A Revolution in Warfare

TECHNOLOGY STRIKES AGAIN

For almost a decade American defense planners have foreseen an impending revolution in military affairs, sometimes described as the military-technical revolution. Such a transformation would open the way for a fundamental reordering of American defense posture. It might lead, for example, to a drastic shrinking of the military, a casting aside of old forms of organization and creation of new ones, a slashing of current force structure, and the investment of unusually large sums in research and development.

Such a revolution would touch virtually all aspects of the military establishment. Cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles would replace fighter planes and tanks as chess pieces in the game of military power. Today's military organizations--divisions, fleets, and air wings--could disappear or give way to successors that would look very different. And if the forces themselves changed, so too would the people, as new career possibilities, educational requirements, and promotion paths became essential. New elites would gain in importance: "information warriors," for example, might supplant tankers and fighter pilots as groups from which the military establishment draws the bulk of its leaders.

The proponents of this view have turned to history to illustrate--and in some measure to create--their theory of radical change. It is, therefore, proper to ask whether the historical record substantiates their claims.ffi

Most soldiers, in their heart of hearts, would agree with Cyril Falls, a military historian of an older generation, who noted in his 1953 work A Hundred Years of War, 1850-1950:

Observers constantly describe the warfare of their own age as marking a revolutionary breach in the normal progress of methods of warfare. Their selection of their own age ought to put readers and listeners on their guard. . . . It is a fallacy, due to ignorance of technical and tactical military history, to suppose that methods of warfare have not made continuous and, on the whole, fairly even progress.