Military Transformation and Strategy

Bernard Loo, Bernard Loo

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134103423
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: History
• Thema: Military & Maritime History

This book explores the idea of arevolution in military affairs (RMA), which underpins the transformational agenda of the US military, and examines its implications for smaller states.The strategic studies literature on the RMA tends to be American-centric and directed towards the strategic problems of the US military. This volume seeks to fill t

Part I
Transformations and strategy

1 Change and transformation in military affairs

Eliot Cohen

For nearly 20 years military analysts have talked, alternately, of a “military technical revolution,” a “revolution in military affairs,” and most recently “military transformation.” But has a radical shift in military affairs occurred? Or have we merely seen normal, evolutionary processes of change at work in the conduct of war? After all, over a quarter of a century – a period that spans entire military careers – has passed since the first discussions of Soviet-style military technical revolution appeared. It is reasonable to ask: did it happen? Or has the art of war, as many historians and soldiers long suspected, merely witnessed the usual processes of steady change and evolution?

The notion of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) has had numerous proponents, and many variants, but a common ground with four key aspects can be identified. One, the advent of superior information technology and weapons of precision has vastly enhanced the power of advanced military forces. Two, it is possible to conduct operations that do not follow classic patterns of advancing along fronts with discernible lines and rear areas. Three, the new technologies make numbers and platforms far less important than networks and communications. Finally, military operations now aim at defined effects rather than attrition of enemy forces or occupation of ground.

Revolutions in military affairs – four critiques

This summary, of course, simplifies what has been, in fact, a cluster of theories with many variants. Still, four general problems with this cluster of theories stand out: (1) the abstraction of RMA theorizing from the world of geopolitics; (2) its focus on technology at the expense of the softer aspects of military affairs (organization, doctrine, manpower, etc.); (3) a tendency to depict transformation as something that happens top-down, rather than bottom-up; (4) a failure to look at the response to RMA-type capabilities on the part of weaker opponents. Ironically, 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.

Abstraction from geopolitics

Most of the discussion of military transformation has said little about geopolitics. Thus, William Owens’ notion of a “system of systems” that could integrate communications, intelligence, and precision strike systems, enabling the United States (US) military to observe, detect, target and destroy any object within a 200-mile by 200-mile box was, at one level, a politically neutral technical discussion of capabilities (Owens and Offley 2000). But of course it only made sense as something that a global, indeed, a hyperpower, might have the interest and resources to do.

Other depictions of revolutionary change rested equally on unstated geopolitical assumptions. Thus, Soviet writings from the late 1970s through the mid1980s about a military technical revolution were couched in terms of “reconnaissance strike complexes” – but the underlying issue was the American development of the capability to annihilate mass armoured formations moving towards the inter-German border. That capability, which the Soviets were not at all certain they could counter, put at risk Soviet operational concepts for war with the West, and beyond it, the entire structure of Soviet strategy.

The tools of war – technology, organization, operational concepts – have embedded within them assumptions about what war is, how it can and should be waged, by whom and against whom it will be conducted. Much of the thinking about transformation of modern militaries has a distinctly US feel to it – because it is produced by Americans, who understandably think about the world in an American way. The geopolitical assumptions behind this thinking are that the US is a country with global interests, shifting threats, and vast resources. Chinese, Australian, Singaporean, or Israeli circumstances are quite different, even if they proceed from a similar technological base, and hence one should expect, and indeed hope for, concepts of transformation that vary by country, and may take very different forms.

The classic cases of the development of armoured doctrine and organization in the interwar period, and of advanced concepts for carrier aviation during the same time illustrate this point. Germany developed the Panzer division because of its location in Europe, its military traditions, and its aggressive ideology. Japan and the US pushed carrier aviation because they anticipated war with one another in the Pacific. The Japanese did not develop panzer divisions, and the Germans did not develop aircraft carriers, even though the technologies were well within the reach of both countries.

To set itself on a sounder footing, then, theorizing about an RMA has to begin by acknowledging that its roots lay in a world divided between two superpowers; where potential for global conflict was quite small, but the calculations involved in preparing for it were politically important; where the most important theatre of war was central Europe. The kind of war envisioned by the original Soviet and American theorists was of a type familiar from the first half of the twentieth century, and in some respects even the nineteenth century: a period of rising tensions, swift mobilization, and decisive combat. That world has vanished, being replaced by an unprecedented international system dominated by one hyperpower, with some rising competitors, whose ideas of war are altogether different, where war may or may not take the form of swift decision, but where in any case follow through is likely to be characterized by succeeding waves of violence and struggle in a variety of spheres, including cyberspace and the contest for public opinion.

