Weapons: The Growth & Spread of the - Specialized Research AI at MIT

Weapons: The Growth & Spread of the
Precision-Strike Regime

Thomas G. Mahnken

Abstract: For two decades, scholars and practitioners have argued that the world is experiencing a Rev-
olution in Military Affairs brought on by the development and diffusion of precision-strike and related
capabilities. The United States took an early lead in exploiting the promise of precision-strike systems,
and the use of precision weaponry has given the United States a battle½eld edge for twenty years. How-
ever, these weapons are now spreading: other countries, and non-state actors, are acquiring them and
developing countermeasures against them. As the precision-strike regime matures, the United States will
see its edge erode. The ability of the United States to project power will diminish considerably. In addi-
tion, U.S. forces, and eventually the United States itself, will be increasingly vulnerable to precision weap-
ons in the hands of our adversaries.

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For two decades, scholars and practitioners have
argued that the world is experiencing a Revolution
in Military Affairs (rma) brought on by the devel-
opment and diffusion of precision-strike and related
capabilities, such as intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance; precision navigation and tracking;
and robustly improved command and control. The
United States took an early lead in exploiting the
promise of precision-strike systems, and the use of
precision weaponry has given the United States a
battle½eld edge for some twenty years. However,
precision-strike systems are now spreading: other
countries, and non-state actors, are acquiring them
and developing countermeasures against them. As
the precision-strike regime matures, the United
States will see its edge erode. The ability of the Unit-
ed States to project power will diminish consider-
ably. In addition, U.S. forces, and eventually the Unit-
ed States itself, will be increasingly vulnerable to pre-
cision weapons in the hands of our adversaries.

This essay begins by exploring the concept of an
rma as well as the general structure of military rev-
olutions. Using this model, the essay then describes

THOMAS G. MAHNKEN is the
Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic
Geography and National Security
at the U.S. Naval War College and
a Visiting Scholar at the Philip
Merrill Center for Strategic Stud-
ies at Johns Hopkins University.
In 2006 to 2009, he served as
the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Policy Planning. His
most recent book is Technology and
the American Way of War since 1945
(2008).

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The Growth
& Spread
of the
Precision-
Strike
Regime

the growth of the precision-strike regime
to date; speculates on the features of a
mature precision-strike regime; and con-
cludes with some implications for the
United States.

The evolution of military technology and
doctrine has rede½ned the conduct of war
throughout history.1 Defense policy ana-
lyst Andrew F. Krepinevich, for example,
has identi½ed ten military revolutions
stretching back to the fourteenth centu-
ry.2 These include the Napoleonic revolu-
tion of the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries, which saw the advent of
the mass army; the adoption of the rail-
road, rifle, and telegraph in the mid-nine-
teenth century, which marked the indus-
trialization of warfare; and the develop-
ment of nuclear weapons in the twenti-
eth century. Although each revolution was
unique in its origin, trajectory, and con-
tent, all shared common features. In each
case, new combat methods arose that dis-
placed previously dominant forms of
warfare by shifting the balance between
offense and defense, space and time, and
½re and maneuver.3 The states that ½rst
adopted these innovations gained a sig-
ni½cant advantage, forcing competitors to
match or counter them to have any chance
of prevailing on the battle½eld. Those who
adapted, prospered, while those who did
not, declined, often precipitously.

Military revolutions display a com-
mon structure: a cycle of innovation, dif-
fusion, and re½nement. Their develop-
ment is driven not just by changes in the
character and conduct of war, but also by
the perceptions of both participants and
observers that change is afoot and drastic
action is required. Indeed, the perception
of dramatic change and the urgent need
to respond to it is a de½ning feature of a
military revolution. For example, although
scholars debate whether something called
blitzkrieg actually existed in German mili-

tary doctrine, the demonstrated effec-
tiveness of combined-arms armored war-
fare against France and the Low Countries
in May and June 1940 convinced partici-
pant and observer alike that the character
of warfare had shifted, and compelled
them to respond by changing their force
structure and doctrine.4

The Embryonic Phase. The ½rst phase of a
new revolution builds on the achieve-
ments of the preceding cycle, while the
last phase forms the foundation of the
next transformation. During the ½rst, or
embryonic, phase, military organizations
re½ne old combat methods and experi-
ment with new ones in an effort to gain or
maintain advantage against potential
adversaries.5 Most major military inno-
vations have, in fact, come about because
of the perception of an operational or stra-
tegic problem that de½ed a conventional
solution.

