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Transforming the U.S. Armed Forces: Rhetoric or Reality?
Naval War College Review, Summer, 2001 by Thomas G. Mahnken
The increasing use of information technology portends a significant shift in the balance between offense and defense, fire and maneuver, and space and time. Militaries that harness the information revolution are already at a marked advantage in comparison to those that do not. The Gulf War hinted at the battlefield advantages that accrue to armed forces that capitalize on stealth, information, and precision weaponry. Nato's air war over Serbia stands out as another demonstration of at least the tactical effectiveness of advanced military technology.
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The integration of information technology into military forces is also changing the relationship between fire and maneuver. Networking long-range sensors and weapons allows us to concentrate fire from dispersed platforms on a common set of targets. The U.S. Navy, for example, has examined the "Ring of Fire," a concept for focusing dispersed naval fire on shore-based targets. (7) Networking thus allows the potential massing of effects without massing forces. It could also reduce vulnerability by denying an adversary the ability to target forces with his own long-range strike systems, while increasing the tempo of military operations by reducing the delay between observation and action. (8) By operating faster than adversaries, a networked force may effectively deny them battlefield options. (9) These trends favor networked forces that are small, agile, and stealthy over hierarchical organizations that are large, slow, and nonstealthy. Should the U.S. armed forces exploit these trends, the United States will ga in increased tactical, operational, and--potentially--strategic leverage over potential adversaries.
While the United States currently enjoys a considerable lead in exploiting the information revolution, it is hardly alone in attempting to do so. Indeed, the list of militaries interested in information-age warfare is long and growing. Some may develop strategies to deny foes the ability to project power into their spheres of influence. (10) Others may challenge the United States in space or the information spectrum. Moreover, their ability to do such things is growing. The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, for example, has testified that Russia and China, as well as other smaller states and nonstate actors, are pursuing capabilities to disrupt, degrade, or defeat American space systems. (11) Similarly, one recent article assessed that twenty-three nations have the ability to launch information-warfare attacks. (12) Failure to meet such threats could lead to a military that is increasingly irrelevant to the types of wars that the United States will fight.
Past revolutions in warfare have changed not only the character and conduct of combat but also the shape of the organizations that wage war. The emergence of new ways of war has altered the importance of existing services, and combat arms triggered the rise of new elites and eclipsed previously dominant ones. During the first half of the twentieth century, for example, naval aviation assumed a central role in war at sea. As the aircraft carrier displaced the battleship as the centerpiece of modern navies, naval aviators challenged the traditional dominance of surface warfare officers. During the same period, the advent of land-based aircraft created new elites within armies and eventually spawned new military services. Armored forces usurped the roles of cavalry in armies across the globe. The information revolution portends similar organizational turbulence as the character of war on land, at sea, and in the air changes and as combat spreads to space and the information spectrum.
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