Its advocates present a future of impunity, invulnerability, and invincibility in warfare—Desert Storm with “more microchips” (here, active matrix liquid crystal displays)—but the technical revolution in military affairs may be incapable of delivering such decisive results.
Years ago, the television show “The Outer Limits” opened with a statement: “…we will control the vertical; we will control the horizontal . . That line often comes to mind as I read articles written by individuals championing the supposed technical revolution in military affairs (RMA) that present advanced technology as a panacea—a substitute for sound, cogent, and incisive strategic thought and analysis.
These advocates claim that quantum improvements in sensors, communications, and weapons will enable a complex network of platforms—from the digital land warrior and his mechanized supporting elements to the most sophisticated aircraft—to operate on a digitized battlefield with virtual impunity. They surmise that the Clauswitzian fog of war will be lifted by an omnipotent C4I “system of systems” comprising an unassailable mesh of information-sharing sensors and smart weapons. As a result, our commanders will be afforded “perfect knowledge” of up to 40,000 square miles of battlespace, determining precisely the real-time locations and movements of all friendly and enemy forces and thereby enabling surgical application of military power using stand-off, precision-guided munitions.1 Such a capability, they claim, will place the United States in an unchallengeable position to shape, influence, and ultimately control world events to a greater degree than at any time since World War II.2
Technological superiority is our military forces’ strong suit and must continue to be pursued, but the technical RMA as articulated by these visionaries is overly optimistic and inappropriate because:
- It considers the military application, impact, and consequences of technology in isolation from sociocultural, political, and economic forces and constraints.
- It ignores interactivity across the range of conflict.
- It discounts the American psychology and way of war.
- It assumes incorrectly that an adversary or peer competitor will resemble us closely in organization, operational doctrine, and strategic approach to war fighting.
- It may be an unsuitable or inappropriate means to deal with prevalent forms of conflict in the new world order.
- It ignores resource availability and expenditure limits.
- It neglects issues of technology transfer and commercialism that come with coalition/alliance operations.
- It falsely presumes the invulnerability of our advanced technologies and systems.
- It takes as an article of faith that the United States will sustain both its lock on and its lead in advanced technology research, development, and application.
These are only some of the broad issues and fundamental questions that demand consideration. Unfortunately, technology increasingly is presented as promising decisive results that it may be incapable of delivering, with arguments and assumptions regarding its efficacy evolving from best-case scenarios that are developed outside of any social, political, fiscal, or operational factors and constraints.
Many technical RMA advocates display a misplaced confidence in the ability of technology to overcome fundamental problems that increasingly are manifest in the post-bipolar environment. They suggest that we will be virtually unchallenged in our ability to control precisely every aspect of conflict, to achieve battlefield dominance through full exploitation of the electronic spectrum and unimpeded use of space-based sensors, communications and intelligence networks, stealth drones, and precision- guided weaponry. In short. Desert Storm replayed—only bigger and with more microchips—will be the way all our future wars will be conducted.
Potential major regional contingencies involving North Korea or Iraq and Iran notwithstanding, the most probable form of warfare we will face is unfolding in the release of deep-seated, long-dormant nationalistic, ethnic, religious, and social animosities, such as we are witnessing in the Balkans, Rwanda, Chechnya, and the Middle East. The U.S. military never has been comfortable dealing with these kinds of wars—ideological civil wars and ethnic, racial, or religious disputes, which traditionally are the nastiest and dirtiest forms of conflict. They are bitter, protracted, and normally resolved only after a massive expenditure of resources, material, and human life by the belligerents. To complicate matters, a simultaneous desire for peace on both sides normally is required to resolve such conflicts, but there generally is little if any incentive for either side to apply a rational cost-benefit calculus in making such a decision, as Saddam Hussein did during the 1991 Gulf War.
For decades Vietnam has served as the antithesis of the “American way of war,” having demonstrated the political ineffectiveness and inappropriateness of our conventional application of military power in that ostensibly limited conflict. But exactly what is “the American way of war?” The Army spells it out in FM 100-5:
The American people expect decisive victory and abhor unnecessary casualties. They prefer quick resolution of conflicts and reserve the right to reconsider their support should any of these conditions not be met. In the end, the people will pass judgment on the appropriateness of the conduct and use of military operations. Their values and expectations must be met.
