Military Innovation in Small States ─ Creating a Reverse Asymmetry

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the global diffusion of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its impact on military innovation in small states.

Over the past two decades, there has been an intense academic debate over an emerging paradigm shift in the character and conduct of warfare - the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA). Driven largely by the quantum leaps in information and communications technologies and amplified by the changing character of conflicts of the post-Cold War era, RMA proponents have argued that modern military organizations are on the verge of a profound discontinuous, disruptive, and a “revolutionary” paradigm shift in the means, modes, and methods of warfare. However, with the persisting focus on US defense transformation, there has been a significant deficit in the existing literature surrounding RMA diffusion and adaptation in divergent geostrategic settings and environments. This relative dearth of comparative literature represents the key departure point for the present book. In particular, this book addresses the broad puzzle of how the global RMA diffusion – the process of international transmission, communication, and interaction of RMA-oriented concepts and technologies - has shaped the paths, patterns, and scope of military modernization trajectories of selected small states and middle powers.

With the changing strategic realities, Israel, Singapore, and South Korea have been searching for a new strategic paradigm and operational concepts that would allow greater flexibility, adaptability, and autonomy under conditions of strategic uncertainty. In doing so, they have studied, benchmarked, and debated selected RMA concepts, while attempting to leverage and exploit emerging RMA technologies. In the process, all three states have experienced a number of challenges in their RMA-oriented military modernization; from defining new strategic and operational concepts through a broad range of defense management constraints, and perhaps most importantly, by the emergence of new asymmetric forms of warfare. Indeed, the task of formulating a comprehensive strategic blueprint of what constitutes an Israeli, Singaporean, or South Korean RMA has proven challenging. Israel, Singapore, and South Korea may represent relevant empirical cases not only for testing the validity of the RMA diffusion hypotheses, but also from the policy-oriented perspective on how to cope with security and defense management challenges posed by the RMA diffusion.

This book will be of much interest for students of military innovation, strategic studies, defence studies, Asian politics, Middle Eastern politics and security studies in general.