Technologyâ€(TM)s Impact on the Operational Level of War

Since the dawn of the age of science, man has attempted to find in technology simple solutions to the difficult problems of warfare. Modern developments in information technology continue this history, offering to provide ways to simplify some complexities of modern warfare. Information technology, however, differs from previous technological developments in that it represents both the means to improve weapon systems and the means with which to improve command and control. This monograph pursues the question of the operational level of war’s relevance in the future. The future environment promises to be one where tactical commanders possess weapons of operational or strategic range and strategic commanders can command tactical forces. Technologically speaking, one can see in this future environment the potential to eliminate the operational level of war. To account for factors outside the strictly technological realm, this monograph uses three domains of warfare to examine the operational level’s continued relevance. The three domains: the physical, the cybernetic, and the moral provide historical insights into how the operational level of war relates to its greater environment. These three domains also provide a reasonable basis from which to compare the future to the past and present. Three views of the operational level of war’s origins provide further insight into the philosophical and theoretical reasons for its existence. These reasons yield the criteria of demographics, geopolitical factors, and technology as contributors to the origins of the operational level of war. Projecting future information technologies across the three domains of warfare enables one to assess whether these criteria, and hence the operational level of war remain relevant. This study concludes that the operational level of war remains relevant in the near future. The ability of information technology to dominate the physical and cybernetic domains seems possible. Yet within the moral

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