Today, the US has the only full spectrum military in the world. It alone can afford and deploy the full panoply of military strength; it also is the only military that must respond to a global range of threats and potential. For evidence of the resources at its disposal, consider the 2003 supplemental bill to pay for American expenses in Afghanistan and Iraq: some US$87 billion on top of what had already been spent to wage war in both places. That increment was about eight times the size of the Australian defence budget, roughly twice the British defence budget. It is sometimes suggested that the US looms so large because its allies have been unwilling to commit forces by its side. But in fact, when considered in proportion, population, size of military and defence budget, countries like Poland and Italy have made commitments that would be comparable to the US committing 40,000 or 50,000 troops to a given operation. It is the absolute size of the US that is so staggering.

Of course, soldiers feel pinched for funds, and complain about it. But the fact is that the US can pour vast sums into defence, and does. The American research and development budget is larger than the British defence budget, to take just one example. And that means staggering investments in a whole range of areas (which will not, in all likelihood, be sustainable even for the US), for example, large investments in two new and very different fighters, while modernizing the existing tactical fighter force, open up an entirely different kind of airborne platform in the shape of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

The American RMA is designed to fit US strategic needs – the need for power projection, quick wins, low casualties, and the flexibility to move from one theatre to another. Other countries have very different purposes. China, for example, seeks to use advanced technologies for the purpose of coercing, and possibly occupying Taiwan and projecting power into the South China Sea. With a panoply of unmanned systems – ballistic missiles, long-range, high-speed cruise missiles, advanced torpedoes, mines – together with a small number of advanced aircraft and ships, China wishes to develop the ability to isolate, intimidate, or even occupy Taiwan even in the face of US opposition. Its military has the advantage of a focused set of strategic and operational challenges, and even if it is by all measures inferior to those of the US. Thus, in some ways the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may achieve its RMA in ways that trump those of the US, while looking quite different from them.

In a similar vein, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has probably led the world, including the US, in the development of military technology and operational concepts for urban guerrilla warfare. Operation Defensive Shield in March and April of 2002, during which Israeli forces swept into the West Bank to root out terrorist organizations, was, from the military–technical point of view, a remarkable success. In the face of a hostile and armed population the Israelis were able to achieve their objectives without suffering excessive losses, or inflicting large numbers of civilian casualties. Inter-squad radios, aerostats, and sophisticated surveillance technology combined with old-fashioned bulldozers allowed the Israelis to do something that was hitherto thought well-nigh impossible: to conduct successful urban operations under conditions of limited force.

The theory of the RMA cannot be simply a US theory, and it should not be an apolitical strategic concept, because politics will always come back in through the back door, as it were. The challenge is twofold: for the tailoring of the theory of transformational change to local circumstances, while at the same time describing the broader trends as comprehensively as possible.

Technology over organization

The technologies that drive military transformation are now embedded in our daily lives. We think nothing of telephone services that recognize human voices, computers that allow us to examine, select, and pay for hotel rooms half a world away, cheap handheld devices that not only tell us where we are on the surface of the earth to a resolution of ten metres, but tell us how to get from where we are across town – if necessary by talking to us. The information technologies above all underpin the transformation of war, and it may be precisely because they are so familiar that we fail to see how much change they have brought about. It was, after all, only a few years ago that economists were insisting that the application of information technology in the business world had yielded no increases in productivity – arguments that were, of course, written on personal computers and subsequently posted on the Internet.

Still, by itself technology does not yield transformational change, particularly in the military world. In business it is different: competitive pressures mean that companies that do not adopt electronic scanning quickly run up large inventory costs. Military organizations can do business the old way longer, particularly if they are not operational. It is no coincidence that the most active militaries in the world – the American, British, and Israeli among them – have also been some of the leaders in transformation. Even then, however, activity can reinforce some kinds of conservatism precisely because a mistake in innovation can bring with it human and political costs of a kind rare or unknown in the commercial world.

A lag between the appearance of useful technologies and their mature application in organizations and concepts of operations is not surprising. What is surprising in the theory of the RMA is the relative paucity of attention to the human software, as it were, as opposed to the material hardware. Arguably, however, the concepts and organizations are now catching up with technology. It is only in the last few years, for example, that the US Army has begun the routine use of tracking technology that allows commanders to know where all their vehicles are at any time and to share data by intranet and digital maps. The vast increase in precision air power – foreshadowed more than a generation ago in the large-scale use of guided weapons in Vietnam – has finally made a large difference on the battlefield with the use of reliable and secure communication from ground observers, laser designators, and precision navigation systems. As a result of all these changes, the US Army has begun to study the notion of taking the standard mechanized infantry division of three brigades and turning it into five brigades. More important yet is the evolution of the brigade – a combined arms organization, much like an armoured cavalry regiment – into the central unit in the US Army. The Afghan War of 2001 and the Iraq War of 2003 highlighted these changes, which, though far from complete were well under way. Other aspects of the American military are changing too: the introduction of submarines that can deliver large numbers of long-range cruise missiles, for example. In short, although the reaction of many military observers to American success in Iraq in 1991 was one of surprise and, indeed, admiration (genuine, fearful, or grudging, as the case may be), the real growth in US military power may only now be coming into existence, as a new generation of officers takes charge of the armed forces. This post-Vietnam generation is far more confident and aggressive in its use of information technologies and far more “joint” in its outlook than its predecessor.

