Sections

Background

Generations of Warfare

Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

The Indian Security Scenario

References

Background

Over the centuries, warfare has undergone significant transformation, due to new discoveries and innovative application of technologies. These inventions and discoveries have resulted in dramatic changes in military doctrine as well as operational and organisational concepts, and have altered the character and conduct of military operations.

The changing face of war was categorised as “generations of warfare” in 1989 by a team of US analysts, led by William S Lind. As per this taxonomy, warfare has been classified into four generations. While the first three generations were to do with conventional conflicts between large armies, the fourth generation warfare (4GW) is characterised by the increasing role of non-state actors in an asymmetrical conflict with conventional forces and the blurring of lines between politics and military.

The changing nature of warfare is also reflected in the concept of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). The genesis of this concept began in Russia in the early 1980s, and later evolved into the “RMA” concept through the work of military thinkers primarily in the US. An “RMA” is deemed to have occurred when, over some relatively brief period, the character of conflict changes dramatically, requiring equally dramatic changes in military doctrine and organizations.

Let us take a brief look at these two aspects, and their relevance to the current Indian security scenario.

Generations of Warfare

Over the centuries, warfare has undergone modernization, revitalization and adaptation, due to new discoveries and innovative application of technologies. These inventions and discoveries have resulted in dramatic changes in military doctrine as well as operational and organisational concepts, and have altered the character and conduct of military operations. The changing face of war was categorised as “generations of warfare” in 1989 by a team of US analysts, led by William S Lind. As per this taxonomy, warfare has been classified into four generations, as described in succeeding paragraphs [1] & [2].

First Generation Warfare

First Generation Warfare is stated to the tactics of line and column. These tactics were developed partially in response to technological factors – the line maximized firepower, rigid drill was necessary to generate a high rate of fire, etc – and to some extent in response to social conditions and ideas. Remnants of first generation tactics survive today, especially in the form of rigid drills and the frequently felt need for linearity on the battlefield. In this era, operational art did not exist as a concept, although it was practiced by many famous commanders, most prominently Napoleon.

Second Generation Warfare

Second Generation Warfare was a response to the rifled musket, the machinegun, and indirect fire. Tactics were based on fire and movement, although these remained essentially linear. The defender still attempted to block all penetrations, and in the attack a laterally dispersed line advanced by rushes in small groups. Second generation tactics are adequately captured by the French maxim, “the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies.” Massed firepower substituted massed manpower.

Third Generation Warfare

Third Generation Warfare was also a result of increased battlefield firepower, with the driving force being primarily ideas. As a consequence of their weaker industrial base in World War I, the Germans developed radically new tactics. Based on manoeuver rather than attrition, third generation tactics were truly nonlinear in nature. The tactics of attack relied on bypassing the enemy’s combat forces rather than seeking to close with and destroy them. The defence was in depth and often facilitated penetration, which set the enemy up for a counterattack.

Thus we see the major catalysts for change in previous generational shifts: technology and ideas. When William S Lind categorised the first three generations as discussed above in 1989, he also gazed into the future as to how Fourth Generation Warfare would develop. Many other authors have delved on this subject and there is no universally accepted definition of Fourth Generation Warfare. However, there does appear to be general agreement on the basic concept, which is brought out in succeeding paragraphs.

Fourth Generation Warfare

Fourth Generation Warfare, or 4GW, is characterized by blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. It signifies the nation states’ loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict prevalent in earlier times. In its simplest definition, 4GW would include any war in which one of the major participants is a violent non-state actor. Guerrilla tactics resorted to in the Vietnam War would classify as an example of this type of conflict.

From Order to Disorder

The First Generation battlefield was usually a battlefield of order, and it created a culture of order in state militaries. Second Generation War also preserved the military culture of order. Second Generation militaries focused inward on rules, processes and procedure, seeking to achieve perfection of detail in execution. Third Generation War, as defined, diverges from the military culture of order. Here the focus is external, to the situation, the enemy and the desired result. Leaders at every level are expected to produce the results, even if this means deviating from orders. Third Generation military culture values initiative over obedience, and it relies on self-discipline rather than imposed discipline, because only self-discipline is compatible with initiative. Given its complex nature, 4GW can be seen as a shift towards even greater disorder in the battlespace.

Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)

The genesis of the concept of revolution in military affairs began in Russia in the early 1980s, when Soviet Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the Soviet chief of staff at that time, wrote about a “military technical revolution” that would dramatically improve the capabilities of conventional weapons. His theorization about a military technology revolution were meant as a wake-up call to his own country’s political leaders. The US initially became interested in this concept through Andrew W Marshall, the head of the Office of Net Assessment, a US Department of Defence (DoD) think-tank. The concept gradually gained traction within official military circles, and other nations also explored shifts in organization and technology [3].

