Make the China Military Power Report Actionable

A 23-page report turned into a 200+ page annual event—and it still lands too late to shape the decisions it’s supposed to inform.

That’s the quiet problem with the Pentagon’s China Military Power Report (formally, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China). It’s widely treated as the most authoritative unclassified look at the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But as China’s military modernization accelerates across nuclear forces, maritime power, cyber operations, and space capabilities, a once-a-year “big book” risks becoming a rearview mirror.

This post is part of our AI in Defense & National Security series, and I’ll take a clear stance: the China report should function like a strategic intelligence product, not an annual publication ritual. That means tighter timing, more frequent updates, and modern analytic methods—especially AI-driven intelligence analysis built on open-source intelligence (OSINT) and rigorous tradecraft.

Why the China Military Power Report matters (and why it’s not enough)

Answer first: The report matters because it is the U.S. government’s flagship unclassified baseline on PLA capabilities—but it’s not enough because its production cycle makes it stale, and its format doesn’t translate cleanly into policy and budget decisions.

Congress mandated the report in 1999 to force a recurring public assessment of China’s “current and future military strategy.” Over 25 years, it’s become essential reading for lawmakers, allied defense ministries, and analysts outside government who need an authoritative reference.

But the competitive environment in late 2025 is harsher and faster than the report’s workflow. The PLA of 2025 is not the PLA of 2000, and not just in scale. Beijing has built a more integrated ability to:

• Apply military pressure around Taiwan and the South China Sea
• Run coercive gray-zone campaigns that sit below the threshold of open conflict
• Combine cyber, space, and electronic warfare into joint operational concepts
• Expand strategic deterrence with a more complex nuclear posture

Here’s the blunt version: a slow report encourages slow reactions. When an annual product becomes the cornerstone, it can unintentionally set the tempo for public understanding—while the actual contest is operating on weekly and monthly cycles.

The core tension: comprehensiveness vs. timeliness

The report has grown because the analytic job is real. Compiling unclassified assessments across domains takes time, coordination, and review. The result is credible, but often backward-looking. A report released at the end of the year that covers “early” developments from the same year will always feel late.

If the goal is deterrence and readiness, then timeliness isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s operationally relevant.

Fix #1: Build a “drumbeat” product using AI + OSINT

Answer first: Keep the annual report, but add a structured cadence of public updates powered by OSINT pipelines and AI-assisted analysis—with clear validation standards to protect credibility.

The most practical modernization isn’t to make the annual report longer. It’s to create a second lane:

1. Annual “baseline” report (authoritative, comprehensive, reference-grade)
2. Recurring unclassified updates (fast, narrow, time-sensitive)

Think of it like intelligence production for decision-makers: you need both the foundational estimate and the current intelligence stream.

What the update cadence could look like

A workable model that respects real-world staffing and review constraints:

• Monthly signals: short “what changed” notes (1–2 pages) tied to observable events
• Quarterly domain briefs: focused updates (maritime, air, space, cyber, nuclear)
• Rapid special updates: triggered by major incidents (exercises, deployments, organizational purges, missile test patterns)

These updates should be designed for policymakers and the public—meaning scannable structure, consistent metrics, and clear confidence language.

Where AI actually helps (and where it doesn’t)

AI won’t replace analytic judgment. It will, however, reduce the time it takes to turn open-source noise into a shortlist of validated signals.

High-value uses of AI in defense intelligence analysis:

• Entity resolution: connecting ship tail numbers, unit identifiers, corporate front entities, and procurement data
• Multilingual processing: triaging Chinese-language sources, local government notices, and technical papers at scale
• Pattern detection: spotting changes in exercise tempo, shipbuilding cadence, satellite launch patterns, or air patrol routes
• Change detection in imagery: highlighting new construction, basing changes, or platform movement for human review
• Narrative consistency checks: flagging contradictions across sources, timelines, and prior assessments

Where AI is risky without guardrails:

• Overconfident “explanations” of intent
• Hallucinated citations or misattribution of sources
• Hidden dataset bias (for example, what’s visible vs. what’s merely documented)
• Model exploitation by adversary disinformation

A strong principle for unclassified reporting is simple:

AI should accelerate collection and triage; humans should own conclusions and confidence.

Tradecraft requirement: show your work without burning sources

The annual report is trusted because it’s careful. A faster cadence can’t become sloppy.

A smart compromise is to publish method notes that explain how the update was generated—what OSINT feeds were used, what thresholds triggered inclusion, and how analysts validated signals—without disclosing sensitive sources or collection methods.

