ABSTRACT
From the relatively humble beginnings of a lecture delivered in what was a secondary British university, and a pamphlet published in a city then hardly noted as an intellectual centre, the concept of "military revolution" has metastasized. "Military revolution" has metastasized historically. "Military revolution" has metastasized geographically. Jeremy Black's argument is that military revolution, however it is defined and wherever it appears, depends ultimately on military organization. Organization is institutional, by its nature favouring the long term and the slow hand. Even "military revolutions"—to say nothing of "military technological revolutions" and "revolutions in military affairs"—are to a significant degree susceptible to organizational control. Geoffrey Parker's related point about "singleton techniques" becoming isolated in cultures lacking a broad pattern of flexibility applies on the organizational as well as the technological side. Soviet Russia was admirably adapted to the mass, low-tech, industrial form of war that culminated from 1941 to 1945.
