Year: 1995
Type: article
Abstract: The latest "Revolution in Military Affairs" occurred in the 1980s.It is over now.A new paradigm prevails.There will be no end to the technological miracles that alter the geometries of conventional battlefields and theaters while reshaping budgets and forces.But machines, no matter how magnificent, do not of themselves constitute a revolution.True revolutions happen, above all, in the minds of men.By that measure, the military has undergone a profound and irreversible revolution.The average officer today perceives the temporal, spatial, and mechanical dimensions of warfare in a radically different manner than did his predecessor of 20 years ago.The changes have been internalized to such a degree that we must pause and think about them in order to recognize how far we have come in a breathtakingly short period.Should anyone doubt that we have entered a post-revolutionary order, he need only consider the popularity of seminars and publications devoted to the Revolution in Military Affairs, or RMA--irrefutable indicators that any truly revolutionary activity is over.The drag-on debates as to whether or not there has been or is an RMA, what it portends, and how it differs from the "Military-Technical Revolution," are frivolous and irrelevant.The endless symposiums, studies, and articles are popular because they promise a new home to those intellectually dispossessed by the end of the Cold War."Thinking" about the manageable secondary problem of the military application of technology in the future saves us from having to think meaningfully about the brutal, intractable issues immediately confronting our nation, our allies, and our interests.
Author: Ralph Peters
Language: English
Subfield: Control and Systems Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3098020004