Finally, the revolution in military affairs points in the direction of the civilianization of war. In areas from the conduct of warfare, the organization of force structure, and policies toward the defense industrial base, the RMA will make use of capabilities resident more in the civilian world than in areas traditionally thought of as the defense establishment. Because of the RMA, the line between military and civilian endeavors is blurring. [63] Of course, this has always been true for irregular warfare. The myriad of social, political, and economic factors involved in peacekeeping or counterinsurgency operations has always made them far more than purely "military" struggles. Indeed, many critics of U.S. policy in Vietnam argued precisely that the United States was treating the conflict as a military one, when in fact it was something more than that. All of this remains true for the irregular wars of today. The need to consider nonmilitary factors may be magnified by a growing cause of nonmilitary conflict: the environment. And if irregular war is indeed becoming the dominant form of conflict, then war is indeed becoming a less "military" enterprise. Even in the realm of major conventional war, however, the boundary between military and civilian efforts will dim. The accelerating rate of technology is one reason. Because of the remarkable advance of technology and the stifling system of military procurement, civilian computers, engines, optics, and other systems are far outpacing their military equivalents. Civilian products are also far cheaper. This fact has been one of the major spurs to the current drive for procurement reform, which aims at making a wider range of civilian technologies available to the military. More fundamentally, future warfare will be information warfare, and it is therefore built upon a foundation of civilian technologies. When the primary focus of war was killing, its primary tools were the implements of killing; and the most advanced versions of those were built exclusively for military use. The technology of war, therefore, was self-generating. Today, the trend is in the opposite direction: the substructure of war will be information dominance, and its primary building-blocks are computers, communication systems, satellites, and sensors. The essence of war is coming to rest on a foundation of civilian, rather than military, technologies. [64] Alvin and Heidi Toffler have discussed the ultimate implications of this trend in their book War and Anti-War. When the instruments of war are no longer tanks and guns but computer viruses, microscopic robots, and obscure germs, militaries, and indeed nation-states themselves, will lose even more of their monopoly on "force." [65] Nonlethality and civilianization are closely related phenomena. The nature of armed forces is also changing to place more emphasis on reserves and militias, and thus on the citizen-soldier elements of military institutions. This trend is currently most apparent in Europe. After maintaining very substantial active-duty forces during the cold war, most NATO members are rushing to demobilize. Soon NATO's non-American nations will maintain barely 50 active-duty brigades, relying on large reserve forces for the bulk of a response to any new Russian provocations. Here in the United States, the Bottom Up Review force's ability to fight two contingencies hinges on the participation of 15 National Guard combat brigades. In a time of budgetary frugality, force structure trades off with modernization and readiness; this tradeoff is frankly admitted by the architects of the Bottom Up Review, and is increasingly evident in nations like China and Japan, as well. The shift to smaller active-duty forces remains uneven at best. Recent developments in Russia, where reformers once proposed active armed forces as small as 1.2 million, have halted reductions at almost double that number. And everywhere, the trend toward smaller active-duty forces depends on a continuation of current trends, which, given the chaotic nature of world politics, can hardly be guaranteed. Nonetheless, if something like current trends persist at least for a time, and if democratic reforms take root in Russia and China, the rush to demobilize may continue. If so, defense planners may be forced into a more serious consideration of concepts like civilian-based defense. In the future, militias equipped with small arms, light anti-armor weapons, and perhaps the cast-offs of active forces like tanks and MLRS might provide the basic form of deterrence against an attacker on the country's homeland. Nonviolent conflict and resistance may assume many roles formerly held by military force, especially in low-intensity conflict. [66] Such a defense could be stiffened by the talents of people who work on the cusp of military and civilian endeavors. Computer hackers could cripple an enemy's stock market with a virus; space-age computer experts could reprogram their micromachines or nanomachines to invade and destroy the radios of passing enemy units; satellite operators could provide intelligence on enemy movements and jam enemy communications. These types of "military personnel" would need very different qualities, and have very different personal characteristics, from the sort of people who have traditionally sought military careers. [67] Meanwhile, smaller, sophisticated active-duty forces would conduct expeditionary tasks in peacetime and offer the nation's core striking force in war. This kind of arrangement would have important social ramifications. The gulf between civilian and military life, seemingly narrowed by the prominent role for reserves and militias, might in fact widen because of the elite, super-specialized nature of military forces. Different forms of recruitment might be required for the two forces: reservists might be conscripted while active-duty forces were composed of volunteers, a twist on the distinction which the French already maintain today. The ultimate result of such a trend is, of course, the disappearance of active-duty military forces altogether. As the fabric of society is increasingly woven from fiber-optic cables, civilian technicians of the future could conduct all the deterrent threats and destructive actions that comprise what might be described as "warfare" from a computer terminal. This, of course, is the stuff of science fiction, and not a result we or our children are likely to live to see. But it is hardly out of the question. Nonlethal weapons play an important role in this same trend toward civilianized warfare. In the future, U.S. forces will seek to kill as few enemy civilians, do as little collateral damage, and-in a new twist-kill as few enemy soldiers as possible. This shift will come about because it is both possible and desirable. [68] Various new technologies grouped under the general heading of "nonlethal weapons" will deepen and accelerate this trend. Microwave generators capable of incapacitating troops, lasers capable of temporarily blinding them, slippery gels that can prevent the use of roads or bridges, and a whole panoply of electronic warfare gadgets will allow U.S. and allied forces to conduct certain military operations, in some circumstances, without threatening a single life. U.S. forces will be able to achieve some "military" objectives-seizing a strategic location, knocking out enemy command and control, disabling an enemy unit in the field-without firing a shot.  These results, of course, will take decades to achieve. Most nonlethal technologies remain on the drawing board. Even when they are fielded, they may not be appropriate for all, or even very many, missions. As long as U.S. enemies keep using guns, war will remain a lethal enterprise, and U.S. forces will often need to shoot back. And the adoption of a fully nonlethal strategy might undermine deterrence, suggesting to future Saddam Husseins that, not only would they not risk their regime with aggression-they might not even risk the lives of their soldiers. [69] For the time being, the Defense Department views nonlethal weapons as an adjunct to, not in any way a replacement for, traditional military systems. [70] Nonetheless, nonlethal weapons and tactics will gain ground in coming years, for a number of reasons. Given the media focus on war and the semi-isolationist mood of the American people, the corollary to the need for low U.S. casualties is the requirement for low collateral damage. The American people might not long tolerate an operation involving marginal national interests that necessitated the destruction of enemy cities or the slaughter of tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. The public revulsion, and subsequent military restraint, surrounding the famous "Highway of Death" in the Gulf War is an example of this phenomenon. Like disengaged combat, therefore, nonlethality will expand U.S. flexibility and freedom of action in using force. Nonlethal capabilities will be especially important in irregular war, where, along with high-tech sensors and command and control systems, they could effect a true revolution in the nature of peacekeeping and counterinsurgency tactics. Crowds of demonstrators could be incapacitated rather than killed. Guerrilla groups could be denied the use of roads and trails through the use of a greasy oil rather than bombing runs. Terrorists operating at night could be blinded by lasers when they approached U.S. forces. Circuitry in radios and computers of rebel groups could be destroyed with targeted electromagnetic bursts. Again, these capabilities will only become available over the next decade. But together they could change the way U.S. and allied military planners view missions in irregular warfare. And they evoke a question for future generations of defense planners: Must war involve killing? Or would any nonlethal endeavor cease to be war and become something else? Back to Table of Contents Revolution in Military Affairs Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com