This article is an abridged version of a presentation made at the Security and Defence Forum conference, Ottawa 29 - 30 April 1998. Examples of RMA, narrowly defined, would include in this century the blitzkrieg, the development of aircraft carrier operations and strategic bombing. However, the term RMA is often used as a synonym for what military historians call military revolutions, which are major changes in the way states prepare and wage war.
Military revolutions are much less frequent phenomena than RMAs.
You can have more than one RMA in a century as the previous examples demonstrate, whereas military revolutions happen in longer cycles. The current RMA, broadly defined, would result from the passage of advanced societies from an industrial base to an information base. Both the narrow and broad conceptions of RMA have implications for defence planning and the conduct of military operations. The broad definition of RMA points notably at a greater concern for all critical information infrastructures that make a nation function smoothly, a greater reliance on capital-intensive professional armies and a revolution in defence management, including the relations between the defence establishment and the industrial base. It refers to the decreased friction and increased opportunities a force experiences when its command and components have an accurate and timely representation of the battle space including the location of friendly and enemy units.