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In today's Pentagon, if a program is not considered transformational,
it is unlikely to be fully funded. So everyone is paying attention.
But what does the concept really mean? There are about a dozen official
definitions, most of which have this in common: transformation is
a process designed to change fundamentally the way we fight by adapting
new technologies to warfare, developing advanced operational concepts
to best use those technologies, and reorganizing military structures
to execute those concepts. Yet there remains considerable confusion
about the process and where it might take us. So here are 10 observations
to provide some perspective on the issue.
1. Military transformation has been under way for more than a decade,
but is still accelerating. Operation Desert Storm demonstrated the
value of new stealth, precision strike, and night vision technologies.
But the war was fought using old operating concepts in sequential
phases and massed formations. The Air Force struck first, then ground
forces attacked using a familiar left hook. A few years later, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shaliskashvili issued Joint
Vision 2010, a new theory of war that envisioned defeating an enemy
quickly by striking key nodes simultaneously with concentrated firepower
rather than concentrated forces. Operations Allied Force in Kosovo
and Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan were influenced by this vision,
as massing of forces was de-emphasized. The current administration
accelerated the process by creating a new transformation czar, a
transformation command, and a transformation budget. Operations
in any future war with Iraq will draw heavily on the work done over
the past decade.
2. History shows that previous transformations in military affairs
have had a profound impact not only on the battlefield, but on civilization
itself. Historians have identified at least 10 comparable military
transformations in the past 700 years. The longbow became the primary
weapon of British kings in victories at Crecy and Agincourt. Cannons
destroyed castles that had buttressed feudalism. Large, armed sailing
ships enabled colonialism. Napoleon exploited the industrial revolution
to standardize his equipment and dominate Europe for more than a
decade and unintentionally promoted modern nationalism. Nazi Germany
applied new blitzkrieg concepts using common equipment used to defeat
Poland and France in 1939-1940. Given the impact of previous transformations,
it behooves the United States to capitalize vigorously on the benefits
of today's effort.
3. History also shows that major mistakes can be made in dealing
with military transformation. Military leaders can get the theory
wrong; during the early Cold War, the United States armed most of
its conventional forces with tactical nuclear weapons only to conclude
later that their use was not credible. Or they can get the operational
concept wrong; in the early 1900s, British Admiral Jackie Fisher
created the battlecruiser with speed and long-range guns only to
have another admiral misuse the thinly armored ships during the
battle of Jutland with disastrous results. Conversely, they can
overstretch the advantages of military transformation; Charles XII
of Sweden, Napoleon, and Hitler all squandered significant military
advantages by taking on too large a military task. Weather, geography,
and enemy adaptation all contributed to their subsequent defeat.
The United States also needs to be cautious as it capitalizes on
its military advantages.
4. Transformed capabilities must fit the mission. The September
11 tragedy has reduced the confidence of American policymakers in
deterrence. While efforts will be made to buttress deterrence through
changes in forward deployments, new emphasis is being placed on
preemption and enhanced defense to compensate for this lost confidence.
The new transformational capabilities that the military is pursuing
are tailor-made for rapid and decisive preemption. But military
officers worry that political decisions will be unable to keep pace
with their need for speed. They also worry that their advantage
may be lost in urban areas or jungle terrain. New technologies can
also enhance missile defense, but much more needs to be done to
transform homeland defense capabilities.
5. The capability to access, distribute, and exploit information
is key to transformation. Sensors abound on today's battlefield.
Space-based assets provide exact intelligence and precise locations;
airborne platforms spot and track enemy activity; and robotic vehicles
allow close-up views without risking American lives. Information
from these sensors is fused in command and control centers where
decision aids increasingly assist commanders under pressure. Distributed
information creates linkages that allow vulnerable battle platforms
to be dispersed on the battlefield. Precision-strike weapons are
becoming cheap and small, allowing one platform to carry many. These
capabilities allow at least some of the fog of war to be pierced,
commanders to share a common vision of the battlefield, and victory
to be won with fewer casualties on either side. Work continues to
assure that these information systems will be robust when needed.
