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  • PLA Views on the Information Domain

    The “Information Age” has been around for decades.  Whether you date it to the first transistors of the World War II era, the advent of home computing, or the rise of the internet, the “Information Age” has impacted all of our lives, in deeply important ways and warfare is no exception to this rule.

  • CASI Quarterly update #4 for 2024

    Friends of CASI,            As we close out 2024, we are excited to report on another busy quarter and look forward to another busy year coming up.   We are hoping to add a couple more people to the team in 2025, more on that later in the year.  We are already booking out to July and August for our

  • China’s Different Approach to Space Situational Awareness

    This report attempts to answer two questions. First, what do Chinese authors writing in Chinese and English reveal about domestic satellites supporting space situational awareness (SSA). Second, given the available open-source information, in what ways does China’s approach to conducting space-based

  • Modernization of Fighter Pilot Training in the PLA Air Force Proceeds Apace

    In the past several months, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has reported and released information about new developments in its effort to modernize the PLA Air Force’s (PLAAF) training of prospective fighter pilots. One of the institutions that conduct that training, the Shijiazhuang

  • CASI Quarterly update #3 for 2024

    CASI Quarterly update#3 for 2024Friends of CASI,            What a way to end the fiscal year!  Your CASI team ran right through the Fiscal Year and didn’t even blink.  We supported a ton of activities across the Department this quarter, and still managed to get out more research on China and the

  • ITOW: Officer Basic Capability Training Guide

    The “In Their Own Words” series is dedicated to translations of Chinese documents in order to help non-Mandarin speaking audiences access and understand Chinese thinking. CASI would like to thank all of those involved in this effort. In the “In Their Own Words” series, CASI and its collaborators aim

  • PLA Aerospace Force Base 37

    Base 37 is the PLA’s base for early warning and space situational awareness, likely now under the command of the PLA’s new Aerospace Force (PLAASF). Observable elements of Base 37 appear to be engaged in research on a wide array of space situational awareness (SSA) topics, and units directly

  • China can track GSSAP

    A Chinese technical assessment on the U.S. Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellites from April last year revealed China’s deepening analysis of U.S. space domain awareness (SDA) capabilities.  The Chinese have moved beyond describing U.S. SDA systems, and have begun

  • China Aerospace Studies Institute Staff

    CASI has offices at Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL. and at National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington D.C.. Dr. Brendan MulvaneyBrendan Mulvaney is the Director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute. Dr. Mulvaney served

  • Chinese Research in Space-Based Space Surveillance

         Space Surveillance is a subset and contributor to space situational awareness (SSA), which in turn, is a subset and contributor to space domain awareness (SDA). To clarify the purpose and scope of this paper, these three terms are defined and their relationships illustrated.      SDA is the

  • CISTEC translation of CASI's AVIC report

    CASI's reports are read across the world.  Sometimes our allies and partners translate our reports into other languages.  CASI's most recent report on Organization of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) was translated into Japanese by our friends

  • PLA Army Cross-Trains Pilots for Combat

    Recently the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reported that an army aviation unit has been cross-training its pilots to fly multiple types of helicopters. It is likely that the PLA Army is cross-training utility helicopter pilots to operate attack helicopters, and it is at least possible that

  • Reassessment of the CMC Member grade in the PLA

    Over the past 24 years, I have written multiple articles about the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) 15-grade structure, with an emphasis on how every organization, not just personnel, is assigned a grade.  While reviewing the announcements from the recent 3rd Plenum, where the Minister of National

  • Ongoing Organizational Reforms of the PLAAF

    From the chapter by Dr. Brendan S. Mulvaney and Ken Allen on the Ongoing Organizational Reforms of the PLAAF from Modernising the People’s Liberation Army: Aspiring to be a Global Military Power (available