Temporal Dominance Military Transformation and the Time Dimension of Strategy

• Main Author: Seah, Edwin
• Other Authors: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
• Format: Working Paper
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Political science
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/82393; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/39962
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Military transformation has gripped all major modern armed forces in recent times. Most importantly, the significance of the demonstration of conventional power in Operation Desert Storm has convinced all concerned of the need for change. Yet the discourse has been fracticious, and the current discourse is divided over both guiding philosophy and application. The recent literature invoking Effects Based Operations and Network Centricity does not clarify strategic concepts, but rather operational and tactical concerns. Hence this paper attempts to address the imbalance accorded to mastering time, that all-important and oft-ignored dimension in warfare, by arguing that military transformation really needs to seek not simply rapid dominance, but temporal dominance. A deeper understanding of how time affects strategy, along with a nuanced exploitation of perceptive differences of time will help explain how operational rapidity alone is insufficient for strategic success.