Predicting Military Innovation
Predicting Military Innovation

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 67

ISBN-13:

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Although military technology is increasingly available and affordable, not all states have the capacity to improve military effectiveness by acquiring hardware. Indeed, integrative deficiencies-such as inflexible command structures, inappropriate doctrine and tactics, improper training, insufficient support-are quite common in the developing world. For many states, as a result, improving military effectiveness requires some level of innovation, e.g., reorganizing command structures, introducing new doctrine and tactics, modifying training techniques, and improving support. Given that improved military effectiveness generally requires innovation, what are the key indicators that intelligence analysts can use to predict whether a state is likely to achieve military innovation? The literature reveals four dominant perspectives that attempt to explain military innovation: structural realist (neorealist), societal, organizational theory, and cultural (both strategic culture and organizational culture). Drawing on these perspectives, we deduce hypotheses on military innovation that are tested in three case studies: the Israeli Defense Forces (1948-1982), the North Vietnamese Army (1965-1970), and the Chaco War (1932-1935).

Predicting Military Innovation
Predicting Military Innovation

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Although military technology is increasingly available and affordable, not all states have the capacity to improve military effectiveness by acquiring hardware. Indeed, integrative deficiencies-such as inflexible command structures, inappropriate doctrine and tactics, improper training, insufficient support-are quite common in the developing world. For many states, as a result, improving military effectiveness requires some level of innovation, e.g., reorganizing command structures, introducing new doctrine and tactics, modifying training techniques, and improving support. Given that improved military effectiveness generally requires innovation, what are the key indicators that intelligence analysts can use to predict whether a state is likely to achieve military innovation? The literature reveals four dominant perspectives that attempt to explain military innovation: structural realist (neorealist), societal, organizational theory, and cultural (both strategic culture and organizational culture). Drawing on these perspectives, we deduce hypotheses on military innovation that are tested in three case studies: the Israeli Defense Forces (1948-1982), the North Vietnamese Army (1965-1970), and the Chaco War (1932-1935).

Predicting Military Innovation
Predicting Military Innovation

Author: Jeffrey Alan Isaacson

Publisher: RAND Corporation

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13:

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This annotated briefing documents a research effort aimed at understanding and predicting how militaries may improve their battlefield effectiveness.

Contemporary Military Innovation
Contemporary Military Innovation

Author: Dima Adamsky

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1136282750

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This book explores contemporary military innovation, with a particular focus on the balance between anticipation and adaption. The volume examines contemporary military thought and the doctrine that evolved around the thesis of a transformation in the character of war. Known as the Information-Technology Revolution in Military Affairs (IT-RMA), this innovation served as an intellectual foundation for the US defence transformation from the 1990s onwards. Since the mid-1990s, professional ideas generated within the American defence milieu have been further disseminated to military communities across the globe, with huge impact on the conduct of warfare. With chapters written by leading scholars in this field, this work sheds light on RMAs in general and the IT-RMA in the US, in particular. The authors analyse how military practice and doctrines were developed on the basis of the IT-RMA ideas, how they were disseminated, and the implications of them in several countries and conflicts around the world. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, defence studies, war and technology, and security studies in general.

Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting
Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting

Author: John W. Lyons

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13:

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An important challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD) science and technology (S&T) programs is to avoid technological surprise resulting from the exponential increase in the pace of discovery and change in S&T worldwide. The nature of the military threat is also changing, resulting in new military requirements, some of which can be met by technology. Proper shaping of the S&T portfolio requires predicting and matching these two factors well into the future. Some examples of technologies which have radically affected the battlefield include the Global Positioning System coupled with inexpensive hand held receivers, the microprocessor revolution which has placed the power of the Internet and satellite communications into the hands of soldiers in the field, new sensing capabilities such as night vision, the use of unmanned vehicles, and composite materials for armor and armaments. Some of these new technologies came from military S&T, some from commercial developments and still others from a synthesis of the two sectors; but all were based on advances in the underlying sciences. Clearly, leaders and planners in military S&T must keep abreast of such developments and look ahead as best they can. As the Army considers its next comprehensive technology forecasting effort as a follow-on to STAR 21, it should not only take into account the concepts of technology convergence, but also tie them together with the capabilities desired by the warfighter.

Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting
Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting

Author: Center for Technology and National Security Policy

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2014-06-08

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9781500120511

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An important challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD) science and technology (S&T) programs is to avoid technological surprise resulting from the exponential increase in the pace of discovery and change in S&T worldwide. The nature of the military threat is also changing, resulting in new military requirements, some of which can be met by technology. Proper shaping of the S&T portfolio requires predicting and matching these two factors well into the future. Some examples of technologies which have radically affected the battlefield include the Global Positioning System coupled with inexpensive hand held receivers, the microprocessor revolution which has placed the power of the Internet and satellite communications into the hands of soldiers in the field, new sensing capabilities such as night vision, the use of unmanned vehicles, and composite materials for armor and armaments. Some of these new technologies came from military S&T, some from commercial developments and still others from a synthesis of the two sectors; but all were based on advances in the underlying sciences. Clearly, leaders and planners in military S&T must keep abreast of such developments and look ahead as best they can.

The Culture of Military Innovation
The Culture of Military Innovation

Author: Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2010-01-27

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0804773807

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This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet 'new theory of victory' represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications. Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare. The Culture of Military Innovation offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.

Buying Military Transformation
Buying Military Transformation

Author: Peter Dombrowski

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2006-09-26

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0231509650

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In Buying Military Transformation, Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz analyze the United States military's ongoing effort to capitalize on information technology. New ideas about military doctrine derived from comparisons to Internet Age business practices can be implemented only if the military buys technologically innovative weapons systems. Buying Military Transformation examines how political and military leaders work with the defense industry to develop the small ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, advanced communications equipment, and systems-of-systems integration that will enable the new military format. Dombrowski and Gholz's analysis integrates the political relationship between the defense industry and Congress, the bureaucratic relationship between the firms and the military services, and the technical capabilities of different types of businesses. Many government officials and analysts believe that only entrepreneurial start-up firms or leaders in commercial information technology markets can produce the new, network-oriented military equipment. But Dombrowski and Gholz find that the existing defense industry will be best able to lead military-technology development, even for equipment modeled on the civilian Internet. The U.S. government is already spending billions of dollars each year on its "military transformation" program-money that could be easily misdirected and wasted if policymakers spend it on the wrong projects or work with the wrong firms. In addition to this practical implication, Buying Military Transformation offers key lessons for the theory of "Revolutions in Military Affairs." A series of military analysts have argued that major social and economic changes, like the shift from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age, inherently force related changes in the military. Buying Military Transformation undermines this technologically determinist claim: commercial innovation does not directly determine military innovation; instead, political leadership and military organizations choose the trajectory of defense investment. Militaries should invest in new technology in response to strategic threats and military leaders' professional judgments about the equipment needed to improve military effectiveness. Commercial technological progress by itself does not generate an imperative for military transformation. Clear, cogent, and engaging, Buying Military Transformation is essential reading for journalists, legislators, policymakers, and scholars.

Military Innovation in Small States
Military Innovation in Small States

Author: Michael Raska

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1317661303

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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.

Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting
Improving the Army's Next Effort in Technology Forecasting

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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"An important challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD) science and technology (S & T) programs is to avoid technological surprise resulting from the exponential increase in the pace of discovery and change in S & T worldwide. The nature of the military threat is also changing, resulting in new military requirements, some of which can be met by technology. Proper shaping of the S & T portfolio requires predicting and matching these two factors well into the future. Some examples of technologies which have radically affected the battlefield include the Global Positioning System coupled with inexpensive hand held receivers, the microprocessor revolution which has placed the power of the Internet and satellite communications into the hands of soldiers in the field, new sensing capabilities such as night vision, the use of unmanned vehicles, and composite materials for armor and armaments. Some of these new technologies came from military S & T, some from commercial developments and still others from a synthesis of the two sectors; but all were based on advances in the underlying sciences. Clearly, leaders and planners in military S & T must keep abreast of such developments and look ahead as best they can. ... As the Army considers its next comprehensive technology forecasting effort as a follow-on to STAR 21, it should not only take into account the concepts of technology convergence, but also tie them together with the capabilities desired by the warfighter."--Page 1-2.