The Influence of Strategic and Organizational Cultures on the Revolution in Military Affairs (Rma) Within the U.S. Army - Analysis of the Interwar Per

The Influence of Strategic and Organizational Cultures on the Revolution in Military Affairs (Rma) Within the U.S. Army - Analysis of the Interwar Per

Author: U. S. Military

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2019-03-07

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781798997017

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This study explores the influence of culture on the requirements for a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). It assesses how cultural factors at the strategic and the U.S. Army organizational levels may affect the changes required for realizing an RMA. Defined as a paradigmatic shift in the conduct of military affairs spurred by the confluence of organizational change with new and existing technologies and concepts of operations, the RMA has long been a controversial analytical construct. This thesis accepts the premise that the history of warfare can be interpreted as a series of RMAs. It explores the complex and powerful influence of American strategic culture and the organizational culture of the U.S. Army on the organizational, doctrinal, technology, funding and other factors vital to the realization of an RMA. The study compares the influence of U.S. strategic and Army organizational culture on the RMA during the interwar period (1919-1941) and the contemporary period (since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq) to highlight similarities and differences that U.S. military and civilian leaders can learn from to change the paradigm of military affairs in America's favor.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. I. INTRODUCTION * A. RESEARCH INQUIRY * B. RESEARCH CHALLENGES * C. LITERATURE REVIEW * 1. Strategic Culture * a. The First Generation of Literature on Strategic Culture * b. The Second Generation of Literature on Strategic Culture * c. The Third Generation of Literature on Strategic Culture * 2. Organizational Culture * a. Approaches to Defining Organizational Culture * b. Approaches to Studying Culture * D. U.S. SECURITY STRATEGY AND U.S. ARMY TRANSFORMATION * 1. The Interwar Period * a. Strategy * b. U.S. Army Transformation * 2. Contemporary Period since the Iraq War * a. Strategy * b. U.S. Army Transformation * E. METHODS AND SOURCES * F. THESIS ORGANIZATION * II. INFLUENCE OF INTERWAR CULTURE ON THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS * A. STRATEGIC CULTURE * 1. Interwar Era U.S. Politics, Defense Policy and the RMA * 2. The American Way of War and the RMA (Interwar Period) * 3. Force and Diplomacy in U.S. Foreign Policy and the RMA * 4. The National Cognitive Style and the RMA (Interwar Era) * B. U.S. ARMY CULTURE AND THE RMA IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD * 1. Army Doctrine, Change and the RMA in the Interwar Period * 2. Army Organization, Change and the RMA in the Interwar Period * 3. Army Materiel, Change and the RMA in the Interwar Period * C. CONCLUSION * III. INFLUENCE OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE ON THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS * A. STRATEGIC CULTURE AND THE RMA IN THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD (2011-PRESENT) * 1. Contemporary U.S. Politics, Defense Policy and the RMA * 2. The American Way of War, and the RMA * 3. Force and Diplomacy in U.S. Foreign Policy and the RMA * 4. The National Cognitive Style and the RMA * B. U.S. ARMY CULTURE AND THE RMA IN THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD * 1. Army Doctrine Change and the RMA in the Contemporary Period * 2. Army Organization, Change and the RMA in the Contemporary Period * 3. Army Materiel, Change and the RMA in the Contemporary Period * C. CONCLUSION * IV. MANAGING CULTURE TO ACHIEVE AN RMA * A. MANAGING STRATEGIC CULTURE TO ACHIEVE AN RMA * 1. U.S. Politics, Defense Policy and the RMA * 2. The American Way of War * 3. Force and Diplomacy in U.S. Foreign Policy and the RMA * 4. The National Cognitive Style and the RMA * B. MANAGING ARMY CULTURE IN PURSUIT OF AN RMA * V. CONCLUSION


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.


Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare: The Sovereignty of Context

Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare: The Sovereignty of Context

Author: Colin S. Gray

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 67

ISBN-13: 1428916210

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"Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA) was the most widely used, and abused, acronym in the U.S. defense community in the 1990s. Subsequently, "transformation" has superceded it as the preferred term of art. For the better part of two decades, American defense professionals have been excited by the prospect of effecting a revolutionary change in the conduct and character of warfare. In this monograph, Dr. Colin S. Gray provides a critical audit of the great RMA debate and of some actual RMA behavior. He argues that the contexts of warfare are crucially important. Indeed so vital are the contexts that only a military transformation that allows for flexibility and adaptability will meet future strategic demands. Dr. Gray warns against a transformation that is highly potent only in a narrow range of strategic cases. In addition, he advises that the historical record demonstrates clearly that every revolutionary change in warfare eventually is more or less neutralized by antidotes of one kind or another (political, strategic, operational, tactical, and technological). He warns that the military effectiveness of a process of revolutionary change in a "way of war" can only be judged by the test of battle, and possibly not even then, if the terms of combat are very heavily weighted in favor of the United States. On balance, the concept of revolutionary change is found to be quite useful, provided it is employed and applied with some reservations and in a manner that allows for flexibility and adaptability. Above all else, the monograph insists, the contexts of warfare, especially the political, determine how effective a transforming military establishment will be.


Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy

Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy

Author: Colin S. Gray

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13:

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The author offers a detailed comparison between the character of irregular warfare, insurgency in particular, and the principal enduring features of "the American way." He concludes that there is a serious mismatch between that "way" and the kind of behavior that is most effective in countering irregular foes. The author poses the question, Can the American way of war adapt to a strategic threat context dominated by irregular enemies? He suggests that the answer is "perhaps, but only with difficulty."


Strategy for Chaos

Strategy for Chaos

Author: Colin Gray

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-03-25

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0203339258

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In this volume, Professor Colin Gray develops and applies the theory and scholarship on the allegedly historical practice of the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA), in order to improve our comprehension of how and why strategy 'works'. The author explores the RMA hypothesis both theoretically and historically. The book argues that the conduct of an RMA has to be examined as a form of strategic behaviour, which means that, of necessity, it must "work" as strategy works. The great RMA debate of the 1990s is reviewed empathetically, though sceptically, by the author, with every major school of thought allowed its day in court. The author presents three historical RMAs as case studies for his argument: those arguably revealed in the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon; in World War I; and in the nuclear age. The focus of his analysis is how these grand RMAs functioned strategically. The conclusions that he draws from these empirical exercises are then applied to help us understand what, indeed, is - and what is not - happening with the much vaunted information-technology-led RMA of today.


Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare

Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare

Author: Colin S. Gray

Publisher:

Published: 2006-02-28

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781461185499

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Since 1993 at the latest, when Andrew W. Marshall and his Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) introduced into public debate the concept of a Revolution in Military affairs (RMA), the idea of revolutionary change in warfare has gripped the official U.S. strategic imagination. All such master notions, or meta narratives, have lengthy antecedents. The provenance of RMA can be traced in the use of laser-guided bombs in Vietnam; in the 1970s "Assault Breaker" project to develop rocket-delivered smart bomblets to target Soviet armor far behind the front; in Soviet speculation about a Military-Technical Revolution (MTR) and the feasibility of "reconnaissance-strike complexes"; in the Discriminate Deterrence reports of the late 1980s (sponsored by then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Dr. Fred Ikle, and inspired by Dr. Albert Wohlstetter); by the dramatic effects of stealth and precision in the Gulf War of 1991; and, "off piste" as it were, by a rising argument among academic historians of early-modern Europe. U.S. debate evolved into official commitment. RMA was to be realized as transformation or, for a scarcely less ambitious expression, as revolutionary change in the way American forces would fight. The fascination with revolutionary change persisted through the 1990s, survived, indeed was given "gravity assists" by the newly mandated Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs), by a change in administration in 2001, and was scarcely dented as the dominant defense concept by September 11, 2001 (9/11). Truly it seems to be a big idea for all seasons: for the no name post-Cold War decade, now for the Age of Terror, and prospectively for whatever the decades ahead will bring. This monograph provides an audit, a not-unfriendly critical review, of the concept of revolutionary military change. It offers a review of what those who theorize about, and those who are committed by policy to execute, such a revolution ought to know about their subject. As the subtitle of the analysis announces, the leading edge of the argument is the potency, indeed the sovereign importance, of warfare's contexts. The monograph strives to clarify the confusion over definitions. It points out that the concept of RMA, though less so the even grander idea of military revolution (MR), is eminently and irreducibly contestable. The RMA debate has provided a happy hunting ground for academic historians to wage protracted internecine combat. All definitions of RMA present problems, a fact which is of some practical consequence for a U.S. military now firmly taking what is intended to be a revolutionary path. This author prefers a truly minimalist definition: an RMA is a radical change in the conduct and character of war. The more detail one adds to the definition, the more hostages are offered to reasonable objection. The first of the three major sections poses and answers the most basic of questions, the ones that really matter most, about revolutionary change in warfare. It asks: Does the RMA concept make sense? Is it useful? Does it much matter? Is not military change more a product of evolution than revolution? Are not continuities at least as important as changes in their relative contribution to military effectiveness? And, is revolutionary change the high road to victory? By and large, though not without some rough handling, the RMA concept, the notion of transformation, or simply the descriptive idea of revolutionary change, survive the ordeal of question and answer.


Military Transformation and Strategy

Military Transformation and Strategy

Author: Bernard Loo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-08-21

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1134103433

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This book explores the idea of a ‘revolution 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 the gap in the literature and establish an intellectual framework that can assist other, smaller powers in their respective approaches to this issue. The book does so in three main sections; Part I focuses on questions of transformations in strategy and war; Part II explores transformations in operations; while Part III examines possible impediments to an RMA. This book will be of much interest to students of Military Studies, Asian Studies, Strategic Studies and International Relations in general.