Source: People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Trumpet
Standing on the high ground lookout
-- Observations from the faculty of the National Defense University
Jiefangjun Daily reporters Kang Zizhan and Zhu Baiyan Special correspondent Hong Dapeng
Teachers and students of the National Defense University marched around the campus. Photo by Li Fujun
On Baiwang Mountain, the extreme eye overlooks, the sky is high and the earth is wide.
In the middle of winter, this reporter came to the National Defense University for an interview. A professor told a story: More than 90 years ago, Comrade Mao Zedong founded the Red Army Teaching Corps in Jinggangshan, which planted the roots of the National Defense University. On Jinggang Mountain, Mao Zedong pointed to the vast land and asked the Red Army soldiers: How far can you see from the Yellow Ocean Boundary? Everyone said: You can see Jiangxi and Hunan. Mao Zedong waved his hand into the distance: You can see the whole of China and the whole world here!
The vicissitudes of life have changed the world. The picture of the distant view on the Yellow Ocean has long since become a reality. The spark of the spark illuminates China and shines the world with the momentum of a prairie fire. During this period, from the Red Army Teaching Corps to Kang Da and then to the National Defense University, this institution has always shared weal and woe with the fate of the country and the nation, and has cultivated tens of thousands of pillars of governing the party, the country, and the army for the realization of the grand blueprint.
"All along, in the National Defense University, a high ground where the elite of the whole army gathers, we have always followed the direction guided by the leader and constantly looked at the future of the country's and army building. In the professor's view, as a faculty member of the highest academic institution in the whole army, stressing politics is the soul of running a school, and a very important aspect of this is to help the cadets understand the commander-in-chief's strategic plan and let them see farther, broader, and deeper. ”
Shortly after the conclusion of the 20 th CPC National Congress, experts and professors from the National Defense University immediately learned Xi comprehend the spirit of the congress and gave a lecture at a special seminar on the study Xi implementation of the spirit of the 20 th CPC National Congress for senior cadres of the whole army. After comprehensively benchmarking the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the university curriculum system has been updated and upgraded again.
"The more turbulent the storm, the more you need to be steadfast. The leader of the National Defense University said that the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China set the central task of our army's construction in the next few years, and the building of national defense and the army once again stood at a new historical starting point. The opportunity is once in a lifetime, and the challenge is unprecedented.
Today, on the campus of the National Defense University at the foot of Baiwang Mountain, teams march in order. In one big class after another, countless eager eyes are staring at the future.
(a)
In the wee hours of the morning, in the western suburbs of Beijing, the city lights gradually go out. At night, the Hongshankou teaching area of the National Defense University was still brightly lit, and the lights were not extinguished all night, blending into the starry sky.
Not long ago, another group of senior commanders gathered at Hongshan Pass. When they opened the new version of the university's talent training program, they found that most of the teaching topics directly focused on preparations for military struggle, unmanned warfare, electromagnetic and other contents have entered the classroom one after another, and the curriculum structure and teaching mode have undergone a comprehensive reshaping and upgrading.
This is the third time that a commander of a certain unit of the Eastern Theater who has come to the National Defense University to participate in the training said: "The lectures focus on the new situation of preparations for military struggle, and there are many new gains in each training. ”
"The world is changing, technology is changing, wars are changing, and opponents are changing. A director of the university's education and training department said with deep feeling that when President Xi inspected the National Defense University, he called on the whole army to "achieve the goal of strengthening the army and build a world-class army." The commander-in-chief's ardent trust has become an inexhaustible driving force for university faculty members to accelerate their progress.
In recent years, the curriculum system of the National Defense University has undergone many iterations and upgrades. Although they have run out of a new speed of teaching reform, they have never stopped accelerating their transformation.
How to strengthen the strategic guidance for preparations for military struggles? How to establish and improve the system for training personnel for joint operations? These questions have drawn the thoughts of experts and professors at the National Defense University: "It is not possible to keep up with development and changes closely! Victory often depends on which of the two sides of the war can see farther and become faster." How to solve the major proposition of winning future wars requires newer and faster 'problem solving speed'. ”
On the morning of that day, this reporter walked into the wargame building of the National Defense University, where a fierce battle of confrontation and training was in full swing.
"Gunsmoke" permeates the depths of everyone's brain. A shift enters the final stage of the course, where students perform homework deduction as the red team and conduct an online confrontation training with the blue team composed of a team of faculty members from a certain college.
The war is fierce. All the faculty members of this college participated in the performance, and the dean, faculty and students competed on the same field. In the fierce confrontation, the professional instructors of the academy and the cadets from all units of the army set off a brainstorming and pooled wisdom to solve practical problems in preparing for war.
"I didn't expect the battlefield on the screen to be so real, and even some of the designs are more comprehensive than our front-line commanders thought. A trainee who has served as a commander of a unit for a long time lamented that the wargame system operated in his hands was presented in front of commanders at all levels in a detailed manner, from the front-line situation to the supply in the rear, to the morale of the troops.
