military transformation: a strategic approach - iws · military transformation: a strategic...

Director, Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense,1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000

www.oft.osd.mil

Date of Publication: Fall 2003

Cleared for public release by Department of Defense Directoratefor Freedom of Information and Security Review, 03-S-1851.

Our country is being called on to accomplish three difficult missions at once. First, we must winthe global war on terrorism. Second, we have to prepare for the wars we may have to fight later inthis decade by making a number of long-delayed investments in procurement, people, and moderniza-tion. Third, we have to be prepared for the wars of the future. Therefore, we must transform the U.S.Armed Forces so that they can deter and defend against the emerging threats of the 21st century.

Each of these three missions is critical; none can be put off. We cannot delay transformationwhile we fight the war on terrorism. As we painfully learned on September 11th, 2001, our adversariesare already transforming. They are watching us; they are studying how we were successfullyattacked, how we responded, and the ways in which we may be vulnerable in the future. We standstill at our peril. If we do not identify our vulnerabilities, fix what is broken, and establish processes toenable innovation and adaptability—if we do not transform—our enemies will surely find new ways toattack us. In sum, transformation is not a goal for tomorrow; it is a fundamentally important endeavorthat we must embrace in earnest today.

Transformation lies at the heart of our new approach to defense. The development of transforma-tional capabilities, processes, and forces will be given strategic focus by the principal challenges andopportunities under our defense strategy. The Department has distilled these into six operationalgoals as outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review and addressed in this military transformationstrategy. These six goals represent the operational focus for our efforts to transform the U.S. ArmedForces. The Department seeks to ensure that changes occur not only in the operating concepts wedevelop and the systems we acquire but also in our military culture and the processes that driveinvestment decisions.

As demonstrated by the superb performance of U.S. forces during recent combat operations, weare on course to transform our military into an agile, network-centric, knowledge-based force capableof conducting effective joint and combined military operations against all potential future adversaries.Over the long term, our security and the prospects for peace and stability for much of the rest of theworld depend on the success of our transformation.

Message from the Director, Office of Force Transformation

A. K. CebrowskiDirector, Office of Force TransformationOffice of the Secretary of Defense

Military Transformation: A Strategic Approach 1

“The need for military transformation was clear before the conflict inAfghanistan, and before September the 11th. . . . What’s different today is oursense of urgency – the need to build this future force while fighting a presentwar. It’s like overhauling an engine while you’re going at 80 miles an hour. Yetwe have no other choice.”

President George W. Bushat The Citadel, Charleston, SC,

December 11, 2001

CONTENTS

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

U.S. Defense Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Purpose of Military Transformation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7What Is Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Scope of Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Military Transformation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Compelling Need for Military Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Changed Security Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Military Transformation – A Strategic Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Military Transformation – A Technological Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Military Transformation – A Threat Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Military Transformation – A Risk Mitigation Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Six Critical Operational Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Protecting Critical Bases and Defeating Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Weapons . . . . .17Projecting and Sustaining Forces in Anti-Access Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Denying Enemy Sanctuary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Leveraging Information Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Assuring Information Systems and Conducting Information Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Enhancing Space Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Four Pillars of Military Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Essential Elements of the Military Transformation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Pillar One: Strengthening Joint Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Pillar Two: Exploiting U.S. Intelligence Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Pillar Three: Concept Development and Experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25Pillar Four: Developing Transformational Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

The Emerging Way of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Military Transformation and the Strategic Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Deter Forward – A Concept for Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29Governing Principles of a Network-Centric Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Network-Centric Operations and the Domains of Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32Effects-Based Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

2 Military Transformation: A Strategic Approach

Executive Summary

The strategy for defense transformation is a vital component of the United States’ defense strategy. At theoutset of his administration, President George W. Bush elevated transformation to the level of defense strate-gy, and he has repeatedly emphasized its importance to the future defense of the United States. At its core, ourtransformation strategy is a strategy for large-scale innovation. More specifically, transformation strategy isabout how a competitive space is selected within which U.S. forces can gain an important advantage.The strat-egy identifies the attributes within that space that will ultimately lead to an advantage for U.S. forces, not onlyduring combat operations, but also in the conduct of all missions across the full range of operations.

The Department describes transformation as “a process that shapes the changing nature of military com-petition and cooperation through new combinations of concepts, capabilities, people, and organizations thatexploit our nation’s advantages and protect against our asymmetric vulnerabilities to sustain our strategic posi-tion, which helps underpin peace and stability in the world.” Overall, the Department’s transformation mustaddress three major areas: how we do business inside the Department, how we work with our interagency andmultinational partners, and how we fight. The transformation process must develop forces capable of defend-ing the U.S. population, homeland, and interests, as well as swiftly defeating an adversary from a posture of for-ward deterrence with minimal reinforcements. No aspect of defense should be left untouched if we are tomaintain a competitive advantage in the information age.

The compelling need for military transformation may be examined in terms of four imperatives: strategy,technology, threat, and risk mitigation. U.S. defense strategy requires agile, network-centric forces capable oftaking action from a forward position, rapidly reinforced from other areas, and defeating adversaries swiftly anddecisively while conducting an active defense of U.S. territory. Such forces are also essential for deterring con-flict, dissuading threatening adversaries, and assuring others of our commitment to a peaceful and stableworld. Technology in the military sphere is developing as rapidly as the changes reshaping the civilian sector.The combination of scientific advancement and the globalization of commerce and communications has con-tributed to several trends that significantly affect U.S. defense strategy and planning. Falling barriers to compe-tition caused by ubiquitous, low cost information technology contribute significantly to the compelling need formilitary transformation.

Although U.S. military forces today enjoy significant advantages in many aspects of armed conflict, theUnited States will be challenged by threat forces that possess or seek capabilities and design novel conceptsto overcome our advantages. The trends that will provide adversaries with capabilities and opportunities to doharm to the United States include: diminishing protection afforded by geographic distance, the emergence ofregional threats, growing asymmetric threats, and increasing threats from weakened states and ungovernedareas. The fourth imperative, risk mitigation, is central to the Department’s new way of thinking about defense.In an enterprise as complex as the Department of Defense, creating a framework to manage responses to thedifferent sources of risk is essential. The Department’s risk management framework is based on the view thatthere are four categories of risk that affect the ability of the United States to achieve its defense policy goals:force management risk, operational risk, future challenges risk, and institutional risk. A failure to address anyone of these sources of risk could imperil U.S. capabilities.

The Department’s military transformation efforts must be focused on emerging strategic and operationalchallenges and the opportunities created by these challenges. Six critical operational goals identified bySecretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld provide the focus for the Department’s transformation efforts: (1)Protecting critical bases and defeating chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons; (2) Projectingand sustaining forces in anti-access environments; (3) Denying enemy sanctuary; (4) Leveraging informationtechnology; (5) Assuring information systems and conducting information operations; and (6) Enhancing spacecapabilities. Over time, the continued focus of the Department’s force transformation efforts on the developmentof the capabilities necessary to achieve these six critical operational goals will help shift the balance of U.S.forces and broaden our capabilities. First and foremost, the Department will seek to deter and, if necessary,defeat the full range of threats forward. Attaining these six goals will help us do that in a rapidly changing world.

The four military transformation pillars identified by the Secretary—strengthening joint operations, exploitingU.S. intelligence advantages, concept development and experimentation, and developing transformationalcapabilities—constitute the essential elements of the Department’s force transformation strategy. The first pil-lar focuses on strengthening joint operations through the development of joint concepts and architectures andthe pursuit of other important jointness initiatives and interoperability goals. The overarching Joint OperationsConcepts (JOpsC) document provides the operational context for military transformation by linking strategicguidance with the integrated application of Joint Force capabilities. The second pillar involves exploiting U.S.intelligence advantages through multiple intelligence collection assets, global surveillance and reconnaissance,and enhanced exploitation and dissemination. Our ability to defend America in the new security environmentrequires unprecedented intelligence capabilities to anticipate where, when, and how adversaries intend to harmus.

The third pillar, concept development and experimentation, involves experimentation with new approachesto warfare, operational concepts and capabilities, and organizational constructs through war gaming, simula-tions, and field exercises focused on emerging challenges and opportunities. Experiments designed to evalu-ate new concepts provide results that help refine those concepts in an iterative fashion. The Departmentrequires strong mechanisms for implementing results from concept development and experimentation and,more immediately, for developing transformational capabilities needed to support the JOpsC and subordinateJoint Operating Concepts.

Although the transformation of the U.S. Armed Forces is a continuing process, the recent performance ofU.S. forces in the successful conduct of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom has provided aglimpse of the future potential of the emerging way of war. Constructed around the fundamental tenets of net-work-centric warfare and emphasizing high-quality shared awareness, dispersed forces, speed of command,and flexibility in planning and execution, the emerging way of war will result in U.S. forces conducting powerfuleffects-based operations to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objectives across the full range of mili-tary operations. Transformation is yielding new sources of power. Because the global pace of change is accel-erating, new sources of power will fuel our ability to maintain the advantage in a competitive landscape whereyesterday’s winner is tomorrow’s target.


