Jointly organised with the RAND Corporation)
Our renewal of collaboration between Ditchley and the RAND Corporation focused upon the ways in which the convergence of new technologies was likely to alter the patterns of warfare, and upon the effect which such alteration might have upon the incidence, conduct and management of armed conflict in the global political environment of the future.
Whether or not we liked the term “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) we all acknowledged the physical potential of the partnership between technologies which, albeit in no case wholly novel, seemed to be advancing at an increasing speed of application. Sensors could acquire, communications systems transmit and computer-based handling interpret information about adversaries with a completeness and speed that might, in the hands of a power with resources like those of the US, confer near-perfect “situational awareness” of the arena of conflict; and this could be accompanied by an ability to deliver destructive firepower with high precision, great promptitude and formidably-concentrated weight unconstrained by former limitations of darkness, bad weather and distance, and also, in some potential developments, by those which life-support requirements imposed upon manned delivery platforms. Alongside all this there would be possibilities for deception and concealment further disabling any adversary not similarly equipped.
We reminded ourselves that new capabilities customarily involved new dependencies and thus new vulnerabilities, and moreover that a new abundance of information imposed a heavier task of management. All this was true, said the voice of reassurance, but the new technologies themselves offered wide flexibility, redundancy and power to simplify. There remained nevertheless an awareness that the fog of war - the capacity for disorder and surprise in a harshly competitive activity - could not safely be consigned entirely to history, and robustness against the unexpected would therefore still be needed. We all acknowledged, too, that crude popular images of antiseptic off-shore war without casualties for the RMA-wielder were foolish and damaging; and we heard encouraging emphasis both that proponents of RMA in the US security establishment harboured no such illusions, and that US public opinion could be similarly-educated - what that public minded was not casualties but unaccountable mismanagement of conflict, and failure.
The full scope of RMA potential could not bear upon every conflict; it would be mistaken to centre perceptions of it simply upon high-level conflict such as an even-better re-run of DESERT STORM, though such capability would retain an important deterrent role. There were other - perhaps now more likely - levels of conflict to which, for example, the firepower component of RMA might have only limited application; and the need to occupy ground rather than just to punish or coerce would still arise in many scenarios. But the “informational” aspects of RMA could add great value at lower levels of conflict, as in the management and support of lightly-armed forces in Bosnia-like or even Somalia-like tasks.
Even in military terms alone there remained of course important constraints which RMA would not dissolve. There was no sign of such step-change improvement in the pace at which sea and air transport moved as to revolutionise the pace of distant expeditionary deployment, even though the effect of reductions in logistic burdens might well exceed the demands of new needs (such as perhaps ballistic-missile-defence systems) by enough to make substantial net inroads on volumes to be moved. In addition, it was hard to see that - save perhaps in purely punitive strike - the need for in-theatre bases would disappear; and even for the United States (and a fortiori for others) the military viability of forcible-entry intervention in the absence of bases, if politically realistic at all, might be increasingly open to question.
We noted that many of the new technologies in question were not specifically military either in their origin or in their application to the business of international security. Improved real-time information and communication were relevant for example to the business of diplomacy, and to political control of conflict operations. We noted uneasily in that latter regard a risk that though greater centralisation of decision-making was not a necessary consequence - at least in theory more effective decentralisation was equally feasible - the temptation towards political micro-management might intensify and so either damage realistic professional efficiency or dissipate (especially in coalition settings) the dividends of rapid knowledge.
Few advances in military science remained unilateral, even if (as it was suggested) open societies had a built-in advantage in the exploitation of information-based possibilities. How would adversaries respond to RMA? Surely not (even if they felt unable directly to compete) by continuing to court defeat, Saddam-style, by fighting the US and its allies on RMA terms. Perhaps by eschewing conflict more carefully; but perhaps also by seeking conflict on other terms, for example by terrorism or WMD use directed at Western societal vulnerabilities. Such threats were not new, however, and not the fault of RMA; and so were not a reason for not exploiting its relevant benefits.
We were much preoccupied by questions about what RMA might do to the construction and operation of alliances in the management of global affairs. At one simplistic extreme lay the fear that, just at a time when the United States as the remaining superpower sought in principle to make alliance-framework the preferred principle of its external activity in security matters, it might develop its military forces in ways which others could not afford to match or even to interact with effectively. We glimpsed a chimera - though we knew this to be resolutely rejected by both US leadership and its defence establishment - of a division of labour in which the US undertook the detached high-technology tasks in conflict while others had to pick up unglamorous (and casualty-risking) duties on the ground in Bosnia and elsewhere. For all that we recognised this to be caricature, we acknowledged that it underlined the importance, for genuine trust and perceived interdependence as well as for on-the-day efficacy, of the United States making sustained effort to disseminate RMA capabilities and understanding more widely, and of its allies partnering this by their own efforts to exploit new opportunities and to maintain interoperability. We knew of course that the first requirement for military alliance in conflict management was common strategic purpose, itself by no means always automatically or easily achieved; but a second requirement was practical capability, built in advance, to match the will to act together.
