5. The establishment of large military regions can no longer meet our security needs

The "Leapfrog-2009" cross-regional live-force test exercise began on 11 August 2009. According to the plan, the four army divisions subordinate to the four military regions of Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan, and Guangzhou, under the unified deployment of the General Staff Headquarters, were pulled to joint tactical training bases outside the theater to carry out drills in unfamiliar areas.

The four military regions participating in the exercise dispatched 50,000 troops, more than 60,000 vehicles and large-scale weapons and equipment, and a total distance of more than 50,000 kilometers.

This is the largest campaign exercise since the founding of New China, with the largest area and scope of activities, involving a number of military regions. At its core, it is all about practicing long-range maneuvers.

From the 50s to the 70s of the 20th century, the country faced a serious security situation. Comrade Mao Zedong said that we should prepare for the Soviet Union to invade from the north, the United States from the east, Lao Chiang from the southeast to invade the mainland, and India to invade from the south. Under such circumstances, major military regions should be set up, and each large military region should be an independent theater of operations, and within its own theater of operations, it should conduct operational command operations.

Now our security posture has changed very much, and the forces to invade and dismember China basically do not exist. In the past, the setting up of large military regions and the task of guarding the land and border areas can no longer meet our security needs today. As far as dealing with non-traditional security and traditional security are concerned, the original setup of the large military region and the original mission entrusted to the large military region can no longer meet today's requirements.

Judging from the distribution, the Beijing Military Region and the Shenyang Military Region are heavily armed mainly to guard against a possible invasion of us by the Soviet Union and a threat from the United States from the east. Today, the distribution of forces is unbalanced, because relatively speaking, the forces in the west, southwest, and south are relatively thin.

However, with the realization of leapfrog transfer, this problem does not exist. When there is a problem in one theater, the forces of the other theaters can be quickly reinforced.

Cross-regional mobilization and the use of cross-regional forces are an important means and an important way for us to deal with future security.

Of course, there are still some problems and defects at present: For example, each theater conducts adaptive training with the characteristics of its own theater mainly according to its own theater combat area and combat objects. The southwest region mainly fights in mountainous and jungle areas; In the northwest, north China, and northeast, it is mainly fought on the plains and plateaus.

Plain operations, plateau operations, mountain operations, jungle operations, and water network operations have completely different training and equipment requirements for troops.

Today, in fact, there is a requirement that the army must be able to fight both on the plains and on the plateau, and that it must be adaptable and diverse.

The Shenyang Military Region and the Lanzhou Military Region share the same characteristics, that is, they operate on the vast plains and on the plateau, and the terrain on the plains and plateaus is relatively flat, and the differences in leapfrogging under such circumstances are not very large. However, from the north to the south, from the plains to the mountains, there is a greater difference, and the requirements for the adaptability of the troops are higher. For example, the heavily armored mechanized units of the Northern Military Region did have problems pulling them to the water network zone of the Southern Theater, and roads and transportation became problems. However, it is not because of equipment limitations that troops cannot move from long distances.

Of course, our first step is to complete this leap by starting with the same terrain, combat mission, and combat area with the same characteristics. In the future, there will be other crossings, even in terrain with completely different characteristics, such as plain combat troops, entering jungle areas to carry out military operations.

This is what the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) requires the armed forces to respond to a variety of security threats and accomplish diversified military tasks in the future. "Leapfrog-2009" is a beginning, and it will continue to be strengthened after that.

There is an old Chinese saying that "soldiers are noble and fast," and the U.S. military also has a famous saying: "It is more important to bring in a battalion within 24 hours than to bring in 10 divisions in 10 days."

Today, the armed forces of all countries in the world are faced with such a problem, and combat capability, as the core military capability, has a very big support, that is, the projection capability. If you have 2 million troops in a fixed area, and there is a conflict in a place far away from this area, and only 200,000 troops are mobilized to this area within two months, then the actual effective force is only 200,000, and the troops that cannot be mobilized to this area will not be able to play a role.

With the process of informationization, the army's equipment is being updated day by day, and all kinds of modern equipment have entered the army, and it is of great significance for the army to improve its mobility capability.

In the past, our main threat was the invasion of foreign enemies, and when we were doing divisional defense, each major theater was divided into its own independent theater defense, and the requirements for mobility were not so high, but it was only possible to move within the theater and rely on railways and highways to transport it.

The problem brought about by this large-scale maneuver across the theater is that, after all, the speed of railway and highway maneuvers is limited, and the requirements for air delivery capability have been raised.

In fact, this question has already been raised when our military is carrying out some peacekeeping missions overseas. Overseas emergency rescue and disaster relief and humanitarian assistance must not only rely on road and railway mobility, but must also be able to rely on air mobility. This is an important component of enhancing the army's mobility capability and enhancing the army's core military capability.

In the course of maneuvering, the officers and men of the troops participating in the "Leapfrog-2009" exercise not only took air force transport planes, but also requisitioned some civil passenger planes and cargo planes, which was also the first time in the history of our military exercise.

The army is maneuvering, and the requisition of civil aircraft is inevitable. For example, the U.S. military fought in Iraq and the Gulf region, carried out its missions, and the heavy equipment was transported by ship; The troops, carrying a small number of light weapons and light armaments, were transported by air mobility, and in addition to Air Force aircraft, there were also aircraft requisitioned from United States civil aviation.

On the whole, our army's air transport capacity is relatively weak, so we have to requisition some civil aviation aircraft to complete air mobility. Of course, in future operations, civil aircraft can be used, but the proportion is definitely limited and cannot be too high.

The US military's use of civil aircraft is within a certain percentage, because the area to be maneuvered to is not a tourist area, but an area where conflicts occur. In such areas, the airport conditions and equipment are often relatively poor, and there may only be a few navigation equipment, and the equipment may not be complete; Airports do not necessarily have concrete runways of the specified thickness, and they may also be earthen airports.

In such a situation, civil aircraft will fail, and only military transport aircraft will be able to land at rudimentary airports, or even earthen airfields. Therefore, in the process of maneuvering, we requisitioned some civil aviation aircraft, and military transport aircraft also used them to the best of their ability.

In future military operations, a certain proportion of airmobile military transport aircraft must be reached. Flying in harsh conditions, taking off and landing in harsh conditions, this is impossible for civil aircraft to do.

In this cross-regional exercise, the maneuvering of the railway has also changed greatly. In the past, it was mainly equipped with flatbed trucks and stuffy tankers for troops; Later, there were some improvements, and the conditions improved a lot by taking the bus, but the speed of maneuvering was still limited.

This time there is a very big leap, that is, by EMU, the speed can reach more than 200 kilometers per hour. Ground maneuvering has improved considerably. It can be seen from this that the rapid development of the country's economic construction, the opening up of air routes, land railway lines, EMUs, and high-speed railways are of great help to the mobility of the army.

If the lightly armed troops can rely on high-speed rail to maneuver and reach a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, it will be quite good.

After the hardware facilities are brought up, including the requisition of a large number of civil aircraft, air mobility can also be improved. For example, the Wenchuan earthquake also requisitioned many civil aircraft, and the troops in the Jinan Theater mainly took civil aviation aircraft to the front line of disaster relief.

Of course, earthquake relief is possible. However, under some emergency conditions, the aircraft needs to land at some relatively simple and poor airports, close to the conflict site, and civil aviation aircraft still cannot play such a role.