In short, the American vision is to win quickly, decisively, with overwhelming force: send our troops in with massive quantities of high-tech firepower and maximum logistical support to defeat the opposition quickly while simultaneously minimizing casualties through exploitation of our technological superiority. Near-bloodless conflict—neat, clean, and fast. The standard was established in the sands of Kuwait and Iraq in 1991: 100 hours and near zero casualties. That is what the American people now expect regarding future conflict involving U.S. forces; anything beyond that and, depending on the stakes, the people may “reconsider their support.”
There are some problems with this vision. More often than not, it requires cooperative adversaries who share the American view of how war is to be conducted. Many technical RMA proponents assume that our future adversary will look like us in organization, infrastructure, doctrine, and hardware; will fight like us by employing a conventional strategy in a designated battlefield, which will spare us the hard choices regarding collateral damage and casualties among non-belligerents; and will think like us in preferring a quick end to the conflict. Ideally, the adversary will disdain an attrition or protraction strategy and will share our Western ethos and value for human life, as well as our concern for world public opinion. Unfortunately, there are many bad actors currently on the world stage who fail to qualify on these scores.
Admiral William Owens, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observes accurately that “today, we must face the issue of the political purpose of military force directly. It is no longer simply a matter of thinking it enough to counter successfully a defined military threat; we must design military forces more specifically in terms of their political purpose.”1 But as our military force structure and war-fighting doctrine evolve within the context of the “revolution,” we have yet to demonstrate a clear grasp of what is meant by “political purpose” in light of the increasingly dominant forms of conflict. What the proponents of the technical RMA appear to advocate is a powerful, mechanized (high-tech) Army, backed by abundant airlift and sealift to transport heavy divisions to distant theaters of operations; a Navy of push-button warfare and C4I synergy that provides a commander “perfect knowledge” of the battlespace; and an Air Force operating stealth aircraft with impunity as they employ smart weapons in surgical strikes against the heart of the adversary.
None of this is truly revolutionary. The current RMA mantra amounts to little more than an updating of an old agenda and a few more microchips. And while these ideas are popular because they conform to American concepts of war, they all too often lead us to ignore basic issues regarding the nature of warfare, or encourage the notion that we can fundamentally alter or precisely control a specific conflict exclusively through the application of advanced technology and military power.
Certainly, the implications of the information age and emerging technologies loom large. Yet if their potential impact is assessed in isolation from other social and economic factors, it could prove dangerously misleading, promising political results that the military mechanism may prove incapable of delivering.4 We had our experience in Somalia. In Chechnya, the Russians learned that quick, decisive victories depend not on technological superiority, but on cooperative adversaries and a willingness to bite the political and diplomatic bullet. Could Western technological superiority really have brought about a resolution to the conflict in Bosnia? In a war fought with mortars, machine guns, snipers, and hostages, by an adversary prepared to pay a much higher price than any Western power appears willing to incur, are advanced technology and the RMA still relevant as force multipliers? Perhaps. But as both recent and distant history have demonstrated, it is the political decisions and constraints that continue to play the pivotal role.
We need to think a bit harder about what we expect the application of military force to achieve. Are we capable of fielding a force to deal with these divergent sources of conflict effectively and at an acceptable cost? Unfortunately, we occasionally tend to be a bit glib, a bit too smug, regarding our capacity to impose democratic government and Western values on diverse cultures. We continue to believe that if we throw enough money, resources, and technology at any problem over a long enough period, we can achieve the previously unattainable, particularly regarding military operational success. As much as we might like to believe this is possible, we simply do not have the resources to do it all.
The issues of resources, choices, and technology’s role in the revolution beg a vital yet basic question: Not just can we afford it, but should we choose to? If so, at what expense or sacrifice to other military and nonmilitary programs? Many RMA proponents appear convinced that much of the cost will be offset, for example, by savings in base closures and reductions in infrastructure.5 But military installations continue to be political hot potatoes and projected savings vary with the source.
Additional issues arise. Do we sacrifice current readiness levels to invest in the research, development, testing, production, and conversion needed to realize the full potential of the revolution, betting that in the interim we will not be put to the test? Do we play it closer to the vest, encouraging qualitative improvements to our forces while pursuing a more balanced, evolutionary approach? If we choose to pursue the revolution, do all services need to upgrade to the same level at the same rate? Will one service be viewed—externally or internally—as antiquated and ineffective if it doesn’t climb on board, leaving itself open to having its missions absorbed by another? In the political arena, will congressmen be tempted to neglect investments in future capabilities to pay for current forces and existing weapons that offer jobs for their constituents and incomes for their districts?
Both our National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy call for conducting military operations as part of an alliance or coalition, enjoying international legitimacy conferred by U.N. consensus or Security Council approval. Unfortunately, RMA advocates do not address adequately the concomitant issues of technology transfer and commercialism. For example, to what extent will allied/coalition members require access to the requisite hardware, software, and C4I to integrate them as fully equal players? Do we share our capabilities or offer to sell our technology at bargain prices—in exchange for promises of increased military commitment or political influence? Do we restrict or limit access, inviting accusations of elitism and distrust while potentially compromising operational and hence political effectiveness? Suppose a coalition member (such as Syria during the Gulf War) requests access to our capabilities as the price for support?
In addition, with our increased emphasis on commercially available, off-the-shelf technology and systems, will our emerging “unchallengeable” system of systems be more susceptible to interdiction and compromise? Given that open markets and free trade are the bedrock of our National Security Strategy of engagement and enlargement, we have placed ourselves on the horns of a dilemma: increasingly dependent on hardware, software, and systems that easily may be procured by an adversary or competitor. It would be the height of arrogance to presume that the United States will continue to sustain its lock on the development and application of advanced technologies. There are many nation-states more than capable of achieving breakthrough advances that may counter our most secure and supposedly unchallengeable systems or capabilities.
In his book, High Seas: The Naval Passage to an Uncharted World, Admiral Owens writes of “immune power projection based on a family of stand-off, precision-guided weapons, as well as space and electronic-warfare capabilities and ballistic-missile defenses.”6 This premise—the notion of operational impunity, invulnerability, invincibility upon which the RMA advocates base much of their argument—is flawed. Every system, every platform, every sensor has a vulnerability, an Achilles’ heel, that makes it susceptible to exploitation, compromise, or defeat. And it does not necessarily require a high-tech source to do the job. For example, when Bosnian Serb forces took hostage nearly 400 U.N. troops in May 1995, Western tactical air power in that region was restricted—even negated—in its short-term application.
History is replete with examples of technology falling well short of its promises in the crucible of battle. This is especially true of air power. For example, in World War II, the B-17 Flying Fortress ushered in a notion of bomber invincibility. U.S. General Curtis Lemay and British Air Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris had their confidence in the efficacy of that particular instrument of war quickly dispelled by the German Luftwaffe. At sea, even the apparent invulnerability of the submarine ultimately was countered by new convoy tactics and developments in antisubmarine warfare capabilities and prosecution techniques—neutralizing and ultimately defeating an “unchallengeable” platform. Many aviators recall the sage prognostications of both military and technical “experts” dismissing air combat maneuvering and the gun as tactics and weapons of a bygone era, to be replaced by long-range engagements incorporating the latest in radar and missile technology. Our experiences in the skies over Vietnam demonstrated otherwise and provided a gut-wrenching reality check.
Myriad factors and dilemmas must be assessed and evaluated fully if the United States’ policy-strategy match is to be both effective and appropriate. Unfortunately, there are many who would have us believe that technology
has finally enabled a divine “perfect knowledge” and precise control over violence. I recall similar proclamations by U.S. civilian and military leadership during 1966-1967. We were told we were “turning the corner,” that “victory was at hand” and that the enemy in Southeast Asia had been overcome by the weight of our military power and technology, effectively rendered incapable of further offensive operations. Then came January 1968 and the widespread offensive during the Vietnamese celebration of Tet.
As we have observed in the past and continue to witness in the present, it is all too easy to overestimate what modern technology may do for us and underestimate what it may do to us.
1 Michael Gordon interview with Admiral William A. Owens, USN, The New York Times, 12 December 1994.
2 Adm. William A. Owens, USN, “The Emerging System of Systems,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1995, pp. 35-39.
3 Ibid.
4 A. J. Bacevich, “Preserving the Well-Bred Horse,” The National Interest, Fall 1994, p. 49.
5 Mark Yost, “‘Techno Geek’ for the Defense,” The Wall Street Journal, 23 March 1994, p. 12.
6 Adm. William A. Owens, USN, High Seas: The Naval Passage to an Uncharted World (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995) p. 133.
Captain Caldwell is an instructor with the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. A former S-3 pilot, he has served as commanding officer, VT-23; and air boss on board the Nimitz (CVN-68). He wishes to acknowledge contributions by authors A. J. Bacevich and Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr„ as well as the assistance of Professor Richard Megargee of the Naval War College.