This book, the result of contributions from many experts, aims to fill a significant gap in the emerging literature on revolutions in military affairs.

It highlights two very different phenomena that have historically influenced the conduct of war over the last few centuries: military revolutions, driven by major social and political changes, and revolutions in military affairs, directed by military institutions, often with great difficulties and uncertain outcomes.

In short, it seeks to explore the essence. What is being advertised as a Revolution in Military Affairs? Has there been one in the past? Do all the events that have at times been promoted as such deserve the title of "revolution"? Ultimately, what is and what is not a "revolution in military affairs"?

Military history can, in this case, serve as a repository of examples and a testing ground for ideas. By analyzing eight specific cases, an attempt is made to reveal the evolution of military power in the Western world over the last centuries. Changes in military art, with various implications for society and politics, have been numerous.

However, very few have emerged as true "revolutions in military affairs," as this term implies the simultaneous existence of new weapons, tactics, and other innovations that overturn the previously established situation, primarily in the military understanding of the use and exploitation of new means.

The authors' position, as evident from the anatomy of the cases under study, is, and this should be emphasized multiple times, that technology can be a catalyst, but it is rarely what provides the momentum for a revolution in military affairs.

The revolutionary element consists of new perceptions, it is the ideas that defy the established norms. True revolutions come incrementally, are evolutionary, and are based on solutions provided to confront real enemies in real situations. They are not hypothetical scenarios of what we think the future will bring.

Moreover, revolutions in military affairs are not a substitute for strategy, as strategic planning utopians so easily believe. They are simply a new way of conducting war at the operational and tactical level.