The revolution in military affairs therefore suggests a framework for defense planning composed of four pillars. They are information dominance, synergy, disengaged combat, and civilianization. A number of implications have already been drawn from each of those principles. This final section outlines some broader and more fundamental lessons of the framework as a whole. It is interesting to note, at the outset, how the four principles fit together like pieces of a puzzle, mutually dependent and reinforcing. The lines of intersection are simply too numerous to mention. Information's dominant role creates the need for and possibility of synergy and promotes the civilianization of defense policy. Disengaged combat relies on accurate, real-time targeting information for success, and may increasingly be conducted through civilian or nonlethal means. Like past revolutions in military affairs, the present one is an organic whole. Any one element pursued in isolation will offer only a shadow of the RMA's true potential. It is important to note that, while all four principles apply to both conventional and unconventional war, not all of them apply in equal measure to both, and applying the principles to those very different forms of warfare will require two very different doctrines. Information dominance in conventional conflict means a very different thing from that same principle in guerrilla warfare. Disengaged combat is simply not possible in irregular war, and, as a result, traditional "warrior values"-physical toughness, courage, the willingness to give one's life for a cause-will continue to be at a premium in most forms of irregular war. Will the RMA change the "essence" of warfare? The answer depends upon one's definitions. Classical military strategy, as represented in the works of Clausewitz and Jomini, sought to mass forces at a critical point and attack the enemy's center of gravity in a decisive battle. Some have argued that the RMA will invalidate such a model of warfare: forces will no longer be massed, the enemy will no longer be directly engaged, forces will no longer fight "through" a decisive point along lines nor seek a decisive battle in close combat. On the other hand, one could argue that these same concepts remain valid, but in a different sense: U.S. forces will mass fire and other military effect against enemy centers of gravity to win decisively. This different understanding of warfare may come to rely more on the foundation of Sun Tzu than Clausewitz or Jomini. Sun Tzu's notion of winning a war without fighting a battle-at least a traditional, close battle-may become the dominant preoccupation of military institutions. Maneuver, guile, and long-range strike, rather than vast tides of close-combat attrition, will be the watchwords for U.S. commanders in the future. It is therefore unsurprising that all four principles have always been true, to a greater or lesser degree, of irregular warfare. It was always nonlinear, based on civilian political and socioeconomic factors; successful strategies to fight irregular war always employed a high degree of synergy and "civilian" tools among their various political, military, and economic elements. This suggests that future U.S. military leaders will need more of the flexibility and innovativeness of thought characteristic of the great generals of guerrilla warfare, who have always looked to Sun Tzu rather than Clausewitz for inspiration. In this sense, the RMA is about the blurring of lines, and may therefore work to change the fundamental essence of warfare. Distinctions between military and civilian technologies and endeavors, between strategic and tactical operations, [71] between conventional and unconventional war, and between warfare and law enforcement are all breaking down. What most historians nominate as the "essence" of warfare-two enemy soldiers braving death to kill each other on the battlefield-will remain valid in most types of combat, but not all of them. The question is how much of warfare comes to reflect a new war-form, as the Tofflers call it, and how fundamental this change becomes. Several specific lessons emerge from this discussion of the likely future of warfare. One stands out as especially important: the quality of military personnel. Only highly intelligent, superbly trained, well-equipped troops with high morale and wide experience will be able to flourish in the incredibly demanding atmosphere of future war. This is true of both conventional war, which is becoming faster and more complex, and irregular war, which calls for a unique blend of soldiering skills and socioeconomic sensitivity. Indeed, high-quality troops provide a hedge against errors in exactly the sort of framework for defense planning proposed in this monograph. Clausewitz recognized that: it is simply not possible to construct a model for the [conduct] of war that can serve as a scaffolding on which the commander can rely for support at any time. Whenever he has to fall back on his innate talent, he will find himself outside the model and in conflict with it; no matter how versatile the code, the situation will always lead to the consequences we have already alluded to: talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice. [72] Measures to recruit, train, and retain high quality troops in all branches of the military must therefore be among our top priorities. [73] This means, among other things, jealously guarding military pay raises and other benefits, opposing cuts in operations and maintenance accounts, [74] providing for realistic and extensive peacetime training, developing simulation capabilities and other high-technology training devices, and attempting to keep the forces equipped with modern systems. Technologies may drive the RMA, but people and organizations will carry it out. In addition to smart weapons, therefore, the RMA calls for smart organizations and smart personnel. A second major lesson of the new framework for defense planning concerns acquisition reform. The U.S. military procurement system cannot keep up with the demands of 21st century warfare. Civilian technologies are outpacing military ones, and if, as argued above, future war