New weaponry alone is insuf½cient to
transform warfare.6 Those practices that
have changed the character and conduct
of warfare have combined weapon sys-
tems with innovative operational concepts
and the organizations necessary to carry
them out.7 Yet determining how new
weapons and concepts will perform with-
out the test of war is exceedingly dif½cult.
In peacetime, military organizations op-
erate, in the words of military historian
Sir Michael Howard, in “a fog of peace.”8
They must place bets about the effective-
ness of new and unproven ways of war,
but combat is the only, and ½nal, arbiter.
In addition, past experience serves as a
cognitive anchor that limits the ability of
military organizations to comprehend the
magnitude of change that is under way
and constrains the ability of intelligence
organizations to understand foreign mil-
itary developments.9 As a result, periods
of change in the character and conduct of
warfare frequently witness a growing gap
between perception and reality. The mag-

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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nitude of this divergence depends on the
amount of time that passes between wars
and the amount of technological and doc-
trinal dynamism in the interwar period.
The Immature Phase. The second, or im-
mature, phase of a military revolution be-
gins with the successful use of new mili-
tary practices in a major war. Success often
takes the form of a decisive battle or cam-
paign in which forces that have mastered
new combat methods defeat those who
remain wedded to traditional approach-
es. The demonstrated effectiveness of
these methods realigns perception and
reality, convinces belligerent and observ-
er alike of a change in the character of war-
fare, and forces both friend and foe to ad-
just their force structure and doctrine. For
example, revolutionary France’s adoption
of the levée en masse not only allowed it to
survive, but also permitted Napoleon to
win a series of decisive battles against his
foes at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Auer-
stadt. Prussia’s embrace of the railroad,
rifle, and telegraph helped it, the least of
Europe’s great powers, defeat Austria at
Königgrätz and France at Sedan and uni-
fy the German state. And Germany’s use
of combined-arms armored warfare deliv-
ered a series of quick decisive victories in
the opening campaigns of World War II.
One way military organizations adjust
to new combat methods is by emulating
successful practices. Indeed, the spread of
new capabilities offers the central mech-
anism by which one military regime sup-
plants another. Military organizations
may attempt to import foreign practices
wholesale; more often, however, they
modify them somewhat in the process.10
Adversaries may also attempt to devel-
op countermeasures to new combat meth-
ods, particularly when the barriers to emu-
lation are prohibitively high. As British
Army of½cer and military historian J.F.C.
Fuller put it, “[E]very improvement in ar-
mament is eventually met by a counter-

improvement which gradually or rapid-
ly whittles down its power.”11 Although
technical and operational countermea-
sures rarely succeed in nullifying the ef-
fectiveness of new military practices,
they do, over time, erode it somewhat.12
The competition between measure and
countermeasure becomes a de½ning fea-
ture of the ensuing military regime.

The process of emulation is typically
neither rapid (let alone automatic) nor
complete.13 First, the process of change
in military organizations is wrenching
and painful, reducing their effectiveness
in the short term even if it promises to
increase it in the long term. As a result,
military leaders tend to delay dif½cult
change unless and until it is starkly ap-
parent that it is necessary. Second, lead-
ers may disagree in their perception of
the threat environment, including debates
over which contingencies are most seri-
ous and when they might arise. Third, the
path to success is rarely obvious. Military
organizations may have dif½culty per-
ceiving that a military revolution is under
way even after new practices have ap-
peared on the battle½eld. Because new
combat methods often have their roots in
the past, contemporary observers may fail
to discern what is new and different about
them. Fourth, the organizational culture
of the military can constrain both how it
perceives the environment and how it re-
sponds.14 Organizations may emphasize
those events that are in accord with doc-
trine and discard those that contradict it.
The Mature Phase. The spread of success-
ful practices creates a new style of war-
fare that supplants the existing paradigm.
The inauguration of a new military regime
marks the third, or mature, phase of a
revolution. The basis for competition in a
mature regime is different from that in a
developing one. In the latter, advantage
accrues to the military that is best able to
exploit an emerging innovation; in the

Thomas G.
Mahnken

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140 (3) Summer 2011

The Growth
& Spread
of the
Precision-
Strike
Regime

former, advantage accrues to those pow-
ers that are able to replicate an innova-
tion on a large scale. Whereas a develop-
ing regime often witnesses wars of ma-
neuver and quick, decisive victories, a
mature regime is characterized by wars
of attrition. For example, Germany used
its early lead in developing combined-
arms armored warfare to defeat Poland,
France, and the Low Countries in the early
phases of World War II. However, in an
example of successful emulation, Ger-
many was ultimately defeated by a coali-
tion that was able to ½eld far more tanks
than the Germans were, and to use them
reasonably well.15
The structure of military revolutions is

easiest to discern in retrospect, with the
bene½t of hindsight once history has ren-
dered its verdict. It is far more dif½cult
to comprehend contemporary develop-
ments, not least because we are im-
mersed in them. Nonetheless, we can cast
our gaze backward to the origins of the
precision-strike revolution, and we should
look ahead to predict, albeit with a sense
of modesty, its future course.

