Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) - I
02 Mar, 2001 · 475
Brig Chandra B Khanduri comments on the changes in military strategy with high technology becoming integral to all military operations
The last decade of the twentieth century saw the unfolding of some important military events. In the 1970s three wars had far reaching effects: The Indo-Pak war created Bangladesh out of East Pakistan; Vietnam was unified and the world’s superpower, the US was humbled, and the Egyptians made their way into the Sinai, during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. These military victories gave a boost to military technologies and the practice of strategy. They left lessons for the progressive and modern nations to imbibe. By the time the
UK
embarked on its Falkland Campaign in April 1982, the world began to see the emergence of the Precision Guided Missile (PGM). Although
Argentina
lost the war, their Exocet missiles based on PGM technology sank four British warships and badly damaged two others besides causing damage to several aircraft.
US
not only demonstrated its prowess over
Iraq
in the Gulf War (1991) but made it known that it was conceptually their future ‘war without soldiers.’ The 29 nation coalition victory with minimal casualties emphasised this point.
US
army is undergoing reorganization for qualitative improvement. For example, an infantry battalion that does most of the ground fighting, is being provided with a mobile gun system on a semi-tracked vehicle. Its reconnaissance and surveillance capability for tactical battlefield has been considerably improved. Within the battalion itself, there is a plan to incorporate ‘integrated companies’ that have machine guns, long range 120mm motors and adequate anti-tank missiles. The brigade, which continues to have three recognized infantry battalions with additional long range fire support, better mobility and provision of four pilotless (unmanned) air vehicle which extends its ISR capability considerably. The built in logistics make it a deep strike formation in both conventional and nuclear battlefield.
About this time, the Soviet Marshal General Nikolai Ogarkov unfolded the Russian theory of Military Technological Revolution (MTR). It aimed at achieving ‘long range precision strike capabilities by creating ‘combined Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance’ (ISR) systems- an euphemistic sort of ‘war without soldiers.’ What was a purely a Russian doctrine of MTR/ISR was quickly taken note of by the Pentagon and adopted as Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in mid-1980s. Exploring every aspect of its emerging technological break-through, the
The RMA, formally adopted by the US Army as ‘Air Land Battle’ in official Doctrine ‘FM-100-5’ and joint Vision 2010’ has continued to march forward as a ‘system of systems.’ With its declared mission of achieving ‘dominant battle space knowledge’ over the enemy, it is primarily clearing what Carl von Clausewitz called "fog of war" and the Duke of Wellington, called "the other side of the hill." Technically, the information, the aerospace systems and materials form the core of the RMA technologies. These are the technologies of the American major weapon systems such as Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) and the National Missile Defence (NMD). For the battle field formation, the RMA endeavours to provide unique facilities of ISR from commanders to lone combatants, and integrates every conceivable system of decision-making and action through automated battlefield responses including electronic warfare, psy war and integrated logistics. Called a Joint Force Doctrine (as envisaged in Joint Vision 2010), its essential component are information superiority, dominant maneuver, precision engagement, protection and focussed logistics. It has set the pace for future ‘high tech wars’ and the RMA.
The RMA is an ‘aim plus’ objective of the American Government of the day. It is intended to be an ‘economic force multiplier’ in US. As most of the American industry has strong military component through RMA (and projects on TMD, NMD) the Government aims to continue to provide its defence oriented industry a competitive edge in the world market.
The applicability of the RMA is immense. There is not only all round improvement of the strategic capability of the US but it has percolated to the operational level aiming at creating a future force de frappe.
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