Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA's Huai Hai Campaign (Leavenworth Papers No.22)

Combat Studies Institute, 2004 - 282 p.This extensive and detailed study of the Huai Hai Campaign addresses a doctrinal concept that is of growing importance to the US Army—operational art. It does so by looking at a campaign that occurred over a half century ago on a relatively unsophisticated battlefield on the other side of the world. For some, that distance from the so-called modern battlefield may make this study seem almost irrelevant. I would argue that, to the contrary, it increases its relevance to the challenges we face today.
This study has great relevance because in this time of expanding commitments and deployments around the world, it is more and more important that we increase our understanding of how other people think. This is important politically, socially, economically, and, of course, militarily. As Dr. Bjorge correctly points out, operational art is not about technology. It is a product of imagination and creative thought, and this is where we can learn from the Huai Hai Campaign. This campaign contains examples of commanders who were imaginative and creative. More important even, the campaign, as the author argues, shows non-Western classical Chinese military thought as an important inspiration for that creativity.
Lawyn C. Edwards, Colonel, Aviation, Director, Combat Studies.