DTIC ADA360252: Revolutions in Military Affairs

8 Pages·1.3 MB·English

by  Defense Technical Information Center

in Military Affairs
By JAMES R. FITZSIMONDS and JAN M. VAN TOL
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In the early morning hours of the 15th of Blitzkrieg has been termed a revolution
May, 1940, Prime Minister Churchill re- in military affairs or RMA—a fundamental
ceived an urgent telephone call pom French change in the nature of warfare that the
Premier Reynaud. "We are beaten," Rey- Wehrmacht used to inflict a rapid, stunning
naud said in distressed English, "we have lost defeat on a qualitatively comparable, numer-
the battle." It had only been five days since the ically superior force. Many factors con-
German army launched a broad offensive into tributed to the Allied collapse, but the
France and the Low Countries. "Surely it can't essence of the German victory was the inno-
have happened so soon," Churchill replied, in- vative operational exploitation of systems
credulous at the rapidity of the defeat.1 Six common to both sides: the tank, airplane,
weeks later, France formally surrendered. and radio. Speed, surprise, and deception,
Technological change may revolutionize warfare in the next century. Nations whk.ii ran exploit emerging
technologies through innovative operational doctrine and organizational adaptation may achieve significant
gains in relative military effectiveness. In the past, America has had sufficient lime to adapt in the midst of war
to military revolution* that developed in peacetime. However the proliferation of technology may no longer
afford the luxury of observing developments from the sidelines. The role of the military in developing t nncepts
to «xploit emerging technologies will be crucial in order to stay ahead of competitors* Junior office« in
particular mmt be encouraged to think about the implications of Hie emerging revolution in military affairs.
imc «vAurr zvopBottD i
24 JFQ / Spring 1994
combined with superior tactical and opera- her sister Ironside. There is not now a ship in the En-
tional performance, gave the Germans a de- glish navy apart from these two that it would not be
madness to trust to an engagement with that little
gree of relative operational superiority to
[American] Monitor.
which the Allies failed to adapt in time.
—The Times (London), 18622
While nations have always pursued inno-
vation to increase military effectiveness rela- It is difficult to precisely and consis-
tive to potential adversaries, accelerating tently define the term revolution in military
technological change, coupled with associ- affairs, though it is generally clear ex post
ated operational and organizational changes, facto when something of a revolutionary na-
has altered the character of war more pro- ture has occurred. An example of an RMA
foundly in the last two centuries than ever might be the universal change across warfare
before. The railroad, telegraph, steam-pow- driven, for instance, by the development of
ered ironclad, and rifle caused dramatic in- the airplane or atomic bomb. Another sort
creases in military effectiveness between the might be the conversion from wooden sail-
Napoleonic wars and the American Civil War. ing ships to steam-powered armored hulls in
Similar changes accompanied the introduc- the latter half of the 19th century. Still an-
tion of the machine gun, airplane, and sub- other might be a consequence of major so-
marine prior to World War I. By the outbreak cial or political upheaval, such as the French
of World War II the internal combustion en- levee en masse which dramatically altered the
gine, improved aircraft, radio, and radar made scale of land warfare. One feature common
possible revolutionary leaps in long-range, to each, and perhaps the essence of an RMA,
highly mobile operations such as Blitzkrieg is not the rapidity of the change in military
and carrier air strikes. The development of effectiveness relative to opponents, but
nuclear weapons at the end of World War II rather the magnitude of the change com-
and their subsequent mating with ballistic pared with preexisting military capabilities.
missiles marked perhaps the most profound Technological advances are usually a req-
revolution in military affairs to date. . uisite for an RMA, but technology alone is
The stunning victory of the Armed Forces not enough to achieve leaps in relative mili-
in the Gulf has stimulated increasing discus- tary effectiveness. As illustrated by Blitzkrieg,
sion of the possible emergence of a new RMA, profound change only takes place when new
which will again lead to major changes in the concepts of operations incorporating new
nature of conventional warfare. Such a revo- technologies are developed. Often this will
lution may be driven by the rapidly develop- require or result in new military organiza-
ing technologies of information processing tions which reflect the new conditions.
and stealthy, long-range precision strike. History suggests three common precon-
The following discussion has two pur- ditions to the full realization of an RMA:
poses. The first is to present the question of an ▼ Technological Development—Since the In-
emerging revolution in military affairs and sug- dustrial Revolution there has been a stream of new
gest why it may be significant. The second— technologies which intentionally or otherwise
and perhaps more important—is to encourage have had military applications. For example, devel-
the readers of Joint Force Quarterly, particularly opment of a powerful, reliable internal combus-
tion engine made possible the self-propelled vehi-
junior officers, to think and write about the ex-
cle and airplane. Mere invention, of course, is not
plosive technological advances of our day and
enough; the new technologies must also be devel-
their implications for the way militaries will be
oped into practical military systems (or systems of
organized and operate in the future.
systems as technologies become ever more com-
plex). While the tank was introduced at Cambrai
What Are RMAs?
