Lifting the Fog of War

Is the United States an exhausted superpower? Military operations in Iraq, Somalia and Kosovo have resulted in defeat or stalemate. America’s key weaponry is fast becoming obsolete, and its men and women in uniform are disenchanted. Yet the USA remains committed to a wide variety of conflicts around the world and is increasingly confronted by threats against which traditional military power will be ineffective. As Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Clinton administration, Admiral Bill Owens saw firsthand the challenges facing the US military. In this text, he explains the full extent of the military crisis and proposes bold new solutions to revolutionize the armed services. Instead of spending trillions of dollars to update obsolete weapons systems, he argues, the Department of Defense should take advantage of recent advances in computing, communications and satellite technology and bring the military into the Information Age. These changes - collectively known in defence circles as the Revolution in Military Affairs or RMA - would transform the way that America wages war, bringing about a smaller, stronger and more flexible military better able to monitor enemy forces in real time and thereby counter the fog of war that has bedevilled commanders throughout history. The book offers both an insider’s account of today’s armed forces and a blueprint for a more effective and affordable military tomorrow. For the paperback edition, the author has written a new preface about the Bush administration’s attitudes toward military reform.