312 | www.ijar.lit.az
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH Vol. 2. No. 5. September, 2010
APPROACHING MILITARY TRANSFORMATION THROUGH
MODERN DOCTRINAIRE-OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS
Mihai M. Neag*, Aurelian Raţiu, Lucian Ispas
„Nicolae Balcescu” Land Forces Academy, Sibiu (ROMANIA)
*Corresponding author: E-mail: mihainero@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Current as well as future challenges to national and international security generate an increase in the persuasive
role of military-political security systems both at national and alliance levels, in terms of identifying and using the most
appropriate solutions for crises management and eradication or for stopping or diminishing conflict intensity in various
areas. Under these circumstances, when the changing process is ever faster, the framework favorable to openness
and realization of a true transformation of the military must be created. Neglecting the conceptual-doctrinaire
dimension of the transformation process, correlated with the new discoveries in the field of technology would con-
stitute, in our opinion a serious mistake. Our prospective undertakings have highlighted the necessity to reconsider
the ample shifts in the military field, of the doctrinaire-operational framework and of the ways to approach military
operations. That implies a “collection” of decisions and innovative measures, so that the entire military system’s
functioning and structural relations are rendered more efficient.
Key words: transformation; military operations; operational-doctrinaire concepts; Effects Based Operations;
Network Centric Warfare
1. INTRODUCTION
The new international strategic environment is characterized by a high degree of instability and unpredictability in
terms of how risks and threats emerge, especially asymmetric ones, of redefining the relations between the strongest
military powers, as well as of the increase in freedom of action for regional actors (both state and non-state ones).
Major tendencies influencing the strategic environment, in our opinion, concern: the acceleration of the
globalization and regional integration processes, concurrent with the persistence of actions that result in: state
disintegration, anarchist tendencies accentuation; the states’ efforts strengthening for the preservation of their
influence in the dynamics of international relations, paralleled with the multiplication of phenomena and the
increase in non-state interventions in the evolution of these relationships.
The intensification of efforts in the direction of configuring a new architecture of security, a viable, stable and
efficient one, the state of global insecurity continuously fed by the emergence of new risks and threats, crises and
regional conflicts, differentiated access to resources, as well as the permanent evolution in the fields of science and
technique, with an immediate impact on the military field, have determined profound shifts in contemporary military
thinking, through the emergence of new doctrinaire-operational concepts, through the continuous transformation of
tactics and strategies, of procedures and techniques and of the way military actions are deployed.
This is the framework where Effects Based Operations and Network Centric Warfare fit in, due to their
complexity and multilateralism – modern concepts prevalent within most of the scenarios of present-day conflicts,
also used as efficient response tools when confronted with the risks and threats of the contemporary security
environment.
2. THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The starting point of our demarche was: the better the contemporary transformational processes and their
implications in the military field are known, the better the factors involved in political-military decision-making that
influence greatly the way a conflict is managed and solved can determine the doctrinaire-operational conception
that would best suit the demands of specific objectives according to the actual situation of each actor (state or
security organization).
Another important criterion in our research was the objective appreciation of the given issue, without
prejudgments or conjunctural interpretations, relating doctrinaire-operational aspects to the actual strategic
environment. We considered factors such as: the evolution of military science, of the art of leadership, as well as
the new discoveries in the field of technologies or other sciences.
Critical analysis was the method used in order to distinguish through valid arguments what is positive,
realistic and efficient from what is wrong and harmful in the approach of doctrinaire-operational concepts, Effects
Based Operations and Network Centric Warfare.
The analysis was a theoretical one, based on logical argumentation, thus attempting to highlight the
essence of the studied phenomena, to depict reality and help learn and draw the conclusions for efficient
management of the military transformation process in the doctrinaire-operational field.
Military transformation. During the past decades, the military organism has undergone a process of
transformation (reform) with the purpose of generating a credible and efficient defense capability, able to react to
the major shifts in the international environment.