The embryonic phase of the precision-
strike revolution stretched from World
War II to the end of the Cold War. Guided
weapons, including the V-1 cruise missile
and V-2 ballistic missile, but also the Fritz
X air-to-surface weapon, were ½rst used in
combat by Germany during World War II.
However, the United States took the lead
in developing precision weapons in the de-
cades that followed.16 Indeed, many of
the weapon systems associated with the
information revolution–precision-guided
munitions (pgms), unmanned air vehi-
cles (uavs), and sensors–date back to the
1960s and 1970s, and many saw their de-
but in the Vietnam War. Between 1968
and 1973, for example, the Air Force and
Navy expended more than 28,000 laser-
guided bombs (lgbs) in Southeast Asia,

mainly against bridges and transportation
chokepoints.17

The seeming ease with which the U.S.-
led coalition defeated Iraq during the 1991
Gulf War caused many observers in the
United States and elsewhere to conclude
that the information revolution was bring-
ing about a new rma.18 In their view, the
lopsided battles in the deserts of Kuwait
and southern Iraq and the seemingly ef-
fortless domination of the Iraqi air force
signaled that warfare had indeed changed.
The contrast between prewar expectations
of a bloody ½ght and the wartime reality
of Iraqi collapse struck many as indicat-
ing a transformation in warfare.

The 1991 Gulf War thus marked the tran-
sition between the embryonic and imma-
ture phases of the precision-strike revolu-
tion. The combination of the stealthy F-
117 Nighthawk aircraft and pgms gave U.S.
forces extremely high effectiveness. A typ-
ical non-stealth strike formation in the
Gulf War required thirty-eight aircraft, in-
cluding electronic warfare and defense
suppression aircraft, to allow eight planes
to deliver bombs on three targets. By con-
trast, only twenty F-117s armed with 2,000-
lb lgbs were able simultaneously to at-
tack thirty-seven targets in the face of
more challenging defenses. As a result,
although F-117s flew only 2 percent of the
total attack sorties in the war, they struck
nearly 40 percent of strategic targets,
such as leadership and command and
control facilities. In addition, the war
witnessed the innovative use of pgms to
strike not only ½xed strategic targets and
hardened aircraft shelters, but also Iraqi
tanks in revetments. On one night alone,
46 F-111F attack aircraft dropped 184
lgbs, which destroyed 132 Iraqi armored
vehicles.19 Despite the fact that pgms
accounted for only 8 percent of the
bombs dropped over Kuwait and Iraq,
televised scenes of U.S. aircraft bombing
targets with precision, broadcast world-

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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wide, became the most evocative images
of the war.

In the years that followed, the war be-
came a central reference point in debates
over the hypothesis that an rma was
under way.20 Some of the more breath-
less rma advocates argued that the infor-
mation revolution marked a complete
break with the past. One 1993 report pre-
dicted: “The Military Technical Revolu-
tion has the potential fundamentally to
reshape the nature of warfare. Basic prin-
ciples of strategy since the time of Machi-
avelli . . . may lose their relevance in the
face of emerging technologies and doc-
trines.”21 The authors of the Air Force’s
of½cial study of the Gulf War were closer
to the mark when they concluded, “The
ingredients for a transformation of war
may well have become visible in the Gulf
War, but if a revolution is to occur some-
one will have to make it.”22

The United States embraced precision
weaponry in the decade that followed the
Gulf War. Throughout the 1990s, the com-
bination of stealth and precision-guided
munitions gave U.S. air forces the ability
to strike adversaries from the air with near
impunity. In addition, airpower seemed
uniquely suited to the types of conflicts
in which the United States was involved:
wars for limited aims, fought with partial
means, for marginal interests. Airpower
coupled with pgms appeared to offer the
ability to coerce Iraq, intervene in the Bal-
kans, and retaliate against terrorist groups
while avoiding the dif½cult decisions
associated with a sustained commitment
of ground forces.

The congressionally mandated 1997
Quadrennial Defense Review acknowl-
edged the existence of an rma and com-
mitted the department to transforming the
U.S. armed forces. As Secretary of Defense
William Cohen put it: “The information
revolution is creating a Revolution in Mili-
tary Affairs that will fundamentally change

the way U.S. forces ½ght. We must exploit
these and other technologies to dominate
in battle.”23 That same year, the congres-
sionally mandated National Defense Panel
(ndp) argued even more strongly in favor
of the need to transform U.S. forces. The
panel’s report suggested that an rma was
under way and urged the Defense Depart-
ment leadership to “undertake a broad
transformation of its military and nation-
al security structures, operational con-
cepts and equipment, and . . . key business
processes.” The report stated:

