Change and Transformation in Military Affairs

For nearly twenty years military analysts have talked of a "military technical revolution," a "revolution in military affairs," and most recently "military transformation." However, discussions of a prospective military revolution have suffered from four general problems: (1) abstraction of RMA theorizing from the world of geopolitics; (2) a focus on technology at the expense of organization, doctrine, and manpower; (3) a tendency to depict transformation as something that happens top-down, rather than bottom-up; and (4) a failure to look at the response to RMA-type capabilities on the part of weaker opponents. Ironically, however, it is only by looking at these four aspects of military affairs in our time that we can truly estimate the possibilities of military transformation. Moreover, an examination of how military forces, the processes of battle, and the outcomes of war have changed in recent years gives us reason to think that a major change in the character of warfare itself has occurred.