Revolution in military affairs

A revolution in military affairs (RMA) is a hypothesis in military theory about the future of warfare, often connected to technological and organizational recommendations for military reform.

Broadly stated, RMA claims that in certain periods of the history of humankind, there were new military doctrines, strategies, tactics and technologies which led to an irrecoverable change in the conduct of warfare. Furthermore, those changes compel an accelerated adaptation of novel doctrines and strategies.

In the United States, RMA is often linked to discussions such as the reorganization plan of the United States Army and total systems integration.[1]

History

The original theorizing was done by the Soviet Armed Forces in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov.[2] The United States initially became interested in it through Andrew Marshall, the head of the Office of Net Assessment, a Department of Defense think tank. It slowly gained credence within official military circles, and other nations began exploring similar shifts in organization and technology.

Interest in RMA and the structure of future U.S. armed forces is strong within China's People's Liberation Army and it has been incorporated into China's strategic military doctrine. Many other militaries have also researched and considered RMA as an organizational concept—e.g., those of Canada, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Republic of China (Taiwan), India, Russia, and Germany—but not all militaries have adopted RMA, due to its significant infrastructure and investment costs.

Soviet views

Nikolai Ogarkov called the early idea of RMA the Military Technological Revolution (MTR). Pentagon officials in the United States changed the name of his original idea, which is how it became known as RMA.[3] Orgarkov's belief that the potential and possibility for new weapons was increasing rapidly led to the development of his initial idea.

At the time of the initial development of MTR, the Soviets anticipated that certain technologies, including energy weapons and robots, would be in use by 2015 at the latest.[3] They believed that the use of large ground forces would be minimized. In place of some ground forces, these new technologies would be implemented in order to establish dominance on the battlefield. Russians also believed that control of space would become essential for maintaining dominance in future conflicts. Soviets believed that it would be essential to control the satellite space around earth, in order to more effectively relay information. They also anticipated the ability to use space as a medium in which they could deploy weapons.[3]

Renewed interest

The United States' victory in the 1991 Gulf War renewed interest in RMA theory. In the view of RMA proponents, American dominance through superior technology emphasized how the United States' technological advances reduced the relative power of the Iraqi military, by no means a lightweight rival, to insignificance. According to Stephen Biddle, part of the growth in popularity of the RMA theory after the Gulf War was that virtually all American military experts drastically over-estimated the coalition casualty count. This led many experts to assume that their models of war were wrong—that a revolution of sorts had occurred.[4]

After the Kosovo War, in which the United States did not lose a single life, others suggested that war had become too sterile, creating a "virtual war". Furthermore, the United States’ inability to capture Osama bin Laden or effectively combat the Iraqi insurgency led some to question RMA in the face of asymmetrical warfare, in which foes of the United States may increasingly engage in order to counter RMA's advantages.

In 1997, the U.S. Army mounted an exercise codenamed "Force 21", to test the application of digital technologies in warfare in order to improve communications and logistics by applying private-sector technologies adapted for military use. Specifically, it sought to increase awareness of one's position on the battlefield as well as that of the enemy, in order to achieve increased lethality, greater control of the tempo of warfare, and fewer instances of friendly fire via improved identification friend or foe.[5]

In 2002, Chris Bray described RMA as new ideas about "the use of information and automation on the battlefield" to make forces "more lethal" and "more agile."[6]

Areas of focus

One of the central problems in understanding the current debate over RMA arises from many theorists' use of the term to refer to the revolutionary technology itself, which is the driving force of change. Concurrently, other theorists tend to use the term as referring to revolutionary adaptations by military organisations that may be necessary to deal with the changes in technology. Other theorists place RMA more closely inside the specific political and economic context of globalization and the end of the Cold War.

When reviewing the gamut of theories, three fundamental versions of RMA come to the forefront. The first perspective focuses primarily upon changes in the nation-state and the role of an organised military in using force. This approach highlights the political, social, and economic factors worldwide, which might require a completely different type of military and organisational structure to apply force in the future.

Authors such as the RAND Corporation's Sean J. A. Edwards (advocate of BattleSwarm tactics, a type of military swarming), Carl H. Builder and Lt. Col. Ralph Peters emphasized the decline of the nation-state, the nature of the emerging international order, and the different types of forces needed in the near future.

The second perspective—most commonly assigned the term RMA—highlights the evolution of weapons technology, information technology, military organization, and military doctrine among advanced powers. This "System of Systems" perspective on RMA has been ardently supported by Admiral William Owens, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who identified three overlapping areas for force assets. These are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, command, control, communications and intelligence processing, which allows for the use of precision force.

