PrintRequired Reading
Read pages 419-427 of "Geotechnology, the US Military and War" in Geography and Technology.
Read pages 179-204 "The Big Cebrowski and the Real RMA: Thinking About Revolutionary Changes in Technologies" in P.W. Singer's Wired for War.
Registered students can access these readings in Lesson 6 in Canvas.
As you read the chapter by Corson and Palka, do some critical thinking and ask yourself:
- Corson and Palka use limited definitions of the RMA based on Schneider’s approach. Given Singer's approach and other definitions of the RMA, do Corson and Palka's contentions still stand up?
- Corson and Palka are both geographers, writing in a geography book. Singer is a journalist. How might different authors from different communities have envisioned the underpinnings of the RMA? In terms of power relationships, how does the contention that the RMA is underpinned by geographic techniques bolster the discipline of geography and GIS&T, while potentially disadvantaging other disciplines?
- Do you agree with the author’s contentions? Why or why not?
The literature suggests that so-called Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) have occurred in the past with the advent of technologies such as gunpowder, railroads, the aircraft carrier, and nuclear weapons. This literature goes on to suggest that a new RMA is emerging, predicated on the idea that a rapid pace of technological innovation is altering the nature of modern warfare and the basic foundations of security. Barry Schneider of the Air War College identifies four new warfare applications that represent this RMA: long range precision strike, information warfare, dominating maneuver, and space warfare. All of these warfare applications are enabled by or associated with "information dominance," also known as "dominant battlespace awareness." The authors of the reading contend that both of those concepts are fundamentally based on geography and geographic technologies.
P.W. Singer, in his New York Times bestselling book Wired for War, contends that the real RMA is the revolution in robotics and the potential implications not only for warfare, but for society and the human species itself. I highly recommend the whole book as it is brilliantly written and really funny (Jon Stewart of The Daily Show noted it "Blew my f***ing mind...This book is awesome"). As you cannot read the whole book here, you will read chapter 10 entitled "The Big Cebrowski and the Real RMA: Thinking About Revolutionary Changes in Technologies."