What do we mean by Cyberspace? What about Cyber Warfare? Cyber Security?
There doesn't seem to be a definition that is agreed upon.
Towards A general purpose definition of Cyberspace !
“Cyberspace” – Definitions Deluge – What it is?
Pentagon – which can be credited with the creation of ARPANET
in 1970s – a precursor to perhaps one of the greatest disruption of humanity in the last century - the Internet – has provided atleast 12
definitions of “Cyberspace” over the years. The latest being the year 2008
definition, “The global domain within the
information environment consisting of the interdependent networks of
information technology infrastructures, including the Internet, telecom
networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers”.
“Cyberspace is the realm of computer
networks (and the users behind them) in which information is stored, shared,
and communicated online”.
The book further list down the key feature of cyberspace as -
an information environment made up of digitized data that is created, stored,
and most importantly shared.It is not
the data alone, but it includes the networks of computers, infrastructure,
Internet, Intranets, and other communication systems that allow information,
organized as digital data, to flow. Since the authors include people/users of the
information structures as well, the definition includes cognitive realm,
besides the physical and digital spaces as well. Cyberspace may be global but
it has its divisions and notions of soverignity, nationality and property.
Cyberspace is “living” – constantly changing, evolving. Unlike geography the
cyberspace geography is much more mutable. Evolving from an initial “expert” only place,
it has become the nervous system controlling the economy and has already become
the dominant platform for life in 21st Century. Internet is where we
live – central platform for business, culture and personal relationship. However, it is a place where everyone
doesn’t play nice. Increasingly it has become a place of risk and danger.
Given the above centrality of “cyberspace” in our life, we
see the emergence of multi-hued specific context “cyberspaces”. These “specific
context cyberspaces” would prefer to be disjoint – or “airgapped” – from the
global cyberspace – for different reasons (such as privacy, security, niche
nature of transactions and/or specific functionality, features or fraternity),
yet these will use and allow the core technologies for the digital data,
infrastructure, protocols, software, rules, computers and communication systems
that are used to build “the global cyberspace”. For the purpose of this paper,
we call these special context Cyberspaces as Cyberspace-X.
The general purpose CyberSpace-X may include but is not
limited to - Strategic Cyber Space (e.g., MNCs, Large enterprises,
National Governments), Politico-military/Military
Cyber Space, Governance Cyber Space, Open market places/ e-Commerce/auction
exchanges, Social networks, Vehicular (say in a train or a ship), etc.
Definition of Cyberspace-X
The specific context cyber spaces (calling it Cyberspace -X) is
information, communication, computing and decision environment where digital
data is created, stored, exchanged, flows, and updated for assisting, enabling,
and making various actors (automatons and humans) enact their roles, perform
their functions, and achieve their objectives, over the computer networks. The
networks and cyberspace is potentially vulnerable to unauthorized actors
who may have opposing objectives to the actors belonging and authorized to
the cyberspace. These objectives may include disrupting, degrading,
damaging, destroying, and even demolishing the components, capabilities, and
infrastructure of Cyberspace-X.
A war, statistically speaking, is a rare event. It is also an
exceedingly costly and disruptive form of interaction between people and
states. A war indicates that level of bilateral relationship between two
states, which exists from the time first mobilization of troops, is called for
against the other side till peace is reached. This view of war implying only active armed conflict however is a restrictive
definition. Here it is assumed that war/conflict is in operation, from the
moment a state decides upon a policy of armed resistance or inclination to
counter an external/ internal threat with military
ramifications, to the time the solution of the active threat is achieved
or it is made dormant. Modern day wars
have been defined at three levels of increasing intensity though not
necessarily increasing complexity and duration (See Fig. 1). At the first level
is the most prevalent form of warfare, i.e., Low Intensity Conflict (LIC). The
LIC is defined as a conflict between irregular forces, mercenaries, revolutionaries,
terrorists, etc., and the regular, conventional armed forces of a nation. The
biggest challenge facing the conventionally armed forces of a nation, which are
trained and equipped for fighting against the conventionally armed forces of
the enemy, is to deal with LIC. The Mid Intensity Conflict (MIC) is the
conventional warfare that is indoctrinated in the regular armed forces of the
world. With the advent of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), the chances of
High Intensity Conflict (HIC), which is defined as a conflict involving WMDs,
are increasing. As is evident from Fig 1 the probability of occurrence of a LIC
is high and also the duration of such conflicts is more. This is due to the
fact that LIC is a continuous process, which the armed forces all over the
world have found hard to contain. The probability of WMD based HIC is low
compared to LIC/MIC. However, a threat which this spectrum misses out is the
possibility that, WMDs may fall in the hands of irregulars engaged in an LIC.
