Revolution in Military Affairs - Essay Example

REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS Intro American military strategy is in flux. It is too early to tell how the experience of Operation Iraqi Freedom or the unpredictable changes in post-9.11 American national security, including shifts in defense transformation, will influence the further evolution of American military strategy. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is likely to be the last conflict to showcase what has been called a new American way of war - what in the 1990s was called an American revolution in military affairs. Definition of RMA Notwithstanding its longevity in defense and academic historical discourse, RMA remains a deeply contested concept. Its historical reality is contested, as indeed is just about everything else about it: for example, its content, utility, and significance. Probably the most widely used and accepted detailed definition was provided by Andrew F. Krepinevich in an influential article published in 1994. As a close associate of Andrew W. Marshall, the American godfather of the RMA concept, Krepinevich's definition carried unusual weight. He explained RMA as "What is a military revolution It is what occurs when the application of new technologies into a significant number of military systems combines with innovative operational concepts and organizational adaptation in a way that fundamentally alters the character and conduct of conflict. It does so by producing a dramatic increase-often an order of magnitude or greater-in the combat potential and military effectiveness of armed forces". (1). Evolution of RMA Thesis Soviet writers actually coined the term RMA in the 1950s to describe changes in warfare wrought by nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. In identifying American military capabilities with an RMA, Soviet and then U.S. military analysts were communicating something profound about the historical importance of U.S. long-range precision strike capabilities, which were replicating the battlefield effects small nuclear weapons had on armored forces. (2). American military innovation during the Cold War largely involved responses to three related sources of strategic and operational necessity: attempts to correct or stabilize imbalances in the nuclear deterrence equation; challenges in peripheral regions that had the potential to escalate into a crisis; specific operational threats to U.S. or NATO forces that had strategic implications for East-West stability. (3). By the 1980s, security challenges in each area called for advanced conventional warfighting forces. Conventional warfighting innovations were pursued to restore deterrence credibility in Europe. A wellspring of studies and prolific media references to 'revolutionary' warfighting capabilities permeated defense planning discussions following the American military victory over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Even among the more conservative analysts, defense planning discussions and military thought were dominated by an American RMA thesis. This thesis faded in the late-1990s but remains central to more recent defense transformation discussions. (4). The RMA Thesis Usually identified in hindsight, after a stunning military success, RMAs involve radical changes in the conduct of military operations and sometimes even the characterization of war-fighting. The 1990s witnessed a shift in American military thought and defense discourse as new terms and concepts were widely used to describe U.S. military forces, doctrine, and capabilities. (3). The American RMA thesis holds that a historically significant shift in U.S. military power was underway by the end of the Cold War based on the synergy of advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, automated target identification systems, information-enabled weapons, superior education and training, and joint war-fighting capabilities. Among the RMA terminology retained in U.S. defense discourse are terms like information superiority, rapid dominance, dominant battle-space knowledge, common operating pictures, decision superiority, persistent surveillance, and full spectrum dominance. (4).The same changes in military effectiveness that analysts dubbed revolutionary in the 1990s are underwriting shifts in national security strategy, including the mention of preemptive military strikes within national security planning documents. Opposition of RMA Thesis After a decade of arguments and rhetoric about an ongoing RMA, too little analysis exists on the innovations anteceding the fielding of so-called "revolutionary" American military capabilities. (5).Much of the RMA thesis that dominated 1990s defense planning discourse seems inappropriate as a guide to preparing the military for an expanded the Global War on Terrorism or even the 'stability operations' (e.g., peace keeping, counterinsurgency) defense planners now associate with defense transformation. During the 1980s, American military strategy diversified, losing its nuclear-centric focus. Conventional deterrence theory ascended in national security discussions. Information technology began to be viewed as the foundation of battlefield weapons systems and war-fighting capabilities. Specific technological innovations included long-range precision strike capabilities drawing on GPS, theater reconnaissance assets, and information-enabled, integrated weapons platforms. U.S. defense spending nearly tripled during this period. (6). As the 1980s closed, the narrative of nuclear strategy no longer dominated defense discourse and the key elements of the information-enabled precision reconnaissance-strike system were under development or already in service. By the early 2000s, nuclear strategy slipped to the margins of national security studies and all but disappeared from core public debates about defense planning. Indeed, the only noticeable public discussion of nuclear weapons concerned the proposed development of new, low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons to attack underground facilities and bunkers that conventional weapons could not destroy. (7). Revolutionary change in warfare is that it is a process that must mature over time. The effectiveness of revolutionary change in warfare lies not in the new style of combat itself, as the RMA thesis claims but very much in the military and strategic contexts of its application. Changes in warfare cannot be effected overnight. They have to be the product of a process of evolution. There is an obvious circularity of argument threatening here. We can only be certain that an RMA has occurred when a revolutionary style of warfare is demonstrated successfully in battle. But, new styles of warfare do not always succeed. Importance of RMA The thesis has dominated American defense discourse for more than a decade. Even September 11, 2001 (9/11), and the consequent paying of extra attention to countering terrorism and to homeland security, generally failed to deflect the march towards execution of an information-led revolution in the conduct of war. (8).The RMA thesis holds that revolutions in warfare happen, and that they render obsolete an existing way in combat. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of that proposition. Whether or not it is true, or true enough to warrant respect as a general verity, is another matter. A problem with the RMA thesis is that it encourages its devotees to overreach with their expectations of consequent advantage. There are two principal reasons why this should be so. First, even a genuinely revolutionary change in the conduct of warfare simply may not deliver the "dramatic increase" in military effectiveness that the Krepinevich definition promises. Moreover, even if it does so deliver, the military and strategic output may fall far short of ensuring success. There is, after all, more to war than warfare. Second, if we recall the first of the Clausewitzian epigraphs to this monograph, it is a persistent fact that warfare manifests itself in many varieties, often even within the same war. One size of revolutionary military change is unlikely to fit all cases of American strategic need. (9). Epilogue No polity, including the United States today, ever is permitted to enjoy for long, unchallenged, the benefits of a successful revolutionary way in warfare. This claim rests on the rock-solid basis of the anarchic structure of international politics, past, present, and, we can say with confidence, future. The core competency of a military force is the ability to apply sufficient violence that the polity's enemies lose the will and, if need be, the ability, to resist further. In a long period of peace when they cannot test their prowess, military establishments tend to forget that war is their business and that fighting is their distinctive contribution to that institution. There is something to be said in favor of Murray and Knox's claim that "only the audit of war, a war conducted against a significantly backward opponent, will demonstrate that an RMA has occurred."(10). But the experience of trouncing hopeless adversaries is as likely to mislead as it is to enlighten. After all, we are not interested in revolutionary change as an end in itself, in the mere fact of its achievement. Rather are we always, and solely, concerned with understanding its consequences. (10). REFERENCES 1. Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions," The National Interest, No. 37, Fall 1994, p. 30. 2. Martin C. Libicki, "The Emerging Primacy of Information," Orbis, Vol. 40, No. 2, Spring 1996, pp. 261-274. 3. Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century, New York: Free Press, 2003, p. 179. 4. J. C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989 5. Bevin Alexander, 2002. How Wars are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror (New York: Crown Publishers), p. 3. 6. Mahnken, 1989, Uncovering Ways of War, pp. 179-180. 7. Clausewitz, 1954, p. 89. 8. John Keegan, The Iraq War, London: Hutchinson, 2004, p. 6. 9. Gray, 1999, Strategy for Chaos, esp. pp. 274-275. 10. Murray and Knox, 2001, "Conclusion: The Future Before Us," p. 193. Read More