My name is Dean Cheng. I am the Senior Research Fellow for Chinese Political and Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been a close observer of other people’s wars. Since the early 1990s, Chinese military analysts have carefully analyzed such conflicts as the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm), the NATO intervention in the Balkans, the American invasion of Afghanistan, the 2003 Iraq War, as well as Russian wars and counterinsurgencies along its periphery.[1] Chinese analysts have also examined earlier conflicts such as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War and the 1982 Falklands conflict.