Advanced versions of RMA incorporate other sophisticated technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. Recently, the RMA debate focussed on "network-centric warfare" which is a doctrine that aims to connect all troops on the battlefield.

Finally, the third concept is that a "true" revolution in military affairs has not yet occurred or is unlikely to. Authors such as Michael E. O'Hanlon and Frederick Kagan, point to the fact much of the technology and weapons systems ascribed to the contemporary RMA were in development long before 1991 and the Internet and information technology boom.

Several critics point out that a "revolution" within the military ranks might carry detrimental consequences, produce severe economic strain, and ultimately prove counterproductive. Such authors tend to profess a much more gradual "evolution" in military affairs, as opposed to a rapid revolution.

Precision attack
Further information: Precision bombing and Surgical strike

In considering the implications of precision attack, it is clear that precision weapons, when coupled to recent developments in aerospace, have transformed warfare, and as a result, the question is not that "Does an RMA exist?" rather, "When did it begin, and what are its implications?" Tied to this are surprisingly persistent questions about the use and value of air power, now more accurately seen as aerospace power. If nothing else, given the record of precision air power application, aerospace power advocates should not still have to spend as much time as they do arguing the merits of three-dimensional war and precision attack's value to it. Modern joint service aerospace forces offer the most responsive, flexible, lethal, and devastating form of power projection across the spectrum of conflict, employing a range of aerospace weaponry such as maritime patrol aircraft, attack and troop-lift helicopters, land-based long-range aircraft, and battlefield rocket artillery systems. Service-specific aerospace power can often be formidable and, as such, has transformed conflict from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, and has changed the critical focus of conflict from that of seizing and holding to one of halting and controlling.

In reviewing a few points from the military history of the 20th century, within roughly a decade of the first flight of an airplane, aircraft were having an occasionally decisive effect on the battlefield. Within four decades, a nation—Great Britain—secured its national survival through air warfare. By the midst of the Second World War, three-dimensional attack (from above and below the surface) had become the primary means of sinking both vessels at sea and destroying the combat capability of armies on land. In fact, for the United States, this trend of inflicting losses and material destruction primarily through air attack continued after the second world war for Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Bosnia, and other, lesser, conflicts. In particular, air attack directed against land forces has been especially powerful in blunting and destroying opponents on the offensive, whether in older experience—such as confronting Rommel in the Western Desert, or Nazi armored forces trying to split the Normandy invasion at Mortain, or at the Bulge (where German commanders credited Allied fighter attacks on fuel trucks and supplies as being the decisive factor in halting their drive), in the opening and closing stages of the Korean War, and confronting the 1972 North Vietnamese Spring Invasion—or, more recently, in destroying the Khafji offensive of Saddam Hussein in 1991. NATO's reliance upon air power in the Yugoslav Wars was not surprising because from the very earliest days, the NATO alliance saw air power as the linchpin of Western military strength and the necessary offset to the Warsaw Pact's huge military forces.

Given its historical underpinnings, we should not be surprised that the revolution in warfare that has been brought about both by the confluence of the aerospace and the electronic revolutions, and by the offshoot of both—the precision guided munition—is one that has been a long time coming, back to the Second World War, back, even, to the experimenters of the First World War who attempted, however crudely, to develop "smart" weapons to launch from airships and other craft. Used almost experimentally until the latter stages of the Vietnam War, the precision weapon since that time has increasingly come to first influence, then dominate, and now perhaps to render superfluous, the traditional notion of a linear battlefield.

Criticism

The revolution of military affairs is the inclusion and expansion of new technology—e.g., drones, satellite imaging, and remotely operated vehicles—within current military tactics. RMA has generally been praised for its ability to reduce casualty rates and facilitate intelligence gathering. On the other hand, some critics argue that RMA serves to further dissociate soldiers from the horrific realities of warfare, while others maintain that RMA restricts the overall understanding of warfare and its dynamics.[7] Scholars recommend gaining a critical understanding of RMA before implementing it.

Operation Desert Storm is considered the first major global conflict successfully implementing RMA and is considered a paragon of future military operations due to the low casualty rate and the U.S. military's speed and precision. On the other hand, others claim that RMA technology severely inhibited the U.S. military's ability to respond to guerrilla tactics and that efforts to incorporate advanced weapons like Patriot missiles were unsuccessful.[7] Indeed, a number of epistemological issues have cropped up.

