Thomas K. Adams critiques the US government's army reform programme. He provides timely coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 'generals' revolt' against Rumsfeld. The author has 34 years military experience to back up his arguments.
This document summarizes our initial year's work on the project Assessing Advanced Concepts and Technologies for the Army After Next (AAN). At the request of TRADOC, Deputy Chief of Staff for Doctrine (DCSDOC), RAND Arroyo Center initiated this project about halfway into FY97. The overall intent of the effort was to provide force-on-force simulation-based analytic support to the AAN initiative and support the series of wargames. The effort involves the use of high-resolution constructive simulation to explore both operational concepts and technology options for the light battle force concept associated with the AAN initiative. One of the key capabilities required of the light battle force is an ability to hide and wait for the right opportunity and then create a virtual ambush, resulting in a shock or disintegration of the enemy. This kind of defeat, to some extent, is contrasted from more traditional attrition in that it greatly compresses the time in which
This book recounts the successes and failures of the US Army's Army Transformation program in the larger context of the Department of Defense's overall military transformation effort. Spurred by the belief that RMA represented the future, the Department of Defense (DoD) set out to transform the U.S. armed forces by adopting RMA concepts. Led by President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the DoD spent billions in an attempt to make the hypothetical capabilities real, changing the entire structure of the armed forces as a result. The services, the media, Congress, and the military industry each had its own agenda, all of which continue to come into play in the development of RMA strategies. The interplay of politics, technology, and military reality offers a fascinating narrative. Sure to be found controversial by some, compelling by all, this is the only available book-length examination of the way the U.S. Army and Department of Defense have tried to create the capabilities promised by the high-tech Revolution in Military Affairs. Of more immediate concern, it is also the only in-depth account of the effect RMA and transformation concepts had on the American operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan, author Thomas K. Adams argues, arose from the DoD's implacable desire to implement RMA-driven transformation concepts—whether they were appropriate or not. What we need to do, he maintains, is to fight the war we have, not the war we want.
This study assesses the potential of new technology to reduce logistics support requirements for future Army combat systems. It describes and recommends areas of research and technology development in which the Army should invest now to field systems that will reduce logistics burdens and provide desired capabilities for an "Army After Next (AAN) battle force" in 2025.
This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.
A small band of "RMA" analysts has emerged in the military and Department of Defense, in the academic strategic studies community, and in defense-related think-tanks and consulting firms. To these analysts, the Gulf War provided a vision of a potential revolution in military affairs (RMA) in which Information Age technology would be combined with appropriate doctrine and training to allow a small but very advanced U.S. military to protect national interests with unprecedented efficiency. The authors examine the open-source literature on the RMA that has resulted. They find that much of it has concentrated on defining and describing military revolutions and that, despite the efforts of some of the finest minds in the defense analytical community, it has not offered either comprehensive basic theories or broad policy choices and implications. The authors believe that in order to master a RMA rather than be dragged along by it, Americans must debate its theoretical underpinnings, strategic implications, core assumptions, and normative choices. As a step in that direction they provide a set of hypotheses regarding the configuration and process of revolutions in military affairs, and examine some of their potential policy implications.
Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award "The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Bill Gates The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.
This is a book about strategy and war fighting. It contains 11 essays which examine topics such as military operations against a well-armed rogue state, the potential of parallel warfare strategy for different kinds of states, the revolutionary potential of information warfare, the lethal possibilities of biological warfare and the elements of an ongoing revolution in military affairs. The purpose of the book is to focus attention on the operational problems, enemy strategies and threat that will confront U.S. national security decision makers in the twenty-first century.