ABSTRACT

By a wide margin, the idea of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) was the concept-ofthe-decade among Western strategic thinkers in the 1990s.1 RMA is a classic case of what, by analogy, Hollywood means by ‘high concept’. As such a concept, RMA was fashionable and therefore literally bankable. Almost any topic that could carry the RMA label found a ready sponsor. One should not be unduly cynical about this phenomenon. Theory is important for future practice, and theorists require patrons. The market for strategic ideas is not entirely one of unrestricted open competition. The academy does not rule on the salience of particular ideas. Rather, as Raymond Aron expressed it: ‘Strategic thought draws its inspiration each century, or rather at each moment of history, from the problems which events themselves pose.’2 Aron was almost correct, but it is more true to claim that strategic thought draws its inspiration at each moment of history from the problems and opportunities flagged by officials acting as opinion leaders. It is the ‘spin’ put on contemporary challenges by a Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, or a Secretary of Defense Robert S.McNamara, that generates great debates, in their cases about nuclear deterrence and strategic stability.3