptly detect and counter network intrusions, and maintain national cyber sovereignty and information security. The force will concentrate on intelligence collection. The Cyberspace Force could one day resemble the US Cyber Command, thus allowing for a more effective employment of resources and expertise.

China has also been imbibing lessons from Russian structures. Russia also has a Cyber Command that reports directly to the Ministry of Defence. They have many dedicated cyber units. Russia has been training for live electronic, cyber, and informational confrontation and undertaking counter-propaganda efforts. China’s Cyberspace Force bears a certain degree of resemblance to both US and Russian practices.

Aerospace Force

China has become a very significant space power and is fast catching up to the leader, the US. The Aerospace Force will take over SSF’s Space Systems Department. The department managed backend systems for space-related affairs, but had overlaps with the Equipment Development Department and some elements within the Rocket Force and Air Force. Such overlapping organisational structures inevitably impeded operational efficiency. It was so much unlike the US’ dedicated Space Force, which centralised all matters pertaining to space warfare. Xi Jinping may have possibly drawn inspiration from the US military’s framework.

Now the Aerospace Force will supervise space operations and space launches and strengthen the capacity to safely enter, exit, and freely use space, albeit overtly for peaceful purposes. The Pentagon reports state that the PLA views space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere, and the ability to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities as critical components of conducting modern warfare.

Indian defence reforms

As China pushes ahead with further military reforms, India too has made incremental changes. India set up the tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) in 2001 and the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) in 2003. The Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD) integrated the Special Forces of the armed forces. In 2019, the Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA) and the Defence Space Agency (DSA) were created at the same time. These could one-day become full-fledged commands. There is an Integrated Defence Staff, and a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

The modalities for the formation of theatre commands are being worked out. The concept of Air Defence Command was deliberated and abandoned. The idea of integrated helicopter operations and integrated logistics is evolving. While some are exhibiting a high degree of urgency, it is best to take small but firm steps and hasten slowly. Information warfare and electronic warfare need greater importance. China’s defence production capability is coming of age. They already have home-grown stealth fighter aircraft and large transport aircraft and are making stealth bombers. India is making strong efforts to increase indigenous defence production. However, the same needs a greater push, even if it is through partnerships for high-end technologies.

Conclusions and implications

China is busy consolidating and refining its military structures, this time with a special emphasis on battle-space information control in a multi-domain integrated joint operations environment. The structural changes are not cosmetic. The move is clearly a strategic response to evolving security challenges and technological advancements.

The reforms reflect the evolving nature of modern warfare and the imperative to enhance capabilities in emerging domains such as space, cyber, and information warfare. Xi is trying to align the PLA with global trends and potential adversaries’ structures, giving higher importance to information, space, and cyber operations. PLA will have to once again engage in extensive training and exercises to stabilise the new structure. The new structure throws up unforeseen challenges to operational effectiveness.

Beijing competes with Washington for military primacy in the Western Pacific. It also wants to keep the Line of Actual Control with India alive to stem India’s unprecedented economic growth. India has witnessed significant Chinese cyberattacks. The frequency of attacks increased manyfold during the Galwan skirmish. China also has dedicated electronic warfare aircraft.

China’s space launches are nearly 8–9 times more than India’s. Chinese satellite communications, space-based intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and its own global satellite navigation system, the BeiDou satellite navigation system, greatly support military operations. In modern warfare, victory hinges on information. PLA employs a much larger force, with many in civil clothing, for this purpose.

Xi has repeatedly asked the PLA to modernise its readiness structure for high-tech combat and structure the military to ‘fight and win’ future wars. They have made another major structural change within a decade of the last major military reform. The international military competition is undergoing historic changes. New and high-tech military technologies are advancing constantly. Long-range precision, intelligent, stealthy or unmanned weaponry and equipment will change the way we fight wars. The US and India have reasons to study and understand the implications of China’s military restructuring. New Delhi must also look inward to accelerate India’s own defence structural reforms.

The writer is Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.