The Impact of the Office of Net Assessment on the American Military in the Matter of the Revolution in Military Affairs

Abstract

The paper re-examines our understanding of the role played by Andrew Marshall in the development of American thinking about the application of information technologies to military systems and concepts of operation that is commonly referred to as the current Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). It asks why Andrew Marshall, unlike many other American officials, saw the developments in this area as a potentially discontinuous, systematic change in military practice, rather than an incremental improvement. The paper identifies a range of prior experiences that made Andrew Marshall more sensitive to the possibility of an RMA, including his work on Soviet nuclear doctrine, and his exposure to sources of intelligence about Soviet military thinking in the 1970s and 1980s. It concludes that the 1990–91 Gulf War was not a major factor in the development of his thinking, and that that war, in fact, may have inhibited more innovative thinking about the RMA in the American military in general.

Key Words:

• Net Assessment
• Revolution in Military Affairs
• Precision Guided Munitions
• Defense Policy Board
• Gulf War Air Power Survey

Notes

¹This essay was written on the basis of my reading of generally available material and on my personal impressions, and does not represent or reflect the views of Andrew Marshall, the Office of Net Assessment, or the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Because it does not rely on the internal documents of the Office of Net Assessment or any component of the United States Department of Defense, and because it reflects my own personal judgments, and in some cases, speculations, it may contain errors or omissions, though I have done my best to avoid both.

²Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Military Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment (Washington DC: Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, henceforth CSBA 2002), <www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/R.20021002/R.20021002.MTR. pdf>.

³Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: Comparing the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US and Israel (Stanford UP 2010).

⁴Barry D. Watts, Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks: Progress and Prospects (Washington DC: CSBA 2007), 9, 184, 190.

⁵Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals' War (Boston: Little Brown 1995), 92.

⁶Elizabeth A. Stanley, Evolutionary Technology in the Current Revolution in Military Affairs: The Army Tactical Command and Control System (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute/US Army War College 1998).

⁷This thinking also affected my own work. See Stephen Peter Rosen, ‘Conventional Combat and the Nuclear Balance’, Journal of Strategic Studies 10/1 (Spring 1987), 36–61.

⁸Available online at <http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA277478>.

⁹Gordon S. Barrass, The Great Cold War (Stanford UP 2009), 211–16, 267.

¹⁰The Odom papers on this subject and others have been donated to the United States National Archives.

¹¹William J. Hurley, Dennis J. Gleeson, Stephen J. McNamara and Jeol B. Resnick, ‘Summaries of Recent Futures War Games', Joint Advanced Warfighting Program, Institute for Defense Analysis, Alexandria, VA, Oct. 1998.