This will bring the conflict to HIC levels, where the nation fighting the
insurgents or irregulars will suffer. Therefore,
the armed forces of a modern nation need equipment, force structure and
doctrine to deal with threats at all three levels
of intensity. Threat assessment is a major pre-requisite in all three
conflict levels.
Indian Army's Mini-UAV Upgrade - The requirement of one
mini-UAV per infantry company should lead to restructuring - the trend
is to make the lowest fighting unit information and decision-enabled in a
networked environment. the news item
I predicted this in a 1998 paper - a recent
version is now online as well
In
fact I think - these capabilities should be at Platoon levels - Platoon
Information Combat and Killer (PICK) should be the basic fighting unit
CAN INDIA CREATE THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS?
Given our past history – hold on, not our glorious ancient history – just a small period to last 60 years or so, the above question at best can be dumped as an internet joke or shall I say a Facebook status update or maybe a non-trending passive Tweet. Many will be justified by pointing to the futility of even asking this question – India has much more pressing needs – and all these talks of revolution we have seen enough – whether it is our vocal show or support to Jan lokpal bill or our candle lighting remembrances of Mumbai attacks.
Yet, it is imperative that India should ask this question? In 1911, had someone told my grandfather that India in 2012 will actually be divided into three countries – he might have said let my grandchildren take care of that – I am facing a bloody world war now.If I tell you today that Pakistan – that used to be India – oh really – will be Chinese territory in 2025, you may have this very strong urge to book my ticket for Agra – besides Taj Mahal it also has a mental asylum.
What is an RMA?
If you have read till now, may be you are one of those who still read articles which are longer than Facebook status updates. According to many established experts a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)creates a paradigm shift in the nature of military operations by either making the core capability of a dominant player irrelevant or creating new capability in some new dimension of warfare or both. The RMA combines new technology, organization and doctrine to employ new operational concepts to achieve the above. The Military history students may recall how a device called Machine Gun created a new model for land warfare and destroyed the massed infantry forces in the open – the way wars were won before. The German Blitzkrieg rendered obsolete the static defense of prepared positions by infantry and artillery and the Carrier Battle Group by USA and British created a new model for naval warfare. The current RMA being perfected and propagated by USA combines advances in C4ISR systems and long range precision munitions with new operational concepts of network centricity, information warfare and continuous, rapid, joint and whole-theatre operations is reflected in the new devices showcased as, for example, Military Drones. It has been proposed that the actual firing and engaging with the enemy systems - will be completely overtaken by automated systems. Humans will retain (remote) control through strategic decisions about where and when to strike for achieving war objectives.
Long-range precision fires, information warfare, system of systems, network centric warfare and cooperative engagement capability are key potential manifestations of the new RMA. When one looks at the model of a new RMA, one sees a culmination of synergy between new technologies, new devices and systems, new operational concepts and new doctrine and force structure. For example the ICBMs in decades after WWII combined advances in fusion weapons, multi-stage rockets and inertial guidance to provide hitherto unknown dimension of inter-continent strategic warfare by developing the capability of accurate delivery of high-yield nuclear weapons across continents.
One good news for countries who may be interested in creating the next RMA – hope our Chinese friends are not listening – the RMA’s have mostly been created by non-dominant player in any conflict- except may be the current Information and networking based RMA created by the sole super power.
How to create the Next RMA?
If one looks at deeply and may be broadly – one can see that current RMA has been designed not by military hardware – in the traditional sense of the term - but really by software. The ability to enable functioning of various hardware elements of a military system (or system of systems or ultra large scale systems) to respond and actuate destructive - reactive as well as proactive - actions against specific changes in and around the immediate environment in time and space – just by pre-coding a mesh of carefully written set of instructions stored on various forms of electronic organization called “media” or “memory” – has given the military and to the world at large unprecedented capabilities. The act of “programming” the machines through a set of rules – called protocols to talk to each other and also “process” inputs in the form of data and facts and represent by symbols – has come about not by manufacturing the “steel” bullets but by writing software into machines that talk to each other in a deterministic (more or less) manner to act against potential threats.
