click to edit master text styles land warfare studies centre knowledge and warfare: the revolution...

Land Warfare Studies Centre

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Knowledge and Warfare: The Revolution in Military Affairs

Dr Michael Evans

Knowledge Management and Warfare in the Information Age

Click to edit Master text styles The Meaning of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

The contemporary RMA refers to the transformation of war by information-age technologies such as computers, microelectronics and precision weapons

The RMA and Information Superiority

The cornerstone of the RMA is information superiority, the capability to collect, process and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same

The US Philosophy of Information Superiority

‘To find, fix, track and target - in near real time - anything that moves or is located on the face of the Earth’.

General Ronald R. Fogelman, Chief of Staff, US Air Force, February 1997

‘Information superiority [is] at the core of military innovation’.

General Henry Shelton, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 1999

Three Themes of the Presentation

Overview the American RMA and the role of knowledge in war

Outline US Pentagon response to information-age warfare

Assess Australia’s Knowledge Edge philosophy and its implications

An Overview of the American Revolution in

Military Affairs

Key Technologies of the RMA

C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance)

PGMs (long range precision strike)

Stealth (low-observable platforms)

Click to edit Master text stylesFour Characteristics of

the RMA Debate

RMA is at once a process, a hypothesis and a debate

RMA closely linked to globalisation and information revolution

RMA largely an American phenomenon

Notion of an RMA is attractive to Western theorists for cultural reasons

Click to edit Master text stylesAmerican RMA Schools

System of systems

Dominant battlespace knowledge

Global reach, global power school

Economic determinists

Contingent innovators

Vulnerability school

Essential continuity school

Click to edit Master text stylesSystem of Systems

RMA School

Promotes information superiority via situational awareness

Believes information grid connecting ‘sensors to shooters’ will emerge

Future of war lies in network-centric warfare (exploiting OODA Loop)

Dominant Battlespace Knowledge RMA School

Believes new technology will create DBK and transparent non-linear battlespace

Believes that unity of C4ISR, PGMs and Stealth technology will make military operations full-dimensional

Linear mass in war will give way to non-linear ‘effects-based operations’

Dr Libicki and The Terminator Vision

Future warfare will be a conflict between machines (MEMS, robotics, nanotechnology battlefield meshes)

The ‘small and the many’ will triumph over the ‘large, the complex and the few’

‘To see is to know; to know is to be able to strike; to strike is to be able to win’

Click to edit Master text stylesGlobal Reach, Global Power RMA School

Associated mainly with USAF and based on Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO)

Promotes deep strike air power (B-2 bombers, cruise missiles, JDAMs)

Sees evolution of USAF into an aerospace force based on UAVs/UCAVs and lasers

Economic Determinist or Third Wave RMA School

RMA shaped by civilian IT/knowledge economy

Third Wave war: ‘the way we make war reflects the way we make wealth’

Third Wave militaries will be small, specialised and knowledge-based

Click to edit Master text stylesContingent Innovation

RMA School

Looks to lessons of military history for guidance (e.g. 16th century gunpowder revolution and 20th century blitzkrieg doctrine)

Argues that military revolution springs from technology added to knowledge (doctrine and concepts)

Technology, Knowledge and Military Revolution

[A military revolution] occurs when the application of new technologies into a significant number of military systems combines with innovative operational concepts and organisational adaptation in a way that fundamentally alters the character and conduct of conflict

Andrew Krepinevich, ‘From Cavalry to Computer: Patterns of Military Revolution’ (1994)

Click to edit Master text stylesThe Vulnerability RMA

School

Fears rapid weapons proliferation, WMD threat and asymmetric challenges

‘Future may not be “Son of Desert Storm” but “Stepchild of Somalia and Chechnya”’ - General Charles C. Krulak, USMC (1996)

Fears of this school realised on September 11 with al-Qaeda attacks on US homeland

Essential Continuity RMA School

Sees no revolutionary paradigm shift in warfare

Believes in military transformation rather than military revolution

Warns that many RMA models ( e. g. blitzkrieg) were based on evolution not revolution

The Heart of the American RMA Debate

At the heart of the RMA debate lies the impact of electronics, computers and precision munitions on warfare and the notion of a transition towards ‘information-age knowledge based warfare’ although there are differences over pace and direction

Towards Knowledge Warfare:

The Pentagon and the RMA

Main Features of Joint Vision 2020

Seeks information superiority by:

dominant manoeuvre (using IO)

precision engagement (missile power)

full-dimensional protection (battlespace control)

focused logistics (force sustainment)

US Military Caution over Transformation

Lack of RMA consensus provides limited options for rapid force transformation

Uneven technology means much experimentation and field trials

RMA developments in computers, electronics, munitions not matched by revolution in sensors or platforms

Click to edit Master text stylesLegacy Systems and

Information Superiority

US still requires ‘legacy’ systems (artillery, manned aircraft, helicopters)

Legacy systems accompanied by revolutionary weapons systems (JDAMs, UAVs, UCAVs)

Complete information superiority still an aspiration rather than a reality

Click to edit Master text stylesThe Experience of Kosovo

NATO had information superiority but:

Did not achieve full battlespace awareness or perfect precision

Aircraft struck wrong targets and could not stop ethnic cleansing by Serbs

Sensor technology was inadequate

Campaign showed dangers of ‘information saturation’

The Experience of

Afghanistan

USAF pulversised Taliban/al-Qaeda but:

Unlike Kosovo key role played by Special Forces and Afghan proxies

Overreliance on PGMs led to possible escape of Osama bin Laden

Air power like teenage sex offers instant gratification not lasting commitment

The Precision Revolution and Knowledge-Based

Warfare

Parts of RMA greater than whole

From information superiority to DBK still more theory than reality

Precision revolution coexists with legacy systems

Australia and the Knowledge Edge

Defining the Knowledge Edge

Outlined in 1997:

as ADF’s highest capability priority

and defined as ‘the effective exploitation of information technologies to allow us to use our relatively small force to maximum effectiveness’

The RMA’s Potential for Australia

[The RMA will introduce] a fundamentally different style of warfare . . . where distance offers no protection; where if a target can be found it can be destroyed; where the most precious commodity will be information and the most deadly military weapon will be speed’

Ian McLachlan, Minister for Defence, June 1996

Information Warfare and the ADF Knowledge Edge

‘Information warfare. . . The ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ . . . Is where our comparative advantage over potential adversaries is likely to last longest. In coming years, it will be harder for Australia to match regional numbers of platforms such as ships and aircraft’.

Defence Review 2000: Our Future Defence Force, June 2000

Developing the Knowledge Edge in the 21st Century

A Knowledge Edge exists when, as a result of leveraging and exploiting information, communications and other technologies, and by the application of human cognition, reasoning and innovation, there is a comparative advantage in those factors that influence decision making and its effective execution

ADF Brief on the Knowledge Edge, June 2000

Click to edit Master text stylesDefence 2000 and the

Knowledge Edge

2000-12 A $2.5b to be spent on ADF Information Capabilities

Will include JSF, stealth, ARHs, UAVs and UCAVs

‘Knowledge Edge will be the foundation of our military capability’

Click to edit Master text stylesKnowledge Management

and the Knowledge Staff

ADF Knowledge Staff created in mid-2001

Focuses on Network-Enabled Warfare (NEW) and creating a surveillance system

NEW described as ‘warfare deriving power from robust, rapid networking of well-informed, rapidly deployable forces and/or effects’ (July 2002)

The Character of the Australian Knowledge Edge

Viewed in terms of American RMA schools:

Is a blend of system of system and contingent innovation schools

Growing recognition of asymmetric challenge may mean closer affinity with vulnerability school

Click to edit Master text stylesConclusion

Future Scenarios to 2025

Likely: system of systems or variant of DBK will emerge making the battlespace much more transparent

Unlikely: a Terminator-style battlefield mesh based MEMS, robotics and biotechnology. These trends are in their infancy operationally

Information, Knowledge and Wisdom

What shapes the conduct of international relations and therefore the course of history is not only the number of people with access to information; it is more importantly how they analyse it. Since the mass of information tends to exceed the capacity to evaluate it, a gap has opened up between information and knowledge, and even beyond that, between knowledge and wisdom

Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (2001)

Click to edit Master text styles21st Century Modes of

Conflict

Pre-modern conflict (religious terrorists, low-tech ethnic militia)

Modern conflict (conventional wars a la Gulf or Korea)

Post-modern conflict (combinations of high-tech warfare and casualty limitation)

Why a Knowledge Edge is Important in War

War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied

Sun Zi, The Art of War

Click to edit Master text stylesQuestions?

click to edit master text styles land warfare studies centre knowledge and warfare: the revolution...

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