The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has embraced wargaming with an almost religious zeal. PLAN leaders vigorously promote the use of wargaming methods throughout the service. They have studied wargaming’s many potential advantages, from helping the PLAN overcome its lack of recent combat experience to shedding light on how to employ its new weapons and platforms to maximum effect—and they want more.1
Despite its enthusiasm for conflict simulation, the PLAN is also keenly aware of wargaming’s limitations. Service leaders know that, to be effective, games must accurately represent the behavior of the putative adversary—“Blue” in PLA parlance. Since foreign militaries conceal their capabilities, plans, and doctrines, simulating Blue is no easy task. The PLAN confronted this challenge by building a corps of experts dedicated to studying China’s potential enemies to play them in wargames with as much fidelity as possible. This organization, the “Blue Team Center” (蓝军中心), is located at the Naval Command College in Nanjing, Jiangsu.2
The Blue Team Center is small and little known but has an outsized impact on how the PLAN thinks about future conflict. The insights it generates guide the judgments PLAN commanders make, with decisions about peacetime plans, training, doctrine, research, and procurement. And the PLAN expects that, in wartime, these insights will ultimately translate into success on the battlefield.
Understanding this mysterious organization is essential to the U.S. Navy’s efforts to deter or defeat Beijing’s aggression in the western Pacific.
A Star is Born
The Naval Command College is the PLAN’s equivalent of the U.S. Naval War College (NWC). It provides midcareer education to PLAN officers through two courses of study—intermediate and senior—and educates officers from the navies of China’s partners. Aside from its educational mission, it has a large research agenda and regards itself as a PLAN think tank. Moreover, it provides training support for fleet and joint force commands.3
Like its counterpart in Newport, Rhode Island, is for the U.S. Navy, the Naval Command College is the major Chinese center of wargaming excellence for the PLAN and the PLA overall. Its Naval Warfare Laboratory, analogous to the NWC’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies, holds wargames for the Navy, the theater commands, and the Central Military Commission. It also hosts simulations and games in support of the college’s intermediate and senior command courses, which culminate with a large, seven- to ten-day capstone wargame called “Sea Plan” (筹海) held every winter. 4
During his tenure as college president (2011–15), then–Rear Admiral Shen Jinlong—later PLAN commander from 2017 to 2021—recognized that the college could not consistently provide a realistic representation of Blue in its wargames, diminishing their utility. As one college instructor explained it, “Our facility faced a major problem—Red [i.e., China] and Blue were like twins. Not only were Blue’s organization, equipment, and combat styles the same as Red—they even had the same operational thinking.”5
To remedy this problem, Shen selected a group of faculty members with expertise about foreign militaries to serve as the nucleus of a new organization dedicated to the systematic study of China’s potential adversaries to be able to play them in games. Thus was the Blue Team Center founded in August 2012. At that time, it comprised 31 “experts and consultants” from across the college.6
Shen’s ambitions transcended the needs of the college itself. In founding the Blue Team Center, he sought to create a resource for the entire Navy. He pictured it as a “whetstone” (磨刀石)) to sharpen the “sword” that was the fleet. That meant being able to provide a “powerful Blue team” for all wargames and exercises that needed one.7
Creating the Blue Team Center was a wise decision, one of several during Shen’s tenure in Nanjing. The center heralded General Secretary Xi Jinping’s other, militarywide efforts to increase the “realism” of PLA training and exercises. When, in March 2014, the Central Commission issued a set of “opinions” that called for the strengthening of “Blue Team simulation,” the college was already a year and a half into its own Blue Team experiment. Other PLAN educational institutions—including the Submarine Academy and the Aviation Academy—have since followed suit, creating their own Blue Team Centers.8
Playing the Enemy
The Blue Team Center’s main mission is to simulate enemy commanders and their staffs in games and exercises held at the high-tactical and campaign levels of war, striving to do so “as realistically as possible.” Playing an “authentic” Blue means playing the enemy “in both form and spirit.” To that end, the center seeks to simulate Blue’s command systems and command methods, thereby creating an overall “command environment” that reflects reality. During wargames, center experts sometimes even don adversary uniforms.9
An authentic Blue is a strong Blue. This ensures that wargames are intense, enabling the “cultivation of Red [i.e., Chinese] commanders who can win in battle.” The center strives to “make Red use its brain in crises, difficult situations, and dilemmas and to seek sound decisions leading to victory.” Center experts endeavor to “create a confrontation between Red and a powerful enemy, constantly testing command competence and decision-making capabilities of [PLAN] commanders.”10
When directed to play Blue in a game or exercise, the center builds a team of experts best-suited for the game’s specific tasks. Team members are chosen based on their particular knowledge derived from extensive research on that country’s maritime military forces. As a result, these experts can “fairly easily shift their identities and thought processes to understand the mission from the opponent’s viewpoint, make judgments, ascertain [Blue’s] level of determination, draft plans, and organize operations to confront Red.”11
The bulk of the wargames takes place at the Naval Warfare Laboratory. The center supports games held for students enrolled in the college’s two midcareer command courses: 1) Naval Combined Arms Command and 2) Naval Campaign Command.