Yet, software is the Achilles heel of the current RMA. For starters, the reliability of software is a perennial problem – unsolved so far. Software has this amazing ability to remain “buggy” despite been checked by multiple human eyes and brains of species called programmers, testers and also their automated code checking tools. Further, to the great horror of any military commander, a perfectly normal and working software system – which was working absolutely without any trouble for many years – can fail and lead to a catastrophe just because a particular path/condition that the environment never gave trouble to the system suddenly gets activated in the light of a unique input – which most crisis situations will create. These “black swans” that software based systems are much more prone are the “soft belly” (pun not intended) of the new RMA.
Further, since the software based systems use open source, openly available, commercially available underlying software components – operating systems, communication protocol stacks, network routers, applications, GUIs, compression algorithms, security protocols, database management systems, etc, the field of cyber weapons – which exploit the inherent weaknesses of these known software systems – is the potential course of the underdog in the fight against New RMA forces.
To counter the software based RMA being perfected by USA and reflected in the Drones and C4ISR systems one need to think how to maximize the “black swans” in a real world conflict with the new RMA forces.
Candidate Ideas for Next RMA
One thought is to create the systems that use the proprietary software components instead of openly available or commercial software systems end-to-end. Avoiding the known software based components is a prudent strategy; however, it has a huge challenge of re-inventing the wheel (or wheels) at a massive scale. Given the task involved and resources needed – this initiative of for example developing your own operating system, own C++ compiler, own router, own compression algorithms, can only extract suppressed laughter from the software development experts, that is if they are restrained somehow in cracking completely by holding their stomachs by both hands.
Another thought and may be this can lead to something in future that may have some possibility - is to think of Counter Software Systems – these are specifically designed capabilities to maximize the possibility of failure of software based systems. The cyber warfare capabilities being developed and discussed in many reports online are testimony to potential of counter software system as a potential RMA. Imagine a much more precise and capable “Stuxnet” computer virus, than the one that reportedly disabled centrifuges in an Iranian uranium-enrichment plant couple of years back, being used to wreak havoc in the RMA force.A set of micro devices (electronic spiders) that roam the battlefield – air, sea and land – and just impregnate the C4ISR systems, drones and precision munitions – so that either the bits that make the “instructions” and the bits that make the memory are not erased, corrupted or destroyed but “re-programmed” in a manner that commands that drone handlers are giving the drones just turn against the RMA force. Looks like science fiction – may be!
However, the greatest possibility is the creation of new class of systems called Genius systems. If one studies the evolution of technical systems one very interesting trend is visible – our technical systems are becoming more and more intelligent. For example, the dumb bombs also called a gravity bomb, free-fall bomb, dumb bomb, iron bomb, or unguided bomb, is a conventional aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence, simply follows a ballistic trajectory. The dumb system evolves into a guided system. For example, the dumb bomb evolved into a guided munition using homing guidance or command-to-line-of-sight (CLOS). Next stage of evolution was the smart munition with a limited target selection capability that does not require an operator in the loop- may be terminally guided ("hit-to-kill") or sensor fuzed ("shoot-to-kill"). The smart munitions became brilliant munitions - a many-on-many munition that operates autonomously to search for, detect, identify, acquire, and attack specific classes of targets. What are the next stages in this evolution? I call them the Genius Systems. For example a genius munition will be a brilliant munition that combines the elements available in run-time to build a specific munition to destroy/neutralize specific targets that are available, predicts targets that will be available in near future and get ready with the specific munition that will be needed to neutralize the futuristic targets. It may be a form of an autonomous UCAV – autonomous drones.
India needs to invest in development of Genius Systems
We have a window of opportunity for next 25 years when the young population percentage world over will be maximum in India. Further, our ability to understand the language of software – its basis in abstract thinking and logic of constructing – is traditionally strong and scalable. This is the time when India should invest in three pronged strategy of creating the RMA based on Genius systems – a set of highly evolved intelligent technical systems that work on principles of Next generation intelligence – a move from brilliance to genius system of on-line learning and innovating systems. The three pronged strategic dimensions are (a) Avoid as far as possible known, standard software components developed outside India and available as embedded in weapons systems being procured (b) Create a framework for counter software systems with all sort of cyber weapons being experimented within the framework and finally (c) leapfrog the “evolution of intelligent systems” by creating the doctrine, technology, force structure and operational employment of Genius systems.