6. The services are each developing operational concepts to harness
information technology. Operational concepts are often more important
than the technologies that underpin them. The Army champions rapid
decisive operations, which lead them to seek smaller, more deployable
combat systems that can quickly be delivered directly to the objective.
The Marine Corps is closer to reaching the same goal. The Navy concept
is network-centric warfare, which focuses on maximizing the impact
of information sharing. The Air Force pursues effects-based operations,
which seek to maximize the political impact of targeting. These
three concepts improve military capability to get to the battle
fast, make decisions before the enemy can, and win efficiently.
But they need to be united in a joint concept-an effort that is
being pursued by the Joint Staff and may be on display soon in Iraq.
7. All services are now in the land warfare business. The U.S.
military dominates space, the air, and the oceans, so all services
are turning their attention more to land warfare, where a clever
enemy can still seek some advantage. The Air Force and Navy dominated
the last two wars, both of which were conducted in landlocked areas
with no real air forces to challenge them. Lockheed Martin's [LMT]
F-22 was redesignated the F/A-22, adding land attack to its air-combat
mission. Similarly, four Ohio-class Trident submarines will be converted
to land attack cruise missile carriers. This does not mean that
ground forces are unnecessary, as the escape of al Qaeda fighters
at Tora Bora remind us. It does mean that the initial confusion
between U.S. ground and air forces in Afghanistan's Operation Anaconda
has highlighted a real problem. Smooth procedures between ground
and air assets are perhaps the most important element of transformation
that needs to be in place before taking on Iraq.
8. The Army is taking on the greatest risk in seeking radical transformation.
The Air Force and Navy are both traditionally more dependent on
technology than the Army, and so these two services began their
transformation earlier. After Operation Allied Force, the Army recognized
the need to airlift heavy equipment to the front and quickly began
to develop an 18-ton fighting vehicle to replace the 70-ton Abrams
tank. The so-called Future Combat System will rely on advanced sensor,
armor, gun, and communications technology now under long-term development.
For the midterm, however, the Army seeks to maintain its existing
force and to build a small interim force based on the wheeled Stryker.
Its resources to accomplish these tasks, however, are small compared
to those of the other services. Meanwhile, key elements of the emerging
force, such as the Crusader artillery and Comanche helicopter, have
either been terminated or cut back drastically by Department of
Defense budgeters. Pressure continues for force structure reductions
despite growing Army missions. The combination of technical, program,
and financial risk puts the Army in potential jeopardy.
9. Military transformation needs to be broadly based. Enhancing
combat capabilities alone will not guarantee success. An array of
other changes is required. The acquisition system needs to be streamlined
to accommodate more spiral development, encourage transition of
promising technologies, and infuse commercial information technology
more rapidly into the force. The budgeting system needs reform to
enhance planning and to create greater program flexibility. The
logistics system needs to promote more rapid deliveries with a smaller
in-theater footprint. Joint experimentation needs to become the
basis for evaluating transformation, not simply demonstrating it.
The National Guard and Reserve components need to be restructured
to deal with homeland security missions. And the interagency process
needs to be strengthened, because most future conflict will require
even more broadly based government participation.
10. Finally, we need to help transform our allies. Our North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have fallen further behind U.S.
military capabilities even as their political will to contribute
in places such as Kosovo and Afghanistan has risen. Further widening
of this capabilities gap could undermine America's interest in NATO
and reduce its willingness to listen to European concerns. That
would be disastrous for a war against terrorism that requires global
cooperation. Fortunately, the November 2002 Prague Summit adopted
three ideas that together could reverse this dangerous trend: a
NATO Response Force for expeditionary operations, a capabilities
commitment to equip European militaries, and an NATO Allied Command
Transformation to oversee the process. Now all parties need to begin
implementing these ideas quickly so that allies might contribute
more militarily and diplomatically as we consider future conflict.
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Originally printed in Defense Watch, Vol 216, December
23, 2002
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