"Wargames are called 'the 0.99th war', and it is a virtual battlefield that is infinitely close to the real battlefield, and it is about whether or not we can win tomorrow's war. In the eyes of the head of the wargame system R&D team, the object of their race is the ever-changing battlefield of the future. In order for our army to have a better chance of winning in future wars, they must run faster than in the future.
"Demonstration, research and development, trial, improvement, design, and iteration are the norm of our work. "Team members have long been Xi accustomed to trekking through the unknown - "Yesterday was still leading, if you don't accelerate today, you may fall behind tomorrow", "You have traveled thousands of mountains and rivers, and there are thousands of rivers and mountains", "The more you feel that you are right, the more you need to be vigilant about whether you have fallen into the trap set by your opponent......
Focusing on the future and finding a way to war is destined to be a road full of thorns. There is no such thing as everything being ready, only racing against time, and we cannot follow the steps step by step, but only accelerate the leap.
In order to "move" modern warfare into the computer to the greatest extent and to construct a virtual battlefield that conforms to the characteristics of the Chinese armed forces and the reality of future wars, the wargame team of the National Defense University has been speeding up in recent years: it has completed the design of hundreds of models of military rules, developed a number of strategic battle Xi subsystems, and a variety of battle wargame planning and operation systems, and built a system for the theory and technical application of wargames in our army.
What will the battlefield look like in the future? The person in charge lamented: "We can only get close to us indefinitely, but we will never be able to reach it." What we can do is to keep an eye out at all times and be on the road all the time. ”
(b)
In the list of winners of the 2022 National Teaching Achievement Award announced by the Ministry of Education, a military course at the National Defense University was awarded the first prize in the vocational education category.
Behind this short two-hour course is nearly 20,000 hours of accelerated running over the years by more than 10 faculty members of the teaching and research team. The course explores the "major events of the country" and "the strategy of winning the war", which is not only a grand topic, but also must be in line with the characteristics of the times and the international and domestic realities. Although the class time is short, it involves many aspects of knowledge such as politics, economics, history, and culture.
In order to improve the pertinence and practicality of teaching, team members have carried out in-depth research in many places. They conducted on-the-spot surveys on the front line of border defense to find out the latest situation; they sailed with the aircraft carrier squadron to understand and grasp the current situation of building combat strength; and they went to the theater joint command center to take part in the duty and feel the real scene of decision-making......
"To build a world-class army, we must first train military personnel with a world-class vision. Speaking of the original intention, the head of the teaching and research team said that President Xi presented the military flag, delivered a speech and delivered an important speech to the newly reorganized National Defense University, calling for efforts to build a world-class comprehensive joint command university. This gives them a direction for their curriculum design.
"China is closer to the center of the world stage than ever before, and it has also stepped into the center of the world ring like never before. The head of the teaching and research team said that President Xi stressed that the connotation and extension of national security on the mainland are richer than at any time in history, the field of time and space is broader than at any time in history, and the internal and external factors are more complex than at any time in history, and the overall national security concept must be adhered to.
The lookout gaze guided the pace under his feet to speed up. Such a state can be seen everywhere in the National Defense University. Auditing a homework class is like a journalist standing on the cusp of an international struggle.
At the scene, in addition to students and instructors, there were also experts in various fields invited from various scientific research institutes and government agencies. In the classroom, one question after another was asked again and again, covering all aspects of the international struggle, in the political, economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural fields.
Each idea and plan put forward by the trainees was evaluated by experts and practitioners in the relevant fields at the first time, and the difficulties that may be encountered in the practical process were put forward.
scientific and technological competition, economic competition, cultural competition...... In the "battlefield" without gunsmoke, the students are constantly thinking about the mission of soldiers in the new era.
When the complexity, systematicness, and overall nature of the great power game were presented to the students more realistically and intuitively, some students said frankly: "We can't think about the problem simply!"
"The original intention of this class is to accelerate the introduction of students into the realities of military struggle. The director of a certain center, who presided over this class, said that only by knowing the international strategic pattern, the general trend of world military development, the evolution of modern warfare, the strategic adjustment of a strong enemy and opponent, and the multidimensional expansion of battlefield space can we understand the battles that our army will fight in the future, and then seize the advantage, seize the initiative, and firmly grasp the dominance in future wars.
After the class, a cadet said that the class had made him think clearly about the problems that had been bothering him before, and after returning to the army, he wanted to accelerate the implementation of these concepts and transform them into concrete practice of strengthening the army.
In such an atmosphere, listening to the teachers and students talk about the general trend of the world, and observing the teachers and students strategizing and arranging, the reporter is like standing on the bow of the surging waves of the giant ship of the times, feeling the ebb and flow of the tide.
The students' horizons continue to expand as the class expands, and the instructors go faster and further.
Get out there. In November 2022, the high-tech knowledge training course for the teaching and research backbone of the National Defense University was held in Changsha, focusing on the needs of winning the information-based and intelligent war, and the backbone of 40 instructors systematically improved the cognition, innovation and application of science and technology.