We are on the cusp of a military revolution
stimulated by rapid advances in informa-
tion and information-related technologies.
This implies a growing potential to detect,
identify, and track far greater numbers of
targets over a larger area for a longer time
than ever before, and to provide this infor-
mation much more quickly and effectively
than heretofore possible. Those who can
exploit these advantages–and thereby dis-
sipate the fog of war–stand to gain sig-
ni½cant advantages. . . . [The Defense De-
partment] should accord the highest prior-
ity to executing a transformation of the
U.S. military, starting now.24
Much of the discussion of the rma in
the 1990s was predicated on opportunity:
the United States should pursue new
ways of war because they would allow it
to win wars faster, cheaper, and more
decisively. Characteristic of this view was
defense analyst James Blaker’s statement:
“The potency of the American rma stems
from new military systems that will create,
through their interaction, an enormous
military disparity between the United
States and any opponent. Baldly stated,
U.S. military forces will be able to apply
military force with dramatically greater
ef½ciency than an opponent, and do so
with little risk to U.S. forces.”25

The con½dence, even hubris, of the
1990s permeated the U.S. of½cer corps.

Thomas G.
Mahnken

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140 (3) Summer 2011

The Growth
& Spread
of the
Precision-
Strike
Regime

Of½cers in the late 1990s perceived the
bene½ts of transformation, but refused to
believe that adversaries could acquire
precision-strike capabilities themselves.
A survey of 1,900 U.S. of½cers attending
professional military education institu-
tions conducted in 2000 found that most
tended to believe that the emerging rma
would make it easier for the United States
to use force in order to achieve decisive
battle½eld victories. Most also believed
that it would allow the United States to
engage in high-intensity operations with
substantially reduced risk of casualties and
that it would greatly reduce the duration
of future conflicts. They also tended to be-
lieve that the United States would have a
greatly enhanced ability to locate, track,
and destroy enemy forces in limited geo-
graphic areas.26 By contrast, these same
of½cers were skeptical of the ability of po-
tential adversaries to exploit the preci-
sion-strike revolution to harm the United
States. For example, only 9 percent of of½-
cers surveyed in 2000 believed that future
adversaries would be able to use long-
range precision-strike weapons such as
ballistic and cruise missiles to destroy
½xed military infrastructure, including
ports, air½elds, and logistical sites; only
12 percent believed they would be able to
use such weapons to attack carrier battle
groups at sea.27

The 1999 war over Kosovo saw the
introduction of a new generation of
pgms guided by data from the Global
Positioning System (gps) satellite con-
stellation, most notably the gbu-31
Joint Direct Attack Munition (jdam).
The weapon consists of a $20,000 kit,
including a gps receiver, sensors, and
tail½ns, that converts an unguided bomb
into a guided weapon. In contrast with
the lgbs used in Vietnam and the Gulf
War, such weapons allow aircraft to strike
at night and through inclement weather.
The Kosovo war also saw the use of uavs,

such as the Air Force RQ-1A Predator, for
reconnaissance and surveillance.

At the dawn of the new millennium,
however, concern mounted that the pre-
cision-strike revolution, once an Ameri-
can monopoly, was on the verge of spread-
ing. Of particular concern was China’s
development of so-called anti-access/
area-denial capabilities. Reflecting this
concern, the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Re-
view, issued in the wake of the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, argued that the
Defense Department’s transformation
efforts should focus on overcoming six
emerging strategic and operational chal-
lenges:

• Protecting critical bases of operations,
including the U.S. homeland, forces
abroad, allies, and friends, and defeating
weapons of mass destruction and their
means of delivery;

• Assuring information systems in the face
of attack and conducting effective infor-
mation operations;

• Projecting and sustaining U.S. forces in
distant anti-access or area-denial envi-
ronments and defeating anti-access and
area-denial threats;

• Denying enemies sanctuary by provid-
ing persistent surveillance, tracking, and
rapid engagement with high-volume pre-
cision strike against critical mobile and
½xed targets;

• Enhancing the capability and survivabil-
ity of space systems and supporting infra-
structure; and

• Leveraging information technology and
innovative concepts to develop an inter-
operable, joint c4isr architecture and
capability that includes a joint opera-
tional picture that can be tailored to
user needs.28

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This shift was reflected in of½cer atti-
tudes. In 2000, the vast majority of of½-
cers had been unconcerned about the full
spectrum of threats; those surveyed in
2002 and 2006 expressed obvious con-
cern about a range of future threats over
the next two decades. Of½cers now wor-
ried about the threat from long-range
precision-strike missiles with respect
to current platforms and deployment
schemes, with 69 percent of of½cers sur-
veyed in 2002 and 2006 predicting that
within a decade, adversaries would be
able to use ballistic and cruise missiles to
deny the United States the use of ports,
air½elds, and logistical sites. Similarly, 73
percent of of½cers surveyed in 2002 and
68 percent in 2006 believed that within a
decade, adversaries would be able to use
such weapons to attack carrier battle
groups at sea.29