The most important is the annual capstone graduation exercise. Blue Team experts have played in most Sea Plan games since 2013. Blue often represents a regional rival—Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam—in a scenario involving a territorial/maritime dispute. Center experts also play as third parties—“Green” cells—such as the U.S. military when it intervenes in the conflict.
On other occasions, the United States is Blue even though it is the “intervening” party, as in Sea Plan 2021, when the U.S. military “blatantly interfered in Red’s internal affairs” (coded language for a Taiwan scenario), ultimately leading to high-end conflict. Blue attempted to thwart Red by creating a humanitarian corridor in the vicinity of the conflict and securing it with a no-fly/no-sail zone. It also conducted electronic warfare and network attacks against Red to degrade its communications. As the conflict escalated, Blue employed submarines, unmanned aircraft, and other air and sea assets to strike Red naval forces, with mixed success.12
Center experts participate in other conflict simulations held at the Naval Warfare Laboratory as well, including opposition-force exercises for unit commanders and their staffs. Scenarios for these “command confrontation exercises” are crafted to be as realistic as possible. For example, in summer 2017, the college hosted an exercise for Chen Yueqi, then-commander of the Liaoning carrier strike group. The purpose was to familiarize the commander and his staff with the processes and methods for conducting contested island-seizure operations and bolster their command and control capability.13
Reporting on the game revealed it to have been a simulated conflict between China and Vietnam over disputed South China Sea islands. Blue attacked first, sending “special agents” to conduct sabotage operations against one of Red’s civilian vessels and an oil and gas drilling platform. Red responded by punitively seizing several disputed islands/reefs. Blue struck Red transport ships with armed fishing vessels and light surface combatants, and its submarines launched missiles against Red naval forces. An “extraregional great power”—Green, clearly the United States—sent forces close to the combat operations, placing “tremendous pressure” on Red and increasing the complexity of the conflict. Chen Yueqi described the exercise as “a very realistic and intense confrontation,” and “a good test of the command capabilities and skills” of the personnel involved. Chen’s comments illustrate how the performance of center experts—their understanding of Blue and Green, and how this understanding is injected into the game—can directly influence the thinking of current and future decision-makers.14
Center experts also participate in command confrontation exercises organized by other entities, including the Central Military Commission, theater commands, the PLAN headquarters, the three fleets, and PLAN bases. Again, their primary role is to play in Blue command posts at the high-tactical and campaign levels.15
Knowing the Enemy
The precondition to playing Blue well is deep expertise in China’s potential adversaries, acquired through intensive research. Ultimately, center experts strive to “understand foreign militaries’ operational thinking, become familiar with their operational theories, and master the characteristics of their combat operations.” Specifically, they focus their studies on Blue’s “mode of thinking, behavior and habits, operational organization, tactics, equipment, and command processes.” They also examine Blue’s “strategic theories, operational thinking, organization and command, weapons and equipment, and force construction.”16
A 2020 profile of Director Gong Jia sheds further light on center research priorities. Gong is a member of a younger generation of outstanding researchers at the college. A surface warfare officer by training, he reportedly introduces himself as “the military’s youngest Blue Team commander.” His goal is to study the minds of Blue commanders at the campaign level and above. Indeed, Gong and his team are described as “obsessed with accurately simulating ‘the mind of Blue.’”
