Revolution in Military Affairs

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The term Revolution in Military Affairs ( RMA , English for Revolution in Military Affairs ) comes from US military science and describes a military-theoretical thesis that at certain intervals in human history doctrines, strategies, tactics or technologies lead to irrevocable upheaval of warfare, or the level of technological progress among the destructive forces has at times required an accelerated adjustment of doctrines and strategies.

George W. Bush made this thesis a guideline for arms policy and defense planning during his presidency.

First approaches

The first approaches to this theory date from the 1970s and 1980s and can be attributed in particular to Marshal of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ogarkow . Ogarkov and other Soviet officers concluded that modern conventional weapons would increasingly have the effect of tactical nuclear weapons . The ideas slowly spread within military circles until the Office of Net Assessment within the United States Department of Defense adopted them in the 1990s. This meaning gave rise to a narrower definition that has played an important role in defense policy in the United States since the 1990s and many aspects have been adapted in other countries, for example Canada or China .

The main obstacle to the progress of the debate is the lack of empirically usable situations. The noticeable increase in armaments spending to the mostly undisputed acceleration of US warfare since the end of the Cold War has so far been difficult to quantify due to the lack of an equivalent war opponent. For example, Yugoslavia's gross national income at the start of the Kosovo war was just under a fifteenth of the American defense budget. However, tendencies of a possible RMA currently taking place can be worked out. This includes the appreciation of the quality of the armed forces through the quantity, the differentiation of weapon technology and the use of commercially available equipment, all of which are taking place on a previously unknown level. Despite this analytical obstacle, Eliot Cohen describes the increasing focus of military organizations on qualitative rather than quantitative criteria, the differentiation of the types of weapons used between different organizations and the increasing proportion of commercially available technology (off-the-shelf technology) as essential features of the most recent RMA.

Joint Vision 2010 / Joint Vision 2020

These considerations led, among other things, to the development of networked operations management , which focuses on strengthening communication within and between the armed forces, and whose theoretical-strategic basis is the doctrines Joint Vision 2010 and Joint Vision 2020 . The declared goal is full-spectrum dominance , i.e. the undisputed leadership of the US armed forces in all matters and areas. - Many, not only Western armies are currently debating the results of the American discussions and are partially implementing the results.

The idea of ​​a comprehensive network and integration of the (partial) armed forces and warfare also originated from considerations of Soviet planners in the 1970s and 1980s. In the doctrine that he had largely shaped, Ogarkow also emphasized the ability to strike first .

Typical RMAs were, for example, the introduction of firearms , the military use of railways , telegraphs and telephones , tanks (and generally the motorization of military units), the development of aerial warfare shortly after the invention of useful vehicles, the atom bomb and the advent of nuclear weapons or intercontinental missiles .

The development of space weapons or the intensified use of cyberspace for military purposes ( cf. Cyberwar ) have recently been propagated. In the US military, electronic networks and space have long been considered separate domains of warfare - on an equal footing with land, sea and air.

See also

literature

  • Mathias Stühler: Revolution in Military Affairs: Hegemony, Grand Strategy and Military Reform in the USA , Vdm Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008, ISBN 3639020456 .
  • Niklas Schörnig: The “Revolution in Military Affairs” - inhibition threshold for a cooperative world order . In: Ulrich Ratsch, Reinhard Mutz , Bruno Schoch, Corinna Hauswedell, Christoph Weller (eds.): Peace report . LIT, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-6007-8 , pp. 219-227 .
  • Armin Erger: Futurism in the Pentagon. New forms of war - Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) , Braumüller, 2005, ISBN 3700315368 .
  • Markus, Holzinger: Risk Transfer Wars: On the Military, Political and Legal Implications of New Weapon Technologies , in: Processes. Journal for Citizens' Rights and Social Policy, Issue 1, 2011. pp. 107–118.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Cohen, Eliot: Technology and Warfare , in: Baylis, John et al .: Strategy in the Contemporary World , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press , 2nd edition 2007, p. 148 (English)
  2. ↑ cf. Cohen (2007), p. 149 (English)
  3. ↑ cf. Cohen (2007), pp. 149 - 153 (English)
  4. ↑ Fundamental document of US planning: Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, version 2.0 ( US General Staff , August 2005 - PDF, 43 p. 2.01 MB)
  5. ↑ Benjamin Schreer: "The Transformation of the US Armed Forces in the Course of the Iraq War", page 7 ( Science and Politics Foundation , December 2003)