Between 1991 and 2003, pgms grew
from a niche capability to represent a new
standard of warfare. Whereas 8 percent
of the munitions employed during the
Gulf War were guided, 29 percent of
those used over Kosovo eight years later,
60 percent of those used in Afghanistan
ten years later, and 68 percent of those
used in Iraq twelve years later were guid-
ed. In Afghanistan, the jdam became the
weapon of choice for U.S. forces. Between
October 2001 and February 2002, U.S.
forces dropped 6,600 of the munitions;
during just one ten-minute period on
October 18, 2001, the Air Force dropped a
hundred of the bombs. Two years later
in Iraq, U.S. forces dropped more than
6,500 jdams in the march on Baghdad.30
Precision weaponry has also assumed
an important role in the panoply of weap-
ons to combat terrorism. The decision to
arm the Predator uav and use it against Al
Qaeda came in 2000, and the weapon was
quickly pressed into use after the Sep-
tember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In No-
vember 2002, an agm-114A Hell½re air-to-

surface missile launched by a Predator
destroyed a car carrying six terrorists,
including Salim Sinan al-Harethi, Al
Qaeda’s chief operative in Yemen and
a suspect in the October 2000 bombing
of the destroyer uss Cole. Most of the
strikes that followed targeted Pakistan’s
lawless border region. Begun by the
George W. Bush administration, the pro-
gram has reportedly been expanded by
the Obama administration. According to
one estimate, U.S. drones, including the
Predator and the more powerful MQ-9
Reaper, have carried out more than 150
strikes in Pakistan since 2008, killing a
number of senior Al Qaeda leaders as well
as Baitullah Meshud, the head of the Pak-
istani Taliban. More controversial has
been the death toll among innocents re-
sulting from the attacks, but these deaths
appear to be declining dramatically even
as the number of strikes has increased, in
part due to the deployment of new muni-
tions with an even smaller warhead than
that on the Hell½re.31
Despite–or, in fact, because of–Amer-

ica’s success in embracing the precision-
strike revolution, the United States is los-
ing its military edge. Adversaries are ac-
quiring pgms, as well as the vital sup-
porting capabilities needed to wage pre-
cision warfare, including commercial
sources of imagery, precision navigation
and timing, and upgraded command and
control. Moreover, states are developing
the ability to counter U.S. precision-strike
capabilities by hardening, concealing, and
dispersing their forces and infrastructure.
We are, in other words, currently experi-
encing the maturation of the precision-
strike revolution and the emergence of the
precision-strike regime.

A growing number of actors are acquir-
ing pgms. These include not only U.S.
allies, but also competitors such as China,
which has become a leading player in the

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140 (3) Summer 2011

The Growth
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precision-strike regime. Unconstrained by
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(inf) Treaty, which prevents the United
States and Russia from deploying land-
based intermediate-range missiles, China
has become the world leader in precision-
guided ballistic missiles. According to un-
classi½ed Defense Department estimates,
China has deployed more than one thou-
sand precision-guided conventional bal-
listic missiles opposite Taiwan. Moreover,
it is preparing to ½eld an anti-ship ballistic
missile capable of striking ships at sea up
to 1,500 km from China.32 Nor are states
any longer the only actors in the precision-
strike revolution. For example, Lebanese
Hezbollah used anti-tank guided missiles
against Israeli forces in its 2006 war with
Israel.33 More recently, Hamas used such
a weapon against an Israeli school bus.

We should not be surprised by the
spread of precision-strike capabilities. It
was historically inevitable, even if the
process has been accelerated by the com-
mercial availability of key supporting
capabilities, such as imagery and com-
mand and control. Of greatest signi½-
cance, however, is the universal free access
to precision navigation and timing data,
such as that from the U.S. gps satellite
constellation. Whereas the development
of precision guidance cost the United
States billions of dollars over the course
of decades, both states and non-state
actors can now strike accurately with a
minimum investment.

As other states are increasing their pre-
cision-strike capabilities, the United States
is devoting less attention to precision
strike than it has in the past. Rather, for the
last half-decade the Defense Department
has focused on countering insurgency
in Iraq and Afghanistan–conflicts where
precision strike plays a role, to be sure,
but not a central one.

Meanwhile, both states and non-state
actors, such as insurgents and terrorists,

are seeking to counter U.S. precision-
strike capabilities. Insurgents in Afghan-
istan and Pakistan, for example, have
sought to camouflage themselves and hide
among the local population. They have
also sought to constrain the ability of the
United States to bring airpower to bear
by falsifying the number of innocents who
have been killed in air strikes.34

If history is a guide, the future scope and
spread of the precision-strike regime will
be uneven. The ability of states and non-
state actors to deploy an effective preci-
sion-strike capability will depend on their
ability not only to ½eld weapons, but also
to develop or buy the command and con-
trol and intelligence, surveillance, and re-
connaissance capabilities that are needed
to strike with precision as well as to de-
velop appropriate doctrine and operation-
al concepts for their use. They will also
seek ways to circumvent our precision-
strike capability.

