The Revolution in Military Affairs: A Partial Timeline (+links)

“A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organisational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations.” – Andrew Marshall

“The RMA depends not only on technological developments, such as computer and information systems, but also on the new forms of labor – mobile, flexible, immaterial forms of social labor… In these respects RMA is an anticipation and an extrapolation of the recent transformations of social labor, casting the economic figures into the field of battle.” – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude

1946

• The RAND Corporation is founded. [For more on the founding of the RAND Corporation, see “Reading Notes from S.M. Amadae’s ‘Rationalizing Democracy’”]

194?

• Andrew Marshall graduates with a degree in economics at the University of Chicago.
• Andrew Marshall goes to work at the Cowles Commission at the University of Chicago, applying game theory to economic problems. [For more on the Cowles Commission, see “Goodbye to Complexity?”]

1949

• The RAND Corporation begins subsidizing the Cowles Commission. The relationship is furthered by sharing researchers and co-hosting seminars and talks together. Important individuals who straddled both included Kenneth Arrow, Gerard Debreu, and Herbert Simon.

• Andrew Marshall continues his work on game theory by taking a position at RAND Corporation. He eventually becomes close to Herman Kahn, James Schlesinger, and Albert Wohlstetter.

1950

• The Ford Foundation begins heavily subsidizing the RAND Corporation. The dynamic relationship arose from the fact that the Foundation’s president, H. Rowan Gaither, was a key figure in RAND’s internal bureaucracy.

• Albert Wohlstetter joins the RAND Corporation.
• Paul Nitze becomes Director of Policy Planning at the State Department.
• A National Security Council study group chaired by Paul Nitze pens NSC-68, a top secret policy paper arguing for increased peace time spending, the defense of the Western hemisphere, and offensive operations to destroy bases of Soviet power.
• The Committee on Present Danger is founded to lobby for the arguments contained in NSC-68.

1957

• Deterence and Survival in the Nuclear Age, penned by H. Rowan Gaither, is presented to President Eisenhower.
• Following the Gaither Report, President Eisenhower commissions several studies dealing with civil defense and nuclear weaponry; one commission, the Security Resources Panel, is chaired by H. Rowan Gaither. Other members include Robert A. Lovett and John C. McCloy, James R. Killian, and Paul H. Nitze, with Albert Wohlstetter, Herman Kahn, and Andrew Marshall serving as advisers. The Commission launches critique on Eisenhower’s national security policies, demanding higher defense spending, massive ICBM build-up, and a reorganizing of the Department of Defense. The notion of a “missile gap” between the United States and the Soviet Union is also a reoccurring theme for the Commission. [For more on the Gaither Commission and the missile gap, see “Reading Notes from S.M. Amadae’s ‘Rationalizing Democracy’”]

1958

• Presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy begins using the idea of the missile gap as a key talking point in his campaign strategy.

1961

• John F. Kennedy is elected president.
• Robert McNamara becomes President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense. He begins importing a host of strategists and thinkers from RAND into the Pentagon.
• President Kennedy and Robert McNamara beginning transitioning away from a “massive retaliation” model of warfare, instead focusing on the possibilities for “flexible response.” Part of this agenda is McNamara’s utilization of systems analysis, developed at RAND through their work on game theory, into the everyday functioning of the military’s command and control.
• Herman Kahn and several other thinkers from the RAND Corporation found the Hudson Institute. There he continues his work on “scenario forecasting,” simulations designed to help create decisions in unpredictable environments.

1964

• The Gulf of Tonkin incident takes place. Retaliatory strikes begin.

1965

• As the Viet Cong’s military activity increase, Robert McNamara begins escalating troop deployments and conducts bombing campaigns in North Vietnam.

1966

• Robert McNamara is given a paper by Roger Fisher proposing an “electronic barrier” in South Vietnam that would deploy series of electronic sensors and data processors to assist in the coordination of air strikes.
• Robert McNamara tasks the newly formed Defense Communications Planning Group with implementing the “electronic barrier” system.

1968

• The US military’s electronic barrier surveillance system, code-named Operation IGLOO WHITE, goes active. Rudimentary drones are deployed as listening devices. [For more information on Operation IGLOO WHITE, see “The SAGE Speaks of What He Sees: War Games and the New Spirit of Capitalism”]

1969

• Albert Wohlstetter introduces Richard Perle, a friend and classmate of his daughter, to his student Paul Wolfowitz.
• Richard Nixon is elected president.

1971

• Futurists Ted Newland and Pierre Wack begin deploying the scenario forecasting designed by Herman Kahn at RAND and the Hudson Institute at Royal Dutch Shell’s Group Planning Office.

1972

• Under the guidance of Albert Wohlstetter, Paul Wolfowitz graduates with a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago.
• Senator Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson founds the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. The bulk of the organization’s membership comes from the AFL-CIO labor union and the Social Democrats USA – of which Jackson staffers Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz have become acquainted with. [For more on the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, the AFL-CIO and the SD/USA, see “From Socialism to Neoliberalism: A Story of Capture (Part 2 of 2)”]

1973

• President Nixon establishes an internal Pentagon think-tank, the Office of Net Assessment, to study future paradigms for warfare. Andrew Marshall is appointed as its first director.

