Contemporary war is as much a quest for decisive technological, organizational, and doctrinal superiority before the fighting starts as it is an effort to destroy enemy militaries during battle. Armed forces that are not actively fighting are instead actively reengineering themselves for success in the next fight and imagining what that next fight may look like. Twenty-First Century Military Innovation outlines the most theoretically important themes in contemporary warfare, especially as these appear in distinctive innovations that signal changes in states’ warfighting capacities and their political goals. Marcus Schulzke examines eight case studies that illustrate the overall direction of military innovation and important underlying themes. He devotes three chapters to new weapons technologies (drones, cyberweapons, and nonlethal weapons), two chapters to changes in the composition of state military forces (private military contractors and special operations forces), and three chapters to strategic and tactical changes (targeted killing, population-centric counterinsurgency, and degradation). Each case study includes an accessible introduction to the topic area, an overview of the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding that topic, and the most important theoretical implications. An engaging overview of the themes that emerge with military innovation, this book will also attract readers interested in particular topic areas.

Are there limits to military transformation? Or, if it seems obvious that there must be limits to transformation, what are they exactly, why do they arise, and how can we identify them so that we may better accomplish the transformation that the U.S. military is capable of? If limits to military change and transformation exist, what are the broader implications for national policy and strategy? The author offers some answers to these questions by analyzing the efforts of the French, British, and Americans to deal with irregular threats after World War II.

NATO member states are all undergoing some form of military transformation. Despite a shared vision, transformation has been primarily a US-led process centered on the exploitation of new information technologies in combination with new concepts for "networked organizations" and "effects-based operations." Simply put, European states have been unable to match the level of US investment in new military technologies, leading to the identification of a growing "transformation gap" between the US and the European allies. This book assesses the extent and trajectory of military transformation across a range of European NATO member states, setting their transformation progress against that of the US, and examining the complex mix of factors driving military transformation in each country. It reveals not only the nature and extent of the transatlantic gap, but also identifies an enormous variation in the extent and pace of transformation among the European allies, suggesting both technological and operational gaps within Europe.

"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.

Are there limits to military transformation? Or, if it seems obvious that there must be limits to transformation, what are they exactly, why do they arise, and how can we identify them so that we may better accomplish the transformation that the U.S. military is capable of? If limits to military change and transformation exist, what are the broader implications for national policy and strategy? The author offers some answers to these questions by analyzing the efforts of the French, British, and Americans to deal with irregular threats after World War II.

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.

As the United States enters a new century, its army confronts the difficult problems associated with transformation in an uncertain world. Moreover, the strategic environment makes it entirely unclear where, or when, or for what strategic purposes U.S. ground forces will find themselves committed to battle in coming decades. Yet, both the strategic environment as well as the harsh lessons of the past have a direct bearing on why the Army has begun the processes of transformation. The study of the past cannot lead to prediction as to the nature and conduct of war in the 21st century, but it does underline that sometime in the future the Army will find itself committed to a major conflict. Moreover, the nature of the current strategic environment suggests the parameters within which the future Army will have to operate. Finally, history is crucial to understanding what factors and approaches might best prepare the Army to meet future threats. This introduction, then, represents an attempt to set out for the reader the issues-past, present, and future-that could best frame the Army's approach to transformation and innovation. The past is crucial to understanding why ground forces will always be essential to achieving the political aims for which wars are fought. Moreover, the current strategic environment indicates that U.S. military forces are going to have to readdress the two old questions of time and distance. The United States cannot escape the geographic realities that two great oceans separate it from much of the rest of the world by two great continents.

explains how the US military transformation failed in the post-Cold war era Harvey Sapolsky is a leading defence scholar in the US will be of interest to students of strategic studies, defence studies, military studies, US politics and security studies in general

Why are some military organizations more adept than others at reinventing themselves? Why do some efforts succeed rapidly while others only gather momentum over time or become sidetracked or even subverted? This book explicates the conditions under which military organizations have both succeeded and failed at institutionalizing new ideas and forms of warfare. Through comparative analysis of some classic cases - US naval aviation during the interwar period; German and British armour development during the same period; and the US Army's experience with counter-insurgency during the Vietnam War - the authors offer a novel explanation for change rooted in managerial strategies for aligning service incentives and norms. With contemporary policy makers scrambling to digest the lessons of recent wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to meet the unfolding challenges of the new revolution in military affairs (RMA), understanding the sources and impediments to transformation has become critical.