“First and foremost, the President and the Secretary elevat-ed transformation to the level of strategy, and that is proba-bly the most important lens through which we should lookat transformation.”

Vice Admiral (Ret.) Arthur K. Cebrowski,Director, Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense,

Prepared Statement for the House Appropriations Committee,Defense Subcommittee Hearing on Department of Defense Transformation,

March 13, 2002

INTRODUCTION

The strategy for military transformation is a vitalcomponent of the United States’ overall defensestrategy. The U.S. defense strategy, as described inthe 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Report andthe Department’s Annual Report to the President andthe Congress, provides a necessary context for the dis-cussion of military transformation strategy. At thesame time, it highlights the important contributionthe military transformation process is expected tomake to our larger defense strategy, and indeed tothe nation’s overall security strategy, as set forth inThe National Security Strategy of the United States ofAmerica (NSS). Chapter IX of the NSS, “TransformAmerica’s National Security Institutions to Meet theChallenges and Opportunities of the Twenty-FirstCentury,” emphasizes the importance of movingahead with military transformation while maintain-ing near-term readiness and the ability to fight thewar on terrorism.

Following an overview of U.S. defense strategy,the purpose of the military transformation strategyand the nature and scope of transformation within

the Department of Defense are examined, and a mil-itary transformation process is introduced.

U.S. Defense Strategy

The U.S. defense strategy seeks to defend freedomfor the United States and its allies and friends andhelps to secure an international environment ofpeace that makes the attainment of other goals pos-sible. The Department of Defense has developed anew strategic framework to defend the nation andsecure a viable peace.

Defense Policy Goals: The new U.S. defense strate-gy is based upon four major defense policy goals:

• Assuring Allies and Friends: The presence ofU.S. forces overseas is a clear symbol of the U.S.commitment to allies and friends and to globalstability. The U.S. military plays a critical role inassuring allies and friends that the nation willhonor its obligations and be a reliable securitypartner. Through its willingness to use force inits own defense, defend others, and advancecommon goals, the United States demonstratesits resolve, its steadiness of purpose, and thecredibility of the U.S. military to meet thenation’s commitments and responsibilities. Aprimary objective of U.S. security cooperation isto help allies and friends create favorable bal-ances of military power in critical areas of theworld to deter aggression or coercion.

• Dissuading Future Military Competition:Through its strategy and actions, the UnitedStates influences the nature of future militarycompetitions. U.S. decisions can channel threatsin certain directions and complicate military


Military Transformation Vision for the Department of Defense

Military transformation will enable the U.S. Armed Forces to achieve broad and sustained competitiveadvantage in the 21st century. It comprises those activities that anticipate and create the future by co-evolving concepts, processes, organizations, and technologies to produce new sources of military power.The transformation of our armed forces will dramatically increase our strategic and operational respon-siveness, speed, reach, and effectiveness, making our forces increasingly precise, lethal, tailorable, agile,survivable, and more easily sustainable.

Military TransformationA Strategic Approach

planning for potential adversaries in the future.Therefore, well-targeted strategy and policy canhelp to dissuade other countries from initiatingmilitary competitions. The United States exertsinfluence through the conduct of its Research,Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E)programs and by maintaining or advancingadvantages in key military capabilities. Giventhe availability of advanced technology and sys-tems to potential adversaries, dissuasion offuture military competitions also requires theUnited States to explore revolutionary opera-tional concepts, processes, capabilities, andorganizational arrangements.

“Our goal is not simply to fight and win wars, it is to try toprevent wars. To do so, we need to find ways to influencethe decision-makers of potential adversaries, to deter themnot only from using existing weapons, but to the extent pos-sible, try to dissuade them from building dangerous newcapabilities in the first place. Just as the existence of theU.S. Navy dissuades others from investing in competingnavies – because it would truly cost a fortune and would notsucceed in providing a margin of military advantage – wemust develop new capabilities that merely by our possess-ing them will dissuade adversaries from trying to compete.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,at the National Defense University,

January 31, 2002

• Deterring Threats and Coercion Against U.S.Interests: A multifaceted approach to deterrencerequires forces and capabilities that provide thePresident with a wide range of options to dis-courage aggression or any form of coercion. Inparticular, it places emphasis on peacetime for-ward deterrence in critical areas of the world. Itrequires enhancing the offensive and defensivecapabilities of forward deployed forces, coupledwith global intelligence, strike, and informationassets, in order to deter aggression or coercionwith only modest reinforcement from outsidethe theater. Improving intelligence capabilitiesis vital to collect information regarding theintentions, plans, strengths, weaknesses, anddisposition of key assets of actual or potentialadversaries. Deterrence also requires non-nuclear forces that can strike with precision atmobile, fixed, and buried targets throughout the

depth of an adversary’s territory and rapidlydeployable and sustainable forces that can swift-ly defeat any adversary.

• If Deterrence Fails, Decisively Defeat AnyAdversary: U.S. forces must maintain the capa-bility to support treaty obligations and defeatthe efforts of adversaries to impose their will onthe United States, its allies, or friends. U.S.forces must maintain the capability, at thedirection of the President, to impose the will ofthe United States and its coalition partners onany adversaries, including states or non-stateentities. Such a decisive defeat could includechanging the regime of an adversary state oroccupation of foreign territory until U.S. strate-gic objectives are met.

Strategic Tenets: A set of seven interconnectedstrategic tenets support the four U.S. defense policygoals. These tenets comprise the essence of U.S.defense strategy:

• Defending the United States and ProjectingU.S. Military Power: Defending the nationfrom attack is the first priority of the U.S.defense strategy. As the events of September11th, 2001, demonstrated, potential adversarieswill seek to threaten the centers of gravity of theUnited States, it allies, and its friends—the veryfoundations of democracy and freedom in theworld. As the U.S. military has increased its abil-ity to project power at long-range, adversarieshave noted the relative vulnerability of the U.S.homeland. They are placing greater emphasison the development of capabilities to threatenthe United States directly in order to counterU.S. operational advantages. The new U.S.defense strategy restores the emphasis onceplaced on defending the United States and itsland, sea, air, and space approaches. It is essen-tial to safeguard the nation’s way of life, its polit-ical institutions, and the source of its capacity toproject decisive military power overseas. In turn,the ability to project power at long ranges isessential to deter threats to the United Statesand, when necessary, to disrupt, deny, or destroyhostile entities at a distance. To preserve peaceat home, the United States must be preparedboth to project power abroad and to defendagainst attacks on the homeland.

• Managing Risks: The United States faces aworld in which change occurs at an ever-increas-ing rate. New challenges are constantly emerg-


ing, while long-standing threats endure. TheDepartment of Defense must prepare for futurechallenges over time, while maintaining theability to meet extant threats at any time. Thetension between preparations for the future andthe demands of the present requires the UnitedStates to balance the risks associated with each.Because resources are finite, hard choices mustbe made to take into account a wider range ofrisks than was necessary in the past. Some ofthese risks are familiar, the possibility of a majorwar, for example. Others, such as the possibilityof cyber warfare or mass casualty attacks by ter-rorists employing chemical, biological, radiolog-ical, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons, are less wellunderstood. The 2001 QDR Report described, forthe first time, a new risk management frame-work composed of force management risk, oper-ational risk, future challenges risk, andinstitutional risk to support the defense strategy.

• Capabilities-Based Approach: The new defensestrategy shifts focus from a fixed, near simultane-ous two Major Theaters of War posture to a moreflexible and responsive “capabilities-based”approach. This new approach to defense recog-nizes the fact that the United States cannot knowwith confidence what nation, combination ofnations, or non-state actors will pose threats tovital U.S. interests or those of our allies andfriends decades from now. It is possible, however,to anticipate the capabilities that an adversarymight employ to coerce its neighbors, deter theUnited States from acting in defense of its alliesand friends, or directly attack the United States orits deployed forces. A capabilities-based para-digm—one that focuses more on how an adver-sary might fight than on whom the adversarymight be and where a war might occur—broad-ens the strategic perspective. It requires us toidentify capabilities that U.S. military forces willneed to deter and defeat adversaries who will relyon surprise, deception, and asymmetric warfareto achieve their objectives. Because such adver-saries are looking for U.S. military vulnerabilitiesand building capabilities to exploit them, thisnew approach will allow the Department to iden-tify and mitigate potential weak spots.

• Strengthening Alliances and Partnerships:America’s alliances and security relations giveassurance to U.S. allies and friends and pause toU.S. foes. These relationships create a communityof nations committed to common purposes. The

defense strategy calls for efforts to strengthen U.S.alliances and partnerships and to develop newforms of security cooperation. The U.S. commit-ment to these security arrangements bolsters thesecurity of U.S. allies and friends. Likewise, aswitnessed in the wake of the events of September11th, 2001, NATO’s invocation of Article Vdemonstrates the commitment of the nation’spartners to collective defense, which bolsters thesecurity of the United States. These mutuallyreinforcing security relationships underpin thepolitical stability on which the prosperity of civi-lized nations is built. In addition, these arrange-ments are based on the recognition that a nationcan be safe at home only if it is willing and able tocontribute to effective security partnerships andarrangements abroad.

