Word: pla
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...classic pincer tactics that the Germans had used so effectively against the Russians in the Second World War. With the Palestinian Liberation Army effectively cut off from Egyptian reen-forcements, the Israelis were able to capture Gaza City before the morning of the 6th. About three quarters of the PLA is composed of Palestinian refugees who live in incredibly compact refugee camps around Gaza City. With a little work by the Egyptians, many of the 215,000 refuges could have been resettled, but Nasser has left them on the Israeli border as a potential weapon in any all-out attack...
...Party secretaries were drawn from the Central Committee in 88 per cent of the cases, and by 1966 this had only dropped to slightly less than 70 per cent. The lack of upward mobility--indeed, the reverse of such mobility--is best illustrated in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Using the key post of political commissar in the provinces, there are now more Central Committee members holding this post than in 1960. Any number of examples can be cited to show the lack of upward mobility in other Chinese institutions. A particularly interesting case is found within the Communist...
With one hand on the handle, the PLA axe is very useful, and they know it. With two hands fighting for it, life becomes hazardous for the men of the PLA. When the axe finally has to fall, they want to be sure that it doesn't chop off their own heads
They are not encouraged by scatered reports that PLA units in some areas have alreadly actively committed themselves to the Maoists, while in other areas they are siding with the opposition. Such an uncertain situation forces army officers, as it does many others in China, to be wary of precipitate action. They may hope that by delaying they will gain time to pick out the eventual winner...
Their squeamishness, some analysts think, stems from an old argument among army officers that many observers thought Lin had settled years ago. In the late 1950's, many professional officers, including the Defense Minister at that time, P'eng Tehhuai, complained that the PLA was asked to spend too much time bringing in harvests and building dams. The officers wanted to build a crack modern army and felt too little time was left for military training. China, they thought, should swallow its pride and a little ideology and accept Russian help in building modern weapons stockpiles, including atomic bombs...