Center for Technology and National Security Policy

Military Transformation Studies

The Center for Technology and National Security Policy has taken the lead on Military Transformation. Military Transformation goes beyond mere force modernization. It is a strategy for discovering new sources of power and greater capabilities in the way forces are organized, trained, equipped and employed. It is also about transforming defense management to reduce cycle times and burdensome processes in ways that free up a wealth of creative thinking within DoD. It aims to replace, in some measure, bureaucratic methodologies with entrepreneurial risk taking and venture capitalist decision making. Military transformation is about discovering and adopting technological advances that have sustained value for defense operations. However, far more than being about hardware and software, transformation is about people: transforming the way civilian and military personnel think about warfare.

The Time Frame for defense transformation is out to the year 2020. Capabilities available for the near term (the two year timeframe of the Contingency Planning Guidance [CPG]) are already in the force. Defense transformation will inform our programming decisions for the next Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP 04-09), and on out to 2020. However, defense transformation can and will take effect much sooner through new ways of thinking and new ways of fighting. In that respect, we are currently involved with the following projects:

	The Center has produced papers on Army Transformation in cooperation with the Office of Force Transformation. These are working draft papers that we hope will be useful to the Welsh Panel. Studies have included recommendations on Army transformation and the publication of Transformation Under Fire, which focuses on the transformation of land warfare though the interaction of tactics, organization, technology, leadership and culture. CTSNP is currently reviewing existing Army science and technology (S&T) programs that are aligned with the Army’s Future Force to identify high payoff efforts that have the potential to be Current Force capabilities.
	The Office of Force Transformation and the Center have programmed three workshops for the purpose of identifying capstone concepts that will frame DoD's Military Transformation initiative. The first workshop addressed how the emerging strategic environment will affect transformation by making it multilateral and by embedding it in a larger foreign policy effort aimed at addressing the rapidly changing geopolitics of the 21st century. The second focused on the new U.S. defense strategy, its new operational concepts, and the implications posed for future force capabilities and requirements. The third workshop addressed technology in the context of its potential impact on transformation. The aggregate capstone concepts of all three workshops should indicate the most advantageous vector for effective defense transformation.
	Transforming America's Military, edited by Hans Binnendijk and published in August 2002, now in its second printing. This book explores the issues that face the U.S. military in a time of transformation: new missions, new technologies, efforts by each of the Services, on the part of our allies, as well as the challenges we face after September 11.
	Transforming for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, edited by Hans Binnendijk and Stuart Johnson and published in 2004. This book examines the various elements of the stabilization and reconstruction capabilities needed by the U.S. military. It systematically addresses the range of issues that must be resolved to transform S&R operations, including military strategy, organization, technology, personnel, and education. Here is a presentation on the same subject given by Stuart Johnson to the National War College Alumni Association National Security Conference at Randolph AFB in April, 2005.
	Future Naval Fleet Architecture - Congress mandated that a study be done on Alternative Future Naval Fleet Architectures. A team from CTNSP executed the study under the sponsorship of the OSD Office of Force Transformation and in co-operation with the Joint Staff, J-8. The findings were published in a report that was circulated widely through Congress and briefed to the senior Navy leadership to include the Chief of Naval Operations.
	The Center has developed courses on Military Transformation for students at NDU and the CAPSTONE General and Flag Officer Course.
	The Office of Secretary of Defense/Force Transformation established a fully funded Chair in the Center. The Chair will permit CTNSP to do additional teaching, curriculum development and research in the area of Military Force Transformation.

Allied Military Transformation

	NATO Response Force (NRF) – CTNSP initiated the idea of the NRF and worked with OSD and NSC to develop the concept and with NATO officials to implement it. In fall of 2003, the Center worked on the simulation for the Colorado Springs Defense Ministerial and worked with the National Security Council to develop the agenda for the Istanbul Summit in December 2004.
	The Center has also proposed a dual track approach to NATO transformation, a new Defense Policy Guidance model for NATO, and a New Military Framework for NATO.

CTNSP Case Studies