Innovation and Transformation It Is Essay

S. military. There are several arguments for this. First of all, the challenges and threats have significantly diversified from the period between the two wars. Then, the threats were exclusively state actors and state armies. The instruments to fight against this threat thus implied a technological advantage, essential in obtaining the upper hand in battle.

Nowadays, the threats are much more diverse and less obvious than they were then. Besides certain states, today there are numerous non-state actors that can be identified as potential threats for the national security. In many cases, the technological advance in the military field is not enough to consistently fight against such challenges. Excellent intelligence services and external collaborations may also be required in order to be able to identify potential enemies and successfully fight against them.

Second, the First World War saw most of the nations in battle at that point at the same or a similar technological level. There might be occasional innovations, quickly adopted by the other militaries as well, but, overall, there would be an open field that encouraged technological innovation. This is clearly not the case today: the technological advance of the U.S. military is not contested around the world and its supremacy is obvious.

The transformation today would most likely come from organizational and tactical innovation. As previously mentioned, the current global challenges will imply a new tactical approach, one that will differ from the traditional conventional warfare of the 20th century. This will demand innovation in this field. On the other hand, the U.S. military finds its activity diversified from the traditional warfare activities. One such area that has been added is, for example, the assistance, both technical and assistance for development, which the U.S. military is involved in distributing in some of the conflict areas.Indeed, in areas of conflict, the U.S. military had to substitute to the traditional agencies handling such activities, like the USAID. In order to be able to cover such particular activities as well, the U.S. military will count on its organizational innovation, on its capacity to build and support structures able to function for this type of work.

As this paper has shown, technological modernization can be considered as the key factor in transforming the military during the period from 1915 to 1945, which is different to how things occur today. The challenges during the first and second world wars limited themselves to direct confrontation between states and state armies, while in the 21st century, the challenges are much more diverse and the threats include non-state entities and different processes such as trafficking, all with the same negative impact on national security. Because of this, the military needs to make organizational and tactical transformations rather than gain a competitive advantage through technological innovation.

Bibliography

1. Bull, Stephen. 2004. Encyclopedia of Military Technology and Innovation. Greenwood 2. Johnson, David E. 1998. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917 -- 1945, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

3. Hundley, Richard O. 1999. Past Revolutions, Future Transformations: What Can theHistory of Revolutions in Military Affairs Tell Us About Transforming the U.S. Military? Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MR-1029

4. Feickert, Andrew. 2006. U.S. Army's Modular Redesign: Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. On the Internet at http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/67816.pdf. Last retrieved on August 5, 2009

5. Military transformation -- a strategic approach. On the Internet at http://www.iwar.org.uk/rma/resources/transformation/military-transformation-a-strategic-approach.pdf. Last retrieved on August 6, 2009

Bull, Stephen. 2004. Encyclopedia of Military Technology….....