ABSTRACT
The very success of air bombardment in recent wars has revealed its limitations: in most cases, the maneuver of forces on the ground is essential to make aerial firepower effective. The redundant heavy firepower of US ground forces is not merely costly but also a most severe limitation on their mobility, both strategic in reaching overseas theaters of war in timely fashion, and operational, in moving within any extensive theater of war, as in Iraq. What happened in Afghanistan proves that much more than merely incremental improvements are possible when information technology is used inter alia to substitute precise aerial force application for ground firepower. But that is as much benefit as can be expected from the Revolution in Military Affairs so long as the traditional structure and content of the military forces inherited from the Second World War persists essentially unchanged.