At the strategic level, states and non-
state actors alike will be driven to adopt
some combination of precision-strike and
adaptive countermeasures. At the opera-
tional level, the interaction between the
development of precision-strike systems,
on the one hand, and attempts to protect
against them, on the other, will drive the
maturation of the precision-strike regime.
Precision-guided weapons are putting an
expanding range of targets at risk. It is
already possible to effectively strike tar-
gets that were previously invulnerable.
That trend is likely to continue. At the
same time, the emergence of precision-
strike systems is already leading adver-
saries to try to protect targets by making
them mobile, as well as hardening, bury-
ing, defending, camouflaging, or conceal-
ing them.

Over time, this offense-defense interac-
tion will render some targets dif½cult, if
not impossible, to strike. Mobile weapons
based deep in a nation’s territory, deployed

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in the deep oceans or underwater, and lo-
cated at great distances from attackers may
remain for all intents and purposes invul-
nerable. More broadly, military forces will
adopt measures to reduce their vulnera-
bility. However, some targets cannot be
buried or made mobile and will thus re-
main vulnerable. These will include civil-
ian infrastructure such as electrical pow-
er distribution and oil re½neries, but also
military infrastructure, such as ports,
bases, and logistical depots. Because of the
enduring asymmetry between strike and
protection, long-range precision-strike
campaigns could increasingly come to
target an adversary’s vulnerable home-
land infrastructure rather than his less
vulnerable armed forces. Indeed, the
twenty-½rst century may witness the res-
urrection, or trans½guration, of doctrines
of strategic bombing, such as those that
Italian Army General Giulio Douhet es-
poused at the beginning of the twentieth
century, and theories of coercion, such as
those economist and strategist Thomas
Schelling advanced during the Cold War.
In a world where many states possess
precision-strike systems, traditional con-
quest and occupation will become much
more dif½cult. They may, in fact, become
prohibitively expensive in some cases.
Imagine, for example, if the Iraqi insur-
gents had been equipped with precision-
guided mortars and rockets and had reli-
ably been able to target points within
Baghdad’s Green Zone. Or imagine that
the Taliban were similarly armed and were
thus able to strike routinely the U.S. and
Afghan forward operating bases that dot
the Afghan countryside. U.S. casualties
could have amounted to many times what
they have been in either theater.

Because invasion and conquest are
becoming increasingly dif½cult, wars in
a mature precision-strike regime will
likely focus on coercion and limited po-
litical objectives. In this world, the ability

to punish an adversary to force him to
concede–what Thomas Schelling dubbed
the “power to hurt”–is likely to become
an increasingly popular theory of victo-
ry.35 One potential result of this strategic
interaction would be conflicts that in-
volve campaigns whereby each side uses
precision-strike weapons to hold the
other’s economic and industrial infra-
structure at risk. In such a situation, sta-
bility would depend on each side pos-
sessing an assured survivable retaliato-
ry capability. Unlike the condition of mu-
tual assured destruction that obtained
during the Cold War, however, this retal-
iatory capability could be based on preci-
sion-strike systems rather than nuclear
weapons.

A mature precision-strike regime would
feature a new set of “haves” and “have-
nots,” with an actor’s status determined
by the robustness of its precision-strike
capability rather than other attributes,
such as the possession of nuclear weap-
ons. The precision-strike haves will be
those countries that possess both geo-
graphic depth as well as the resources to
invest in survivable, effective precision-
strike systems. They will likely include
the United States, China, India, and po-
tentially Russia. The precision-strike
have-nots will be those countries that are
threatened by precision-strike systems
but that lack the geographic depth or re-
sources to invest in a survivable, effective
precision-strike capability, such as Japan
and Taiwan. These states will have incen-
tives to invest in other forms of warfare,
such as nuclear weapons.

The growth and diffusion of precision-
strike systems could also affect interna-
tional relations more broadly. To the ex-
tent that U.S. military power in general,
and power projection in particular, has
underpinned global norms, the emergence
of anti-access capabilities could undercut
world order. For example, the develop-

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140 (3) Summer 2011

The Growth
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ment and diffusion of anti-access systems
could undermine the principle of freedom
of navigation. In other cases, actors could
seek to limit precision-strike capabilities.
It is not inconceivable, for example, that
states or non-state actors could seek to
curb precision-strike systems through an
international treaty, much as land mines
have been limited. Amnesty Internation-
al has already decried the U.S. drone
campaign over Pakistan, and the United
Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudi-
cial Killings, Philip Alston, has condemned
it and called for greater “accountability”
to prevent what he called a “slippery slope”
of killing.36 Future attempts to proscribe
the use of such unmanned systems are not
beyond the realm of possibility.

