The Art of War in the Network Age

Back to the Future

Joseph Henrotin

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781848219120
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119361343
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

Previous studies have looked at the contribution of information technology and network theory to the art of warfare as understood in the broader sense. This book, however, focuses on an area particularly important in understanding the significance of the information revolution; its impact on strategic theory. The purpose of the book is to critically analyze the contributions and challenges that the spread of information technologies can bring to categories of classic strategic theory. In the first two chapters, the author establishes the context of the book, coming back to the epistemology of revolution in military affairs and its terminology. The third chapter examines the political bases of strategic action and operational strategy, before the next two chapters focus on historical construction of the process of getting to know your opponents and the way in which we consider information collection. Chapter 6 returns to the process of "informationalization" in the doctrine of armed forces, especially in Western countries, and methods of conducting network-centric warfare. The final chapter looks at the attempts of Western countries to adapt to the emergence of techno-guerrillas and new forms of hybrid warfare, and the resulting socio-strategic outcomes.

1
Approaching Military Revolutions

The notion of military revolution appeared in the vocabulary of strategists, historians and political scientists during the 20th Century. However, before further examination, it is important to try and understand it, and to tackle three preliminary points. First, questions concerning military revolution appeared in two distinct realms. From one side, in the historical realm, in Roberts’ work [ROB 56], who, in his research supported by tactical reforms of the Dutch army, tried to show a radical break with the recent past. Even though Parker [PAR 88, PAR 76] and Black [BLA 91a] criticized this thesis, it remains the most quoted study of the emergence of the debate on American RMA¹. From the other side, in the realm of political and strategic science, the nuclear question was quickly perceived as a revolution in itself, since the goal of the armies was no longer to make war but to avoid it². In both cases, these “revolutions” were techno-centered, and were respectively supported by the power of fire (artillery, individual weapons), maritime navigation techniques or the process of popular mobilization (through a slow process of state constitution [FIN 75, FOR 09]), and the scheme of the nuclear weapons and its vectors. In some ways, they already imply information flows.

We can thus consider that the definition of RMA in the debate of a possible “revolution” in the 1990s quickly embraced the ideas that had been previously developed. In a first approach, RMA and its current state in the debate could be based upon the use of computers and network technology in operations conduct. Consequently, it could also be based on the importance given to information as a means of knowledge (of the tactical situation, whether it be operational or political) as well as a means of efficient forces activation. It might also find its basis in the importance given to forms of information prohibition (stealth technology, information warfare, psychological warfare and influence operations), in the positioning of precision-guided munitions fired from a stand-off distance, regardless of climate and operational conditions. Moreover, it might be based on the positioning of armed forces, which have a more gathered organization, but with a capacity to be placed more quickly on farther theaters of operations³. In a broader sense, we will base our study on a definition of the concept of military revolution as “a fundamental breakthrough in technology, doctrine and organization, which renders the existing methods of warfare conduct obsolete”⁴.

Second, if the relevance of the definition “RMA” as a revolution can be questioned, we can reasonably assess that the notion of “military revolution” is historically relevant. Even historians who are reluctant to consider the concept of RMA as true revolution do not deny the relevance of the concept of military revolution. Third and finally, there are some keys and concepts that are necessary in order to fully understand the concepts of military revolution and RMA, and they will provide a framework for this chapter. The first is about the lexical varieties present under the notion of military revolution, which can be found in the American debate on RMA, especially when speaking about its political implications. The second refers to the categorizations of RMA done in the 1990s and of its analysts.

1.1. Lexical varieties

Three lexical categories of the conceptual object of “RMA” coexist in the field of strategic studies. They were the subject of a debate, between 1992 (when the first studies appeared on this subject) and 1998. Its goal, in fine, was to try and determine the magnitude of the phenomenon of accelerated technicization (meaning the introduction of new military technologies) of American forces. In view of its contemporary understanding, the concept goes back to observations made by the Soviet marshal Ogarkov in the beginning of the 1980s, of a Military Technical Revolution (MTR), and the observations of the American AirLand battle [FIT 87]⁵. The latter was itself the result of a specific technological effort concerning DARPA⁶, the second Offset strategy⁷ and of the deep questioning – the reform movement – of the American forces’ methods of action. The Soviet marshal, as he noticed the occurrence of this MTR in the United States, meant to adapt the Soviet forces to it [PAR 95].

It is supposed that this MTR may have solved the qualitative deficit of conventional Soviet forces by “synthesizing new technologies, evolving military systems, operational innovation, and organizational adaptation into a whole that was more powerful than the parts”⁸. And this regardless of whether it was based on a conceptual “system implementation” or on information and communication technologies as such, due to their interactions and their reticulation. Direct energy weapons, stealth technology, “strike-reconnaissance complexes” and reorganizations may then have given the USSR a straight comparative advantage over the United States⁹. In truth, the concept of MTR is the evidence that the Soviets considered the United States to be clearly behind¹⁰. However, the concept was soon to be criticized as being too techno-centered (whereas only a few technologies were supposedly used). The concept may not show the doctrinal or organizational adaptation of the forces that implement it. In the same way, technology may have been conceptualized in a much too static way and may have failed to highlight the evolutions it could experience or even to report its own contributions [WAT 95]. In the end, MTR would supposedly be restricted to tactical and operational levels.

1.1.1. MTR versus RMA

At that time, in the United States, a second lexical field appears, and which attempts, in its varieties, to show the impact of said revolution on other scopes than the strictly technological and military ones. By re-examining Ogarkov’s work, Andrew Marshall – who will play a major part in the debates over RMA¹¹ – favored the phrase “Revolution in Military Affairs”, in order to better report the implications of political, doctrinal and organizational processes in the military institution by technology. All the most, in this sense, RMA implies an organization of technologies, which will be introduced in a given military system, and it also implies what their interactions will be [LAN 99]. With this mind, RMA becomes the “process of socio technical transformation (which) should be supported by a network of cultural and economic forces which takes a concrete shape during a time interval which is hard to define, yet easy to influence”¹². From the start, information plays a decisive role.

In practice, Martin Libicki will show the coextension, rather than the opposition, of the notions of MTR and RMA by telling that “the most fundamental strategic challenge (…) is the conversion of a military-technical revolution into a revolution in military affairs”¹³. Yet, this lexicon, which is the basis for all works on American RMA, will also be called into question. R.J. Bunker thus suggested the concept of Revolution in Political and Military Affairs (RPMA). According to him, the notion of RMA “ignored the massive political ramifications that the development of future warfare will have over our society and government”¹⁴. However, when put into practice, this concept only rarely appears in the literature and was mentioned rather than studied in-depth in the article. Also pertaining to this situation could be the American tendency to favor a relation based on the break from Jomini’s concept rather than on the Clausewitzian continuity between the political and the military scopes as highlighted by Colson and Desportes Following this, the concept of Revolution in Strategic Affairs, suggested by Freedman, also takes us back to an attempt to broaden RMA to a political level [FRE 98].

With the same intention of broadening the field of RMA, Andrew Bacevitch stated at the United States, which benefited from revolutionary changes in their armies, were less subject to RMA than to a “revolution in security affairs” [BAC 96]. Like Bunker, the author’s goal was to bring to light the impacts of the evolutions of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Introduction
• 1 Approaching Military Revolutions
• 2 The Epistemology of RMA
• 3 A Paradigm Shift
• 4 Understanding (1): Piercing the Fog of War in Fluid Spaces
• 5 Understanding (2): Fluidifying the Solid?
• 6 Waging War in Network-centric Conditions
• 7 Striking in Network-centric Conditions
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement