RMA, European Militaries and the Limits of Modernization
The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is synonymous with the US Military and its transformation following the end of the Cold War, which would see operational platforms networked, flexible and for use in joint operations. The role of technology in general and information and communication technology (ICT) in particular meant that the deployable platforms and possibly even networks would transform the way that the US went to war. This chapter looks at those who stand beside the US military most often in combat: the European allies. The focus here is on how RMA, as it was understood and conveyed in the US, shaped the thinking and doctrine of European militaries. In Europe, the term RMA and even the concept are seen as belonging to the US, grand power and an overwhelming reliance on technological superiority to achieve military victory. European militaries have focused more on the notion of transformation, innovation and modernization to mean how any such benefits of RMA could be adapted or utilized in European military operations and in connection to European military operations with the US where compatibility is an important command factor. If RMA points the way towards military victory on the battlefield, why then have Europeans not taken the opportunity to follow their North American ally?
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.
Innovation in War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007
Abstract This article analyzes operations by three battalions conducting counterinsurgency, or COIN, operations in Iraq over the period from July 2005 through March 2007: the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (1–7) along the Iraq–Syrian border in the first half of 2006; the 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment (1–37) battalion operating in south-central Ramadi in the fall of 2006; and the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, or 2-1, operating in eastern Mosul in 2005–06. The empirical evidence presented in these cases suggest that, contrary to popular perceptions, the units successfully innovated in war – a process largely executed organically within the units themselves. Innovation is defined here as the development of new organizational capacities not initially present when the units deployed into the theater. The evidence presented in these cases suggests that the innovation process enabled these units to successfully transition from organizations structured and trained for conventional military operations to organizations that developed an array of new organizational capacities for full-spectrum combat operations. The units in this study developed these new capacitites largely on their own initiative.