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The Revolution in Military Affairs and Air Power

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and Air Power with research methods of historical comparison and literature review. Specifically, this study is to explore characteristics and influences of RMA, a modern military concept, as well as to try to answer two questions listed as follows:
1. Whether RMS brings about Air Power¡¦s changes in its quality? What changes are they?
2. Is Air Power a dominant force in RMA? In other words, are Sea Power and Land Power no longer crucial or only subordinate to Air Power in RMA?
To answer the previous two questions, this study discusses the following three issues from the perspectives of weapon system, fighting principles and organization:
1. What are essential characters of RMA? What are RMA¡¦s impacts on roles and labor division of Army, Navy and Air Force? Does RMA have the greatest impact on Air Force?
2. What is so called ¡§RMA¡¨ in USA? What impacts does RMA have on warfare?
3. As a super power in the world, what is USA Air Force¡¦s future direction? Being a mid-class military power, what new vision should ROC Air Force hold in terms of weapon system, fighting principles and organization? How should ROC Air Force respond to such a new trend as RMA?
Three conclusions are come up as follows:
1. Military power has developed from focusing on changes in quantity to changes in quality. Many war theories that are generally recognized have been called in question. A modern war model will mainly pursue a quick end to a war and a decrease of soldiers and civilians¡¦ injury. Future study can try to find out which military force, such as Army, Navy, and Air Force, can play a dominant role from the beginning to the end of a war.
2. Though different military forces have different environmental characteristics, each one puts extensive dependence on one another and such dependence should be highly valued. Future research can study whether final goals of warfare entail Army, Navy and Air Force¡¦s contribution and cooperation in accomplishing missions. Given that Air Power cannot exist in isolation, future research can study whether definitions of military labor division, Air Force¡¦s role and war behavior anticipation will produce dramatic changes in Air Power.
3. RMA is indeed a world power¡¦s belief, asserting that a world power does not necessarily have a capability to occupy its adversary¡¦s territory with expansion of precision-guided weaponry. By promoting RMA, USA military forces realize their vision and prospect of the 21st century. New technology developed in RMA, such as aerospace unmanned hypersonic aircrafts and munitions, enables USA military forces to launch flash attacks on its enemy from USA soil; USA no longer needs to continuously rely on region coalitions and advance bases all over the world. As a matter of fact, aerospace forces have become the most powerful tools for USA to react all kinds of conflicts. Future study can examine how Taiwan, when encountering superior military forces, can counteract RMA rather than blindly follow and imitate USA¡¦s mindset. How to enforce and train military manpower with the guidance of our own military philosophy is a crucial issue worthy of our care and consideration.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0724103-144203
Date24 July 2003
CreatorsWang, Chen-Tung
Contributorsnone, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0724103-144203
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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