Chinese Forces, Operations & Tactics

OPFOR1 topics and chapters include the strategic environment (understanding China, defense & military strategy, strategic & operational environments, territorial disputes), force structure (PLA: Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force), system warfare, information operations, reconnaissance and security, offensive and defensive actions, antiterorrism and stability actions, equipment and capabilities (maneuver, fire support, air defense, aviation, engineer and chemical defense, network and communications, and special operations forces).

For over two thousand years, China has been surrounded by enemies, adversaries, and other competitors. Invasion, occupation, raids, and other incursions into Chinese territory were commonplace. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) views protecting Chinese sovereignty and security as a sacred duty. China traditionally viewed military resistance as an affair for the entire population: mass resistance, guerrilla warfare, and winning a war of attrition.

The People’s Liberation Army Army (PLAA) has approximately 975,000 active-duty personnel in combat units. The PLAN is the largest navy in the world with a battle force of approximately 355 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, and fleet auxiliaries. The Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation forces in the region and the third largest in the world, with over 2,800 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UAVs) of which approximately 2,250 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft). The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is the largest missile force in the world, operating well over 1,000 short-range, medium-range, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and over 300 long-range cruise missiles.

With a force that totals approximately two million personnel in the regular forces, the PLA has sought to modernize its capabilities and improve its proficiencies across all warfare domains so that as a joint force it can conduct the range of land, air, and maritime operations as well as space, counterspace, electronic warfare (EW), and cyber operations. Recognizing that joint operations, information flows, and rapid decision-making are vital in modern warfare, the PRC continues to place a high priority on modernizing the PLA’s capability to command complex joint operations in near and distant battlefields.

The PRC has stated its defense policy aims to safeguard its national sovereignty, security, and development interests. China’s leaders view these interests as foundational to their national strategy. In 2020, the PRC’s defense policy and military strategy primarily oriented the PLA towards “safeguarding” its perceived “sovereignty and security” interests in the region counter the United States. At the same time, China’s leaders increasingly cast the armed forces as a practical instrument to defend Beijing’s expanding global interests and to advance its foreign policy goals within the framework of “Major Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics.”

North Korean Forces, Operations & Tactics

OPFOR2 topics and chapters include the strategic environment (intro to North Korea, capabilities & intent, framework for military operations), force structure (KPA: Ground Forces, Navy, Air & Air Defense Force, Strategic Force, Special Operations, Reserve and Paramilitary forces, Internal Security & Intel Services), functional tactics, reconnaissance & security, offensive and defensive actions (operational level divisions & regiments, tactical level, complex operational environments), counterstability actions, electronic intelligence warfare, equipment and capabilities.

North Korea is one of the most militarized countries in the world and remains a critical security challenge for the United States, our Northeast Asian allies, and the international community. The Kim regime has seen itself as free to take destabilizing actions to advance its political goals, including attacks on South Korea, development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, proliferation of weapons, and cyberattacks against civilian infrastructure worldwide.

The Korean Peninsula is a location of strategic interest for the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific Command due to its proximity to China, South Korea’s historical relationship with the U.S. over the past 7 decades, and the booming South Korean economy that makes it an important U.S. trading partner. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea or the DPRK, remains one of the United States’ most critical security challenges for many reasons. These include the country’s provocative and destabilizing behavior, such as unprovoked attacks on the Republic of Korea (South Korea; ROK); its pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles; and its willingness to proliferate weapons in contravention of international treaties. For over 50 years, North Korea has sporadically conducted operations directed against its foes, especially South Korea.

North Korea’s military poses two direct, overlapping challenges to the United States and its allies: a conventional force consisting mostly of artillery and infantry that can attack South Korea with little advance warning, and a ballistic missile arsenal, intended to be armed with nuclear weapons, that is capable of reaching bases and cities in South Korea and Japan, and the U.S. homeland.

North Korea’s conventional military consists of the ground, air, naval, and special operations forces. KPA Ground Forces operate thousands of long-range artillery and rocket systems along the entire length of the DMZ. These weapons include close-range mortars, guns, and multiple rocket launcher systems (MRLs) trained on South Korean military forces deployed north of Seoul, and longer-range self-propelled guns, rockets, and ballistic missiles that can reach Seoul and some points south of the capital. Collectively, this capability holds South Korean citizens and a large number of U.S. and South Korean military installations at risk. The North could use this capability to inflict severe damage and heavy casualties on the South with little warning.