Please come in. Since October last year, high-level military delegations from 10 countries have visited the National Defense University. Chinese and foreign military elites focus on international and regional security hotspot issues and discuss theoretical and practical issues in major fields.
"Flower pots can't raise 10,000-year-old pines, and courtyards can't run thousands of miles. A director of the university's education and training department lamented that as a faculty member of the National Defense University, he must have a broader vision in order to cultivate the students' world pattern and vision.
(c)
The reporter pushed open the door of an associate professor's office, only to see that the lecture notes spread out on the table were densely packed with traces of revision.
The smoke of gunfire is not far away. After repeatedly studying the next new example, the associate professor picked up a red pen and added a new note to the lecture notes that had been revised many times.
"The cruelty of war is that when we study this example, it has been left behind by the times. The associate professor said that future warfare will not be a simple reproduction of a war in history, and the purpose of studying this war is to follow the logic of war and look at the next point of war.
President Xi pointed out that the core of studying operational issues is to clearly understand the characteristics and laws of modern warfare and the winning mechanism. The associate professor sighed that following others is the same as he is, and no matter how closely he follows, it is slow!
"The changes in science and technology, the changes in warfare, and the changes in opponents, these changes seem dazzling, but there are laws to follow behind them, and as a faculty member of the National Defense University, we must keep up with the changes in the form of warfare and the changes in the mode of operation to update the course content. ”
Without such a deep vision, it is futile to have ample time to prepare for war. A leader lamented that to prepare for the next war, the most important thing is to "prepare", and the first premise is "accurate". If we can't aim at the "crosshairs" of the future battlefield, the more we prepare, the more we will waste; the farther we go, the farther we will deviate.
"War is a battle of insight and creativity. According to the university's director of human resources, this requires faculty members to have a few "hard brushes" first.
Only by understanding integrated joint operations can we train qualified personnel for commanding joint operations; only by understanding the winning mechanism of modern warfare can we bring out people who understand modern warfare; and only by understanding the development trend of the world's new military revolution can we temper commanders who can win future wars.
After the Central Military Commission's Talent Work Conference was held, the National Defense University immediately set up a Talent Work Office to coordinate and promote the construction of the university's faculty team. The reporter walked into the talent work office, only to see a whole wall, covered with a large talent construction planning key project implementation roadmap and university talent work task promotion table, clearly listed the responsible unit for each task, completion time limit, realistic progress, etc.
-- In August last year, more than 100 middle-aged and young instructors from the National Defense University were embedded in a major training exercise as "blue troops" and played an important role as whetstones.
-- In September last year, 16 middle-aged and young backbone cadres engaged in teaching and research on joint operations command went to a certain theater to follow up on duty, participate in the on-duty training of elements of the theater joint command center, and participate in the study of major issues, the formulation of major programs, and the planning of major activities.
In recent years, the National Defense University has successively selected and transferred a number of outstanding cadres from joint command institutions, services and arms, and new-type combat forces to join the teaching ranks. They have also taken the lead in promoting the implementation of the full-time instructor system throughout the army, selecting outstanding commanders from all units of the army to serve as full-time instructors, and injecting fresh blood into the university's teaching and scientific research work. In the past few years, the vast majority of commanders and staff officers in the joint command seats of major joint exercises of the whole army have been trained at the National Defense University.
"The instructors of the National Defense University should be good at activating the innovative thinking of the students. At today's National Defense University, what instructors teach students is not the only answer, but thinking about the winning mechanism.
In a certain class, students are divided into groups of 10 and carry out step-by-step training in small classes. The joint battles with actual combat backgrounds were compressed into rounds of intensive study and meticulous planning and training, and the command network, computer screens, and clerical instructions were used to connect the war thinking of these cadets into "brainstorming."
The most common situation is that a number of trainees put forward different views on a joint operation issue and engage in a fierce confrontation, and although the views are different, they are all well-founded.
"When you come and go, you are thinking about the same thing -- the future form of joint operations, and there is only one purpose -- to enhance the consciousness of 'linkage,' the thinking of 'linkage,' and the quality of 'linkage.' ”
"In the past, I was most afraid that we had just found the answer, and the battlefield had changed the subject. One of the cadets wrote in his graduation experience: As a cadet of the National Defense University, what I have learned is battlefield imagination and action creativity, and the ability to change the direction of future wars.
At the end of the month, the campus of the National Defense University was still brightly lit. At the foot of Baiwang Mountain, there are 360 days a year, and most of them are "three watches, lights and five watches".
"Hundreds of boats compete for the current, and if you don't advance, you will retreat. During the interview, the words of an associate professor of a college always echoed in the reporter's ears. He has participated in many international military forums and military exchange activities, and he views "world-class" in this way -- science and technology are accelerating, and the world is changing drastically; looking at the coordinate system of the development of the world's armed forces, "world-class" is not a fixed coordinate point, but a curve with a positive slope and steep rise.
At that moment, the reporter suddenly understood the words of the faculty members of the National Defense University: What we are speeding towards is not a certain static node, but a goal that is constantly refreshing in the field of vision.
(Produced by the People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Horn)