• Enhancing U.S. Global Military Posture: Theglobal U.S. military posture must be reorientedfor a new strategic environment in which U.S.interests are global and new challenges, particu-larly anti-access and area-denial threats, areemerging. The U.S. military is developing anenhanced forward deterrent posture through theintegration of new combinations of immediatelyemployable forward stationed and deployedforces; globally available reconnaissance, strike,and command and control (C2) assets; informa-tion operations capabilities; and rapidly deploy-able, highly lethal, and sustainable forces thatmay come from outside a theater of operations.Over time, this reoriented global posture will ren-der forward forces capable of more swiftly defeat-ing an adversary’s military and political objectiveswith only modest reinforcement.

The defense strategy also places emphasis on main-taining favorable military balances in critical geo-graphic areas. By maintaining such balances, theUnited States can secure peace, extend freedom,and assure its allies and friends. It can impose highcosts on decisions by potential adversaries to pur-sue dangerous forms of military competition.Finally, it may convince potential adversaries thatthe benefits of hostile acts against the interests ofthe United States and its allies and friends are faroutweighed by their costs and consequences.

• Developing a Broad Range of MilitaryCapabilities: Creating substantial margins ofadvantage across key functional areas of militarycompetition, such as power projection, space,and information, will require developing andsustaining a range of key military capabilities to


enable U.S. forces to prevail overcurrent challenges and to hedgeagainst and counter futurethreats. Building upon the cur-rent superiority of U.S. conven-tional forces, this range ofmilitary capabilities will includethose required for conductinginformation operations, ensuringU.S. access to distant theaters,defending against threats to theUnited States and allied territory,and protecting U.S. assets inspace. It will also require exploit-ing U.S. advantages in superiortechnological innovation,unmatched space and intelligencecapabilities, sophisticated militarytraining, and an ability to inte-grate highly distributed militaryforces in synergistic combinationsto conduct complex joint military operations.

• Transforming Defense: Finally, the defense strat-egy calls for the transformation of theDepartment of Defense. Transformation is at theheart of the new strategy. It includes new tech-nologies, but goes well beyond this to includenew operational concepts and organizationalstructures and relationships. To transform theDepartment, the culture of the institution mustchange in important areas. Change must includethe planning, budgeting, acquisition, and person-nel management systems in place today.Without change, the current defense programwill only become more expensive to maintainover time, resulting in the loss of opportunitiesavailable to the United States today.

“. . . our overall goal is to encourage a series of transfor-mations that in combination can produce a revolutionaryincrease in our military capability and redefine how war isfought. The capabilities demonstrated in Afghanistanshow how far we have come in the ten years since thePersian Gulf War. But they are just a glimpse of how far wecan still go.”

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,Testimony before the Senate Armed

Services Committee,April 9, 2002

Purpose of MilitaryTransformation Strategy

There are many perspectives through which mili-tary transformation may be viewed. At the highestlevel, President Bush has elevated transformation tothe level of defense strategy. He has repeatedlyemphasized the vital importance of military trans-formation to the future defense of the United States.The significance of military transformation to U.S.defense strategy is also apparent by its inclusion asone of the seven interconnected strategic tenets.

The transformation strategy is a strategy for large-scale innovation. More specifically, transformationstrategy is about how a competitive space is selected.The strategy identifies the attributes within thatspace which will ultimately lead to an advantage forthe U.S. military. It must answer the fundamentalquestions of how one shapes the scope, pace, andintensity of competition.

The 2002 NSS states that the goal of militarytransformation “must be to provide the Presidentwith a wider range of military options to discourageaggression or any form of coercion against theUnited States, our allies, and our friends . . . Ourforces will be strong enough to dissuade potentialadversaries from pursuing a military build-up inhopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of theUnited States.”

As illustrated in Figure 1 above, military trans-formation begins at the strategic level. Guided by


Figure 1. Military Transformation – Strategy to Concepts toCapabilities

Experimentation

NationalSecurityStrategy

U.S. DefenseStrategy

MilitaryTransformation

Strategy

Joint OperationsConcepts

JointOperatingConcepts

JointCapabilities

Command and Control

ISR

Maneuver

Fires

LogisticsForce Protection

DOTMLPF

Joint Vision

Network-Centric Warfare

Assure Allies and Friends

Dissuade Future Military Competition

Deter Threats and Coercion vs. U.S. Interests

If Deterrence Fails, Defeat Any Adversary Effects-Based Concepts

Effects-Based Capabilities

U.S. defense strategy, the military transformationstrategy, and the Joint Vision, joint warfightingconcepts are developed. The new Joint OperationsConcepts (JOpsC) is an overarching joint conceptthat provides the operational context for militarytransformation and sufficient detail for the devel-opment of subordinate joint operating concepts(JOCs). Ultimately, the JOpsC and the JOCs willfocus the development and acquisition of jointwarfighting capabilities across doctrine, organiza-tion, training, materiel, leadership and education,personnel, and facilities.

What Is Transformation?

Transformation within the Department ofDefense is an effort that requires the active partici-pation of all major components of the organization.The Department describes transformation as:

A process that shapes the changing nature ofmilitary competition and cooperationthrough new combinations of concepts, capa-bilities, people and organizations that exploitour nation’s advantages and protect againstour asymmetric vulnerabilities to sustain ourstrategic position, which helps underpin peaceand stability in the world. (TransformationPlanning Guidance, April 2003, p. 3)

First and foremost, transformation is a continuingprocess. It does not have an end point.Transformation anticipates and creates the future anddeals with the co-evolution of concepts, processes,organizations, and technology. Profound change inany one of these areas necessitates change in all.Transformation creates new competitive areas andcompetencies and identifies, leverages, orcreates new underlying principles for theway things are done. Transformation alsoidentifies and leverages new sources ofpower. The overall objective of thesechanges is to sustain U.S. competitiveadvantage in warfare.

Military transformation is about changingthe culture of the U.S. Armed Forces.Therefore, transformational activity must facil-itate a culture of change and innovation inorder to maintain competitive advantage inthe information age. That culture must fosterleadership, education, processes, organiza-tions, values, and attitudes that encourage andreward meaningful innovation. Individuallyand institutionally, holding on to the past is a

result of the natural need to define order in the midst ofinstability. Individuals and institutions tend to followwhat they know and do best because past successbecomes the safest predictor of survival in the face ofuncertainty.

Transformation is a vital component of an overallcorporate strategy for innovation, a strategy thatalso includes another vital component, moderniza-tion. Transformation and modernization are not incompetition, but they require balance. They are dif-ferent processes, and any large organization like theDepartment of Defense must undertake both to besuccessful. A good corporate innovation strategy hasat least three distinct parts, as shown in Figure 2:

• Focus on Core Missions, Continuous SmallSteps: This is the bread and butter of any organi-zation and the main effort of any corporate inno-vation effort. It is where modernization,recapitalization, and taking care of the capitalplant occur. It is the realm of evolutionarychanges where an organization tries to get betterat what it is already doing. The U.S. military mustcontinually search for ways to take small steps toimprove its current competitive position.

• A Series of Many Exploratory Medium Jumps:This is where we push out the boundaries of corecompetencies and try to create something new,resulting in significant capability improvements.Changes in this category are within the existingparadigm. An example of this is the U.S. Navy’spursuit of unmanned underwater vehicles forshallow water mine hunting and antisubmarinewarfare. Those missions are already core compe-tencies for the Navy, but insofar as using this tech-nology in new ways makes it possible to do


Figure 2. A Corporate Strategy for Innovation

Continuous small stepsIncremental capability enhancementsgenerally termed “modernization”

Many medium jumpsSignificant capability improvements withinthe current American Way of War

A few big jumpsNew rule sets that leverage new sources ofmilitary power, creating a new AmericanWay of War

Create a New Game with New Rules

something that the Navy could not do before, it istransformational. This kind of change involvesdoctrine and organization as well as technology.

• Making a Few Big Jumps: These are big jumps,things that will change a military service, theDepartment of Defense, or even the world. Fromtime to time, we must attempt to make very largejumps and explore things that are well away fromour core competencies. The Global PositioningSystem (GPS), which gave the U.S. Armed Forces atremendous advantage over Iraqi forces duringOperation DESERT STORM, is a prime example. Itsadvent changed the military, the Department, andcivil society. Another example was the U.S. Army’sdecision to seek to “own the night.” The Armymade a huge jump by combining new technologywith innovative operational concepts. In so doing,it changed the character of land warfare.