Defining Characteristics of an RMA

An RMA involves a paradigm shift in the nature and conduct of military operations which either renders obsolete or irrelevant one or more core competencies of a dominant player, or creates one or more new core competencies, in some new dimensions of warfare, or both [4]. An “RMA” is deemed to have occurred when, over some relatively brief period, the character of conflict changes dramatically, requiring equally dramatic changes in military doctrine and organizations.

Taxonomy of RMAs

As per one classification by Krepinevich [5], there have been as many as ten military revolutions since the fourteenth century, as follows: Infantry Revolution, Artillery Revolution, the Revolution of Sail and Shot, Fortress Revolution, Gunpowder Revolution, Land Warfare Revolution, Naval Revolution, Interwar Revolutions in Mechanization, Aviation & Information and finally the Nuclear Revolution.

“System of Systems” RMA

The current RMA is often viewed as “a military revolution combining technical advances in surveillance, C3I and precision munitions with new operational concepts, and continuous and rapid joint operations, holding the entire theatre at risk.” Admiral William A Owens of the US Navy and later Vice Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, US, was an advocate of the “system of systems” RMA approach, in which an all-encompassing and all-knowing technological system manned by commanders can deploy subsystems of force and “see” all the assets and vulnerabilities of the enemy. As per Admiral Owens, the changes heralding the “Current RMA” fall into three categories [6]: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), which involves sensor and reporting technologies associated with intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance; Command, Control, Communications, Computer applications and Intelligence (C4I) processing, the realm in which sensor awareness is converted to dominant understanding of a battlespace; and  Precision Force, a broad concept, in which the knowledge and orders generated from the first two areas are translated into action and results. These broad system architectures and joint operational concepts lead to the creation of a new system-of-systems, which in turn leads to Information Superiority.

“System of Systems” RMA vis-à-vis the OODA Loop

There is a clear correlation between the “system of systems” concept and Colonel James Boyd’s OODA Loop. The “ISR” corresponds to the “Observe” part, the “C4I” to the “Orient-Decide” part and the “Precision Systems” to the “Act” part of the Loop. The resulting Information Superiority enables own forces to operate within the opponent’s decision cycle.

The Indian Security Scenario

Relevance of Lind’s “Generations” Paradigm

If one attempts to correlate Lind’s “generations” paradigm with the present battlefield scenarios in the Indian context, one finds prominent glimpses of three out of the four generations of warfare described above. The mechanics of mountain warfare in the Northern and Eastern Theatres even today primarily employs the “fire and move” tactics which characterise the “second generation” warfare, and the maxim “the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies” finds significant resonance in this scenario. Next, operational art concepts with “ideas” as the driving force and with tactics based on “manoeuvre” and “non-linearity” pretty much define the mechanised warfare scenarios which are expected to unfold in the Western and Southern theatres. Finally, the counter-insurgency operations being witnessed in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere are a very good example of what Lind has referred to as 4GW.

Current RMA and Indian Warfighting Doctrines

The Indian Army (IA) Doctrine of 2004 had stated that Network Centric Warfare (NCW, a concept elaborated upon in Part II of this write-up) is a new method of warfighting enabled by the ongoing (system-of-systems) RMA, which itself is contingent upon robust and sophisticated C4I2SR systems. The doctrine notes that RMA concepts can have a dramatic effect on the conduct of warfare in a conventional (second and third generation warfare) scenario and, to a lesser extent, even in a Low Intensity Conflict (LIC, akin to 4GW) scenario. The IA Doctrine of 2010, on the other hand, while dropping the RMA terminology, endorses the concept of NCW.

Part II of this write-up takes this discussion forward and discusses modern warfighting concepts with special focus on how the nature of warfare is being transformed at a breath-taking pace in this Information Age.

References

(1)    William S Lind et al, The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, Marine Corps Gazette, Oct 1989, pp. 22-26.

(2)    Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Marine Corps, Fourth Generation War, Fleet Marine Force Manual 1-A, 12 Aug 2008, pp. 29-30.

(3)    Chapman, Gary, An Introduction to the Revolution in Military Affairs, Proc. XV Amaldi Conference on Problems in Global Security, Helsinki, Finland, Sept. 2003, pp. 2, 10-14.

(4)    Hundley R O, Past Revolutions, Future Transformations, RAND publishers, Santa Monica, CA and Washington, D C,1999, pp. xiii-xv, 8.

(5)    Krepinevich, Andrew F, Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions, The National Interest (Fall 1994): 30(13), University of Florida, 19 Nov 2006.

(6)    Owens, Admiral W, Emerging System of Systems, Military Review, Vol 75 No 3, May-June 1995.