[rekabis]

Beyond the loyalty angle, this is a pretty stupid play. Sure, China has about 2B people, so good strategists should be reasonably available, but it takes decades of training and experience to make an effective battlefield general. If they actually intend to go all imperialist and start doing truly stupid things like invading Taiwan, they are going to get absolutely plastered without a good cadre of experienced officers and enlisted men. And the “vanishing” of the upper echelons is only attractive to yes men and sycophants; the ones who will be the least effective in any real engagement.

Now, from that aforementioned loyalty angle… this definitely works. If you purge dissent and people with a history of lateral, non-conforming thinking, you most definitely get a system where people ask “how high?” when you scream “jump!”.

I mean, Trump has been doing much the same with the American military, albeit less dark (only relieving them of their positions). It’s the authoritarian/fascist playbook in action, and it will mean much less resistance in the ranks when ‘murica decides to invade Canada, or Greenland, or any other juicy target.