LIT3 - Sloan. (2002). Revolution in Military Affairs. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is RMA?
revolution in military affairs (rma) is that
advances in technology must lead to significant changes in how military forces are organised, trained, and equipped for war, thereby reshaping the way in which wars are fought
What is Sloan’s joint doctrine?
Most military experts believe the new military will increasingly be a joint force.
- Indeed, the rma is bringing about an increasingly integrated battlefield, with the army, navy and air force working ever more closely together.
- The rma also foresees greater
combined operations potential among the armed forces of different countries.
What is the Naval Doctrine? Sloan 2002
A key shift in naval doctrine is towards coastal warfare.
- Most future contingencies will require the navy to project force “from the sea,”
directly ashore, whether in the context of a regional war or a peacekeeping
operation. The navy must move from preparing to fight on the oceans to projecting power from the sea to the land - Additionally, there is shift from platform-centric to
network-centric warfare. This
concept places the emphasis on the sensor and surveillance systems of a group of warships, submarines, or aircraft, rather than on the particular attributes of the platform itself.
What is Land Doctrine? Sloan 2002
Land warfare specialists argue that regardless of the doctrinal changes taking place in the navy and air force, it still takes “boots on the ground” to achieve u.s. military objectives.
Although ground forces will continue to be necessary, their characteristics must change.
- The idea is to change from a forward-deployed industrial age army trained,
equipped, and postured to stop a Soviet advance in Europe to
an information age
powerprojection army.
- As the unpredictable nature of the threats in today’s international security
environment necessitates that
military forces have the ability to respond
quickly to almost any situation.
So future ground operations are likely to see troops moving rapidly over the battlefield in
small groups.
To transform themselves into the smaller, more mobile force of the future, land forces
must become
less dependent on large logistics infrastructures.
What is the Air Doctrine?
Advances in precision capabilities have made air power the decisive force in war, allowing for the
doctrine of “disengaged combat,” under which ground commanders do not have to face the enemy directly until the costs of such contact have been made tolerable.
Many military experts predict a long-term move away from manned fighters and toward unmanned combat
What is the Space Doctrine? Sloan 2002
Several military experts argue that space will evolve in the future from a medium for
military and commercial satellite transmission into an actual theatre of military operation.
Space operations could involve everything from protecting military satellites to , knocking out enemy space-borne threats and denying adversaries the same opportunities in space.
What are Revolutionary Organizations? Sloan 2002
Today’s organizational transformation requires that with the shift from “mass
destruction” to “precision warfare” comes a parallel shift from mass armies to smaller, more highly educated, and capital-intensive professional armed
forces whose units are commanded by a more decentralised decision-making
structure and can be specifically tailored to the task at hand
The new military will rest primarily on professional forces as the balance between
quantity and quality shifts in favour of quality
Is the war getting centralized or decentralized?
At the same time, the centralised decision making of the bureaucratic organization,
which dominated the industrial age, must change to reflect the
decentralization of the
information age.
Military organizations must become “de-layered,” with soldiers accorded more
leeway in taking initiatives.
