Military Strategy in the 21st Century: The Imperative for a New Intellectual Paradigm.

摘要

Much has been "written of late regarding the advent of new information technologies, new weapons systems and platforms, and intelligence architectures offering to fuse real-time information that will achieve total battlefield awareness The excitement that these advances and the ongoing Revolution in Military Affairs bring to the military strategist is palpable While acknowledging we are on the cusp of a wondrous new technologic landscape, however, much uncertainty is expressed as to what exactly these technology breakthroughs will bring what they will do, how they will change how we live and wage war, and how they will shape our world Concurrently, the end of the Cold War shattered the comfortable bi-polar world the US inhabited, sending everyone, the military strategist included, scurrying to find a new roadmap New challenges are destabilizing the international arena, while at home the burgeoning information culture encourages citizens and politicians to demand better performance and insist on more involvement in military decision-making Modern technologies are expensive to build and deploy and the military is increasingly asked to contribute on the full spectrum of engagement, yet budgets are tight and will get tighter Societal and epistemological changes are driving the tide of Post-modernism, questioning the very validity of " truth", and are just beginning to send out ripples which will affect the fabric of society which undergirds the military In short, the world is in flux on multiple levels, familiar terrain has been left behind and many anxiously lament that the future is shrouded by a fog of uncertainty.