DAZ_zle

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   Foreign Affairs, March/April, 1996, features two policy
   essays on "The Information Edge: A technological change is
   transforming the nature of power and the United States is
   clearly in the lead."

   In "America's Information Edge," Joseph S. Nye, Jr.  former
   Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant
   Secretary of Defense, and Admiral William A. Owen, former
   Vice Chairman of the JCS, argue that information technology
   is transforming knowledge, and thereby power. They write of
   a "system of systems, an integration of ISR, C4I and
   precision force, which represents a qualitative change in
   U.S. military capabilities." They envision informational
   "soft power" -- the ability to achieve outcomes in
   international affairs through attraction rather than
   coercion -- as reinforcing the "information umbrella"
   shielding allies in lieu of the nuclear option.

   In "A Revolution in Warfare," Eliot A. Cohen, Professor of
   Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins, takes issue with Nye
   and Owen on the radical impact of information technology,
   and argues that its revolutionary dazzle may distort
   historical understanding of the more general political and
   economic forces that are reshaping international and
   military affairs. He observes that misunderstanding of
   revolutionary technology all too often has had unexpected,
   disastrous, consequences: "A revolution in military affairs
   is under way. It will require changes of a magnitude that
   military people still do not completely grasp and political
   leaders do not fully imagine."


   DAZ_zle