As the Army reflected on the lessons of the Gulf War, it worried about the challenges it had faced in that war. First, the full build-up of forces had taken months, and time was a luxury the Army might not have again. Second, the triumph of precision airpower seemed to herald the arrival of the Revolution in Military Affairs that threatened to relegate ground troops to supporting roles. To help meet these challenges, Army leaders embraced the concept of ‘transformation’. With it, they pushed the Army towards a lighter, more deployable force, emphasising an ‘expeditionary culture’, and began the process of restructuring the Army around modular brigades rather than the larger, less deployable division. These brigades would be heavily reliant on lighter, faster, wheeled Stryker armed fighting vehicles, advanced communications equipment and precision weapons, and would be rapidly deployable to crisis points. Ironically, these new ‘expeditionary’ units would be heavily reliant on the support of civilian contractors, who took on increasing amounts of logistical and maintenance work within the transformed Army.

The advantages of acquiring and exploiting advanced military technologies for increased military leverage is self-evident. At the same time, we must recognize that we live in an era when the notion of what constitutes a “militarily relevant technology” is becoming harder to identify and define. The 4IR – particularly artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, “big data,” and the like – is largely embedded in the commercial high-tech sector; at the same time, the military potential of the 4IR is both vast and mostly self-evident. For all these reasons, therefore, militaries and governments around the world are increasingly focused on how and where advanced commercial technologies, innovations, and breakthroughs might create new capacities for military power, advantage, and leverage. This process of exploiting such civilian-based advanced technologies for military use is increasingly known as “military–civil fusion” (MCF). MCF is essentially about transferring advanced commercial technologies to military use through the joint civil–military development and application of cutting-edge technologies to military products.

As the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has become one of the central paths to military modernization, the ability of states to implement military–civil fusion (MCF) will likely factor more in how militaries gain advantages over their rivals. Critical 4IR technologies are increasingly viewed as key force multipliers. Many countries have adopted measures to promote MCF in order to exploit the 4IR for military needs but the implementation of MCF remains challenging. Constraints include differing priorities between the military and commercial sectors when it comes to 4IR and the reluctance of civilian enterprises to enter into technology partnerships with the military. Countries with restrictive, statist approaches toward economic development, such as China and India, may find themselves stymied by a culture that hinders innovation, as opposed to the United States and Israel where entrepreneurism, experimentation, and risk-taking are encouraged. Nevertheless, MCF is likely to become a core military-technological development strategy for most countries seeking great power status or who see technology as a critical force multiplier in national defense.

The defense industry in the United States that emerged during World War II is embedded in the nation’s civilian sector but arms manufacturing has remained segregated from the civilian economy. Earlier rounds of civil–military integration, particularly in aerospace and computing, resulted in military and civilian technology silos, despite efforts in the post-Cold War era to create a dual-use technology base. In the twenty-first century, however, the US military’s emerging technological requirements have driven a new effort to exploit fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies through military–civil fusion (MCF). In particular, the US military seeks to exploit such 4IR technologies as AI, quantum computing, microelectronics, and autonomous systems. The US Department of Defense has undertaken several initiatives to access advanced commercial innovations, particularly in the IT sector. AI is particularly driving MCF as this is seen as a critical force multiplier in future warfare. It is too soon to ascertain how successful current US efforts at MCF will be as many of the current programs sponsoring MCF are still at the initial stages of exploration, experimentation, and evaluation.

Many advanced commercial technologies increasingly offer new and potentially significant opportunities for defense applications that, in turn, could greatly affect military power and the metrics of military advantage over potential rivals. This book is grounded in two interconnected arguments. First, the technologies of the emerging fourth industrial revolution (4IR) will have a significant impact on future military effectiveness and advantage. Second, if militaries want to harness the technological potential of the 4IR, then they must craft a new kind of civil–military cooperation, which has become known as military–civil fusion (MCF). MCF will likely grow as a competitive strategy for nations seeking to exploit advanced technologies for military innovation and, subsequently, military advantage.

Iraq’s brutal leader Saddam Hussein threatened the Persian Gulf regions for two decades. Soon after coming to power he went to war against Iran in 1980. The eight-year war drained both countries of lives and funds. In search of additional oil wealth, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 to replenish its treasury. President Bush ultimately decided to go to war to repel the Iraqi troops. He forged a multi-national, United Nations–backed coalition and won US congressional approval to expel Hussein’s Republican Guards. The Persian Gulf War featured advanced technological weaponry that utterly vanquished the Iraqi forces as in a Nintendo videogame. The short war contributed to the notion of a Revolution in Military Affairs that promised America easy victories. RMA proved to be no silver bullet against insurgents. The war deepened the Pentagon’s involvement in the Middle East. To protect the rebellious Kurds within Iraq, it established no-fly zones with airpower, which rained down missiles on Iraqi air defenses. This de facto war in the time of peace represented a new version of armed diplomacy. Critically, it set a precedent for future use of aerial drones (pilot-less aircraft) to strike at Islamist militants within countries not at war with the United States.

Argues for Clinton's reversion to Cold War diplomacy in his second term. Containment of Russia and Iraq became central concerns. Chronicles Clinton battles with Congress, his impeachment, and his expansive foreign policy of apparent humanitarian interventions (in Kosovo especially), but waged as much to contain Russian power as to advance human rights.

Since the Vietnam War, the US Army has struggled with deep cultural issues that have impacted the ability of its leadership to think strategically. In the years following its defeat in Vietnam, the army reestablished its cultural foundations by revamping its doctrine, training, recruiting, professional military education, and equipment with a singular focus on conventional combat. These advances, along with development of advanced information systems and guided munitions, led to victory in the Gulf War, but blinded army leaders as to the larger realm of warfare. The invasion of Iraq seemed wildly successful initially, but senior policy makers assumed peace would follow and turn battlefield triumph into political success. When instead the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq morphed into guerrilla struggles, army leaders were at a loss. Since then, the army has undergone a renaissance of sorts, creating new doctrine and organizations for counterinsurgency warfare and retraining its members to adapt to irregular conflict. It remains to be seen whether these innovations will be permanent, or if the army will slide back into the culturally ingrained mind-set that the only wars worth fighting are large, conventional conflicts. Culture evolves slowly; it remains to be seen whether the army can overcome its anti-intellectual, heroic mind-set in favor of a more balanced mentality.

The American Civil War presented an exceptional state of affairs in modern warfare, because strong personalities could embed their own command philosophies into field armies, due to the miniscule size of the prior US military establishment. The effectiveness of the Union Army of the Tennessee stemmed in large part from the strong influence of Ulysses S. Grant, who as early as the fall of 1861 imbued in the organization an aggressive mind-set. However, Grant’s command culture went beyond simple aggressiveness – it included an emphasis on suppressing internal rivalries among sometimes prideful officers for the sake of winning victories. In the winter of 1861 and the spring of 1862, the Army of the Tennessee was organized and consolidated into a single force, and, despite deficits in trained personnel as compared to other Union field armies, Grant established important precedents for both his soldiers and officers that would resonate even after his departure to the east. The capture of Vicksburg the following summer represented the culminating triumph of that army, cementing the self-confident force that would later capture Atlanta and win the war in the western theater.