The ultimate goal of center researchers is to “objectively and truly reflect [China’s] operational opponent.” The research process has two main steps. First, analysts “widely collect, through various channels, intelligence about the operational opponent.” Then, the analysts “conduct scientific [i.e., systematic and unbiased] analysis of all the intelligence materials in hand.”17
The center divides its personnel into several research groups, with the aim of achieving a balance of knowledge in each. Members arrive with expertise about different levels of war and different warfare areas, including intelligence, operations, training, and logistics support. The center does basic research and “trends research.” Some topics are directed from above, while others are chosen by the team and submitted for approval by superiors.18
Every year, the center prioritizes research on one particular topic, selected based on the situation China is facing and planned training/exercises. For example, in 2014 the center focused on “preparation for military struggle in the South China Sea.” In 2015, it concentrated on the Korean Peninsula. In 2016, it emphasized the East China Sea.19
The center has adopted many of the common practices of a think tank. For example, it holds lectures and academic discussions on selected topics. Members also engage in brainstorming sessions to derive inspiration and ensure researchers avoid the cardinal sin of “mirror imaging” (镜像思维)). New research products are shared through workshops, discussions, reports, and lectures. When center experts travel to the fleet to teach or participate in an exercise, they bring their recent research to inform the development of new tactics and plans.20
The center also compiles its research into other products—for example, analytic reports on current events, providing valuable suggestions for the PLAN commander and headquarters staff. It also produces textbooks and other teaching materials on foreign militaries used in the naval command courses. Some research is submitted to Chinese peer-reviewed academic journals for open publication. However, this is likely a very small portion of overall output. For example, Center Director Gong Jia has published only three articles in Chinese academic journals, none more recently than in 2015.21
Challenges Exist
Despite efforts to professionalize Blue Team research, the center still faces a number of impediments. According to center experts, materials on different Blue operational levels of war are scarce; training competent Blue Team professionals is extremely difficult; and existing research practices are inadequate. As a result, by its own admission, the center’s research is sometimes “not deep, not thorough, and not professional,” and games/exercises occasionally revert to “Red vs. Red confrontations.”22
The center cites three challenges specific to its research efforts. The first is a tendency to analyze Blue from China’s perspective—the mirror imaging the center seeks to avoid. The second tendency is to “use Red’s own command systems when playing Blue” despite the center possessing a team of experts dedicated to simulating different Blues’ command systems. The third is using Red’s operational methods when playing Blue.23 These problems, which are certainly not unique to China, were cited in 2017. It is unclear to what extent the center has remedied them in the years since.
Implications
Like other modern navies, the PLAN is committed to taking maximum advantage of wargaming as a tool for education, training, and research, and it has relied heavily on the Naval Command College to do so.
For the U.S. Navy, the story of the PLAN’s Blue Team Center offers two clear lessons. First, the center is a very influential organization that deserves far more attention than it currently receives. Studying it promises valuable insights into PLAN assumptions about U.S. capabilities and how China believes these capabilities would likely be employed in a future war. A number of important questions need answering. For example, not enough is known about the people of the Blue Team Center. Who are they? What are their backgrounds? What kinds of intelligence materials do they use to better understand Blue? What biases color their assessments, and how can the United States exaggerate—or minimize—those biases, as appropriate? How has the center adapted to the post-PLA reform organizational arrangements? Has its influence waxed or waned in the new era of “jointness”?
Second, the U.S. Navy should treat the Blue Team Center as a legitimate model for adversary simulation and consider which of its practices—if any—are worthy of emulation. For instance, does it make sense for the U.S. Naval War College to have its own Red Team Center? Or does another entity in the U.S. government already do this well enough and with sufficient capacity to adequately support U.S. Navy wargames? What steps should be taken to further professionalize the community of experts tasked with Red simulation?24
Given the interests at stake, these questions may be difficult to broach. But if the U.S. Navy truly seeks to ensure a human-capital advantage against its potential adversaries, asked they must be.
Editor’s Note: Chinese-language sources noted above, including those from the People’s Navy and PLA Daily, are presented here in translation.