Precision-strike systems are already af-
fecting expectations regarding the use of
force, and that trend is likely to continue.
The ability of weapons to destroy targets
reliably and accurately has fostered the no-
tion in many countries that war is a blood-
less and error-free undertaking. In such an
environment, targeting errors–the U.S.
strike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
in 1999, for instance–are likely to be per-
ceived as deliberate acts.

The advent of precision strike and uavs
has separated warriors mentally and phys-
ically from the act of killing. Dropping
unguided weapons required considerable
skill to ensure that the bomb struck near
(let alone on) the target. Delivering lgbs
similarly required the operator to desig-
nate the target with a laser and keep it illu-
minated throughout the bomb’s flight, a
process that took seconds. Delivering a
gps-guided bomb merely requires the
operator to input the target’s coordinates
into a computer. Similarly, uav operators
are physically removed from combat. The
pilots who operate Predators and Reapers
launching missiles over Pakistan are as far
distant from the battle½eld as Creech Air
Force Base in Nevada. They report for work

and routinely locate, identify, and track
terrorists; sometimes they ½re missiles
and kill them. They then leave work and
return home to their families at the end
of every shift. This arrangement repre-
sents a profound change in the relation-
ship between the warrior and warfare, one
whose implications are only now begin-
ning to play out.

The emergence of a mature precision-

strike regime is likely to have dramatic
consequences for the United States. Since
the end of World War II, the United States
has based its defense strategy on a combi-
nation of forward-based forces to deter
adversaries and reassure allies and friends
and the projection of power from those
bases and the continental United States
to defeat foes in wartime. The spread of
precision-strike systems will call that for-
mula into question.

U.S. bases are increasingly under threat
of precision-strike systems. For example,
some U.S. bases in the western Paci½c are
now within range of Chinese precision-
guided conventional ballistic missiles;
others will come in range as China de-
ploys longer-range weapons. Over time,
the vulnerability of these bases will under-
mine the deterrence of aggressors and re-
assurance of allies.

The threat to U.S. forward bases, in
turn, calls into question the model that the
United States has relied on for power pro-
jection in recent decades. Without access
to ports and air½elds in Saudi Arabia and
across the Persian Gulf region, for exam-
ple, it would have become considerably
more dif½cult for the U.S.-led coalition to
eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. A
future campaign against an adversary
armed with precision-guided missiles,
rockets, and mortars may more closely
resemble the Normandy invasion and Iwo
Jima than the relatively unopposed attacks
on Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Thomas G.
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Finally, over time it is likely that states
will be able to strike the U.S. homeland
with precision-strike systems, offering
them a way to attack the United States
directly. This threat could further in-
crease the cost of U.S. intervention over-
seas and potentially offer adversaries a
way to coerce the United States without
resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.
However it manifests itself, the emer-
gence of a mature precision-strike regime
is likely to result in a pattern of conflict
that will differ considerably from that of

recent decades. The United States will no
longer be able to rely on its absolute supe-
riority in precision strike for battle½eld
advantage. To compete, the United States
will have to seek new sources of compar-
ative advantage. Ironically, it may also
have to revert increasingly to its nuclear
arsenal to deter not only nuclear attacks,
but also strikes from precision-guided
non-nuclear weapons. Here as in other
areas, old ideas may reappear in new form
as the revolution matures.

endnotes
1 See Bernard Brodie, “Technological Change, Strategic Doctrine, and Political Outcomes,” in
Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems, ed. Klaus Knorr (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1976); J.F.C. Fuller, Armament and History: A Study of the Influence of Arma-
ment on History from the Dawn of Classical Warfare to the Second World War (London: Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1946); Karl Lautenschäger, “Technology and the Evolution of Naval War-
fare,” International Security 8 (2) (Fall 1983); William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Tech-
nology, Armed Force, and Society Since AD 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982);
Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800 (Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1991); Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996); Clifford J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Read-
ings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
1995); Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2010), chap. 1.
2 Andrew F. Krepinevich identi½es the following military revolutions: (1) the infantry revo-
lution of the ½rst half of the fourteenth century; (2) the artillery revolution of the early to
mid-½fteenth century; (3) the revolution of sail and shot that stretched from the sixteenth
century to the mid-seventeenth century; (4) the fortress revolution of the sixteenth centu-
ry; (5) the gunpowder revolution of the seventeenth century; (6) the Napoleonic revolution
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; (7) the land warfare revolution that
stretched from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century; (8) the naval rev-
olution that stretched from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century; (9)
the interwar revolutions in mechanization, aviation, and information of the early twentieth
century; and (10) the nuclear revolution of the mid-twentieth century. Andrew F. Kre-
pinevich, “Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,” The National Interest
37 (Fall 1994): 31–36.
3 Eliot A. Cohen, “A Revolution in Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 75 (2) (March/April 1996): 43–44.
4 See, for example, Rolf Hobson, “Blitzkrieg, the Revolution in Military Affairs and Defense
Intellectuals,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 33 (4) (August 2010): 625–643.
5 There is a considerable literature on the issue of military innovation. See Adam Grissom,
“The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 29 (5) (October
2006): 905–934; Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Ger-
many Between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Stephen Peter
Rosen, “New Ways of War: Understanding Military Innovation,” International Security 13 (1)
(Summer 1988); Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Mili-