1974

• In a paper titled “Is There A Strategic Arms Race?” Albert Wohlstetter accuses the CIA of underestimating the Soviet’s missile stockpiles. The viewpoint is picked up and propagated by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.
• President Nixon resigns, Gerald Ford becomes president.

1975

• President Ford conducts his “Halloween Massacre,” reorganizing much of his organization. George H.W. Bush becomes CIA director, Donald Rumsfeld becomes Secretary of Defense, and Dick Cheney becomes Chief of Staff.

1976

• George H.W. Bush establishes “Team B” to independently verify the agency’s intel on Soviet armaments. Members include Paul Nitze and Paul Wolfowitz, while Andrew Marshall maneuvers the Office of Net Assessment into close comity with the study group.
• Members of Team B, particularly Paul Nitze, reestablish the Committee on the Present Danger. They tap the Coalition for a Democratic Majority as a support base. Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are both members. [For more on Team B, the Committee on Present Danger and the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, see “From Socialism to Neoliberalism: A Story of Capture (Part 2 of 2)”]

1979

• Francis Fukuyama joins the RAND Corporation.

1981

• Ronald Reagan is elected president. A number of Committee on the Present Danger receive positions in his administration, including George Schultz, William Casey, Fred Ikle, Richard Perle, and over twenty other.

1982

• Pierre Wack retires from Royal Dutch Shell’s Planning Group, his place taken by Peter Schwartz. [For more on Peter Schwartz, see “The SAGE Speaks of What He Sees: War Games and the New Spirit of Capitalism”]

1984

• The Santa Fe Institute is founded to examine the relationship between disparate topics such as biology, computer engineering, artificial intelligence, and economics to complexity theory. Kenneth Arrow, formerly of RAND and the Cowles Commission, is a member.

1987

• Peter Schwartz, building on the tactics devised by Herman Kahn and those used at the Royal Dutch Shell Planning Group, co-founds the Global Business Network – an“information hunting and gathering” consulting company for large corporations. Among those closely affiliated with the Global Business Network is Kevin Kelly, a developer for the Whole World ‘Lectronic Link and writer and editor for Wired magazine.

1988

• Albert Wohlstetter and Fred Ikle, another alumnus of the RAND Corporation, establish the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy. High-profile members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger and Samuel Huntington; Andrew Marshall is present as a researcher.
• A report titled “Discriminate Deterrence” is drafted by the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy. The report stresses the emergence informative, communicative, flexible, and technologically-enhanced modes of warfare.

1989

• George H.W. Bush is elected president.

• Dick Cheney becomes the United States Secretary of Defense.

• Paul Wolfowitz becomes the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
• The RAND Corporation publishes Francis Fukuyama’ essay “Have We Reached the End of History,” which utilizes Hegelian dialectic to argue that the “end of history” is marked by the triumph of liberal democracy.
• The GNAT-750, a reconnaissance drone, is launched.

1992

• Dick Cheney tasks Paul Wolfowitz with drafting a policy guidelines paper. Wolfowitz and other staffers begin holding meetings with outside analysts, including Richard Perle, Albert Wohlstetter, and Andrew Marshall.
• Paul Wolfowitz completes a draft of the Defense Planning Guidance, calling for, among other things, increased military spending, preemptive strikes to check the rise of other powers, and American unilateralism.
• Francis Fukuyama publishes The End of History and the Last Man, a book-length adaptation of his earlier RAND essay.

1993

• President Clinton appoints R. James Woolsey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1994

• Admiral William Owens, a proponent of the Revolution in Military Affairs and close associate of Andrew Marshall, becomes vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He begins upgrading military hardware and software to reflect the transition to information warfare.
• Kevin Kelly publishes Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, an examination of complexity and emergence with a particular focus on self-organizing patterns in the social and natural worlds. Popularizing the term “swarm,” Out of Control is based primarily on Kelly’s interactions with researchers at the Santa Fe Institute. [For more on the relationship between Kevin Kelly, Santa Fe, and swarming, see “Goodbye to Complexity?”]
• The Predator drone, a variation of the GNAT-750, makes its first flight.

1995

• Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Emmett Paige, Jr. defines “information warfare” as “Actions taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while defending one’s own information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks.”
• The first usage of the Predator drone in a combat zone takes place during the Balkans conflict under the auspices of the CIA’s LOFTY VIEW program.

1996

• The Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues Joint Vision 2010, “the conceptual template for how we will channel the vitality of our people and leverage technological opportunities to achieve new levels of effectiveness in joint warfighting…”
• Emmet Paige, Jr.’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence sponsors a RAND study into informative, network-centric warfare. The result is John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt’s The Advent of Netwar, defining the concept as a “blurring the line between peace and war, offense and defense, and combatant and non-combatant” as made possible by information technologies.