If India combine the capabilities distributed across the country into a major mission mode initiative – we can do it, otherwise, we already have become the largest importers of the defence equipment as our doctrine is still based on dumb weapons/guided weapons whereas the world has already moved to brilliant systems.
Network Centric Warfare - A Revolution in Search of Doctrine
• The Shift to Network Centricity
• Network Centric Warfare (NCW) – The way it will be
• NCW – Studying its nature
• Can one use hierarchy to understand and study NCW?
• What are the Ways of studying NCW –Potential Methodologies
• Network Centric Combat Force (NCCF)
• NCW Architectures
• Ultra Large Scale Systems (ULSS) and NCW
• Key Technologies and methodologies for NCW
The Shift to Network Centricity
Network Centric Warfare is projected as a radically different way to prosecute wars compared to the existing ways which are considered as extrapolation of past wars. The Network Centricity in warfare is enabled by advances made in technologies for what is called the C4ISR (Command Control Communication Computers Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) Systems. Combat systems based force or platform centric combat forces of the previous eras need to transform to Network centric combat forces to take care of fundamental shifts in the way networks are replacing hierarchies in various domains – Defence, Business, Governance or even in society at large.
Network Centric Warfare – The way it will be
The questions that need to be answered are what are the possible paths that current platform centric combat forces can or will take to transform into network centric combat force. These questions are based on the premise that warfare of the future will be network centric – there is ample evidence in various domains and advances made in technologies besides studies of various forms of Networks already indicates that way we organize – the natural way - is network centric. Be this the genome map, or neural networks in the human minds or social networks or business organizations, networks are the most natural way structures evolve.
Another way one can study this move is by describing a generic framework of what the Network centric warfare will look like and then develop concepts, needs, doctrines and force structures to take care of these needs. Presumably these will be different from the existing needs.
Network Centric Warfare – Studying its nature
How does one study the nature of Network Centric Warfare? Since it is still forming, the study needs to focus on the way
(1)Networks happennaturally or are designed artificially?
(2)What happens to the elements or nodes of the networks and what are the links of the networks that emerge in time due to natural or artificial processes?
(3)What happens when the nodes of the network are intelligent themselves and forms the links as per the context or situation? Further what happens when the nodes are intelligent and learn from past as well?
(4)What happens when networks have human actors as nodes or even intelligent links between nodes?
(5)What happens when
a.Networks interact with other Networks
b.Networks interact with strict Hierarchies
c.Networks interact with loosely couples hierarchical networks
d.Networks compete with other Networks
e.Networks compete with strict Hierarchies
f.Networks comptete with hierarchical networks
Can one use hierarchy to understand and study Network Centric Warfare?
The way humans have been solving problems is hierarchical. In a hierarchy the lower level feeeds into higher levels and the top levels has the impacts of all the lower processes. One such hierarchy of conceptual levels for NCW has been defined as
Level 1: Force Level Characteristics of the NC Warfare – the so called Emergent Properties
Level 2: Decision Characteristics – speed and soundness of decisions are two important parameters
Level 3: Information level characteristics - from relevance to accuracy many parameters of data, information and to some extent knowledge also comes into picture
Level 4: Network level characteristics – the way networks function – concurrency, reliability etc are some of the parameters
Level 5: Physical properties of Networks – bandwidth etc.
Can one think of another way to study NCW, non-hierarchical way as that is more closer to the natural networked form. Or for example markets forms of organization can help in studying the true nature as exemplied by Starfishes organizations – the so called leaderless organizations. Can networks be used for studying Network centric warfare?
What are the Ways of studying NCW – the Potential Methodologies
We know four different ways of studying any system and its properties
Direct, empirical Measurement or observation of system behaviour
Mathematical Modeling – analytical modeling to model the system
Expert Judgement
Simulation – Typically computer simulation of the system
The new ways of agent based simulation and artificial life techniques – combining cellular automata with Genetic Algorithms (GA) are the new forms of studing a complex system with emergent properties. However, from the puritan point of view these techniques are categorized under simulations per se.