For other countries change will be more painful. In the case of European militaries, for example, the challenges begin at a mundane level, simply in the creation of the smaller, professional armed forces that seem to be mandated by the new technologies. Conscription is withering away slowly in Europe, and the result in countries like Germany is not merely a bloated and ineffective military, but an organization that cannot fully exploit the potential of the new technologies. Even those countries with professional armed forces, however, often find themselves lacking some of the basic prerequisites for effective military power – adequate stocks of precision weapons or night vision devices, or the logistical infrastructure to sustain operations at some considerable distance from the homeland. For a time, then, the gap between the US and other militaries is likely to grow, not diminish.

Transformation as top down or bottom up

One characteristic of much of the writing about military transformation has been its implicit assumption that change would come from above, that is, from enlightened senior leadership imposing different ways of war on recalcitrant bureaucracies. When the military transformation debate became briefly a matter of political interest in the 2000 US presidential campaign, both candidates spoke as if change would have to come from the top. And, indeed, Donald Rumsfeld, who may well be the most transformation-oriented Secretary of Defense in US history, began his tenure with a series of centralized studies that smacked very much of change imposed from above. Even as some of that tendency to centralism has abated, the US military created an office of transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other countries have been tempted to take a similar course.

There is no doubt that some changes do indeed have to come from the top. But RMA theorists may have overestimated the degree to which enlightened senior leadership could, by itself, remake the armed forces, as opposed to creating conditions that would by themselves foster change. Throughout most of military history, to include the current period, change tends to come more from below, from the spontaneous interactions between military people, technology, and particular tactical circumstances. The critical question is whether an organization is capable of taking those changes and adopting them widely. Thus, for example, the development of infiltration tactics during the First World War was most successful in Germany, where a strong general staff was able to learn from front line innovators and disseminate new ideas rapidly (Lupfer 1981). Similarly, it was not the rather conservative leadership of the German army in the interwar period that gave birth to the Panzer division – but it was that leadership that supported innovators with whom it in fact disagreed.

Today, the greatest changes in war are brought about by spontaneous innovation in reaction to tactical problems, as when, during the 2003 Iraq War, a Marine company commander was able to view on a laptop computer images from a fighter-bomber flying overhead, looking down the street in an Iraqi town. It is the urge to tinker and experiment – by having a UAV pass targeting information to an F-15E Strike Eagle, for example, or by giving personal digital assistants to everyone on board a warship – that creates new ways of war, not comprehensive plans created from the top and passed down to a reluctant organization. At the heart of real change in military affairs is the notion of a “learning organization,” which is something quite different from a brilliant organization. This in turns requires an organizational culture that encourages experimentation and does not punish the failures that innovation invariably brings about. These qualities, in turn, rest on fundamental attributes of societies that reflect themselves in their militaries. For that reason, societies that do not see occasional failure as calamitous, that are willing to allow juniors to overcome or contradict seniors, and that do not value “face” or reputation excessively are likely to succeed in transforming themselves. It is no coincidence that the US, a country that views bankruptcy as a learning experience, has created one of the most innovative militaries in the world. This of course points to the challenge of military transformation for societies that might prefer to bring change about by enlightened diktat.

Responses by weaker opponents

The enemy never really figured very much in the RMA debate, and this may have been the worst mistake of all. While American theorists and foreign imitators spoke in abstract terms of 200-mile by 200-mile boxes, sensor-to-shooter links, and dominant battlespace awareness, the reality was, as we have seen, one of the growths of US military power. In the real world of geopolitics, however, countries and non-state actors respond to US dominance, including its superiority in high-technology warfare, in a variety of ways.

For countries like China the response has been one of selective transformation with a view to neutralizing those American advantages that most endanger them. This has taken a variety of forms, to include work on computer attacks, weapons that disable electronic systems, or that can negate key American advantages such as stealth aircraft. The idea is not to counter American strength across the board, but rather to negate American capabilities that could threaten Chinese superiority where it counts most: in the Taiwan Straits and adjoining waters. For the moment, only China, of the militarily advanced powers seems to have gone down this route; Russia might desire to do so, but remains too impoverished to do more than market the products of its once flourishing technological research programmes. This approach of selective transformation for local purposes seeks to capitalize on asymme...