Russian Military Forces, Operations & Tactics

Whereas previous editions were an examination of historical Soviet-era forces, OPFOR SMARTbook 3: Russian Military, 3rd Ed. (OPFOR 3-3) is completely updated for 2025 focusing instead on present-day Russian Federation forces as observed in their third year of war on the battlefields of Ukraine. As such, OPFOR 3-3 represents perhaps the most comprehensive, up-to-date examination and analysis of Russian forces, operations and tactics available today.

At 320 pages, OPFOR 3-3 chapters include the strategic environment (Russian strategic overview, Euro-Atlantic security environment, Russian threat assessment, Russia’s war on Ukraine, NATO enlargement), Russian military forces (historical overview, modern Russian military, joint strategic commands), Russian (SV) ground forces (organization, planning, command posts, control measures), reconnaissance and security, Russian “strike” actions (indirect fires, antitank fires, radio-electromagnetic battle, aerospace support, NBC), offensive actions (attack formations, subunit actions, large-scale combat, local wars & armed conflict), defensive actions (fundamentals, brigade/battalion defensives), and Russian equipment & capabilities.

From the time of Peter the Great in the 17th and early 18th centuries to the present day, Russia has sought what it perceives is its rightful place as a world power.

The United States faces a combination of challenges and threats in the Euro-Atlantic area that we have not seen in more than thirty years. Russia is waging a full-scale war in Europe and shows no signs of stopping.

The Russian Armed Forces are the world’s fifth largest military force, with 1.15 million active-duty personnel and close to two million reservists. The Russian military, while much smaller than its Soviet predecessor, has significantly expanded its capabilities.

The Soviet view of the battlefield was linear with forces connected on both flanks. The new Russian assessment is that, because of the devastating effects of precision weapons, battlefields will be dispersed and nonlinear with brigades and divisions defending in separate actions or launching attacks on separate avenues. Russian tactics are a result of a combination of innovations and a continuation of past Soviet practices.

Russian reconnaissance and security are ongoing actions regardless of the type of competition, crisis, or conflict. The SV uses all forces and means available to conduct reconnaissance to gain information on the battlefield as well as security actions to deny an aggressor information and understanding of the SV’s forces.

Russia places strike as the leading function in its joint and tactical actions, with all other forces and means enabling it to set the conditions for successful land operations. Strike involves engaging all lethal and nonlethal forces and means to attack an aggressor at a planned location and time on the battlefield.

Although Russia announced a new military doctrine in 2014 that emphasizes defensive preparations and actions, the military and the SV still consider the offensive as the decisive battlefield action and the ultimate means of defeating an aggressor.

The SV is not the ground force of World War II or the Cold War, which involved massive armies and millions of soldiers in a linear, cohesive, side-by-side defense. Indeed, contemporary Russian military writers suggest that the future conventional battlefield under nuclear-threatened conditions and precision weapons will be fragmented. The SV will fight with open flanks protected by fires, counterattacks, strong points, difficult terrain, and obstacles.

Forces, Conflicts & Threats

OPFOR4 topics and chapters include the strategic environment, U.S. & Iran relations (Iran’s foreign and defence policies, conflicts and tensions, sanctions), Iran’s military (history, doctrine and strategy, core capabilities), force structure, nuclear and missile threat, regional issues and conflicts (Iran’s partners and proxies, instruments of national security strategy), strategic competition (China, Russia, and others), and terrorist threats (VSEOs, Iran’s support for terrorism, etc.)

Spanning more than 4.6 million square miles, the Middle East has for millennia been a geographic and geopolitical crossroads and site of cooperation, competition, and conflict. Rich in cultural heritage but with unevenly distributed natural resources, the region is also beset by internal conflict and instability. More than a third of global container traffic transits the Suez Canal and more than a quarter of global oil transits the Strait of Hormuz. The region is home to almost 50% of the world’s known oil reserves and more than 40% of the world’s national gas.

The greatest single day-to-day threat to regional security and stability remains Iran, which challenges the U.S. and its allies by pursuing regional hegemony, breaching its JCPOA commitments, and posing a conventional threat to partner nations while facilitating and conducting coercive and malign activities.

To achieve its goals, Iran continues to rely on its unconventional warfare elements and asymmetric capabilities—intended to exploit the perceived weaknesses of a superior adversary—to provide deterrence and project power. This combination of lethal conventional capabilities and proxy forces poses a persistent threat. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force leads Iranian power projection through a complex network of state and nonstate partners and militant proxies.

