The Art of War in the Network Age

3A Paradigm Shift

The “paradigm shift” is as much a recurring slogan in strategic literature on RMA and Transformation as it is a way to overcome questions on the temporality of military revolutions – conjoncture versus longue durée. In this study, it is also an opportunity to focus more thoroughly on the way RMA and Transformation concretely impact the act of warfare and its categories, be they practical or conceptual. Before going further, we must note that this “paradigm shift” covers different realities depending on authors, and also presents the risk of only developing the art of warfare under the influence of technologies, independently from strategic knowledge. This “shift” finds its roots in a disruptive conceptualization of action where the technologies and representations it carries play a major role.

3.1. A strategic consensus around the “paradigm shift”

For Hundley, RMA “involves a paradigm shift in the nature or conduct of military operations (…) which either renders obsolete or irrelevant one of more core competencies of a dominant player (…) or creates one of more new core competencies in some new dimensions of warfare (…) or both”¹. Right after Kuhn, and in an attempt to extend his viewpoint, he considers that a paradigm is “a recognized practice which is a basic model for a section of military operations”² and that a core competency is a “fundamental ability that provides the foundation for a set of military capacities”³. Hundley had been – and will be – followed ...