Challenges to Transforming Asian-Pacific Militaries. Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies Volume 3 - Number 8, October 2004
Abstract
Despite considerable debate as to the value and effectiveness of the information technology (IT)-led revolution in military affairs (RMA), most Asia-Pacific countries have made little progress in actually transforming their militaries, particularly when it comes to implementing organizational, institutional, and doctrinal changes. Modernization-Plus is perhaps a more apt descriptor of what is currently transpiring in most Asia-Pacific militaries. While many militaries in the region are certainly acquiring capabilities that they did not possess earlier--such as new capacities for force projection and standoff attack, low-observability, and greatly improved command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR)--this effort is, in general, evolutionary, steady-state, and incremental. Therefore, it is not so much a disruptive as it is a sustaining process of innovation. Several factors currently impede defense transformation among Asia-Pacific militaries including budgetary constraints; cultural, organizational, and bureaucratic resistance; the effect of legacy systems and preexisting procurement commitments; weaknesses in national defense technology and industrial bases; and the underappreciated complexity of spinning-on commercial dual-use technologies. Overall, defense transformation may simply be too disruptive and too threatening to military and civilian elites, too expensive, and technologically too demanding. Modernization-plus may be sufficient to meet these countries' future defense requirements, however. Simply creating a more capable C4ISR infrastructure could greatly enhance these militaries' fighting effectiveness and produce at least some measure of improved interoperability with U.S. forces.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- AD1032660
Entities
People
- Richard A. Bitzinger
Organizations
- Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies