Romanian Military Thinking

Opinions • Arguments • Certitudes • Perspectives
and the ones who were responsible for the American doctrine TRADOC concentrated
their effort on solving the issues raised, more or less trenchantly or insidiously, by the
transition from the war of position to the war of manoeuvre;
the concept of “extended battlefield”, supported in the ’70s by William Perry and
then by DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency); the long range and high
precision weapons could aim at striking the depth of the Soviet echelons, due to the
technology that allowed for the identification of targets in real time (the Assault-Breaker
doctrine and then the AirLandBattle one); William Perry invented the term of “system
of systems”;
Andrew Marshall and his crew from the Office of Net Assessment make the Soviet
concept “technical-military revolution” an American one, transforming it into the “revolution
of military affairs”;
Admiral Owens, from the Joint Requirement Oversight Council (JROC), and
General Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, support these issues and
try to orient the planning process at the Pentagon to be tailored to the RMA requirements.
At the core of RMA it is the idea of renewing the military operational art. As it has
been noticed, the AirLandBattle doctrine and the Gulf War in 1991, revealed new types
of fight, highlighting the limitations of a period of transition from the classical, massive
strikes to high precision strikes, in the context of battle space info-domination.
Subsequent experience, following the ample actions aimed at bombing the rebel
Serbia, the Taliban in Afghanistan and those in the second campaign in Iraq, the one
between March and April 2003, has brought new arguments for what can be called
the antiwar war. In other words, a power that is technologically superior, which forms
a coalition with other complementary forces, more or less interoperable ones, is capable
of diminishing, discouraging or even preventing any type of war. At least, this is the
consequence of the disproportionality principle. It does not mean that the antiwar war
is necessarily a peace support war, although we can consider such a perspective. In the
meantime, such reasoning is not entirely justifiable and, more important, it is not
confirmed in practice. The experience of the US-led coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and even NATO’s experience, in ISAF Mission, as well as the one of the European Union,
in Artemis, Althea, Concordia and others have shown that the counter or antiwar war is a war
and not something different. According to the report of NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
through the commission specialised in the field, the debate on RMA is held mainly
in the United States. No other country has resorted to such a large debate on the issue
of conduct in the military operations that are to come and it seems no one is preoccupied
with conducting a fundamental analysis of operational concepts. For instance, the United
States spent, in 1996, 37 billion dollars for research and development, while France,
Great Britain, Germany and Italy spent all less than 10 billion. The United States and its
European allies do not have consonant opinions regarding this issue. The Americans
often reproach the Europeans for investing too less in this domain. There is a true gap
between the United States and Europe as far as military technology is concerned,
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