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When leaders fire their top generals, they may be clearing the path to war or quietly sabotaging their own military.

On Jan. 24, 2026, China’s defense ministry announced that the nation’s highest-ranking general, Zhang Youxia, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, was under investigation for unspecified violations of laws and political discipline. Since 2022, General Secretary Xi Jinping has removed five of the six generals serving on the Central Military Commission, including Zhang. In less than three years, dozens of other senior military officials have also been removed. Many of these officers were promoted by Xi after he assumed power in 2012, when he pledged to eliminate endemic corruption within the armed forces.

This unprecedented wave of purges among the highest-ranking generals has prompted questions regarding the implications for China’s international and military ambitions: How do military purges affect authoritarian regimes’ propensity to initiate war?

Military purges in affect the likelihood of war initiation through two distinct mechanisms: the impact on regime elites’ capacity to constrain and remove state leaders, and the impact on the military’s war-fighting capability. Crucially, these mechanisms point in opposite directions — one increasing the likelihood of conflict, the other dampening it.

On one hand, purges targeting senior military officers — particularly those with significant influence — can weaken the collective ability of regime elites to constrain and punish leaders. Freed from meaningful internal accountability, ambitious leaders may be emboldened to take greater risks. Historically, such unchecked risk appetite has tended to manifest in external military aggression.

On the other hand, extensive purges at the senior command level reliably erode the military’s combat effectiveness, degrading leadership depth, cohesion within the armed forces, and operational coordination. State leaders seeking success in war and wishing to avoid defeat are therefore unlikely to initiate armed conflict immediately following such purges or to remove top officers in the lead-up to planned hostilities. This logic indicates that the likelihood of conflict initiation decreases in the wake of major military purges.

For U.S. strategy toward China, this tension is not merely academic. U.S. strategists should resist the temptation to privilege one of these mechanisms over the other. Relying solely on the emboldened-leader logic risks underestimating the degradation of China’s actual warfighting capacity, and relying solely on the capability-reduction logic risks ignoring the loosening of internal checks on Xi’s risk tolerance. Sound strategy requires tracking both dimensions simultaneously — and recognizing that their relative weight may shift as the purges continue.

Purges and Elites’ Punishment Ability

Purges, especially those targeting high-ranking military officers, can increase the leaders’ tendencies to initiate a war because they make it harder for regime elites to credibly threaten to punish the leaders for their policy outcomes.

The most critical factor in explaining policy choices by authoritarian regimes, including war initiation, is whether regime elites such as high-ranking military officers and party officials can credibly threaten to sanction and oust leaders. Even when elites hold top positions — such as cabinet posts, the chairs of ruling parties, or high-level posts within coercive institutions like the Central Military Commission in China — leaders can sidestep them and make decisions without consultation. The only way to prevent such opportunism and to influence decisions effectively is for elites to have strong punishment power, meaning the credible ability to organize collective action to sanction and, ultimately, remove leaders if dissatisfied with their actions.

In highly institutionalized regimes such as China, leadership removals and challenges typically occur through formal party deliberation processes led by civilian officials, rather than through military coups. Nevertheless, the willingness of senior military officers and individuals with access to the armed forces to support civilian-led efforts to remove leaders remains a critical determinant of the likelihood and success of such attempts. As a result, leaders attempt to safeguard their positions by closely monitoring civilian elites who possess strong military connections. Research indicates that in China, civilian officials with extensive military ties — such as those who have served alongside multiple military officers in the same geographic region, participated in overlapping committees, or developed personal relationships — are significantly less likely to be promoted to higher-tier institutions, including the Politburo Standing Committee.

How do purges diminish regime elites’ capacity for punishment?

Purged officers lose access to the resources, personnel, and institutional standing essential for organizing challenges against leaders. At the horizontal level, removal from high-level meetings and institutional gatherings severs their ties with peers, undermining the elite coordination that is critical for organizing efforts to depose leaders. At the vertical level, the loss of command positions and the ability to distribute rewards erodes their influence over subordinates — a dynamic further compounded by the stigma of being publicly labeled as anti-regime or anti-Party, which makes other elites and subordinates reluctant to maintain ties with them for fear of guilt by association. As a result, purges significantly reduce the likelihood that targeted officers will serve as focal points for future leadership challenges.