Whereas we had available for immediate pur- in 1917, it was years before it was reliable and ro-
poses one hundred and forty-nine first-class warships, bust enough to spearhead rapid ground advances.
we have now two, these two being the Warrior and Y Doctrinal (or Operational) Innovation—To
fully exploit the potential of new systems, opera-
tional concepts incorporating and integrating the
new technologies must be developed into coher-
Commander James R. FitzSimonds, USN, and ent doctrines. Military organizations must also
Commander Jan M. van To!, USN, are assigned to train to use and interactively improve them. After
the Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the the tank's introduction into combat, it took more
Secretary of Defense.
Spring 1994 / JFQ 25
U.S. Navy (George F. Champagne)
Experimental stealth
ship SeaShacfow'm
decades of doctrinal experimentation and devel- Perhaps counter- prolonged peace
San Francisco Bay.
opment to produce Blitzkrieg. intuitively, revolu-
provides the time
T Organizational adaptation—The most pro- tionary changes do
found changes require significant bureaucratic ac- not generally occur and resources for
ceptance and institutional change. The success of
during war. The fact experimentation
Blitzkrieg required not only the technology of the
of change may be
tank and a coherent doctrine of armored warfare,
most dramatically manifested in combat, but
but also substantial organizational and even cul-
historically the most profound RMAs are
tural changes which were reflected in the new
peacetime phenomena (the atomic bomb
combined arms operations centered on the Ger-
man Panzer division. may be the exception that proves the rule).
For example, the transition from wooden
It is the synergistic effect of these three
sailing ships to steam-powered armored hulls
preconditions that leads to an RMA. Indeed
in the last century was one of the more dra-
it is the increasing recognition of the impor-
matic revolutions in military history, yet
tance of the doctrinal and organizational el-
there were no major wars at sea in this period
ements that has led to the term revolution in
which underlined that fundamental change.
military affairs gaining cunency over expres-
Militaries are driven to innovate during
sions such as military-technical revolution
peacetime by the need to make more efficient
which implied that technology was the pre-
use of shrinking resources, by reacting to
dominant factor.
major changes in the security environment,
or by recognizing the possible implications of
26 JFQ / Spring 1994
technologies was engendering a new revolu-
tion in military affairs."3 They were particu-
larly interested in the "incorporation of in-
formation sciences into the military sphere"
and in the idea of a "reconnaissance-strike
M1A1 Abrams in Saudi
complex."4 The events of the Gulf War con-
Arabia.
vinced them of the validity of their hypothe-
sis.5 Desert Storm indeed suggests that a new
RMA is emerging.6 It may have provided a
glimpse of a major transition to a different
type of warfare heavily based on informa-
tion processing and stealthy long-range pre-
cision strike weapons. What are some of the
possible implications of this transition?
Information processing has always been
part of warfare. In the future, however, it
may be central to the outcome of battles and
engagements. If so, establishing information
dominance over one's adversary will become
a major focus of the operational art. Infor-
mation warfare is still an ill-defined term.
However, it might encompass a range of
concepts, including but not limited to:
T comprehensive intelligence regarding an
enemy's military, political, economic, and cul-
tural "targets" while denying the same to him
V disruption/manipulation of enemy C3I
systems and defense of one's own
▼ space-based information usage and denial
T sensor-to-shooter data fusion
T flexible information/intelligence data bases
T use of simulations to support operational
decisionmaking.