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tary (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991); Kimberly Marten Zisk, Engaging the
Enemy: Organizational Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955–1991 (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1993).
6 The Napoleonic revolution, for example, was not brought about by technological innova-
tion, nor did it involve new weaponry. See Peter Paret, “Revolutions in Warfare: An Earlier
Generation of Interpreters,” in National Security and International Stability, ed. Bernard
Brodie, Michael D. Intriligator, and Roman Kolkowicz (Cambridge: Oelgeschlager, Gunn,
and Hain, 1983), 158.
7 See, for example, the cases in Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Inno-
vation in the Interwar Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
8 Michael Howard, “Military Science in an Age of Peace,” Journal of the Royal United Services
Institute for Defence Studies 119 (1) (March 1974): 4.
9 Anchoring occurs when the mind uses a natural starting point as a ½rst approximation to a
judgment. It modi½es this starting point as it receives additional information. Typically,
however, the starting point serves as an anchor that reduces the amount of adjustment, so
that the ½nal estimate remains closer to the starting point than it ought to be. Amos Tver-
sky and Daniel Kahneman, “Anchoring and Calibration in the Assessment of Uncertain
Quantities,” Oregon Research Institute Research Bulletin 12 (1972).

10 Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1983), 175.
11 Fuller, Armament and History, 143.
12 Jeune école tactics did not, for example, displace the battleship as the centerpiece of naval
warfare. Nor have anti-tank weapons made the tank obsolete. Instead, in each case the
development of countermeasures triggered responses that restored the effectiveness of the
practice that was being countered. See Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and
Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), 27–39; Robert
L. O’Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggression (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 7–9; Michael Vlahos, “A Crack in the Shield: The Capital Ship
Under Attack,” Journal of Strategic Studies 2 (1) (May 1979).

13 Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds., Adaptive Enemies, Reluctant Friends: The Impact

of Diffusion on Military Practice (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003).

14 See, for example, Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War since 1945
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Thomas G. Mahnken, Uncovering Ways of
War: U.S. Military Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918–1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 2002).

15 Thomas G. Mahnken, “Beyond Blitzkrieg: Allied Responses to Combined-Arms Armored War-
fare During World War II,” in Adaptive Enemies, Reluctant Friends, ed. Goldman and Eliason.
16 Barry D. Watts, Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks: Progress and Prospects

(Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2007).

17 Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War, 115.
18 See, for example, William J. Perry, “Desert Storm and Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs 70 (4)
(Fall 1991): 66–82; Krepinevich, “Cavalry to Computer”; and Cohen, “A Revolution in
Warfare.”

19 Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War, 169, 171.
20 Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, 23.
21 Michael J. Mazarr et al., The Military Technical Revolution: A Structural Framework (Washing-

ton, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993), 28.

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22 Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Wash-

ington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1993), 251.

Thomas G.
Mahnken

23 William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, D.C.: Department

of Defense, 1997), iv.

24 Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century (Arlington, Va.: National Defense

Panel, December 1997).

25 James R. Blaker, “The American rma Force: An Alternative to the qdr,” Strategic Review

(Summer 1997): 22.

26 Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. FitzSimonds, The Limits of Transformation: Of½cer Atti-
tudes Toward the Revolution in Military Affairs (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2003),
chap. 6.
27 Ibid., chap. 7.
28 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2001),

30.

29 James R. FitzSimonds and Thomas G. Mahnken, “Of½cer Attitudes Toward Transforma-
tion, 2000–2006,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies
Association, March 24, 2006, San Diego, California.

30 Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War, 200, 209.
31 Brian Glyn Williams, “The cia’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan, 2004–2010: The
History of an Assassination Campaign,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33 (10) (October
2010): 871–892; “A New Weapon in the War on Terror,” Newsweek blog, http://www
.newsweek.com/blogs/declassi½ed/2010/09/10/a-new-weapon-in-the-war-on-terror
.html (accessed December 9, 2010).

32 Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, D.C.:

Department of Defense, 2010).

33 Lieutenant Colonel Scott C. Farquar, Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and
Operation CAST LEAD (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2009).

34 Williams, “The cia’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan,” 880–882.
35 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), 2.
36 Williams, “The cia’s Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan,” 881–882.

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