WASHINGTON — The United States has charged a senior officer in the Chinese People's Liberation Army with orchestrating decades of cyber attacks against US agencies intended to destroy the military talent management system from within.

"The Chinese basically built an algorithm to identify toxic leaders and hacked HR to put them on the fast track to becoming generals and admirals," said an intelligence official familiar with the Chinese efforts. "It could take us years to recover from this."

According to an FBI investigation, Sr. Col. Cha Buduo coordinated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security and a Chinese-based hacking group known as APT4 to attack U.S. Army Human Resources Command, the Air Force Personnel Center, and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps human resource activities. Their objectives included encouraging the most talented junior officers to resign, preventing the promotion of officers with advanced degrees, selecting toxic leaders for senior commands and promoting the most egotistical and venal officers to the flag rank. The Coast Guard does not appear to have been targeted.

"Actually, we're not even sure China knows the Coast Guard exists," the official said.