1997

• The Project for the New American Century is founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. A neoconservative lobbying outfit and think-tank, members include Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Fred Ikle, Francis Fukuyama, Abram Shulsky, R. James Woolsey, and many others.
• The RAND Corporation publishes a report by Francis Fukuyama and Abram N. Shulsky (a former affiliate of the Office of Net Assessment) on the Revolution in Military Affairs titled The “Virtual Corporation” and Army Organization. In it, they observe the evolution of the form of corporation through the introduction of information technologies and networks, and urge the armed forces to learn and adapt from these transformation.

1998

• The Project for the New American Century sends a letter to President Bill Clinton, urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
• Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, a follower of Andrew Marshall, and John H. Garstka publish “Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origins and Futures”. They cite Wal-Mart’s total information awareness, made possible by advanced sensor grids and point-of-sale scanners, as a model of real-time data monitoring that is essential for the military’s Revolution in Military Affairs.

1999

• The Swarm Development Group is launched by members of the Santa Fe Institute. It received heavy funding from the Department of Defense’s Joint Warfare Analysis Center.
• The RAND Corporation publishes John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt’s In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age. They call for the creation of a “Mesh,” a dense grid-work of sensors that allow aircrafts and drones to coordinate precision strikes through real-time data monitoring and sharing.

2000

• The Project for the New American Century publishes “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources for a New Century”. Among the key recommendations the report issues is utilization of the Revolution in Military Affairs, and Paul Wolfowitz’s 1992 report is cited as a key inspiration.
• The RAND Corporation publishes John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt’s Swarming and the Future of Conflict, describing the ways that coordination through information technologies allows for ‘swarming,’ in which actors can operate in a non-linear and dispersed form with high speed and flexibility. They credit Kevin Kelly and his book Out of Control as being the first to bring “swarm networks” to their attention.
• The Department of Defense updates Joint Vision 2010 with Joint Vision 2020, emphasizing the importance of “Full Spectrum Dominance” – “the ability of US forces, operating unilaterally or in combination with multinational and interagency partners, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the full range of military operations.”

2001

• George W. Bush is elected into office. Numerous principles from the Project for the New American Century take key places in his administration and cabinet: Dick Cheney (vice president), Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defense and later president of the World Bank), Richard Perle (chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board), Francis Fukuyama (member of the President’s Council on Bioethics),etc.
• Donald Rumsfeld begins putting into his place his interpretation of the Revolution in Military Affairs, the so-called “Rumsfeld Doctrine.” This included the outsourcing of many military functions to private contractors, a renewed focused on technological innovation, the streamlining of Pentagon bureaucracy, among other things.
• The events of September 11^th take place.
• Donald Rumsfeld establishes the Office of Force Transformation and puts Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in charge of it.
• President George Bush signs the PATRIOT Act into law, while secretly authorizing the NSA to monitor domestic communications.
• DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program is launched to provide a full-spectrum knowledge base through the interconnection of hundred of databanks, communication monitoring, facial recognition software, and statistical reasoning. One key aspect of the program is the Policy Analysis Market, which would have allowed bets to be placed on terrorist attacks and other political events in the Middle East, thereby allowing individuals to profit from these incidents.
• The Predator drone is equipped with missile technology.
• The RAND Corporation publishes the John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt-edited volume Networks and Netwar: The Future of Crime, Terror, and Militancy.

2002

• Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz establish the Office of Special Plans to examine supposed links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Abram Shulsky is appointed as head.
• The CIA begins its drone warfare program.

2003

• The invasion of Iraq begins.
• Blackwater, a private security firm, is deployed in Iraq.
• The Total Information Awareness program is scuttled after outcry from both within the government and the public.
• General Stanley McChrystal becomes commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.

2004

• George Schultz and R. James Woolsey re-launch the Committee on the Present Danger.

2005

• The NSA launches the Real Time Regional Gateway to monitor, store, and analyze bulk communications across Iraq.

2007

• The NSA’s PRISM program is launched, building on the advances of the Real Time Regional Gateway.

2009

• Barack Obama is elected president.

• The US Naval Air Command awards a $1.3 million contract to Augusta Systems to design information networks capable of mobilizing drone swarms. According to Augusta System’s president, “This network can help the Navy to achieve important technology objectives, including system interoperability, network-centric operations and the enhancement of its unmanned vehicle capabilities.”

• President Obama extends the role of the Joint Special Operations Command, allowing them to operate in a variety of countries while also expanding their drone warfare program. This program is known to have worked in tandem with the NSA’s PRISM program.
• Blackwater is renamed Xe and begins working with the CIA’s drone program.

2011

• Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemini-US citizen, is killed by a drone strike carried out in a joint effort between the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command. Two weeks later, his son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki is killed.
• Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemini-US citizen, is killed by a drone strike carried out in a joint effort between the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command. Two weeks later, his son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki is killed.
• Stanley McChrystal publishes an article titled “It Takes a Network” in Foreign Policy, detailing the transformation of the Joint Special Operations Command in a networked force to counter-act al-Qaeda’s own network form.

2012

• Drones begin flying over American civilian airspace.

2013

• Edward Snowden, a contractor from Booz Allen Hamilton working at the NSA, leaks details of the PRISM program.

2014

• The nation-building program in Iraq begins to crumble under attacks from the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant.

 

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