BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE

Chapter 3
The Revolution in Military Affairs
Jeffrey McKitrick, James Blackwell, Fred Littlepage,
George Kraus, Richard Blanchfield and Dale Hill*
According to Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net
Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, "a
Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the
nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application
of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes
in military doctrine and operational and organizational
concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of
military operations ." Such an RMA is now occurring, and
those who understand it and take advantage of it will enjoy a
decisive advantage on future battlefields .
Military theorists around the world have long noted the
historical discontinuities in the conduct of warfare caused by
the advent of new technologies and weapon systems . The
Soviets called these discontinuities "military-technical
revolutions ." Recently, analysts in the United States have
started calling them RMAs . This change in terminology was
meant to capture the nontechnical dimensions of military,
organizations and operations, the sum of which provide a large
part of overall military capabilities .
The nature of these discontinuities is such that warfare after
the "revolution" is unlike what went on before in profound and
significant ways . Throughout history, there have been a
number of such revolutions . Gunpowder produced an early
military revolution in the Western World, transforming both
land and naval warfare . During the mid-nineteenth century,
industrialization revolutionized warfare through railroads, the
telegraph, the steam engine, rifled guns, and ironclad ships .
More recently, the mechanization of warfare during the
*Robert Kim, Mark Jacobson, John Moyle, and Steven Kenney also assisted in the
preparation of this chapter.
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