In the wake of RMA technologies such as drones, unmanned ground vehicles, and clean bombs there are several concerns about the distancing and disassociation that eclipse the realities of war. An analysis of tactical strikes reveals that while the number of ones own soldiers may be preserved as the number of long-range attacks increases, so does collateral damage.[7] Furthermore, by removing the soldier-on-soldier element of warfare, the natural reactions and consequences of wartime actions are impacted, which has been frequently referred to as the removal of humanity from war. RMA technological advances have resulted in a dehumanizing of warfare, which negatively effects the decisions made by officers, as well as individuals in the field.[7] Another critique argues that RMA's good intentions notwithstanding, the resulting collateral damage is unacceptable and thus urges more careful consideration in incorporating RMA technology.[7]

Stephen Biddle's 2004 book, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern War, discounts the idea of RMA. He argues that military doctrine and tactics are far more important to battle outcomes in modern warfare than is technological progress, and that basic doctrine has changed little since the second half of World War I.[8]

See also

US military-specific:

References
  1. JI, YOU (1999). "The Revolution in Military Affairs and the Evolution of China's Strategic Thinking". Contemporary Southeast Asia. 21 (3): 344–364. doi:10.1355/CS21-3B. ISSN 0129-797X. JSTOR 25798464.
  2. Steven Metz, James Kievit. "Strategy and the Revolution in Military Affairs: From Theory to Policy" June 27, 1995
  3. Mowthorpe, Matthew (Summer 2005). "The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA): The United States, Russian and Chinese Views". The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies. 30: 137–153.
  4. Biddle, Stephen (2006). Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 20. ISBN 9781400837823. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  5. The United States Army 1995 Modernization Plan. Force 21
  6. Bray, Chris (1 February 2002). "The Media and GI Joe". Reason.com. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  7. Blanchard, Eric M. (2011). The Technoscience Question in Feminist International Relations: Unmanning the U.S. War on Terror. London: Routledge.
  8. Cohen, Eliot A (June 2005). "Stephen Biddle on Military Power". Journal of Strategic Studies. 28 (3): 413–424. doi:10.1080/01402390500137259.

Further reading
  • Alexander, John B., Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First-Century Warfare, New York, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Griffin, 1999 ISBN 0-312-26739-8
  • Arquilla, John and David F. Ronfeldt (eds.), In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age, Santa Monica, CA, RAND Corporation, 1997 ISBN 0-8330-2514-7
  • Barnett, Thomas P.M., The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, New York & London, Penguin, 2004 ISBN 0-399-15175-3
  • Broad, William, Judith Miller and Stephen Engelberg, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2001 ISBN 0-684-87159-9
  • DerDerian, James, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, Westview Press Inc. 2001 ISBN 0-8133-9794-4
  • Edwards, Sean A. J., Swarming on the Battlefield: Past, Present, and Future, Palo Alto, CA, RAND Research, 2000 ISBN 0-8330-2779-4
  • Gongora, Thierry and Harald von Riekhoff (eds.), Toward a Revolution in Military Affairs?: Defense and Security at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 2000 ISBN 0-313-31037-8
  • Gray, Colin S., Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and The Evidence of History, London, Frank Cass, 2004 ISBN 0-7146-8483-X
  • Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, Hamish Hamilton, 2005 ISBN 0-241-14240-7
  • Henrotin, Joseph, La technologie militaire en question, Paris, Economica, 2008.
  • Kagan, Donald and Frederick W. Kagan, While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness and the Threat to Peace Today, New York, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000 ISBN 0-312-28374-1
  • Knox, MacGregor and Williamson Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300-2050, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001 ISBN 978-0-521-80079-2
  • Krames, Jeffrey A., The Rumsfeld Way, New York & Chicago, McGraw-Hill, 2002 ISBN 0-07-140641-7
  • Landa, Manuel de, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, New York, Zone Books, 1991 ISBN 0-942299-76-0
  • Rumsfeld, Donald H., Transforming the Military, in: Foreign Affairs, vol. 81, No. 3, May/June, 2002, pp. 20–32.
  • Ugtoff, Victor (ed.), The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order, Cambridge & London, The MIT Press, 2000 ISBN 0-262-71005-6
  • Cohen, Eliot A. 1995. Come the Revolution. National Review, July 31, 26+.
  • Schwartzstein, Stuart J.D. (ed.), The Information Revolution and National Security: Dimensions and Directions, Washington, D.C., The Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1996 ISBN 0-89206-288-6
  • Tomes, Robert R., US Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the New American Way of War, 1973–2003, 2007 ISBN 0-415-77252-4
  • John Gordon, "Transforming for What? Challenges Facing Western Militaries Today", Focus stratégique, Paris, Ifri, November 2008.
  • Dajun Huo. Study on Networked Swarming Warfare. Beijing: National Defense University Press.2013
  • Asymmetric Warfare and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) Debate sponsored by the Project on Defense Alternatives
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