Purges serve not only as reactionary responses but also as preventive strategies, implemented before individuals exhibit overt signs of disloyalty. Elites who occupy key positions with access to significant resources, even if initially perceived as non-threatening, can develop personal followings and establish connections with other influential actors, potentially creating alternative centers of power. Although Xi’s specific motivation for purging Zhang, previously regarded as a close ally, remains unclear, retaining someone like Zhang — respected for competence, intellect, and combat experience — in a powerful position for an extended period poses a risk. Leaders must prevent the formation of such power bases by ensuring that no elite remains in a key position for an extended duration.

Purges and Elite Backlash

Leaders, however, must exercise caution when attempting to weaken the elites’ ability to oust a leader through purges. Dismissing powerful rival elites can provoke immediate backlash, often in the form of coups d’état.

Due to the significant risk of being overthrown by such a backlash coup, research shows that, paradoxically, elite military purges tend to occur only when the military lacks the organizational capacity to mount a successful coup against the leader’s authority.

Therefore, when military purges of top-ranking officers are carried out without provoking backlash from either military or civilian elites, leaders further consolidate their strength relative to rival elites. The inability of purged officers to deter such actions, combined with the absence of elite retaliation, reinforces the perception among elites that leaders possess absolute power. As a result, officers become increasingly unwilling to challenge leadership, making it more difficult to organize future opposition. Cross-national data confirms this logic: Military purges within the past three years reduce the likelihood of a successful removal attempt by nearly 13 percent.

Elites’ Punishment Ability and War Initiation

What are the implications of successful purges for initiating war?

Reductions in the ability of elites to sanction and restrain leaders because of successful purges are considered to increase a regime’s propensity to initiate wars. Research has shown that — such as President Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s North Korea — are more prone to military conflicts than authoritarian regimes with robust elite checks or democracies. This is due to two reasons.

First, the absence of strong elites capable of punishing leaders results in fewer constraints on policy implementation and less accountability for policy outcomes. As a result, leaders can initiate war unchecked and take greater risks, aware that regime elites are unlikely to impose sanctions even in the event of policy failures, including military defeat. The potential for postwar punishment, as by the Argentine junta’s removal of President Leopoldo Galtieri after the Falklands conflict, often acts as a significant deterrent to leaders who might otherwise pursue risky or reckless policies. In contrast, personalist leaders typically remain in power even after defeat in full-scale wars. The likelihood of these leaders being removed following military defeat is considerably lower than for non-personalist counterparts, making them less cautious and to initiating military conflicts.

Second, leaders who consolidate power through purges and coercion are often selected for personal characteristics that increase their likelihood of employing military force. The process of becoming a personalist dictator through violence and purges favors individuals with expansive international ambitions who view military force as an effective, and sometimes necessary, tool for resolving disputes. For instance, Brotherly Leader Moammar Gadhafi of Libya exemplified such ambition when he proclaimed himself the “King of Kings” in 2008, convening over 200 traditional leaders and expressing his aspiration for a unified African government under his leadership. President Saddam Hussein believed that it was his destiny to lead Iraq to the apex of Middle Eastern regional politics and that violence was the key to his political ambitions, whether domestic or international. Xi fits this pattern, demonstrating significant ambition and seeking to reshape the global order to reflect Chinese interests through coercion and the use of force.

Once elites lose the capacity to constrain and punish national leaders, the initiation of conflict becomes subject to the discretion of personalist leaders, who often exhibit excessive ambitions to power through violent means.

The 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam exemplifies this dynamic. Having systematically purged potential rivals and rendered the regime coup-proof, he proceeded with the invasion without adequate assessment of the associated costs or substantive consultation with senior military officers and civilian elites. He acted with minimal concern for potential repercussions in the event of military failure, as no elite actors could credibly threaten punishment in the event of such an outcome. His indifference to the prospect of failure proved warranted: Despite a devastating defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam retained power for more than a decade. Scholars draw a similar line to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022, arguing that his prior consolidation of power — through the marginalization of potential rivals and the subordination of the security services to his personal authority — allowed him to assume significant military risks free from credible elite punishments.

Purges and Military Effectiveness  

An additional critical aspect in assessing the implications of purges for an authoritarian regime’s conflict propensity is their impact on military fighting capabilities and combat effectiveness. The removal of rival officers enables leaders to diminish the military’s punitive capacity and decrease their own vulnerability to coup threats. However, this strategy frequently undermines the military’s operational effectiveness and battlefield performance, thereby increasing the vulnerability of both the leader and the regime to external threats.