To the extent these notions have opera-
new inventions or techniques for their art.
tional validity, they may also drive signifi-
Prolonged peace provides the time and re- cant organizational changes.7
sources for experimentation. Equally impor-
Stealthy long-range precision strike may
tant, this is the period of least risk if wrong
become the dominant operational approach.
choices are made. Consequently, long periods
By reducing the strike timeline from target
without major wars have generally resulted in
sensor-to-shooter by orders of magnitude
the greatest changes.
while increasing the effectiveness of weapons
Full exploitation of emerging technolo-
in terms of range, target discrimination, and
gies can span decades. The lengthy develop-
lethality, such systems conceivably could pro-
ment of Blitzkrieg was noted earlier. Simi-
vide conventional forces the ability to rapidly
larly, it took time to move from Kitty Hawk
destroy an opponent's critical military targets
to strategic bombers and carrier task forces.
at minimal cost and with little collateral dam-
The commercial analog is instructive; for in-
age. Some proponents even believe this ap-
stance, it took business years to fully exploit
proach extends to the destruction of an
the telephone's potential or, more recently,
enemy's strategic centers of gravity.
exponential increases in computing power.
There may well be other technologies,
Is Another RMA Emerging? employed operationally in ways as yet un-
In the early 1980s the Soviets noted that foreseen, that emerge to dominate future
"the emergence of advanced non-nuclear wars and preparations for them. Use of ad-
vanced simulations may greatly reduce cost
and increase the speed of various military
Spring 1994 / JFQ 27
USS Monsoon, a new
class of coastal patrol
ship, off the San
Clemente Islands.
technical improvement,
doctrinal development,
and organizational adap-
tation. Could the modern
systems such as stealth
aircraft, cruise missiles,
and smart weapons, the
concepts of operations
Navy F/A-18C. that employed them,
activities. Commercial technologies such as and the military organizations of the Gulf
microelectronics, telecommunications sys- War be the "1918" equivalents in the context
tems, space systems, nanotechnologies, ro- of a future "1940" war?
botics, and biogenetics, whose potential is
Why Do RMAs Matter?
only starting to be explored and which will
RMAs matter principally for two rea-
be widely available, may also have enor-
sons. First, being second best may lead to
mous implications for mili-
catastrophic loss in future wars. Since the
there is a substantial cost tary effectiveness. Moreover,
only objective benchmark for determining
for failure to recognize these technologies and their
the relative effectiveness of forces (that is,
operational employment may
revolutionary changes success in combat) is unavailable in long pe-
radically affect the whole
riods of peace, there is great potential for
in warfare gamut of military affairs,
asymmetries in combat effectiveness be-
from combat operations and
tween militaries, observable only when the
training to logistics and deployment prac-
next war has occurred. For example, the
tices to optimizing the responsiveness and
British and French experimented with tanks
flexibility of the industrial base.
and aircraft in the interwar period, but their
In thinking about the proposition of an
effectiveness was disastrously inferior to that
emerging RMA, it may be instructive to com-
of the Wehrmacht. However, few observers
pare the present with the interwar years. By
would have guessed at this reality in 1939.
1918, systems like planes, tanks, and radios
Obviously, there is a substantial cost for fail-
were considered state of the art and repre-
ure to recognize revolutionary changes in
sented quantum leaps over 1914. Yet the
warfare before an opponent does.
combat power represented by these same sys-
Secondly, as equipment life cycles, espe-
tems in 1940 was orders of magnitude greater
cially for platforms, steadily grow to encom-
than in 1918. The promise they held in 1918
pass decades (B-52s were designed in the
only became decisive after two decades of
late 1940's, carriers last 40-plus years), many
of the principal weapons systems of 2025
will likely be designed and built in the next
28 JFQ / Spring 1994
few years. Since militaries are stuck with information distribution networks, and navi-
force structures they choose for long periods gation systems. Future revolutions will occur
(though designs allowing for frequent sys- much more rapidly, offering far less time for
tem modifications ameliorate this to some adaptation to new methods of warfare. The
extent), it is more crucial than ever to think growing imperative in the business world for
now, in peacetime, about the impact of pos- rapid response to changing conditions in
sibly revolutionary changes in the nature of order to survive in an intensely competitive
war and about what will matter in winning environment is surely instructive for military
wars in twenty or thirty years. Paradoxically, affairs. Corporations repeatedly have to make
however, this may be more difficult even as major changes in strategy to accommodate
it becomes more important. the full implications of technologies which
Today, with the United States arguably have already existed many years.
