International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   The concept of a “revolution in warfare” refers to a radical change or discontinuity in warfare that fundamentally alters the way a military operates and which allows it to achieve a leap in relative military effectiveness. Most analysts and historians agree on this minimal definition but beyond that there is little consensus on the causes of revolutions, when they have taken place, how they occur, and whether we are in the midst of one now. Warfare is constantly changing and evolving. Major discontinuities in the nature of warfare have occurred throughout history and these have resulted in dramatic increases in military effectiveness and shifts in the balance of power. Revolutions in warfare became a hot topic of debate in the 1990s in the wake of America's rout of Iraqi military forces in the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War. US information supremacy, and the unprecedented integration of precision-guided munitions; command, control, communications, computers, and information (C 4 I); reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting, and acquisition (RSTA); and long-range precision air and missile strikes suggested a revolution in warfare was under way ( Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1993 ; Cohen 1996 ; Nye and Owens 1996 ). Immediately skeptics began to challenge this technology based conception of a revolution in warfare as well as the claim that such a revolution was occurring ... log in or subscribe to read full text