That kind of transparency also hardens the product against politicization. People don’t have to “trust the vibe” of the report if they can audit the method.

Fix #2: Release the report alongside the defense budget

Answer first: If the China Military Power Report is supposed to inform U.S. choices, it should land when Congress is debating choices—during budget season.

Right now, the annual report and the defense budget request often arrive many months apart. That gap creates a predictable policy failure mode:

• The report raises alarms about capabilities and operational trends
• The budget debate happens in a different news cycle
• Connections between threat assessment and resourcing become easier to ignore

The report should not dictate spending. It should, however, act as a shared factual baseline while lawmakers evaluate whether U.S. investments match the challenge.

A practical framework Congress can use when the two are aligned

If the report and the budget drop together, Congress can ask better questions—fast:

1. Threat-to-investment mapping: Which PLA capabilities are rising fastest, and what budget lines address them?
2. Time-to-field reality: Are U.S. programs arriving inside the window the report implies?
3. Deterrence posture coherence: Do force posture, munitions, training, and readiness align with the operational problem set?
4. Resilience funding: Are cyber defense, space resilience, and contested logistics funded like core warfighting needs?

This is where the report “really matters.” Not because it’s dramatic, but because it becomes decision-forcing.

What about PLA weaknesses like corruption and rigidity?

Recent reporting has highlighted PLA issues: corruption crackdowns, operational inflexibility, and organizational friction. Those are real, and analysts should keep covering them.

But treating PLA weaknesses as a reason to slow down is a mistake. Competitors don’t need to be perfect to be dangerous.

A sober posture is: the PLA can have internal problems and still become more capable year over year. U.S. planning should assume improvement continues—especially in areas where industrial output and iterative learning matter.

Fix #3: Expand the model across the U.S. government

Answer first: The Pentagon shouldn’t carry the entire public China-competition narrative; other agencies should publish their own annual unclassified assessments on coercive behavior and strategic risk.

The PLA is the sharp end of Beijing’s power, but it’s not the whole toolkit. Competition also shows up in:

• Supply chain dependencies and export controls
• Port and transportation security
• Cyber intrusions against public and private infrastructure
• Financial system integrity and sanctions enforcement
• Agricultural land, critical minerals, and strategic investments

A stronger approach is coordinated: multiple agencies publishing aligned assessments on the same schedule, ideally tied to the administration’s annual budget. That builds a more complete picture for the public and reduces the chance that national security becomes a siloed defense-only conversation.

Why this matters for AI in national security

AI is already changing how states compete: faster sensing, faster targeting cycles, more automated influence operations, and more scalable cyber campaigns.

If the U.S. wants to maintain credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, it needs not only platforms and posture—but decision advantage. Public reporting is part of that. Done well, it shapes allied alignment, market behavior, and political will.

Done poorly—late, dense, hard to operationalize—it becomes shelfware.

What an “actionable” China report looks like in 2026

Answer first: An actionable China Military Power Report is timely, measurable, and connected to decision cycles—supported by AI-enabled OSINT processes that increase update frequency without sacrificing credibility.

Here’s a concrete blueprint policymakers and defense leaders can rally around:

• A stable set of metrics year to year (shipbuilding output, missile brigades, satellite launch cadence, exercise tempo, readiness indicators where possible)
• A public update cadence (monthly/quarterly) with consistent structure
• Budget-season synchronization (report released with the defense budget request)
• Method transparency (how signals were gathered and validated)
• Cross-government alignment (parallel agency assessments on coercion and risk)

This isn’t about “more content.” It’s about turning a trusted publication into a working instrument of strategy.

A report that arrives late trains the system to respond late.

Where to start: practical next steps for leaders

If you’re in government, defense industry, or a policy team supporting either, the quickest wins are process wins:

1. Pilot a quarterly OSINT+AI update cell with strict validation and publishing rules
2. Standardize a metric dashboard that feeds both the annual report and the updates
3. Create an internal “budget linkage memo” that maps report findings to capability needs (without making spending recommendations in the report itself)
4. Red-team for disinformation risk before publishing rapid-turn updates

If you’re building technology for defense and national security, focus less on flashy demos and more on boring reliability:

• Audit trails
• Source provenance
• Human-in-the-loop workflows
• Confidence scoring that analysts actually trust

Those features are what make AI usable in real intelligence production.

The Pentagon’s China Military Power Report is already influential. The opportunity now is to make it consequential—timed to decisions, reinforced by recurring updates, and supported by AI systems that increase speed without eroding trust.

What would change in U.S. and allied planning if unclassified reporting on PLA modernization arrived every month instead of every year?