Military Technology, Armaments and Revolution in Military Affairs
This domain tests whether you can distinguish genuine transformation from procurement, and whether you understand counters as well as capabilities.
Technology strands
Precision-guided munitions, ISR and networking convert information advantage into lethality. Stealth and AESA radar shape survivability; UAVs and loitering munitions change cost curves and risk tolerance; hypersonics compress reaction time; directed energy promises cheap interception; space-based ISR and navigation underpin everything, which makes anti-satellite weapons and jamming attractive. Cyber operations and AI-enabled decision support raise questions of autonomy and accountability. India's programmes include Agni and K-series missiles, BrahMos, Akash and the S-400, Tejas, Arjun and Arihant, alongside a growing drone and counter-drone industry.
RMA debate
Krepinevich framed the question as whether technological change, combined with organisational and doctrinal change, produces a military revolution or mere evolution. The honest test is whether force structure, training and command arrangements change, not whether new equipment is bought.
Worked example
Do drones constitute an RMA? Ukraine shows drone-artillery integration at the tactical level, improving accuracy and shortening kill chains. But the strategic test is organisational: new formations, new rank structures, new procurement and new counter-drone doctrine. Until these appear, the change is a significant evolution rather than a completed revolution.
Traps
Technological determinism; confusing modernisation with RMA; ignoring electronic warfare, dispersion and hardened shelters as counters; forgetting that export-control regimes such as the MTCR, which India joined in 2016, shape access.