Global Issues: Revolution in Military Affairs - Aerial Bombardment

In May 2003 President Bush stood on the USS Abraham Lincoln, wearing fatigues with the back drop of a huge sign saying ‘Mission Accomplished’. Bush talked about the ‘arrival of a new era’, and he claimed that the US had discovered a new form of warfare that, through exploiting information technology, is more rapid, precise, and low in casualties than ever before. Coalition forces, said Bush, toppled the Iraqi regime “with a combination of precision, speed and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before”. But had they discovered a new form of warfare which constituted a ‘revolution in military affairs’?

The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a theory about the future direction of warfare in light of technological and industrial improvements which have taken place since previous wars. Use of sophisticated technology such as laser guided weapons and ‘smart bombs’, ‘stealth’ aircraft, unmanned drones, satellite systems and mobile phones have led to some pundits proclaiming conventional warfare to be dead. RMA is a forward-thinking strategy which aims to minimise the human cost of warfare on the side that adopts RMA tactics.

A nice illustration of RMA is to be found in a recent article in The Economist called the ‘The Calibration of Destruction’ on ‘smaller, cleverer and more accurate munitions are changing warfare making bombing campaigns safer for civilians.’ The article focuses on the Perseus, a 900kg (2,000lb) bomb made in Greece, which incinerates almost everything in an area larger than a dozen football fields. Farther out, oxygen is sucked from the air and people may be crushed by a pressure wave. The article is particularly worth reading, in my twisted opinion, for the account of the use of a U.S. CBU-105 bomb dropped from a B-52 during the second Gulf War and its effect on an Iraqi armoured column. Read the article here.

In May 2003 President Bush stood on the USS Abraham Lincoln, wearing fatigues with the back drop of a huge sign saying ‘Mission Accomplished’. Bush talked about the ‘arrival of a new era’, and he claimed that the US had discovered a new form of warfare that, through exploiting information technology, is more rapid, precise, and low in casualties than ever before. Coalition forces, said Bush, toppled the Iraqi regime “with a combination of precision, speed and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before”. But had they discovered a new form of warfare which constituted a ‘revolution in military affairs’?

The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a theory about the future direction of warfare in light of technological and industrial improvements which have taken place since previous wars. Use of sophisticated technology such as laser guided weapons and ‘smart bombs’, ‘stealth’ aircraft, unmanned drones, satellite systems and mobile phones have led to some pundits proclaiming conventional warfare to be dead. RMA is a forward-thinking strategy which aims to minimise the human cost of warfare on the side that adopts RMA tactics.

A nice illustration of RMA is to be found in a recent article in The Economist called the ‘The Calibration of Destruction’ on ‘smaller, cleverer and more accurate munitions are changing warfare making bombing campaigns safer for civilians.’ The article focuses on the Perseus, a 900kg (2,000lb) bomb made in Greece, which incinerates almost everything in an area larger than a dozen football fields. Farther out, oxygen is sucked from the air and people may be crushed by a pressure wave. The article is particularly worth reading, in my twisted opinion, for the account of the use of a U.S. CBU-105 bomb dropped from a B-52 during the second Gulf War and its effect on an Iraqi armoured column. Read the full article here.