Revolution in military affairs

Revolution in military affairs (RMA) has been, most recently, associated with high-technology changes to modern forces, but one of its theorists, retired Colonel Doug Macgregor, points to a variety of historical events, when a military force "successfully exploit[ed]" technology, organization, training and leadership to attain qualitatively superior fighting power, as well as dramatic positional advantages in time and space which the opponent’s countermeasures cannot defeat. In a briefing derived from his book, Breaking the Phalanx, he gives examples including:
 * Napoleon’s Conduct of Warfare in the early 1800s;
 * German Conquest of France in 1940;
 * American Carrier-based Warfare in the Pacific during WW II;
 * Soviet/Russian Operational Art in the last years of WW II.

One of the steps in recent RMA was the development of precision-guided munitions, introduced in the Vietnam War, but first used in large, decisive quantities in the Gulf War. Another aspect is John Boyd's concept of the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop, in which the side that uses information faster and better wins. Boyd's specific work was in fighter combat; the U.S. Navy's "Top Gun" training approach used these ideas.

Derived in part from MacGregor's work is the restructuring of the United States Army, which changed the WWII-based structure from one based on divisions to smaller and more flexible brigades, making extensive use of computers and communications. This fits into a broader framework of "maneuver warfare".