Technology and Revolutionary Changes in Military Affairs

World War II to Present

As a seismic shift in the international security environment commenced in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, military affairs specialists began to speculate about a revolutionary transformation in the American conduct of warfare. The very same information technologies that have opened up closed societies and altered the global economy were presumed to be the principal drivers of revolutionary changes in modern warfare. Historians began to compare these changes to the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. During that period, advances in the internal combustion engine, aircraft design, and communications were equally available to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Yet only Germany fully exploited the operational and organizational importance of these advances in such initiatives as the September 1939 invasion of Poland that sparked World War II and, later, the Blitzkrieg (or “lightning war”) that featured rapid speed and tight coordination between air and land forces in attacking enemy positions.

But two distinct forms of revolutionary change were clearly at work during World War II and, arguably, are at play today, too. The first and broader phenomenon, called a military revolution, results from deep social and political upheavals that have equally reshaped societies and the way military institutions ultimately fight and win wars. The mass politics of the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution's war-enabling capacities, and the advent of nuclear weapons represent three distinct military revolutions that have profoundly altered the circumstances under which military institutions prepare for and conduct war. The second and more narrowly focused phenomenon, called a revolution in military affairs (RMA), although conditioned by the ongoing and emerging effects of military revolutions, is a period of intense military innovation in which entirely new operational concepts encompassing doctrine, tactics, and technology merge to create quantum improvements in military effectiveness. This entry examines such enhancements in American military capability created by the ongoing information revolution, which could itself become the next great military revolution shaping several RMAs—all with profound consequences for the future of warfare and the nation's security.