Purges undermine military effectiveness in war in two ways. First, the removal and demotion of competent, experienced officers, along with the promotion of individuals based on political loyalty rather than merit, reduce the overall quality of the armed forces, inhibiting the cultivation of essential leadership skills necessary for effective warmaking. In such regimes, officers who demonstrate competence and intelligence during training or on the battlefield may become targets of purges, as those who easily win battles can also plot conspiracies against the leaders. To avoid being seen as disloyal, officers are incentivized to provide information that aligns with the leader’s preferences rather than offering professional and accurate assessments of military situations.

Second, purges and frequent officer rotations prevent the establishment of cohesive relationships between officers and their troops, which are necessary for successful coordination during military operations. Frequent dismissals and demotions also hinder the development of interservice communication and regular interactions required for coordinated military operations, ultimately diminishing battlefield effectiveness.

Saddam routinely dismissed competent officers to prevent the rise of potential rivals, instead promoting individuals primarily based on political loyalty. These recurring purges and other coup-proofing measures ultimately weakened the military capabilities necessary to confront foreign adversaries. As a result, the Iraqi military demonstrated limited capacity to conduct complex operations during both the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Similarly, some attribute the Russian armed forces’ inadequate combat performance in the initial stages of the war against Ukraine to Putin’s coup-proofing strategies, including purges.

China’s ongoing purges suggest this dynamic is already underway. Zhang was one of the few Chinese commanders with substantial battle experience, having served in the Sino-Vietnamese border conflict from 1979 to 1989. Gen. Liu Zhenli, who was purged alongside Zhang, also brought rare frontline credentials to his role as chief of staff of the Central Military Commission’s joint staff department. Their removal created a shortage of senior leaders with the operational and combat expertise needed to shape realistic training and effective command structures. Rebuilding this capacity through the development of younger officers will likely take several years. If Xi continues to prioritize political loyalty over professional merit in promotions and removes experienced officers whose assessments diverge from his own, the People’s Liberation Army’s combat effectiveness will likely face persistent and compounding challenges.

These cases highlight a key consideration for leaders designing coercive institutions. Although purges help eliminate rivals and consolidate power, they simultaneously degrade the military forces that leaders depend on for success in war. State leaders anticipating war or heightened foreign threats are therefore unlikely to remove top-ranking officers with combat experience immediately beforehand. When confronted with both significant coup risks and external threats, leaders often prioritize self-preservation, sometimes continuing purges even during periods of acute perceptions of foreign threats. Nevertheless, leaders generally seek military victory and aim to avoid defeat, prompting them to modify their approaches to coercive institution design in response to increased foreign threats.

For instance, once Saddam realized that losing the war against Iran could lead to his removal from power by the Iranians or his own frustrated officer corps, he shifted away from purges and other coup-proofing policies. He began promoting officers on merit and encouraged active communication and training among his commanders, which rapidly improved the Iraqi military’s capabilities and performance from 1987 to 1988.

Recent research also shows that Chinese leaders promoted officers with combat experience more frequently during periods of heightened foreign threats than at other times. This strategy aimed to improve war performance and build a professional military to defend against foreign adversaries. The 1999 accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia increased tensions between China and the United States and altered the Chinese leadership’s perception of the threat posed by the United States. In response, Chinese leaders reassessed the threat, increased the People’s Liberation Army budget, and prepared to counter a strong adversary. During this period, officers with combat experience were more likely to be promoted to general-level positions or to the Central Military Commission.

In short, military purges that could undermine battlefield performance are unlikely to occur if leaders anticipate initiating wars in the near future. When planning a major war, leaders are more likely to promote experienced and competent officers rather than remove top-ranking personnel with significant combat experience and training.

Conclusion 

Military purges in authoritarian regimes do not have a single, predictable effect on war initiation. As this analysis has shown, purges simultaneously embolden state leaders by weakening elite accountability and constrain them by degrading military effectiveness — and these forces pull in opposite directions.

Which effect predominates in China likely depends on factors such as Xi’s desire for military victory and avoidance of failure, his assessment of the possibility of elite punishment after military defeats, and his view of the military’s war-fighting capabilities, which are likely to be influenced by filtered information from officers who are unlikely to bring him bad news

Given the significant implications for regional and global stability, U.S. strategy toward China cannot afford to privilege one mechanism over the other. Sound policy requires continuously assessing the relative weight of each effect — and remaining alert to how that balance may shift as Xi’s purges continue to reshape both the political landscape and the operational capacity of the People’s Liberation Army.

Jun Sudduth is an associate professor of political science at the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Image: Пресс-служба Президента России via Wikimedia Commons