Our recent experience in Afghanistan during theconduct of Operation Enduring Freedom underscoresthe point that transformation is not just about newweapons or new technology. The crucial victory atMazar-e-Sharif set in motion the Taliban’s dramaticfall from power. What actually won the battle was acombination of the ingenuity of the U.S. SpecialOperations Forces on the ground, advanced precision-guided munitions delivered by U.S. aircraft, and thecourage of our Afghan allies. In this case, transforma-tion involved new ideas and concepts, as well as theadaptation of old weapons to meet the challenges of anew century. The U.S. Air Force B-52s, which playedsuch an important role in this battle, were much olderthan the pilots who flew them, but they employedmodern electronics and avionics and dropped “smartbombs” guided by GPS.

“But really, this is precisely what transformation is allabout. Here we are in the year 2002, fighting the first war ofthe 21st century, and the horse cavalry was back and beingused, but being used in previously unimaginable ways. Itshowed that a revolution in military affairs is about morethan building new high tech weapons, though that is cer-tainly part of it. It’s also about new ways of thinking, andnew ways of fighting.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldat the National Defense University,

January 31, 2002

Shaping the nature of military competition ulti-mately means the redefinition of standards for mili-tary success by accomplishing military missions thatwere previously unimaginable or impossible except atprohibitive risk and cost. The U.S. Armed Forcesunderstand current standards for success because theytrain to exacting standards in the most realistic fash-ion possible. From this baseline, we can compare andassess new operating concepts that employ new orga-nizational constructs, capabilities, and doctrine forachieving military objectives and make a determina-tion as to whether they are sufficiently transforma-tional to merit major investments. But newcapabilities rarely outperform the old when they firstappear. Often this is because the technologies involvedmay be only nascent, and the required doctrinal ororganizational changes are incomplete. So there is adanger in culling new capabilities too soon.

Transformational change will allow us to preserve,and potentially extend, our military superiority overadversaries. Eventually, such efforts will render previ-ous ways of warfighting obsolete and change themeasures of success in military operations.

Scope of Transformation

Overall, the Department’s transformation mustaddress three major areas: how we do businessinside the Department, how we work with ourinteragency and multinational partners, and howwe fight.

• Transforming How We Do Business: Forcesemploying transformational warfighting con-cepts require transformed processes that pro-duce the timely results demanded by 21st

century security challenges. The Department iscurrently pursuing transformational businessand planning practices such as adaptive plan-ning; a more entrepreneurial, future-oriented,capabilities-based resource allocation planningprocess; accelerated acquisition cycles built onspiral development; output-based manage-ment; and a reformed analytic support agenda.Senior leadership must take the lead in foster-ing innovation and adaptation of informationage technologies and concepts within theirorganizations and ensure that processes andpractices that are antithetical to these goals areeliminated.

Among the most important initiatives alreadyunderway is a set of proposed legislative reformsto eliminate duplicative reporting require-


ments, transform fiscal authorities, andenhance the Department’s ability to hire andretain highly skilled personnel. Pay raises andhousing improvements to improve the qualityof life for Service personnel and greater flexibil-ity in managing the Department’s humanresources are both critical steps for sustainingtransformation momentum in the Department.The Department must focus personnel policieson valuing people and intellectual capital as astrategic asset. The result is an altered risk-reward system that encourages innovation.Military personnel must be recruited andtrained in accordance with their ability to oper-ate in a constantly changing environment.That culture will foster leadership, education,process, organization, values, and attitudes thatencourage and reward meaningful innovation.

Reform of the acquisition process is anotherpriority of the Department’s corporate transfor-mation strategy. The Department is reducingacquisition cycle time and aligning acquisitionwith a new capabilities-based resource alloca-tion program built around JOCs. Instead ofbuilding plans, operations, and doctrinearound individual military systems as oftenoccurred in the past, the Department willexplicitly link acquisition strategy to futurejoint concepts in order to provide the capabili-ties necessary to execute future operations.

• Transforming How We Work with Others:The events of September 11th are causing us torebalance our homeland security role with howwe secure our global interests abroad.Transforming the way the Department inte-grates military power, including active duty,National Guard, and Reserve forces, with otherelements of national power and with foreignpartners will also help ensure that, when weemploy military power, we do so consistentwith the new strategic context. It is crucial todo so when dealing with terrorists and otherunconventional fighters who attack non-com-batants and otherwise engage in political-mili-tary conflict because they cannot be defeatedby military means alone. Enhanced coordina-tion with the interagency and across all levelsof government (federal, state, and local) willpromote increased cooperation, more rapidresponse, and the ability to conduct seamlessoperations.

Further guidance will be developed, particular-ly with respect to multinational cooperation.As the U.S. military transforms, our interestsare served by making arrangements for inter-national military cooperation to ensure thatrapidly transforming U.S. capabilities can beapplied effectively with allied and coalitioncapabilities. U.S. transformation objectivesshould be used to shape and complement for-eign military developments and priorities oflikely partners, both in bilateral and multilat-eral contexts.

• Transforming How We Fight: The strategy fortransformation presented in the Department’sTransformation Planning Guidance (TPG)includes a detailed approach to force transfor-mation, or the transformation of how we fight.Force transformation depends on the develop-ment of future joint warfighting concepts andexperimentation designed to evaluate thesenew concepts. It includes the full range of sup-porting military capability areas: doctrine,organization, training, materiel, leadershipand education, personnel, and facilities.

The transformation process must broadly devel-op forces capable of defending the U.S. popula-tion, homeland, and interests, as well as swiftlydefeating an adversary from a posture of forwarddeterrence with minimum reinforcements. Noaspect of defense should be left untouched if weare to maintain a competitive advantage in theinformation age.

Military Transformation Process

The military transformation process depicted inFigure 3 begins with an analysis of the strategy,threat, and technology drivers for transforming theforce and the six critical operational goals, identi-fied in the 2001 QDR Report, which provide thefocus for the Department’s transformation efforts.Transformational capabilities will be attained whenthe results of concept development and experimen-tation are implemented in selected elements of theU.S. Armed Forces.

The compelling need for military transformationis presented in the following chapter, whichincludes a discussion of the new international secu-rity environment and the four imperatives that lendurgency to the requirement for military transforma-tion: strategy, technology, threat, and risk mitiga-tion. The third chapter addresses the six operational


goals and how they will guide military transforma-tion, ultimately shifting the balance of U.S. forcesand capabilities. The fourth chapter focuses on thefour transformation pillars that constitute theessential elements of the Department’s militarytransformation strategy, outlining current plans forthe implementation of each. The fifth and final

chapter, “The Emerging Way of War,” describes theevolving U.S. approach to the conduct of joint war-fare, designed around the fundamental tenets ofnetwork-centric warfare (NCW) and featuring deepsensor reach; high-quality shared awareness; agile,rapidly deployable forces; speed of command; andflexibility in planning and execution.


Figure 3. Military Transformation Process

StrategyStrategy ThreatThreat TechnologyTechnology

Compelling Need

Capabilities

Operational Goals

• Protecting Critical Bases

• Projecting and SustainingForces

• Denying Enemy Sanctuary

• Leveraging InformationTechnology

• Assuring Information Systems

• Enhancing Space Capabilities

Transformation Strategy

Joint Concepts

Technology Processes Organization People

COMPELLING NEED FOR

MILITARY TRANSFORMATION

“The most important transformation that we’re facing is thetransformation from the industrial to the information age. Tothe extent that we do that well, all our other efforts in trans-formation will prosper. To the extent we don’t, all of thoseefforts will be for naught.”

Vice Admiral (Ret.) Arthur K. Cebrowski,Director, Force Transformation,

Office of the Secretary of Defense at the National Defense University,January 31, 2002

Although current U.S. military capabilities aresuperior to any existing conventional threat, oursupremacy will rapidly diminish over time if we donot continue to enhance our military prowess. TheU.S. Armed Forces must transform before our adver-saries have closed the gap with our military capabil-ities or developed effective counters. In short, wemust respond to a compelling and urgent need formilitary transformation. The changed global securi-ty environment, evident to all U.S. citizens since theterrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, and theuncertainty of the future security environmentmake military transformation imperative.

The recent performance of U.S. forces duringcombat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq providesimpressive evidence that ongoing transformationefforts in the Department are already paying divi-dends. However, we must not rest on our laurels. AsSecretary of Defense Rumsfeld says in his forewordto the Department’s Transformation PlanningGuidance (TPG), “There will be no moment at whichthe Department is ‘transformed.’ Rather we arebuilding a culture of continual transformation, sothat our armed forces are always several steps aheadof any potential adversaries.”

Changed Security Environment

The American people were relieved when theCold War ended a decade ago. With the demise ofthe Soviet Union and the emergence of a non-Communist Russia, we no longer faced an adversarywhose stated intent was to destroy the United States.Americans saw the growth of market economics andgovernments based on representative democracytaking root around the globe. They saw a powerful

U.S. economic expansion creating unprecedentedprosperity. There was a temptation to believe thatthis favorable circumstance was a permanent condi-tion. Suddenly, the events of September 11th present-ed a different view of the world. It is now clear thatthe 21st century security environment is fundamen-tally different from the security environment wefaced in the 20th century—in important ways, it ismore complex and more dangerous.

