ABSTRACT
Dramatic advances in telecommunications and data processing, collectively known as information technology, lend credence to the idea that we are in the midst of an ‘information-based Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)’. The exploitation of advances in information technology is producing greater knowledge, and when linked with precision weaponry, is transforming the way wars are fought by the world's leading military powers. Strategic thinkers and security experts have been discussing and debating the impact of information technology on military operations and warfare ever since the late 1970s when Soviet General Nikolai Ogarkov argued that a range of recent innovations would become as important to waging war as nuclear weapons. These innovations included new kinds of explosives, precision-guided weaponry, advances in C3I (command, control, communications and intelligence), sensor technology and automated control systems, and weapons based on new physical principles (e.g., particle beams and lasers). 1