The platform centric warfare has been studied through simulations, mathematical modeling, direct historical analysis of past data, expert judgement etc. However, in the NCW study, for the time being one has to resort to simulations and modeling as neither the experts are available nor enough historical data. Still, we need to explore all forms of system study technique and levels one need to study these
Social Network Analysis (SNA) has come up as a new way of studying networks, With large body of work, some defence analysts have resorted to SNA methods for studying NCW. The Force Intelligence Network and Command (FINC) methodology being one example.
Network Centric Combat Force (NCCF)
Once the NCW studies have been carried out, various elements of NCCF, its doctrine, its force structure, the way its information flows should be enabled, the way decisions should be explored and actions taken, will emerge. These can then be incorporated into operational concepts development.
NCW Architectures
The shift to network form of organizations has become so prevalent that even the historically most hierarchical form of human organization, i.e., military structures, are now beginning to explore the network form of organizations to take care of increasingly complex situations and foes that these forces are asked to tackle. The Network Centric Warfare as the field is now called is a new form of military strategy, technologies, organization and doctrines that requires more holistic explorations and understanding. The trend towards network form is clearly evident. Literature describe different forms of network centric warfare architectures that are possible. Table 1 list down these architectures – which varies from centralized, where a central hub controls the network, to a loosely coupled network structure where the elements or nodes come together to solve a problem and then go back or move to next problem – through the process of swarming.
Architecture
Characteristics
A.Centralized
One central high value Hub – other low value nodes networked and controlled by Hub
B.Hub-Request
“Type E” Request based plus one or more central high value hubs
C.Hub-Swarm
“Type G” Swarming plus one of more central high value hubs
D.Joint
Mixture of other six types (Type A, Type B, Type C, Type E, Type F and Type G)
E.Request-Based
Nodes of same value, but with different specialized capabilities. Request for service between nodes of different kinds
F.Mixed
Mixture of “Request-Based” and “Swarming”
F1: Limited Types
Small number of node types (includes the case of separate sensor, engagement, and C2 grids”
F2: Commonality
Nodes are different, but have significant commonality
G.Swarming
Nodes identical or nearly so
G1: Emergent Swarming
Nodes follow simple rules, like insects
G2: Situational Aware Swarming
Nodes share information to build up Situational Awareness picture
G2(a): Orchestrated
One node is a temporary “leader”
G2(b): Hierarchical
Nodes are arranged in a Hierarchy
G2(c): Distributed
No Leader or Hierarchy
Ultra Large Scale Systems (ULSS) and NCW
Given the systems that we have built and which are continuing to scale-up in all walks of life, we are closer to building larger and larger systems. There are needs for such systems to optimally utilize the rapidly depleting natural resources and also to function in a highly connected world that we have created for ourselves. Most of these systems are, be it web and computing infrastructure, supply chain systems, healthcare infrastructure, military systems or government systems, software based engineering systems. These systems are increasingly complex web of ultra-large, network-centric, real-time, cyber-physical-social systems. The ULS Systems will be system of systems at the Internet scale. Characteristics of ULS systems arise because of their scale. These are unprecedented decentralization; inherently conflicting, unknowable, and diverse requirements; continuous evolution and deployment; heterogeneous, inconsistent, and changing elements; erosion of the people/system boundary; normal failures and new paradigms for acquisition and policy.Table 2 gives a brief view of contrasts between present approaches and characteristics of ULS Systems.
ULS Characteristics
Present Approaches
Decentralized Control
All conflicts must be resolved and resolved centrally and uniformly
Inherently conflicting, unknowable, and diverse requirements
Requirements can be known in advance and change slowly.
Tradeoff decisions will be stable.
Continuous evolution and deployment
System improvements are introduced at discrete intervals.
Heterogeneous, inconsistent, and changing elements
Effect of a change can be predicted sufficiently well.
Configuration information is accurate and can be tightly controlled. Components and users are fairly homogeneous.
Erosion of the people/system boundary
People are just users of the system. Collective behavior of people is not of interest. Social interactions are not relevant.
Normal Failures
Failures will occur infrequently. Defects can be removed.
New paradigms for acquisition and policy
A prime contractor is responsible for system development, operation, and evolution.