An assessment of the current and future globalsecurity environment involves a great deal of uncer-tainty about the potential sources of military threats,the conduct of war in the future, and the form thatthreats and attacks against the nation will take.History has shown that rapid and unexpectedchanges, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union,can transform the geopolitical landscape. New mili-tary technologies can revolutionize the form of mil-itary competition and the nature of armed conflictin ways that render military forces and doctrines ofthe industrial age obsolete. Although contendingwith such uncertainty is a key challenge for U.S.defense planners, certain features and trends of thesecurity environment define not only today’s geopo-litical and military-technical challenges, but alsohighlight critical operational challenges that theU.S. Armed Forces will need to master in the future.

Over the past several years, senior Department ofDefense leaders determined that contending withuncertainty must be a central tenet in U.S. defenseplanning. They reasoned that planners would have tocarefully consider a broad array of potential chal-lenges to U.S. interests and the nation’s inherent vul-nerability to asymmetric attacks. Senior Departmentleaders concluded that defense planners would haveto assume that surprise is the norm, rather than theexception. The compelling need for military transfor-mation is examined in terms of four imperatives:strategy, technology, threat, and risk mitigation.

Military Transformation – AStrategic Imperative

Transformation is necessary to ensure that U.S.forces continue to operate from a position of over-whelming military advantage in support of strategicobjectives. We cannot afford to react to threats slow-ly or have large forces tied down for lengthy periods.Instead, U.S. forces require sufficient power andagility to deter from a forward posture and to swiftlydefeat potential adversaries.


Indeed, our strategy requires agile, network-cen-tric forces that can take action from a forward posi-tion (rapidly reinforced from other areas) and defeatadversaries swiftly and decisively while conductingan active defense of U.S. territory. Such forces arealso essential for deterring conflict, dissuadingthreatening adversaries, and assuring others of ourcommitment to a peaceful and stable world. Overthe long term, our security and the prospects forpeace and stability for much of the rest of the worlddepend on the success of transformation.

We are at the confluence of three broad trends:the movement of our society and much of the worldfrom the industrial age to the information age; theappearance of an expanded array of threats in amore uncertain context; and vast technologicalopportunities available to friend and foe alike. TheDepartment’s transformation will be shaped andinfluenced by the emerging realities of competitionin the information age and the concept of network-centric warfare (NCW):

“NCW will provide increasing return on investment by pro-viding our most important resource – our people – the highquality shared awareness necessary to speed missionaccomplishment. NCW capabilities will accelerate our abili-ty to know, to decide, and to act. . . . NCW is at the heart ofmilitary adaptivity – the ability to respond to uncertainty indynamic situations, day-to-day, at every level of warfare,and across the range of potential military operations.”


Prepared Statement for the Senate Armed Services Committee,April 9, 2002

• Network-Centric Warfare: In the informationage, power is increasingly derived from informa-tion sharing, information access, and speed.Thus, NCW is the military expression of theinformation age. “Network-centric warfare”refers to the combination of emerging tactics,techniques, and technologies that a networkedforce employs to create a decisive warfightingadvantage. It provides a new conceptual frame-work with which to examine military missions,operations, and organizations in the informa-tion age. As an organizing principle, NCWaccelerates our ability to know, decide, and actby linking sensors, communications systems,and weapons systems in an interconnected grid.A warfighting force with networked capabilities

allows a commander to analyze the battlespace,rapidly communicate critical information tofriendly combat forces, and marshal a lethalcombination of air, land and sea capabilities toexert massed effects against an adversary. Asshown in Figure 4, a force employing network-centric operations will be able to move into anew competitive space, thereby gaining a decid-ed advantage over a force conducting tradition-al platform-centric operations. For a moredetailed discussion of NCW and the new rules ofinformation age warfare, see the fifth chapter,“The Emerging Way of War.”

• Difficulty with the Status Quo: Some criticsquestion the need to transform what are wide-ly acknowledged as the world’s best militaryforces. However, history and current trendsindicate that merely attempting to hold on toexisting advantages is a shortsighted approachand may prove disastrous. As the distributionof economic wealth continues to flattenaround the globe, as other countries begin toenjoy steady economic growth and the benefitsof a better educated, more technologicallyskilled population, and most importantly, asthe dispersion of information age technologyand the rate of technological change continueto accelerate, current U.S. military advantagescould diminish comparatively.

• Rising Force-on-Force Challenges: Over thelonger term, some adversaries hope the UnitedStates will become complacent. They hope thatthey will be able to better exploit diffusion ofknowledge and information technology (IT) asthe world continues to move from the industri-al to the information age, and thereby negate orleap ahead of current U.S. military advantages.Potential adversaries are developing the ability


Figure 4. The Networked Competitive Advantage

•Content•Accuracy•Timeliness•Relevance

Information“Richness”

Information“Reach”

Platform-CentricOperations

Network-CentricOperations

New Competitive SpaceNew Competitive Space

to confront U.S. advantages more directly. Theyare developing new electronic and cyber warfarecapabilities, means to counter or negate distinctU.S. advantages such as our space capabilities,and anti-access capabilities such as submarines,mines, and cruise and ballistic missiles. Theyalso are investigating innovative operationaland tactical concepts to better employ advancedasymmetric technologies.

• Historic Opportunity: The evolving threatenvironment and our strategic response reflectan underlying trend in technology develop-ment. Throughout history, warfare hasassumed the characteristics and used the tech-nology of its era. Today we are witnessing thetransition from the industrial age, with itsemphasis on mass, to the information agewhere the power of distributed, networkedforces and shared situational awareness willtransform warfare. The Department must alignitself with the ongoing information revolution,not just by exploiting IT but also by developinginformation-enabled organizational relation-ships and operating concepts. Victory in theCold War opened a historic window of oppor-tunity to do so because we are no longer con-sumed by the requirement to defend against amonolithic threat to our way of life. That win-dow remains open so long as U.S. forces aremuch more capable of conducting traditionalmilitary operations than our most likelyregional adversaries.

• High Stakes: If the United States fails to trans-form, our current military superiority and therelative peace, prosperity, and stability it sup-ports will erode. In such circumstances, wewould expect to see the more rapid emergenceof a multi-polar world prone to major conflicts.Future military operations in such an environ-ment would be conducted at much greater costto the nation. At best, the United States wouldbe forced to invest increasing shares of nation-al wealth in forces with diminishing capabili-ties. At worst, we would eventually facethe historic norm: a major battlefield reversal and the rapid rise of a major competitor.Success in transforming U.S. military forcesmeans we will be able to execute our defensestrategy with high confidence and less risk andto shape the international environment sothat it is less rather than more hostile to U.S.interests.

Military Transformation – ATechnological Imperative

Technology in the military sphere is developingas rapidly as the changes reshaping the civilian sec-tor. The combination of scientific advancement andglobalization of commerce and communicationshave contributed to several trends that significantlyaffect U.S. defense strategy and planning. Fallingbarriers to competition caused by ubiquitous, low-cost IT contribute significantly to the compellingneed for military transformation. Some of thesetrends include the following:

• Rapid Advancement of Military Technologies:Technologies for sensors, information process-ing, precision guidance, and many other areascontinue to advance at a rapid pace. States hos-tile to the United States are significantly enhanc-ing their capabilities by integrating widelyavailable commercial technologies into weaponsystems and their armed forces. Conversely,these same advances offer the United States theopportunity to sustain and extend its advan-tages in key areas of military technology, sys-tems, and operational practices. Exploiting andsustaining our current position of advantagerequires not only technological innovation butalso the co-evolution of operational concepts,new organizational adaptations, and trainingand experimentation.

• Increasing Threat of Chemical, Biological,Radiological, and Nuclear Weapons andBallistic Missiles: The proliferation of chemical,biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN)technology, materiel, and expertise has providedpotential adversaries with the means to directlychallenge the safety and security of the UnitedStates and its allies and friends. The pace andscale of ballistic missile proliferation haveexceeded earlier intelligence estimates and sug-gest that this challenge may grow at a faster pacethan previously expected. Likewise, the biotech-nology revolution and bio-terror portend afuture with increasing threats of advanced andmore sophisticated forms of attack. Hostileregimes and terrorist organizations will seek toacquire and use CBRN weapons and ballisticmissiles to attack the vulnerabilities of theUnited States and other open societies.

• Emergence of New Arenas of MilitaryCompetition: Technological advances create thepotential for new forms of competition in space


and cyber space. Space and information opera-tions have become the backbone of networked,highly distributed commercial civilian and mili-tary capabilities. No nation relies more on spacefor its national security than the United States.Yet elements of the U.S. space architecture—ground stations, launch assets, and satellites inorbit—are threatened by capabilities that areincreasingly available to potential enemies. Thisopens up the likelihood that assuring the use ofspace—while denying the use of space to adver-saries—will become a key objective in future mil-itary competition. Similarly, many states aredeveloping offensive information operationscapabilities designed to attack military and com-mercial information systems.

