Sharpening the Spear: China’s Information Warfare Lessons from Ukraine

Abstract

This paper examines the lessons about information warfare (IW) that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is likely to be drawing from the war in Ukraine. To do so, it first analyzes how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has developed its conception of states contesting the information environment (IE), formed by studying wars and protest movements since the Gulf War. The paper describes the PLA’s evolving assessment of the growing importance, scope, and features of this contest. Because PRC strategic analysts typically frame the war in Ukraine as a proxy conflict between the United States (U.S.) and Russia, the paper then briefly compares all three states’ doctrinal beliefs about IW. Second, the paper analyzes PRC theorists’ assessments of the information conflict dimension of the Russia–Ukraine war. Principally, these insights concern narrative setting around conflicts, the initial war’s long-term impact on the IE, and the role of cyberattacks in IW. Finally, the paper offers recommendations to a strategic-level NATO audience concerning IE engagement with the PRC from defensive and offensive perspectives. This paper’s main sources are journal and newspaper articles by leading PLA-affiliated IW theorists written for an internal national security audience.