1. Elsa B. Kania and Ian Burns McCaslin, Learning Warfare from the Laboratory: China’s Progression in Wargaming and Opposing Force Training (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, 2021), 13–14; Sun Wei and Wang Xinyu, “The Navy Concludes Its Second Annual ‘Undersea Vanguard’ Wargaming Competition and Evaluation,” People’s Navy, 9 December 2022, 1.
2. Bo Yang, Huang Lipeng, and Qiu Shuqun, “Education for War: The Beacon in Their Hearts Will Never Be Extinguished,”People’s Navy, 13 May 2022, 1.
3. Ma Qinglei, “Cultivate Outstanding Command Talent and Support Navy Construction and Development,” People’s Navy, 17 May 2016, 3.
4. Bo Yang and Shen Shu, “Naval Command College: Striving to Cultivate New-Type Joint Operational Talent,” People’s Navy, 11 September 2017, 3; and Lan Jian, Wang Zhentian, and Qiu Shuqun, “Virtual Battlefield, Creating Personnel That Can Strategize for and Fight Wars,” People’s Navy, 10 March 2021, 3.
5. Shen Shu and Wang Yuanyuan, “Exam Room? Battlefield!” People’s Navy, 10 February 2014, 4.
6. Shen Shu and Bo Yang, “Simulated Battlefield Lights the Fire for Combat Realism,” People’s Navy, 3 August 2015, 3; and Wang Weihong, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone’ for Combat Power Generation,” People’s Navy, 14 April 2017, 3.
7. Shen Shu, “This Blue Team Is Like a Pack of Wolves,” People’s Navy, June 2013, 3.
8. “Focus on Winning,” People’s Navy, 25 September 2017, 1; Liang Pengfei, “General Staff Department and General Political Department Issue Study Propaganda Outline for ‘Opinions on Improving the Realism of Military Training,’” PLA Daily, 21 August 2014, 1; “Strive to Advance the Magnificent Historical Voyage and Author an Era of Military Greatness,” People’s Navy, 23 April 2019, 6–7; and Chen Dechao and Gao Mi, “Assume Responsibilities with a First-Class Attitude,” People’s Navy, 2 November 2016, 3.
9. Ge Jinyu, “Create a Blue Team in Both Form and Spirit,” People’s Navy, 14 April 2017, 3; Wang Jianchao and Bo Yang, “Training the Troops and Sharpening Swords, The Classroom Is Filled with Gunsmoke,” People’s Navy, 30 June 2017, 3; and Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
10. Shen Shu, “Making a Strong ‘Adversary,’ Who Is It For?” People’s Navy, 10 December 2013, 3; Shen and Bo, “Simulated Battlefield Lights the Fire for Combat Realism,” 3; and Shen, “This Blue Team Is Like a Pack of Wolves,” 3.
11. Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
12. Li Yunqiang and Shen Shu, “Fight Fiercely Today to Win Victory in the Future,” People’s Navy, 1 March 2013, 3; Shen Shu and Bo Yang, “Obtaining Their Battlefield ‘Pass’ in the Smoke of Gunfire,” People’s Navy, 25 January 2018, 3; and Lan, Wang, and Qiu, “Virtual Battlefield, Creating Personnel That Can Strategize,” 3.
13. Li Yunqiang, Shen Shu, and Bo Yang, “Tempering and Sharpening the Sword,” People’s Navy, 9 October 2015, 3; and Li Yunqiang and Bo Yang, “Red and Blue Fight on the Virtual Battlefield,” People’s Navy, 9 June 2017, 2.
14. Li and Bo, “Red and Blue Fight on the Virtual Battlefield.”
15. Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
16. Wang Jianchao and Bo Yang, “The ‘Red Army’ Is Trained Just Like This,” People’s Navy, January 23, 2017, 2; Shen and Bo, “Simulated Battlefield Lights the Fire,” 3; and Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
17. Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
18. Wang.
19. Wang.
20. Wang.
21. Shen, “This Blue Team Is Like a Pack of Wolves,” 3; and Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3; CNKI Database.
22. Wang, “Blue Team: A ‘Whetstone,’” 3.
23. Wang.
24. Dale C. Rielage, “War Gaming Must Get Red Right,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. 1 (January 2017).