• Increasing Potential for Miscalculation andSurprise: Together, these military-technical trendscreate an increased potential for miscalculationand surprise. In recent years, the United States hasbeen surprised by the speed with which otherstates have progressed in developing weapons ofmass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles. Inthe future, it is unlikely that the United States willbe able to predict accurately how successfullyother states will exploit new military technologyand operational concepts, how rapidly potentialor actual adversaries will acquire WMD and theirdelivery systems, or how competitions in spaceand cyber space will develop.

Military Transformation – AThreat Imperative

Although U.S. military forces enjoy significantadvantages in many aspects of armed conflict, theU.S. will be challenged by adversaries that possess orseek capabilities and design novel concepts to over-come our advantages. However, it is possible to iden-tify the trends that will provide adversaries withcapabilities and opportunities to do harm to theUnited States. These trends include the following:

• Diminishing Protection Afforded byGeographic Distance: The geographic positionof the United States does not provide immunityfrom direct attack on its people, territory, orinfrastructure. Enemies are finding new ways toovercome the difficulties of geographic distance.It is clear that an increasing number of stateshave acquired or will soon acquire cruise andballistic missiles of steadily increasing range.Moreover, economic globalization and the

increase in travel and trade across U.S. bordershave created new vulnerabilities for hostilestates and actors to exploit and opportunities forthese entities to perpetrate devastating attackson the U.S. homeland.

• Emergence of Regional Threats: Regional pow-ers are developing capabilities to threaten stabili-ty in regions critical to U.S. interests. In particular,Asia is gradually emerging as a region susceptibleto large-scale military competition. Along a broadarc of instability that stretches from the MiddleEast to Northeast Asia, there is a volatile mix ofrising and declining regional powers. The govern-ments of some of these states are vulnerable toradical or extremist internal political forces andmovements. Many of these states field large mil-itaries and already have or possess the potential todevelop or acquire WMD. Iran and North Korea,for example, are arming with long-range missilesand have acquired or are seeking to acquireWMD. These regimes continue to support globalterrorist organizations and to terrorize their ownpeople.

• Growing Asymmetric Threats: Over the pastdecade, potential adversaries have attempted tocompensate for U.S. conventional military supe-riority by developing asymmetric approaches andcapabilities. Terrorists attacked non-combatants;other adversaries used low-end indiscriminateweapons such as mines. As mentioned previously,adversaries such as Iran and North Korea areinvesting heavily in WMD and a wide rangeof delivery methods in hopes of deterring orfrustrating the deployment and employmentof highly lethal U.S. combat capabilities. Boththese trends present significant challenges butalso reflect the current U.S. advantages in con-ventional forces.

• Increasing Threats from Weakened States andUngoverned Areas: The absence of capable orresponsible governments in many countries inwide areas of Asia, Africa, and the WesternHemisphere creates a fertile ground for non-stateactors to engage in terrorism, acquisition of CBRNweapons, illegal drug trafficking, and other illicitactivities across state borders. A terrorist under-world—including such groups as al Qaeda, Hamas,Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa MartyrsBrigades, and Jaish-I-Mohammed—operates insuch areas. In an era of catastrophic terrorism, theUnited States cannot afford to ignore the anarchythat threatens a number of regions of the world.


In several regions, the inability of some states togovern their societies, safeguard their militaryarmaments, and prevent their territories fromserving as sanctuary to terrorists and criminalorganizations poses a threat to stability and placesdemands on U.S. forces. The recent history ofAfghanistan, including the brutal reign of theTaliban and the development of training basesand other facilities by al Qaeda, provides anexample of the security implications for theUnited States of such weak or ungoverned areas.Conditions in some states, including some withnuclear weapons, demonstrate that threats cangrow out of the weakness of governments asmuch as out of their strength.

• Diffusion of Power and Military Capabilities toNon-State Actors: Terrorist groups possess boththe motivation and capabilities to conduct devas-tating attacks on U.S. territory, citizens, and infra-structure. Often these groups have the support ofstate sponsors or enjoy sanctuary and the protec-tion of states, but some have the resources andcapabilities to operate without state sponsorship.Terrorist networks and their supporters areexploiting globalization and actively seekingCBRN technology.

• Increasing Diversity in the Sources andUnpredictability of the Locations of Conflict:Together, these trends produce a geopolitical set-ting that is increasingly complex and unpre-dictable. Unlike the recent past, the United Stateswill not be able to develop its military forces andplans primarily to confront a specific adversary ina specific geographic area. The United States couldface the need to intervene in unexpected crisesagainst opponents with a wide range of capabili-ties. Moreover, these interventions may take placein distant regions where urban environments,other complex terrain, and varied climatic condi-tions present major operational challenges.

Military Transformation – A RiskMitigation Imperative

Managing risks, one of the seven strategic tenets ofthe defense strategy, is central to the Department’snew way of thinking about defense. In an enterprise ascomplex as the Department of Defense, creating aframework to manage responses to the differentsources of risk is essential. The Department’s risk man-agement framework is based on the view that there arefour categories of risk that affect the ability of theUnited States to achieve its defense policy goals:

• Force management risk results from issues affect-ing the ability to recruit, train, equip, and retainsufficient numbers of quality personnel and sus-tain the readiness of the force while accomplish-ing its many operational tasks.

• Operational risk stems from factors shaping theability to achieve military objectives in a near-term conflict or other contingency.

• Future challenges risk derives from issuesaffecting the ability to invest in new capabili-ties and develop new operational conceptsneeded to dissuade or defeat mid- to long-termmilitary challenges.

• Institutional risk results from factors affecting theability to develop management practices and con-trols that use resources efficiently and promote theeffective operation of the Defense establishment.

A failure to address any one of these sources ofrisk could imperil U.S. capabilities. In the past, theDepartment tended to over-invest in minimizingthe near-term operational risks while under-invest-ing in the other categories. In particular, we havetended to focus on near-term operational risk miti-gation at the expense of future challenges risk. Thenew risk management framework provides a systemto ensure that sufficient attention and resources areput against the needs of maintaining a capable andready force, the requirements of near-term opera-tions and contingencies, the demands of transform-ing the force for the future, and the imperatives tostreamline and modernize internal processes in theDepartment.

Military transformation is a key to the mitigationof the future challenges risk. In light of the dynamicchanges in the security environment, a premium hasbeen placed on the need to manage future challengesrisk. In short, the Department of Defense has accept-ed the need to place greater priority on investmentsto meet future challenges. The mismatch betweenpresent U.S. forces and the requirements of respond-ing to the potential capabilities of future adversariesis becoming more apparent. The Department mustbe able to define transformation investments thataddress future risk with enough specificity that theycan be balanced with the other three primary riskareas. Although many elements of the existing forcewill continue to contribute to U.S. capabilities, thereis an increasing need to develop new, leading-edgecapabilities. The events of September 11th, 2001,made clear the danger of postponing preparations forthe future. We must prepare now to anticipate futuresurprises and thereby mitigate their effects.


SIX CRITICAL OPERATIONAL

GOALS

“On Sept 11, America’s contract with the Department ofDefense was torn up and a new contract is being written.”


at the National Defense University,July 9, 2002

The purpose of military transformation is tomaintain or improve U.S. military preeminence inthe face of unpredictable, potentially disproportion-ate changes in the strategic security environment.Transformation must therefore be focused on emerg-ing strategic and operational challenges and theopportunities created by these challenges. As men-tioned in the first chapter, the Secretary of Defensehas identified six critical operational goals. Thesegoals provide the focus for the Department’s trans-formation efforts. As shown in Figure 5, three aremission-oriented goals and three are enabling goals.

Over time, the continued focus of theDepartment’s force transformation efforts on thedeveopment of the capabilities necessary to achieve

these six operational goals will help shift the balanceof U.S. forces and broaden their capabilities. First andforemost, the Department will seek to deter and, ifnecessary, defeat the full range of threats forward.Attaining these six goals will help us do that in arapidly changing world.

Protecting Critical Bases andDefeating Chemical, Biological,Radiological, and NuclearWeapons

Above all, U.S. forces must protect critical bases ofoperations and defeat weapons of mass destruction(WMD) and their means of delivery. No base of oper-ations is more important than the U.S. homeland.Defending the U.S. homeland from external attack isthe foremost responsibility of the U.S. Armed Forces.Vast oceans and good neighbors do not insulate theUnited States from military attacks that emanatefrom abroad. The attacks of September 11th revealedthe vulnerability of our nations’s open society to ter-rorist attacks. The lethal anthrax letters sent in thefall of 2001 demonstrated the potentially grave dan-ger posed by terrorists armed with chemical, biologi-cal, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.


