Abstract
Over the last two decades or so the literature on innovation has emerged, building initially on the idea of Revolutions in Military Affairs and then moving to a much broader agenda on the idea of defense transformation.1 While there are divisions over who can lead transformation there is a general acceptance that defense transformation, particularly for the West, is the right direction of travel. Yet, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have raised question marks about this assumption and a refocusing, particularly by the US, on more traditional inter-state warfare. Within the transformation literature, the United Kingdom has been used by a number of authors as an example of innovation and cited as the leading transformational European power. In general, the first wave of literature tended to argue that the United Kingdom has successfully embraced innovation albeit based on far more financially constrained circumstances and this has become the accepted truth.2 This is frequently cited in various defense publications, in particular the “2002 Strategic Defence Review: a New Chapter,” which incorporated much of the transformational language in stark contrast to its predecessor.3
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Dorman, A.M. (2015). A Peculiarly British Revolution: Missing the Point or Just Avoiding Change?. In: Collins, J., Futter, A. (eds) Reassessing the Revolution in Military Affairs. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137513762_3
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