16 December 2015
Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College Seminar 2015
Executive Summary
Throughout history, new defence technologies have profoundly changed the nature of war and warfare. Indeed, military and world history would have been different if innovations such as aircraft, submarines, nuclear weapons and precision-guided munitions had not been introduced. The contemporary defence milieu is one marked by fast-moving developments and concomitantly, uncertainty. Contributing to this state of affairs is arguably the advent of disruptive technologies. While the 1990s were marked by the information technology-enabled Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), the world today is seemingly on the cusp of a new RMA dominated by potential game changers like cyber weapons and autonomous systems. The implications of these technologies for the future battlespace would be immense.
The introduction of these and other defence technologies is paralleled with the corresponding developments in how militaries operate. This dialectic has had an impact on the organisation and development of armed forces globally and in extension, the operations they carry out. Militaries today are faced with organisational challenges that their predecessors did not face. The global complex operating environment places operational challenges on militaries as stabilisation missions, kinetic operations and civil-military related operations all operate within the same sphere. To what extent would disruptive technologies shape future conflicts? How can the militaries of today integrate their operational demands and technological capabilities to achieve mission success today? These are some questions that were tackled in this year’s seminar.
The seminar aimed to break mental horizons regarding the perceived roles of technology in contemporary operations. The seminar sought to build upon the extant corpus of literature on the nexus between defence technology and military operations by examining the following issues: (i) technology and the nature of war; (ii) operations in the Information Age; (iii) features of the future force; and (iv) battlefield application of technology. Change is an underlying constant shaping the 21st century battlespace, and the papers presented in this seminar suggest that militaries all over the world would have to be adaptive and agile to cope with this reality.
Executive Summary
Throughout history, new defence technologies have profoundly changed the nature of war and warfare. Indeed, military and world history would have been different if innovations such as aircraft, submarines, nuclear weapons and precision-guided munitions had not been introduced. The contemporary defence milieu is one marked by fast-moving developments and concomitantly, uncertainty. Contributing to this state of affairs is arguably the advent of disruptive technologies. While the 1990s were marked by the information technology-enabled Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), the world today is seemingly on the cusp of a new RMA dominated by potential game changers like cyber weapons and autonomous systems. The implications of these technologies for the future battlespace would be immense.
The introduction of these and other defence technologies is paralleled with the corresponding developments in how militaries operate. This dialectic has had an impact on the organisation and development of armed forces globally and in extension, the operations they carry out. Militaries today are faced with organisational challenges that their predecessors did not face. The global complex operating environment places operational challenges on militaries as stabilisation missions, kinetic operations and civil-military related operations all operate within the same sphere. To what extent would disruptive technologies shape future conflicts? How can the militaries of today integrate their operational demands and technological capabilities to achieve mission success today? These are some questions that were tackled in this year’s seminar.
The seminar aimed to break mental horizons regarding the perceived roles of technology in contemporary operations. The seminar sought to build upon the extant corpus of literature on the nexus between defence technology and military operations by examining the following issues: (i) technology and the nature of war; (ii) operations in the Information Age; (iii) features of the future force; and (iv) battlefield application of technology. Change is an underlying constant shaping the 21st century battlespace, and the papers presented in this seminar suggest that militaries all over the world would have to be adaptive and agile to cope with this reality.