Iran will continue to use Syrian (and likely Iraqi) territory as a critical hub and resupply route for maintaining its campaign against Israel. Iran will also remain focused on supporting Lebanese Hezbollah, whose illegal weapons stockpiles exceed those of most legitimate partner militaries in the region. The least restrained and most destabilizing of all of Iran’s affiliates in the region are the Houthis of Yemen. Aside from being active combatants in that country’s seven-year-old civil war, they are also engaged in a near-daily long-range fires conflict with Saudi Arabia.

While Iran poses the most ominous threat to the central region, Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs) operating in the Middle East, Levant, and Central Asian States also represent a danger to security and stability. The Central Command area of responsibility serves as the epicenter of violent extremism, with 19 of 21 top tier terrorist groups operating across the region. ISIS and Al Qaeda are the principal Sunni violent extremist organizations in the Middle East and Levant. Both groups maintain numerous affiliates pursuing local, regional, and global objectives.

Irregular & Hybrid Threat Forces, Operations & Tactics

OPFOR5 topics and chapters include irregular and hybrid threat (components, organizations, strategy, operations, tactics), insurgents and guerillas forces (characteristics, organizations, TTPs), terrorists (motivations, behaviors, organizations, operations and tactics), criminals (characteristics, organizations, activities), noncombatants (armed & unarmed), foreign security forces (FSF) threats, and functional tactics.

A hybrid threat is the diverse and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces, and/or criminal elements all unified to achieve mutually benefitting effects. The term “hybrid” has recently been used to capture the seemingly increased complexity of war, the multiplicity of actors involved, and the blurring between traditional categories of conflict. While the existence of innovative adversaries is not new, today’s hybrid approaches demand that U.S. forces prepare for a range of conflicts.

Irregular forces are armed individuals or groups who are not members of the regular armed forces, police, or other internal security forces.The irregular OPFOR can be part of the hybrid threat (HT). The irregular OPFOR component of the HT can be insurgents, guerrillas, or criminals or any combination thereof. The irregular OPFOR can also include other armed individuals or groups who are not members of a governing authority’s domestic law enforcement organizations or other internal security forces.

Irregular forces are unregulated and as a result act with no restrictions on violence or targets for violence. Time-honored concepts of “conventional” and “unconventional” war and “traditional” methods versus “adaptive” methods are weapons to a hybrid threat. One of the most significant capabilities of the irregular OPFOR is the ability to manipulate and/or ignore the restrictions and sanctions that apply to regulated military forces, law enforcement agencies, and internal security forces belonging to a sovereign state. The ability to combine and transition between regular and irregular forces and operations to capitalize on perceived vulnerabilities makes hybrid threats particularly effective.

Insurgents are armed and/or unarmed individuals or groups who promote an agenda of subversion and violence that seeks to overthrow or force change of a governing authority.

A guerrilla force is a group of irregular, predominantly indigenous personnel organized along military lines to conduct military and paramilitary operations in enemy-held, hostile, or denied territory.

Terrorism is a tactic. Terrorism can be defined as the use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Often motivated by philosophical or other ideological beliefs, objectives are typically political in nature.

Criminal elements exist at every level of society and in every operational environment (OE). Their presence, whatever their level of capabilities, adds to the complexity of any OE.

A host of noncombatants add complexity to any operational environment. Noncombatants are persons not actively participating in combat or actively supporting of any of the forces involved in combat. They can be either armed or unarmed. The irregular OPFOR attempts to manipulate these noncombatants in ways that support its goals and objectives.

Foreign security forces (FSF) are those forces, including, but not limited to military, paramilitary, police, and intelligence forces; border police, coast guard, and customs officials; and prison guards and correctional personnel, that provide security for a host nation and its relevant population or support a regional security organization’s mission. An FSF threat attack is a violent act perpetrated against a U.S. Service member, civilian, or contractor by a FSF member or members who have access to U.S. Service members, civilians, or contractors. The FSF threat is not a new phenomenon; however, during recent limited contingency operations, U.S. forces experienced a sharp increase in the number of attacks perpetrated by FSFs.

Insurgents and guerrillas, as part of the irregular OPFOR, may employ adaptive functional tactics. When planning a tactical action, an irregular OPFOR commander or leader determines what functions must be performed to accomplish the mission. Then he allocates functional responsibilities to his subordinates and synchronizes the effort.