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The Revolution in Military Affairs, Transformation
and
the Defence Industry
Authors: Peter Dombrowski and Andrew L. Ross
Volume 4, Number 4 (Summer 2008), pp. 13-38.
Abstract
Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) and transformations are uncommon phenomena. They entail fundamental and disruptive discontinuities. To date, the US transformation enterprise has fallen short of the RMA hype. It entails incremental advances with little evidence of generation-skipping technologies and has so far had only modest impact on US procurement programs. Hence US military transformation is unlikely to pose insurmountable challenges for the US defence industrial sector. In particular, the systems integration innovation required to realise network centric warfare is primarily sustaining rather than disruptive, requiring suppliers to build on existing, not develop new, capabilities. Close supplier-customer relationships in this sector, the emphasis on sustaining innovation, and the scale of the systems integration work required constitute formidable barriers to entry for new systems integrators, including commercial information technology (IT) firms. These barriers are being reinforced as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon invest heavily in organic IT capabilities.
About the Authors
Peter Dombrowski is a Professor of Strategy and Chair of the Strategic Research Department at the US Naval War College. He has been affiliated with several other research institutions, including the East-West Centre, The Brookings Institution, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. He has written over 35 articles, monographs, book chapters and government reports. dombrowp@nwc.navy.mil.
Andrew L. Ross is Director of the Centre for Science, Technology and Policy and Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. He has held research fellowships at Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, the University of Illinois and the US Naval War College. His work on US grand strategy, national security, defence planning, regional security, weapons proliferation, security and economics and public policy has appeared in numerous journals and books. aross@unm.edu.
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