Upcoming role of information in modern warfare

Modern warfare is moving to a 4th dimension (not in a physics sense).

Traditionally, most people only see 2 dimensions of a military, its attack and defence. An M1 Tank can kill a T-90 at x range and can defeat n type warhead with its armor.

What people never factor in is the third dimension, mobility. The M1 can kill a T-90 because it can manuever itself into a position where the T-90 can't respond.

With information technology, we are moving into a 4th dimension. The M1 can kill a T-90 because it knows where it is relative to its environent and pin point a location that the T-90 can't respond rapidly. The M1 can then manuever itself into that position and use its gun to kill the T-90.

Things like mobility and information dominance are intangible and contribute a much greater combat power than attack and defence alone. This is the reason why a Carrier battle group is so effective.

What originally caught my eye here was the term 4th. Although IdonT said 4th dimension the current debate in the US is between the 4th Generation and RMA proponents. While Iraq is definately a 4th Gen style setting,a fuure war with Iran would be princaply a RMA style war on the US side where info and cyber war aspects would mean as much as the actual combat power.

personally I come down on the side of RMA in most situations, it plays up to the US streangths in technology and skills training.

Originally Posted by IDonT

Modern warfare is moving to a 4th dimension (not in a physics sense).

Traditionally, most people only see 2 dimensions of a military, its attack and defence. An M1 Tank can kill a T-90 at x range and can defeat n type warhead with its armor.

What people never factor in is the third dimension, mobility. The M1 can kill a T-90 because it can manuever itself into a position where the T-90 can't respond.

With information technology, we are moving into a 4th dimension. The M1 can kill a T-90 because it knows where it is relative to its environent and pin point a location that the T-90 can't respond rapidly. The M1 can then manuever itself into that position and use its gun to kill the T-90.

Things like mobility and information dominance are intangible and contribute a much greater combat power than attack and defence alone. This is the reason why a Carrier battle group is so effective.

As IDonT stated about us moving into a 4th Dimension in warfare with information technology, we have been doing so ever since Grant and Lee were able to use the Telegraph to instantaneously (for all practical purposes) send and receive information by telegraph. Before then, the communication of information was effectively the same for Napoleon as it had been for Thothmoses III. Effective wireless communication and dissemination of information by radio made Blitzkrieg possible. I see the present focus on information and cyber warfare as a continuation, not a radical break, with this.

I am ambiguous at best about the Revolution in Military Affairs; I am pleased by the possibilities that it offers, but I suspect that it will require a great deal of trial-and-error to get its concepts right, and a lot of the promise that it holds out may well prove false. That goes for all theories and the like until they have undergone enough practical experience to fit them to reality. That said, I consider RMA to be another step in the evolution of combined arms and joint forces warfare, not a revolution. Some steps in that evolution may be more dramatic than other, Blitzkrieg being a prime example of that, as it is also a prime example of how such a step may prove to be only a temporary advantage over opponents.

That said, I am largely ignorant of the theory surrounding RMA and know what I know only in passing; but some of the claims that I have seen that by subscribing to RMA theories, the lessons of the past are obsolescent or only marginally relevant sound impetuous at best. RMA, Netcentricty, Transformation, were all tested out at the now notorious Exercise Millenium Challenge 2002, and they failed their first test. As many of us know, the enemy force commander, General van Riper USMC actually quit during the exercise because after he defeated the RMA/Netcentric/Transformation force decisively halfway through its planned length, someone or some-people higher up simply scripted out how the exercise was to procede and how the "Transformation" force would of course win according to expectations.

Then came the real test. DoD claimed (and used those claims to override the generals' military advice for hundreds of thousands of troops to do the job right) that Netcentricity/Transformation and the like would allow US (and Coalition) forces to defeat the insurgency there with a fraction of the troops that traditional forces would require; well, we have all seen how that has turned out. And remember, it's not just US forces that subscribe to this sort of wishful thinking, it's both allies and potential enemies that imitate the US (either out of interoperability needs as with Allies, or slavish imitation rooted in the inferiority complexes of enemies).

RMA has been over-sold, and as such, it is proving a disappointment in many respects. This may diminish the attractiveness of some otherwise promising advances and potential for advances. RMA is an evolutionary improvement, however great or small it will eventually prove to be, not a revolutionary one, and certainly not so far. The elevation of information in warfare to the status proposed in RMA is, I suspect, a misleading portrayal; Blitzkrieg demonstrated much of Netcentric Warfare's real potential over 60 years ago, as well as its limitations.

This is not new or dramatic, though many of the tools and technologies now available vastly amplify its potential, it is simply stating in theoretical form much of what had already been practiced by the Germans in the early years of WWII. RMA and Netcentricity theory are largely johnny-come-lately's - what their theorists seem now to be proposing was already in great part practiced (in prototype form if you will) two generations ago. Military theorists and practitioners have harped and hammered on the utterly prime importance of information (both to oneself and the enemy) since war began - Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Guderian to RMA.

It's not new, just many of the technologies and their resulting procedures that are available now. This appraisal may do less than justice to some of Information Warfare's better innovations, but I fear that too much is being made of it, that a long peace (free of any real general wars at least) has led peacetime theorists to try to re-invent the wheel.