the only superpower for the foreseeable fu- In the military context, as with the tank,
ture, one might ask why this issue is espe- aircraft, radio, and other systems in 1918, the
cially pressing. Replicating the U.S. force key technologies are out there and available
structure is clearly beyond the reach of all but for many nations to exploit. This places a
a few other nations, even in the long term. premium on remaining at the forefront in
This may not, however, be relevant. Even the identification and implementation of the
small- to medium-sized powers may be able developments which will maintain, if not in-
to exploit specific technologies for significant crease, relative military effectiveness well
military leverage in certain areas. Fifty years into the next century. Doing so can only
ago the Japanese fielded a highly capable mil- come from encouragement of innovative
itary, technically advanced in selected as- thinking about the relevant questions.
pects, which was more than a match for
Innovative Thinking
American forces during the early years of the
Stationed at Camp Meade, Maryland just after
Pacific war. Yet Japan's economy on the eve of
World War I, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton
World War II was maybe 15 percent the size
both began articles for military journals describing
of this Nation's. A more serious possibility is their experiments utilizing new doctrine for the em-
the emergence of a major competitor or coali- ployment of tanks. "Then I was called before the
tion to seriously challenge the United States. Chief of Infantry," Eisenhower later recalled. "I was
Such a military peer might employ the same told that my ideas were not only wrong but dangerous
critical technologies which will serve as the and that henceforth I would keep them to myself. Par-
basis of our Armed Forces and thus pose a di- ticularly, I was not to publish anything incompatible
with solid infantry doctrine. If I did, I would be
rect threat to American vital interests.
hauled before a court-martial."*
The current rate of change suggests that
state of the art in any technological context Today's breathtaking technological
will be an extremely short-lived phe- achievements notwithstanding, developing
nomenon, particularly with respect to the the concepts of operations that incorporate
technologies that were key to the success of new technologies and organizations to per-
Desert Storm: space systems, telecommunica- mit effective exploitation of new capabilities
tions systems, computer architectures, global is even more critical than acquisition of the
technologies themselves. Indeed, the most
compelling lesson from the 1920s and
1930s is that some militaries were much bet-
GENERAL HEINZ GUDERIAN
ter than others at developing and imple-
(1888-1954)
menting successful concepts and also mak-
Between 1914 and 191S Jfiuderian] served mainly with
ing the organizational changes to fully
the staff on the Western Front. In 1922 his task was to
help develop the mechanization of the German army: by exploit new technologies.
1929 he had become convinced that tanks in all-arms, Innovation is not necessarily or even
armoured (Pauef) divisions would in the future domi- primarily a function of budget. Many of the
nate land warfare. With Hitler's support, but obstructed
interwar innovations came at a time of low
by traditionalists, he promoted the creation of the
budgets and small forces. Blitzkrieg was de-
German armoured forces which spearheaded the
Invasion of Wand in 1939. veloped while Germany was tightly re-
— From The Penguin Encyclopedia ot Modern Warfare stricted by the Versailles Treaty. American
by Kenneth Macksey and William Woodhouse carrier naval aviation developed under a
Spring 1994 / JFQ 29
strict arms control regime in a fiscally con- The other critical requirement is the
strained environment. The amphibious doc- ability and willingness of relatively junior
trine of the Marine Corps—which J.F.C. officers who are now out in the field and
Fuller characterized as probably "the most fleet to think about the future. As younger
far reaching tactical innovation of the people more recently out of school, they are
war"—originates in the conceptual work of likely to be in closer touch with new and
Major Earl H. Ellis in 1920 under the vision- emerging technologies which have potential
ary tutelage of the Marine Commandant, military application. As operators, they are
Major General John A. Lejeune. aware of the operational and organizational
Why some innovations succeed and problems that they must deal with daily and
others fail, and why some militaries inno- hence are prime clients for possible solu-
vate rapidly while others languish, are mat- tions. Finally, they will also be the senior
ters for debate.9 History provides no clear leaders who must win the wars twenty to
guidance on overcoming institutional resis- thirty years from now.
tance to change and no final explanations of Unfortunately, these same officers have
the relative roles of civilians, military maver- published little to date in professional jour-
icks, or visionaries. However, in one form or nals on the idea of an RMA, nor have RMAs
another, the military role in implementing been a focus of study at the service col-
innovative ideas is crucial. As one observer leges.11 There may be several reasons for this.
noted, "many important wartime technical Arguably the present force drawdowns put
innovations such as the tank, proximity such a premium on preserving what exists
fuse, and microwave radar, and organiza- that discussion of concepts which might
tional innovations such as new doctrines for threaten current programs is effectively sti-
submarine warfare and strategic targeting fled. Then organizations that have had re-
functions for American bombers, were pur- cent success, as has the U.S. Armed Forces,
sued at the initiative of military officers or probably feel less impetus for institutional
with their vigorous support."10 change than if they had been less successful.