The ULS systems will be artificial systems hence they differ from natural complex systems in fundamental ways. Unlike natural systems that may evolve because of specific constraints or available paths, the artificial systems are designed at least in principle, with a specific goal or function in mind. As Herbert Simon describes, an artifact is an interface between inner environment and the outer environment. The artifact tries to accomplish a goal or provide a function in the outer environment. This artifact can have one of many possible internal environments to accomplish the same desired function in the same environment. This is an important fact, as it indicates that theoretically infinite ways exist to construct or design an artifact to accomplish specific function in specific environment. This is important; because this fact creates an uncertainty and unpredictability, in the artificial world that we are living in as it leads different actors to design different artifacts to achieve the specific function in multiple environments. This is a dimension of complexity that needs to be understood and grappled with.
The interplay of natural and artificial is another area that comes under the realms of ULS scale complexity. Natural objects evolve through natural selection and based on the environment in which they operate. The observations based on how the natural phenomena occur led humans to fields of natural sciences. The industrial revolution started a focused direction towards the artifact sciences where suddenly man-made objects became prevalent and useful with specific functions or goals to be achieved in specific environments. Modern world characterized by artificial environments, virtual reality and synthetic materials, has become more man-made than natural. Yet nature has not been tamed fully – in fact nature’s fury keeps on giving clear messages of the journeys that humankind has yet to perform, in the form of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions and multiple natural disasters that happen in many parts of globe.
The ULS Systems research needed as described in literature include 7 main fields. These are represented in Table 3.
ULS Systems Research Area
Specific Sub-Areas
Human Interaction
• Context-Aware Assistive computing
• Understanding Users and Their Contexts
• Modeling Users and User Communities
• Fostering Non-Competitive Social Collaboration
• Longevity
Computational Emergence
• Algorithmic Mechanism Design
• Metaheuristics in Software Engineering
• Digital Evolution
Design
• Design of All Levels
• Design Spaces and Design rules
• Harnessing Economics to Promote Good Design
• Design Representation and Analysis
• Assimilation
• Determining and Managing Requirements
Computational Engineering
• Expressive Representation Languages
• Scaled-Up Specification, Verification, and Certification
• Computational Engineering for Analysis and Design
Adaptive System Infrastructure
• Decentralized Production Management
• View-Based Evolution
• Evolutionary Configuration and Deployment
• In Situ Control and Adaptation
Adaptable and Predictable System Quality
• Robustness, Adaptation, and Quality Attributes
• Scale and Composition of Quality Attributes
• Understanding People-Centric Quality Attributes
• Enforcing Quality Requirements
• Security, Trust, and Resiliency
• Engineering Management at Ultra-Large Scales
Policy, Acquisition, and
Management
• Policy Definition for ULS Systems
• Fast Acquisition for ULS Systems
• Management of ULS Systems
Key Technologies and Methodologies for NCW
NCW is a massive challenge – because of the extreme tempo, massive concurrency and simultaneity, precision destruction needs, unprecedented compressed OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) loops, information and timely relevant information or the so called Common Relevant Operating Picture (CROP) becomes the crucial substrate on which the NCW operations will be conducted. A complex milieu of multi-dimensional and multi-field technologies need to enmesh together to create this information substrate. What are the key technologies and possible methodologies that one should explore to put together the NCW jigsaw? This is a question to be explored.
NCW Doctrine and Road Map for India
Indian defence forces have described themselves to be Network Centric by specific dates. Given the ingrained structures and inherent doctrines, we need to explore how the NCW doctrine will enmesh and create change opportunities in a phased manner or will it be better to have a big-bang approach in changing Indian defence forces to the NCW doctrine?
Military Doctrine is defined as a comprehensive system of views and procedures for conduct of future wars including various military operations, established by military experts, technologists and armed forces, in the likely threat environment, and within the purview of present force structures.This doctrine is subject to periodic reviews and analysis and is evolved taking into account the dynamic geo-political, economic and technological trends in the world scenarios.Also such a doctrine should be freely available as a comprehensive document, so as to give a common basis for decision making at all level of military and defense hierarchy of the nation. Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has been defined to take place when one of the participants in a conflict incorporates new technology, organization and doctrine, to the extent that victory is attained in the immediate instance, but more importantly, that any other actors who might wish to deal with that participant or activity must match, or counter the new combination of technology, organization and doctrine in order to prevail.
