Ritualized Coordination in the PLA Rocket Force: Nuclear Deterrence, Control, and Sacrifice

Abstract

This article analyzes how China’s People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) uses ritual-like practices to convey specific political messages, around Party control of nuclear weapons and soldiers’ willingness to die for the state. The PLARF has a politically challenging mission, not only to meet the expectations of credible deterrence of its political masters in the Communist Party, but also in the eyes of its adversaries abroad. Consequently, it is insufficient for the PLARF to simply state their willingness to use nuclear weapons. Drawing on the work of Religious Studies scholar Catherine Bell, this article argues that ritualization builds staid policy statements into something reassuring to Chinese elites. Official doctrine calls for the choreographed display of weapons and troops, emphasizing their abilities but crucially also their loyalty to the Party and willingness to sacrifice themselves. To theorize how ritualized practices become politically successful, I turn to the sociologist Randall Collins. Using his interaction ritual chain framework, I argue that rituals produce the shared emotional energy required to agitate troops. PLARF leaders attempt to create symbols and meanings that overspill the immediate scene of the ritual and encounter the domestic and international audiences they target for messaging. Considering ritualizations relating to solidarity, symbolic repair, and sacrifice, this article demonstrates the PLARF addresses multiple goals and audiences with different kinds of ritual-like practices.