Rapid Dominance and its attendant focus on Shock and Awe. Rapid
Dominance seeks to integrate these multifaceted realities and facts
and apply them to the common defense at a time when uncertainty about
the future is perhaps one of the few givens. We believe the principles
and ideas underlying this concept are sufficiently compelling and
different enough from current American defense doctrine encapsulated
by "overwhelming or decisive force," "dominant battlefield awareness,"
and "dominant maneuver" to warrant closer examination.

Since before Sun Tzu and the earliest chroniclers of war recorded
their observations, strategists and generals have been tantalized and
confounded by the elusive goal of destroying the adversary's will to
resist before, during, and after battle. Today, we believe that an
unusual opportunity exists to determine whether or not this
long-sought strategic goal of affecting the will, understanding, and
perception of an adversary can be brought closer to fruition. Even if
this task cannot be accomplished, we believe that, at the very
minimum, such an effort will enhance and improve the ability of our
military forces to carry out their missions more successfully through
identifying and reinforcing particular points of leverage in the
conflict and by identifying and creating additional options and
choices for employing our forces more effectively.

Perhaps for the first time in years, the confluence of strategy,
technology, and the genuine quest for innovation has the potential for
revolutionary change. We envisage Rapid Dominance as the possible
military expression, vanguard, and extension of this potential for
revolutionary change. The strategic centers of gravity on which Rapid
Dominance concentrates, modified by the uniquely American ability to
integrate all this, are these junctures of strategy, technology, and