will come to rest on a foundation of civilian information technologies, this gap could be deadly. If the Defense Department's software for combatting computer viruses, for example, is three or four years behind the viruses in the hands of an Iraqi hacker, the United States will confront a strategic vulnerability. This lesson points to the urgent need for the kind of acquisition reforms, described by Defense Secretary Perry, that would make civilian equipment more accessible to the military by chopping away at the intervening wall of unique requirements and government regulations. In the long run, however, this same trend may force us to ask more fundamental questions and reconsider the whole notion of a "defense industrial base." If, as suggested above, our emphasis on major platforms declines, we may be able to focus our efforts on preserving a very narrow slice of businesses-those that produce, not bombers or submarines, but advanced sensors, precision-guided weapons and their warheads, ammunition, and command and control systems. That set of industries is a much more manageable challenge for a U.S. industrial base policy than the current, vast defense base focused on producing major platforms. Third, the revolution in military affairs renders a decisive judgment on the future military fortunes of totalitarian states. Such societies and their military establishments suffer from rigid, centralized, hierarchical command structures; slow, predictable patterns of technological innovation; and an inability to encourage the qualities of initiative and self-reliance in their military officers. The militaries of totalitarian states cannot implement any of the six elements of the RMA. They belong, as a collective group, in the dustbin of military history. In coming decades, no totalitarian state should be able to stand up to the onslaught of democratic nations wielding the principles of the RMA. This conclusion carries dramatic implications for the threat posed by such nations as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and a potential renewed totalitarianism in Russia. It suggests that these threats might not be nearly as great as their numbers would suggest. The easy coalition victory in the Gulf War might, after all, be replicable in other cases in which the United States is fighting a totalitarian regime. [75] Fourth, the RMA points to the need for dramatic organizational reforms in the Department of Defense. Joint offices should control doctrine and procurement. Hierarchies should be reduced to speed innovation and responsiveness. As Admiral Owens has proposed, joint commands should be established in peacetime. And expanded investments should be made in what Lieutenant General Frederic Brown has called a "bureaucracy of change"-those institutions, such as the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, that promote strategic thinking and doctrinal innovation. If Sun Tzu is to be the new doctrinal inspiration for the U.S. military, then the virtues and values of special operations forces may well be the organizational model for the future. Special operations units are small, agile, flexible, able to take on a wide range of missions, highly trained and motivated, and imbued with the need for decentralized initiative. They use stealth and guile rather than brute force to achieve their objectives. These same principles will dominate the doctrines of the regular U.S. military in the years to come. Fifth, the RMA suggests that a reevaluation of U.S. coalition strategy might be in order. It suggests, first of all, that the most helpful and appropriate place to get allied help in managing the burdens of the new world order will be in operations short of war, especially peacekeeping and peacemaking. These kinds of operations and conflict call for traditional military skills rather than high-tech wizardry, and they are precisely the more common, every-day endeavors that the United States will not be able to conduct on its own. Beyond that, U.S. commanders will be increasingly challenged to integrate other military forces into their operations in a meaningful way. Sixth and finally, the RMA underpins the denuclearization of U.S. defense planning. As Soviet military analysts recognized a decade ago, modern conventional weapons can assume many missions previously assigned to nuclear weapons. Modern U.S. conventional forces, combined with the collapse of the Soviet Union, mean that the United States need not threaten nuclear war to deter conventional attacks anywhere in the world today. At a minimum, this would allow for a doctrine of no first use of weapons of mass destruction, reserving the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons for threats of retaliation against nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. [76] Nor is it even clear that, 10 or 20 years from now, the United States will need to threaten a nuclear response to nuclear attack. A number of analysts have already proposed nonnuclear retaliation against small nuclear attacks by regional proliferators, [77] and Paul Nitze has gone even further. The United States might consider, he writes, "converting its principal strategic deterrent from nuclear weapons to a more credible deterrence based at least in part upon `smart' conventional weapons." Conventional weapons, Nitze points out, are "safer, cause less collateral damage and pose less threat of escalation than do nuclear weapons. They thus offer far greater flexibility." And he suggests provocatively that such a nonnuclear deterrent might someday "overcome" even the threat posed by "a first-class strategic [nuclear] arsenal, such as that of Russia." [78] The RMA therefore provides the United States with both the incentive and the means for elbowing nuclear weapons to the margins of world politics. Taken together, these broad implications and the entirety of the preceding analysis points to a specific set of priorities for funding in the years ahead. Figure 1 summarizes these priorities. These capabilities, weapons systems, and types of forces would provide the greatest leverage in the emerging revolution in military affairs. 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