What may be key to "winning the inno- And lastly, countries have historically not
vation battle" is a professional military cli- had good records of military innovation in
mate which fosters thinking in uncon- periods such as the present when they can-
strained fashion about future war. This is in not envision a well-defined military problem
part a function of having leaders on the as the focus of planning and acquisition.
order of a Lejeune who will encourage inno- The failure of military officers to think
vation and—subject to reality checks—actu- about potentially crucial ideas such as an
ally test and implement innovative ideas to emerging RMA can carry with it the seeds of
maintain a preeminent military position. defeat, not least because the absence of a sig-
Patriot missile
nificant military contribution to the discus-
system.
sion of future wars will result in the subject
being restricted to academics and think
tanks. Although the latter have important
ideas to bring to the table, inherently they
can neither be as intimately familiar with
military problems as professional officers
nor as effective in implementing innovation
from within the services.
Journals such as JFQ should play an im-
portant role in giving exposure to new ideas.
Military officers, especially junior ones,
should contribute views on emerging RMAs,
or at least evaluate the implications of the
stunning changes occurring today. As a start-
ing point, the authors suggest the following
broad questions:
T How will the emerging RMA change the
nature of warfare in the next several decades?
30 JFQ / Spring 1994
NOTES
1 Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1949), p. 2.
2 Quoted in John Taylor Wood, "The First Fight of
Iron-Clads," in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New
York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1956), p. 692.
3 Mary C. FitzGerald, "The Soviet Image of Future
War: Through the Prism of the Gulf War," Comparative
Strategies, vol. 10, no. 4 (October-December 1991), p. 393.
4 Ibid., p. 398.
\
5 Mary C. FitzGerald, "The Soviet Military and the
New Air War in the Persian Gulf," Airpower Journal, vol. 5.,
no. 4 (Winter 1991), p. 64.
6 The emerging nature of RMAs is the subject of an
unpublished manuscript by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.,
T What military applications do burgeoning
entitled "The Military Revolution."
commercial technological developments have? 7 A cogent proposal for consolidating information
▼ What implications do new technologies management recently appeared in these pages: see Martin
have for concepts of operations? For the way the C. Libicki and James A. Hazlett, "Do We Need an Informa-
military is organized? tion Corps?", Joint Force Quarterly, no. 2 (Autumn 1993),
▼ How might potential adversaries exploit pp. 88-97.
the military revolution to America's detriment? " Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to
▼ What should the U.S. strategy be for deal- Friends (New York: Doubleday, 1967), p. 173.
9 See for example Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the
ing with future military competitors? Should such
Next War: Innovation and the Modem Military (Ithaca, N.Y:
a strategy aim at inhibiting those competitors?
Cornell University Press, 1991); Bany Posen, The Sources
These questions are just a starting point. of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between
Indeed, figuring out what the right questions the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press,
1984); and James S. Corum, The Roots of the Blitzkrieg:
are is a challenge in itself. But assuredly, offi-
Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence,
cers must think beyond the issues of force
Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1992).
drawdowns and the Five-Year Defense Plan. 10 Rosen, Winning the Next War, p. 255.
As Paul Bracken has pointed out, "We should 11 Antulio J. Echevarria and John M. Shaw, "The New
be looking beyond the military we are plan- Military Revolution: Post-Industrial Change," Parameters,
vol. 22, no. 4 (Winter 1992-93), pp. 1-10, and John W.
ning to have at the end of our current force
Bodnar, "The Military Technical Revolution: From Hard-
restructuring—we should be planning now
ware to Information," Naval War College Review, vol. 46,
for the 'military after next.'"12 JPQ no. 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 7-21, appear to be the only ar-
ticles on RMAs in professional military journals in 1993.
12 Paul Bracken, "The Military After Next," The Wash-
ington Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 4 (Autumn 1993), pp. 157-74.
!--^3iPilliJli^
■ Cash priaes of $2,000, J 1,001), ami $500 wlH be axvsfded to the three top tfutrants, in addition, .i
prize of $500 will be awarded for the best essay submitted by either an officer candidate or offtc%t m
Spring 1994 / JFQ 31