Figure 5. Six Operational Goals

Protect Critical Bases

Mission-Oriented

Goals

DETERFORWARD

Project and Sustain Forces

Deny Enemy Sanctuary

Leve

rage

Inf

orm

atio

n Te

chno

logy

Assu

re I

nfor

mat

ion

Syst

ems

Enha

nce

Spac

e Ca

pabi

litie

s

Enabling Goals

Future adversaries will have a range of new meanswith which to threaten the United States, both athome and abroad. As discussed in the previous chap-ter, these means will include new forms of terrorism:advanced CBRN weapons, ballistic and cruise mis-siles, and weapons of mass disruption, such asinformation warfare attacks on critical informa-tion infrastructure. The Department is addressingthese emerging operational challenges. For exam-ple, it has refocused its missile defense program tobetter defend U.S. territory, deployed forces, allies,and friends against ballistic missiles of any range.It has also emphasized science and technologyprograms aimed at defending against advancedbiological threats.

Projecting and SustainingForces in Anti-AccessEnvironments

Future adversaries are seeking capabilities to ren-der ineffective much of the current U.S. military’sability to project military power overseas. Today,U.S. power projection depends heavily on access tolarge overseas bases, airfields, and ports. Saturationattacks by ballistic or cruise missiles armed withCBRN warheads could deny or disrupt U.S. entranceinto a theater of operations. Advanced air defensesystems could deny access to hostile airspace to allbut low-observable aircraft. Military and commercialspace capabilities, over-the-horizon radars, and low-observable unmanned aerial vehicles could givepotential adversaries the means to conduct wide-area surveillance and track and target U.S. forces.Anti-ship cruise missiles, advanced diesel-poweredsubmarines, and sophisticated mines could threatenthe ability of U.S. naval and amphibious forces tooperate in littoral waters. Surreptitious attacksemploying persistent chemical or biological warfareagents could deny strategic areas to U.S. forces andterrorize U.S. and allied populations.

New approaches for projecting power are neededto meet these threats. These approaches will place apremium on enhancing U.S. active and passivedefenses against missiles and CBRN weapons; distrib-uting forces throughout a theater of operations anddeveloping new network-centric concepts of warfare;reducing the dependence of U.S. forces on major airand sea ports for insertion; increasing U.S. relianceon stealth, standoff, hypersonic, long-range, andunmanned systems for power projection; enhancingcapabilities to project and sustain power directly

from an integrated seabase; continuing to improvecapabilities for littoral engagements; and developingground forces that are lighter, more lethal, more ver-satile, more survivable, more sustainable, and rapidlydeployable. New approaches are also required tomeet the challenges of sustaining U.S. forces in anti-access environments and to attain the goal of reduc-ing our logistics footprint by 50 percent.

Denying Enemy Sanctuary

Adversaries are likely to seek to exploit territorialdepth and the use of mobile systems, urban terrain,and concealment to their advantage. Mobile ballisticmissile systems can be launched from extendedrange, exacerbating the anti-access and area-denialchallenges. Space denial capabilities, such as ground-based lasers, can be located deep within an adver-sary’s territory. Accordingly, a key objective oftransformation is to develop the means to denysanctuary to potential adversaries—anywhere andanytime. This will require the development andacquisition of robust capabilities to conduct persis-tent surveillance of vast geographic areas and long-range precision strike—persistent across time, space,and information domains and resistant to deter-mined denial and deception efforts.

As the President has said, “When all of our mili-tary can continuously locate and track moving tar-gets—with surveillance from air and space—warfarewill be truly revolutionized.” Denying enemies sanc-tuary will also require the ability to insert specialoperations and other maneuver forces into deniedareas and to network them with long-range preci-sion strike assets. The awesome combination offorces on the ground with long-range precisionstrike assets was amply demonstrated in Afghanistanand Iraq. It provided a glimpse of the potential thatfuture integration efforts could offer if consciouslyexploited through U.S. transformation and experi-mentation efforts.

Leveraging InformationTechnology

U.S. forces must leverage information technology(IT) and innovative network-centric concepts of oper-ations to develop increasingly capable joint forces.New information and communications technologieshold promise for networking highly distributed jointand multinational forces and for ensuring that theseforces have better situational awareness—about friend-ly forces and those of adversaries—than in the past.


Command, control, communications, computers,intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR)systems draw combat power from the networking of amultitude of platforms, weapons, sensors, and com-mand and control (C2) entities, which are collectivelyself-organized through access to common views of thebattlespace.

In the war in Afghanistan, the United Statesdemonstrated the ability to strike at global rangewith a variety of networked combat elements fromall the Services. These included Special OperationsForces from all Services, the Air Force’s interconti-nental-range bombers, elements of two Army divi-sions, several Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups, andMarine Expeditionary Units. Yet, this joint actiononly hints at the potential opportunities that can beexploited by seamlessly connecting our air, sea, andground forces in new and innovative ways.

IT holds vast potential for maximizing the effec-tiveness of our forces. We must move toward net-work-centric warfare (NCW); increase the importanceof connectivity and interoperability as critical perfor-mance factors in the design and acquisition of C4ISRand weapons systems; increase the visibility of theDepartment’s evolving Global Information Grid; andimprove the Department’s oversight processes—inrequirements, programming, and acquisition—forassessing a range of capabilities rather than specificweapons platforms. The goal is to enable U.S. forces tobetter communicate with each other; maintain a con-tinuous awareness of friendly, neutral, and enemypositions; and share the same, precise, real-time pic-ture of the battlespace.

Assuring Information Systemsand Conducting InformationOperations

Information systems must be protected fromattack, and new capabilities for effective informationoperations must be developed. The emergence ofadvanced information networks holds promise for

vast improvements in joint U.S. capabilities, and italso provides the tools for non-kinetic attacks byU.S. forces. These attacks can include operations thatseek to shape the mind of an opponent, electronicwarfare, and in some instances, computer networkattack.

At the same time, the increasing dependence ofadvanced societies and military forces on informa-tion networks creates new vulnerabilities. Potentialadversaries could exploit these vulnerabilitiesthrough their own computer network attacks. Thefalling barriers to entry in the information realm,brought about through declining costs and diffusionof technology, have increased the number of poten-tial adversaries capable of conducting informationattacks. Closely coordinating U.S. offensive anddefensive capabilities, and effective integration ofboth with intelligence activities, will be critical toprotecting the current U.S. information advantage.

Enhancing Space Capabilities

The Department of Defense must enhance thecapability and survivability of its space systems.Activities conducted in space are critical to nationalsecurity and the economic well-being of the nation.Both friends and potential adversaries will becomemore dependent on space systems for communica-tions, situational awareness, positioning, naviga-tion, and timing. In addition to exploiting space fortheir own purposes, future adversaries will likely alsoseek to deny U.S. forces unimpeded access to and theability to operate through and from space. Space sur-veillance, ground-based lasers, space jamming capa-bilities, and proximity of micro-satellites willbecome increasingly available. A key objective fortransformation, therefore, is not only to capitalizeon the manifold advantages that space offers theUnited States but also to close off U.S. space vulner-abilities that might otherwise provoke new forms ofcompetition. U.S. forces must ensure space controland thereby guarantee U.S. freedom of action inspace in time of conflict.


FOUR PILLARS OF MILITARY

TRANSFORMATION

“Along with experimentation, the development of joint oper-ational concepts and operational architectures will drivematerial and non-material transformation solutions andestablish standards for interoperability. . . . New operationalconcepts—the end-to-end stream of activities that definehow force elements, systems, organizations, and tacticscombine to accomplish military tasks—are critical to thetransformation process.”

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitzduring testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee,

April 9, 2002

As mentioned in the first chapter, theDepartment’s transformation strategy is an exten-sion of the U.S. defense strategy. The central pur-pose of our transformation strategy is to enable theDepartment to better manage two major transfor-mation challenges, both of which arise from theneed to invest scarce resources in transformation.

The first transformation challenge is the needto invest now in specific technologies and con-cepts that are deemed transformational whileremaining open to other paths toward transfor-mation. To transform the force, we must commitresources, yet remain detached enough fromthese commitments to continue an iterativeprocess of innovation and experimentation thatpermits new insights to guide future investmentdecisions.

The second transformation challenge is theneed to balance near-term operational needsagainst future risk in investment decisions.Postponing major investments in transformation-al capabilities while devoting the bulk of the avail-able resources to satisfying nearer term operationalneeds raises the risk of being overtaken by morecreative and daring adversaries. Progress on trans-forming military forces requires significant invest-ments in those aspects of transformation that weare confident have some enduring benefits. Evenin an environment of increasing defense budgets,dollars are limited. Therefore, this may result incanceling or significantly reducing expenditureson planned systems and investing in capabilitiesthat we believe will reduce future risk.

Essential Elements of theMilitary Transformation Strategy

The Department’s overall strategy for transform-ing consists of three parts: transforming culture;transforming processes; and transforming capabili-ties through force or military transformation. Thefocus of this chapter is on the four MilitaryTransformation Pillars identified by the Secretary ofDefense. These four pillars constitute essential ele-ments of the Department’s force transformationstrategy (Figure 6):

• Strengthening joint operations

• Exploiting U.S. intelligence advantages

• Concept development and experimentation

• Developing transformational capabilities.

