Commentary: Soldiers should prepare for war

The recent escalating situations in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, the new Japanese Abe administration's drawing of Vietnam, Philippines and other East Asian countries to its side in order to contain China, as well as the letter they wrote to NATO leaders for the purpose of smearing China, which have formed layers of pressure to counterbalance China.

Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have held very frequent drills focused on the Diaoyu Islands for the past days, and boasted of firing warning shots at China's marine surveillance ships. This confrontation between China and Japan, which has been so rare since World War II, has escalated from the original air force mutual monitoring over the waters around the Diaoyu Islands to the verge of war.

China will not frivolously wage a war, but "if we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack." This is absolutely our bottom line. Therefore, we should prepare ourselves to fight a battle as soon as possible.

Then, what kind of war are we preparing to fight? Don't be so naive to take it for granted that maritime issues can be resolved in maritime ways and the Diaoyu Islands conflict is merely the confrontation between the two navies and the two air forces. For the soldiers, there is no difference among arms, and no difference between the front and the rear in a war, even just in a local conflict.

Prof. Jin Yi'nan once made an intriguing statement: "You can only prepare yourselves for a large-scale war in order to control a local war. According to Western risk control and warfare control theories, by upgrading the war scale to cause greater damage to the other side, the other side thus decides not to upgrade but stick to the local scale. Without this capability, the scale of the war is very likely to grow out of control." Therefore, soldiers should be mentally prepared that "the war cannot be fought without me."

We also need to figure out why we should be prepared to fight and what kind of war we are going to fight. We should prepare ourselves according to our positions and responsibilities. What kind of war are we able to fight? We can no longer shout for war preparation as a slogan. Therefore, soldiers must be well-prepared that "there's always a plan ready for the war".

It is the duty and value of the military and soldiers to be able to fight and to win the war. The concept should be prevalently rooted in the minds of the officers and men that soldiers are meant to fight in war, troops are led to fight in war, and military training is conducted for war. We should be ready to fight a war at any time so that once the order is given, victory is to be won.

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