The Information Age presents a unique opportunity to China with regard to both modernization and building an Information Warfare (IW) capability. China's active pursuit of an IW capability will cause a change in Chinese strategic culture.

According to Alastair Iain Johnston, strategic culture defines how a nation assesses a threat to its interests and whether it will use force to deal with those threats.

The author's original research question asked how Chinese strategic culture will affect the development of a Chinese IW capability.

The author answers that question by defining IW from American and Chinese perspectives and defining Chinese strategic culture, and then describes key aspects of People's Liberation Army (PLA) theorists' vision for IW. The conclusion of this thesis is that the nature of cyberspace, the futility of the static defense, and the interdependence of the defense and the offense will change some aspects of Chinese strategic culture. This finding is contrary to the expected outcome, as the original research question anticipated that Chinese strategic culture would affect the development of a Chinese IW capability.

ADA 416897 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)