Would RMA save money (a question much exercising Europeans)? In the long run quite probably Yes, for example in training, if wise decisions were made and institutionally-hard trade-offs accepted. But near-term investment - of intellectual as well as of monetary resources - was inescapable (and force multipliers still needed forces). Misgiving was to be heard about how many and which European countries would have the resolve and imagination to face up to this. RMA would probably, for its full potential across the spectrum of possible conflict, require well-trained well-equipped professional forces, and a Continental-European average in NATO of equipment investment per head of uniformed personnel reported to be barely half the UK and considerably less than half the US level did not bode well. Equipment procurement would present particular challenges, in two ways : first, long-established systems of cautious acquisition process would need to adjust to new patterns of fast-changing demand, as for example in the key field of software; second, entrenched national expectations of juste retour and quid pro quo would sit ill with the flexible structures of industrial collaboration needed if US capabilities - especially on major systems and their integration - were not to draw further and further ahead of those elsewhere (to the eventual political disadvantage of the United States itself). These challenges moreover had to be tackled in an environment where military procurement was for the most part no longer in the lead technologically; many of the advances were essentially of civilian origin and impetus, and the task for military acquisition was often to adapt and integrate rather than to initiate and specify.
But RMA, we were wisely reminded, was in any event not exclusively - perhaps not even primarily - about equipment. What it most distinctively made possible, and necessary, was new thinking - perhaps itself assisted by IT, as in simulation and experiment - about concepts and organisations, crossing familiar boundaries. The learning process might well have to be a long one, with modesty of claim required and neatly- settled conclusions elusive. National size, wealth and technological leadership were not sure guarantors of success in this endeavour, and contribution to achieving it need not be the province of the United States alone. The example was adduced of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, in which sustained and careful dialogue over the years had both deepened the understanding, among all its members, of an earlier RMA and enhanced their capacity for exploiting it together. The new RMA was admittedly more diffuse and less clear-cut than the nuclear one - more a matter of the cumulative effect, transforming only in aggregate and interaction, of many incremental changes rather than a dramatic big-ticket leap. But more determined, systematic and open dialogue among allies seemed to many participants a necessary component of exploiting RMA.
Was RMA really a revolution? we continued to ask ourselves. Though the pattern of answers was not wholly tidy, US participants seemed congenitally disposed to answer Yes, others as congenitally No. Possibly the difference reflected traditional political mindsets - how best to “sell” ideas in the national marketplace. But perhaps “evolution or revolution” was an arid semantic issue. The application of new technology was unstoppable, and real change was afoot; die practical task was so to exploit it that as little as possible of what was judged politically desirable in the field of international security had to be foregone as militarily impracticable or over-costly. That was a worthy aim; and advancing it merited political and intellectual effort, preferably in cooperation and dialogue, on both sides of the Atlantic.
This report reflects the Director’s personal impressions of the conference. No participant is in any way committed to its content or expression.
Chairman: The Honorable Frank C Carlucci
Chairman, The Carlyle Group; formerly Secretary of Defense
PARTICIPANTS
CANADA
Dr Kenneth J Calder
Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy and Communications), National Defence Headquarters
General John de Chastelain
Chief of the Defence Staff, Canada, 1989-96
Professor Albert Legault
Professor of Political Science, Laval University
Mr Berel Rodal
Consultant; previously senior official, Government of Canada
FRANCE
Monsieur Gilles Andréani
Directeur, Centre d’Analyse et de Prévision, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères
Madame Thérèse Delpech
Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique; previously Adviser on Politico-Military Affairs to the Prime Minister
Monsieur François Heisbourg
Senior Vice President (Strategic Development), Matra Défense-Espace
GERMANY
Dr Günter Joetze
Präsident, Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik, Rosenburg
UNITED KINGDOM
Dr Correlli Barnett CBE
Author
Mr Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP
Liberal Democrat spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Defence
Mr John Chisholm
Chief Executive, Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
Rear Admiral Richard Cobbold CB
Director, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies
Professor Lawrence Freedman CBE FBA
Professor of War Studies, King’s College, London University
The Rt Hon Dr The Lord Gilbert PC
Minister of State for Defence Procurement
Lieutenant General Scott Grant CB
Commandant, Royal College of Defence Studies
Mr Bernard Gray
Special Adviser to the Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence
Professor Sir Michael Howard CBE MC FBA
Emeritus Professor of Modem History, University of Oxford
Mr Mark Laity
Defence Correspondent, BBC
Mr Richard Mottram
Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence
Dame Pauline Neville-Jones DCMG
Managing Director, NatWest Markets; previously Deputy Under-Secretary of State and Political Director, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Dr Andrew Rathmell
Deputy Director, International Centre for Security Analysis, Department of War Studies, King’s College, London University.
Mr Trevor Truman
Director of Engineering, British Aerospace pic
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Mrs Natalie W Crawford
Vice President and Director, Project Air Force, RAND Corporation
Dr Paul K Davis
Senior Scientist, RAND Corporation
General Ronald R Fogleman USAF (Ret)
Chief of Staff, US Air Force, 1994-97
Dr Theodore S Gold
President, Hicks and Associates Inc
Mr David C Gompert
Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Dr Jeffrey A Isaacson
Senior Physical Scientist and Associate Director, Operations and Planning, National Security Research Division, RAND Corporation
Dr Martin Libicki
Senior Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Major General Gregory S Martin USAF
Director of Operational Requirements and Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations. Headquarters, US Air Force
Dr Thomas L McNaugher
Associate Director, Arroyo Center, RAND Corporation
The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
Chairman, Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation, Member, President’s Advisory Committee on Arms Control; formerly Ambassador to NATO and Secretary of Defence
Dr James A Thomson
President and Chief Executive Officer, RAND Corporation
Dr Harlan K Ullman
Chairman, The Killowen Group
The Honorable Edward L Warner III
Assistant Secretary of Defense Strategy and Threat Reduction, Office of the Secretary of Defense
The Honorable Dr John P White
Senior Fellow, the RAND Corporation; Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1995-97