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Six decades after the spectacular American victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Air Fleet, the reasons behind the U.S. Navy's success at the battle of Midway are still not fully understood. Though the details of this famous battle continue to be argued in the pages of scholarly journals, the critical role of doctrine has not been properly analyzed. ' Yet it was better doctrine that ultimately led to the American victory once the forces were engaged, a victory that changed the course of war in the Pacific.
Doctrine, as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense, comprises the fundamental principles by which military forces guide their actions. For the Navy it is the foundation upon which tactics, techniques, and procedures are built-a shared way of thinking that must be uniformly known and understood to be useful and effective.3 Because doctrine articulates the operational concepts that govern the employment of armed forces, it is critical for the success of any military operation-thus its importance in evaluating the actions of the forces engaged at the battle of Midway. An analysis of the doctrinal thinking of the two protagonists reveals significant differences in their approaches to carrier warfare, differences that were fundamental to the victor's success.
The battle of Midway also marked the final phase in a revolution in military affairs (RMA) in which the aircraft carrier supplanted the battleship as the absolute determinant of naval supremacy. It was the culmination of a technical revolution in which carrier airpower displaced gunnery as the primary means of delivering naval ordnance. Moreover, it is one of the few instances in the history of RMAs in which the dominant player (in this case the U.S. Navy) was successful in implementing a revolutionary change in the basic character of warfare.4
Technology-driven RMAs, such as the paradigm shift to carrier warfare, are characterized by the introduction of a number of technological innovations in a series of stages over time. Richard Hundley terms this process the "Multiple Innovation Model" of an RMA.5 Evaluating the development of carrier warfare on the basis of this model (table 1) is useful for analyzing how the doctrine of carrier warfare evolved along parallel, though slightly different, lines in the Japanese and American navies. This article will explore...