Confronting The Unconventional Innovation And Transformation In Military Affairs

Are there limits to military transformation? Or, if it seems obvious that there must be limits to transformation, what are they exactly, why do they arise, and how can we identify them so that we may better accomplish the transformation that the U.S. military is capable of? If limits to military change and transformation exist, what are the broader implications for national policy and strategy? The author offers some answers to these questions by analyzing the efforts of the French, British, and Americans to deal with irregular threats after World War II.

This book explores the idea of arevolution in military affairs (RMA), which underpins the transformational agenda of the US military, and examines its implications for smaller states.The strategic studies literature on the RMA tends to be American-centric and directed towards the strategic problems of the US military. This volume seeks to fill t

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the global diffusion of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its impact on military innovation trajectories in small states. Although the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA) concept has enjoyed significant academic attention, the varying paths and patterns of military innovation in divergent strategic settings have been overlooked. This book seeks to rectify this gap by addressing the broad puzzle of how the global diffusion of RMA-oriented military innovation – the process of international transmission, communication, and interaction of RMA-related military concepts, organizations, and technologies - has shaped the paths, patterns, and scope of military innovation of selected small states. In a reverse mode, how have selected small states influenced the conceptualization and transmission of the RMA theory, processes, and debate? Using Israel, Singapore and South Korea as case studies, this book argues that RMA-oriented military innovation paths in small states indicate predominantly evolutionary trajectory, albeit with a varying patterns resulting from the confluence of three sets of variables: (1) the level of strategic, organizational, and operational adaptability in responding to shifts in the geostrategic and regional security environment; (2) the ability to identify, anticipate, exploit, and sustain niche military innovation – select conceptual, organizational, and technological innovation intended to enhance the military’s ability to prepare for, fight, and win wars, and (3) strategic culture. While the book represents relevant empirical cases for testing the validity of the RMA diffusion hypotheses, from a policy-oriented perspective, this book argues that these case studies offer lessons learned in coping with the security and defence management challenges posed by military innovation in general. This book will be of much interest for students of military innovation, strategic studies, defence studies, Asian politics, Middle Eastern politics and security studies in general.

This exploration of the links between imperialism and insurgency is “a reliable introduction to a complex subject” (Dennis E. Showalter, coauthor of If the Allies Had Fallen). In this provocative history, David Tucker argues that “irregular warfare”—including terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and other insurgency tactics—is intimately linked to the rise and decline of Euro-American empire around the globe. Tracing the evolution of resistance warfare from the age of the conquistadors through the United States’ recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, Revolution and Resistance demonstrates that contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are simply the final stages in the unraveling of Euro-American imperialism. Tucker explores why it was so difficult for indigenous people and states to resist imperial power, which possessed superior military technology and was driven by a curious moral imperative to conquer. He also explains how native populations eventually learned to fight back by successfully combining guerrilla warfare with political warfare. By exploiting certain Euro-American weaknesses—above all, the instability created by the fading rationale for empire—insurgents were able to subvert imperialism by using its own ideologies against it. Tucker also examines how the development of free trade and world finance began to undermine the need for direct political control of foreign territory. Touching on Pontiac’s Rebellion of 1763, Abd el-Kader’s jihad in nineteenth-century Algeria, the national liberation movements in twentieth-century Palestine, Vietnam, and Ireland, and contemporary terrorist activity, this book shows how changing means have been used to wage the same struggle. Emphasizing moral rather than economic or technological explanations for the rise and fall of Euro-American imperialism, this concise, comprehensive book is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the character of contemporary conflict.

"Richard W. Rubright addresses the limits and constraints of technology in enhancing American military capability. Analyzing the confines and self-imposed restrictions on the use of technology as well as current military doctrine, he develops a new rubric for guiding the military in modern warfare... This book is the first to address the role of technology in counterinsurgency operations within operational, tactical and strategic contexts"--Dust jacket.

Terrorism, sabotage, and subversion are analyzed to challenge the dominant views that a ‘new conflict’ is now posing unprecedented threats to U.S. homeland security.

Using espionage as a test case, The End of Intelligence criticizes claims that the recent information revolution has weakened the state, revolutionized warfare, and changed the balance of power between states and non-state actors—and it assesses the potential for realizing any hopes we might have for reforming intelligence and espionage. Examining espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action, the book argues that, contrary to prevailing views, the information revolution is increasing the power of states relative to non-state actors and threatening privacy more than secrecy. Arguing that intelligence organizations may be taken as the paradigmatic organizations of the information age, author David Tucker shows the limits of information gathering and analysis even in these organizations, where failures at self-knowledge point to broader limits on human knowledge—even in our supposed age of transparency. He argues that, in this complex context, both intuitive judgment and morality remain as important as ever and undervalued by those arguing for the transformative effects of information. This book will challenge what we think we know about the power of information and the state, and about the likely twenty-first century fate of secrecy and privacy.