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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 05/02
The Revolution in Military Affairs: Allied Perspectives
Robbin F. Laird and Holger H. Mey
Institute for National Strategic Studies
National Defense University
April 1999
Prologue
The revolution in military affairs (RMA) is an American concept that frames a debate about the restructuring of American military forces in the period of globalization of the American economy. A core task for U.S. allies is to seek to understand the American debate and to identify opportunities for and the risks to themselves in variant patterns of development of the American military in the years ahead.
An RMA rests upon a dramatic restructuring of the American economy. New technologies are correlated with significant changes in organizational structures. The restructuring of the American military is occurring in the context of restructuring American society and expanded global reach for the United States. It is part of a much broader process of change within the United States and in the relationship of the United States to the world.
As such, for core allies the United States poses a number of challenges simultaneously. European and Asian allies are struggling to redefine their economic models. The Europeans will enter a new phase of development with the emergence of the Euro zone. Associated with this change are dramatic efforts to restructure European culture and economies as well. The enlargement of the European Union comes on top of this and is part of the dynamic process of change. In Asia, the currency crisis is part of a broader stimulus for change in the Japanese and less-developed Asian economies. The American economic restructuring is both stimulus and challenge to change in Asia.
The new information society emerging in the United States is reshaping the global reach of American society. The interaction between American cultures (various immigrant and indigenous subcultures) and relevant ethnic "parent" cultures outside of the United States is a dramatic force for change as well.
As part of this broader American assault upon established structures of industrial states, the RMA drives change. Coping with the American challenge; globalization; emergent technologies; framing Asian and European variants of information societies; and trying to redefine security structures to reflect the epochal challenges at home and abroad are formidable pressures upon European and Asian allies.
The United States is the only global power, and its military, instruments are global in character. The United States is redesigning its relationships with key industrial allies. In effect, the United States is, de facto, trying to set in place a new regional networking strategy. Broad global military reach is inextricably intertwined with the global forces of economic and cultural change.
For regional partners of the United States, the RMA challenge is part of a much broader challenge of organizational redesign and innovation within their domestic societies and regional frameworks. For a regional partner operating in a regional network with the United States, the challenge is to design an approach that can cope with American power but at the same time is part of the strategic redesign of its own national and regional agendas.
In other words, an American RMA will not be replicated as such by any particular regional ally of the United States but will be part of the new face toward the future of organizational innovation in broader social, economic, and military structures. No regional partner of the United States is capable of reproducing the American approach to the RMA or will slavishly follow the strategic redesign of the American military. At best, regional allies will pursue RMAs that can enhance their capacity to deal with regional goals and networking requirements.
For the United States to develop an effective interallied RMA strategy, it will be necessary to examine carefully the confluence of global with regional power instruments. For regional allies, it will be necessary to consider the nexus between regional military instruments and the pool of available technologies and military approaches generated by the global orientation of U.S. military forces. Above all, there is the challenge of connecting a blended technology and force restructuring project with a shifting balance of power between the United States and its regional allies in the years ahead. Balancing the demands of a technology with a political project is a difficult challenge indeed for both the United States and its allies.
That is why it is necessary to reflect briefly on the American strategic redesign prior to turning to the American approach to the RMA and allied perceptions of challenges in dealing with the United States.