Successful implementation of the Department’smilitary transformation strategy will accelerate theongoing shift from an industrial age to an informa-tion age military. Future military operations will beconducted using more network-centric forces.They will be able to distribute forces more widelyby increasing information sharing via a secure net-work that provides actionable information at alllevels of command. This sharing, in turn, will cre-ate conditions for increased speed of command andopportunities for self-synchronization across thebattlespace. The first step toward the developmentof a network-centric joint force is to invest more


Figure 6. Military Transformation Pillars

Transformation

StrengtheningJoint

Operations

Exploiting USIntelligenceAdvantages

ConceptDevelopment &Experimentation

DevelopingTransformational

Capabilities

now in the four transformation pillars. The goal isto produce military forces with the following capa-bilities by the end of the decade:

• Effects-Based, Adaptive Planning: Standingjoint force headquarters (SJFHQ) will conducteffects-based, adaptive planning in response tocontingencies, with the objective of defeatinginitial enemy threats using networked, modularforces capable of distributed, seamlessly joint,and combined operations.

• Power Projection in Anti-AccessEnvironments: U.S. forces will defeat the mostpotent of enemy anti-access and area-denialcapabilities through a combination of morerobust contamination avoidance measures,mobile basing, and priority time-critical coun-terforce targeting.

• Leverage Asymmetric Advantages: U.S. forceswill leverage the nation’s asymmetric advan-tages to the fullest extent possible, drawingupon unparalleled command, control, commu-nications, computers, intelligence, surveil-lance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilitiesthat provide global access, common relevantoperational situational awareness of the battle-space, rapid and robust sensor-to-shooter tar-geting, and the necessary prerequisites fornetwork-centric warfare (NCW).

• Joint and Combined Forces Maneuver: Jointand combined armed forces with superior situa-tional awareness will maneuver more easilyaround battlefield obstacles and force the enemyto mass where precision engagement capabilitiesmay be used to the maximum effect.

Military forces with the ability to execute thesetypes of operations will be better able to accom-plish the six operational goals discussed in the pre-vious chapter. Committing to a set of investmentpriorities designed to accomplish these goals willpermit us to better execute the new defense strate-gy and establish a solid foundation for furthertransformation. However, these are just intermedi-ate objectives.

The transformation process must be comprehen-sive, ranging from science and technology efforts tofielded capabilities, but need not encompass theentire force simultaneously. Some aspects of trans-formation should be applied broadly, such as net-working for shared awareness. The tension betweenretaining flexibility in transformation and the need

to invest now in prerequisite capabilities is greatlyreduced by targeting. For example, we target theentire force now for networking, but we populatethat network with new platforms more deliberately.“Vanguard” forces equipped with the new platformswill then be available to exploit new concepts andcapabilities in operational environments and influ-ence the development of the rest of the force.Heavier investments in the larger share of theforce will follow after the smaller portion of theforce has demonstrated in real-world operationsand field trials that a critical mass of transforma-tional capabilities can produce disproportionatelyfavorable effects.

Pillar One: Strengthening JointOperations

Pillar One focuses on strengthening joint opera-tions through the development of joint conceptsand architectures and the pursuit of other importantjointness initiatives and interoperability goals.

Joint Concepts and Architectures: The key to theDepartment’s transformation strategy is the devel-opment of future joint operating concepts (JOCS).They should be specific enough to permit identifica-tion and prioritization of transformation require-ments inside the defense program, yet flexibleenough to absorb valuable new ideas as they emerge.At no time should a single JOC be declared authori-tative at the expense of continuing debate andresearch on alternative concepts. History has shownthat, when an operating concept is declared the sin-gle solution, intellectual development ceases and theforce is eventually overcome by its competitors.Joint concepts will be produced in three time frames:

• Near-term (2-3 years out) Joint Operations:Combatant Commander war plans, operationaland training lessons learned, and joint doc-trine, designed to achieve new strategy goalsand updated in accordance with theContingency Planning Guidance, will promotetransformation through enhanced jointnessand planning modifications. CombatantCommanders are developing war plans thattake into account mid-term JOCs, lessonslearned from ongoing operations, joint train-ing and exercises, advanced concept technolo-gy demonstrations (ACTDs), and experiments.Current war plans and joint doctrine present astarting point, but not the standard, for experi-


mentation and future concepts. Because exper-imentation and new concepts frequently carrya new value structure or paradigm and are farless mature, direct comparison with the old isinappropriate. New metrics are required.

• Mid-term (just beyond the Future YearsDefense Plan) Joint Concepts: Joint conceptswill depict how the joint force of the future is tofight. They will address specific types of militaryoperations across the range of military opera-tions. Furthermore, they will be designed tomeet the six critical operational goals estab-lished by the Secretary of Defense:

– Joint Operations Concepts: The overarch-ing Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsC) docu-ment developed by the Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), in coordinationwith the Commander, Joint ForcesCommand (JFCOM), provides the opera-tional context for military transformationby linking strategic guidance with the inte-grated application of Joint Force capabilities.The JOpsC is a single overarching joint con-cept that will be continuously refinedthrough experimentation. This overarchingconcept provides the conceptual frameworkto guide future joint operations and joint,Service, combat support, and defense agencyconcept development and experimentation.It also provides the foundation for the devel-opment and acquisition of new capabilitiesthrough changes in doctrine, organization,training, materiel,leadership and educa-tion, personnel, andfacilities.

– Joint Operating Con-cepts: JOCs will fur-ther develop key areasof the JOpsC. Focusingat the operationallevel and above, JOCsdescribe how a JointForce Commander(JFC) will plan, pre-pare, deploy, employ,and sustain a jointforce given a specificoperation or combi-nation of operations.Among other things,JOCs specificallyaddress how they con-

tribute to achieving the six operationalgoals. As shown in Figure 7, four initial cor-nerstone JOCs are being developed: home-land security, major combat operations,stability operations, and strategic deter-rence. Like the JOpsC, the JOCs are expectedto evolve over time to reflect insights gainedfrom experimentation. The Service transfor-mation roadmaps will identify the desiredoperational capabilities needed to imple-ment the JOCs and the preferred means ofobtaining those capabilities.

– Integrated Architectures and Capabilities:Integrated architectures describe in greaterdetail the relationship between the tasks andactivities that generate effects on enemyforces and supporting operations. They iden-tify where operations intersect and overlapand provide details on interoperabilityrequirements. The architectures include notjust material solutions but also doctrine,organization, and training requirements.These architectures will be used to prioritizecapabilities based on their contribution tothe realization of the JOCs.

• Far-term (15-20 years out) Joint Vision: The JointVision document is a long-range articulation ofjoint operations. It provides a broad statement ofdesired future concepts and capabilities requiredfor future operations. The Joint Vision also pro-vides the context for future joint and Service con-cepts development and experimentation.


Figure 7. Joint Operations Concepts

Integrated Architecture

HomelandSecurity

Joint OperatingConcept

Major CombatOperations


Stability Operations


StrategicDeterrence


Joint Operations ConceptsDominance Through Joint Integration

Capabilities Needed to Implement Joint Operating Concepts



Other Jointness Initiatives and InteroperabilityGoals: Increased interoperability is a key prerequisitefor enhanced jointness and an imperative for the trans-forming force (Figure 8). The Department of Defense isin the process of strengthening joint operationsthrough SJFHQ, improved joint command and control(C2), joint training transformation, and an expandedjoint forces presence policy. Based on the results ofinteroperability studies, the Commander, JFCOM, isdeveloping plans to address the following interoper-ability priorities:

• Standard operating procedures and deployablejoint C2 processes, organizations, and systems forthe SJFHQ

• A common relevant operational picture for jointforces

• Enhanced intelligence, surveillance, and recon-naissance (ISR) capabilities

• Selected sensor-to-shooter linkages prioritized bycontribution to the JOCs

• Reachback capabilities that provide global infor-mation access

• Adaptive mission planning, rehearsal, and jointtraining linked with C4ISR.

Pillar Two: Exploiting U.S.Intelligence Advantages

The new defense strategy rests on a foundation oftransforming intelligence capabilities. Our ability todefend America in the new security environmentrequires unprecedented intelligence capabilities toanticipate where, when, and how adversaries intend

to harm us. Our vision of a smaller, more lethal, andnimble joint force capable of swiftly defeating anadversary throughout the depth of the global battle-space hinges on these capabilities.

Today, the United States not only possessesunique intelligence capabilities, currentlyunmatched by any potential adversary, but it alsohas numerous efforts underway to improve andexpand current intelligence capabilities. At the sametime, U.S. military dependence on information isgrowing. This is particularly true in light of theDepartment’s transition to NCW. Pillar Two involvesthe exploitation of U.S. intelligence advantagesthrough multiple intelligence collection assets, glob-al surveillance and reconnaissance, and enhancedexploitation and dissemination.

Increasing Demands on Intelligence Capabilities:Demands on intelligence capabilities are certain togrow. Because potential adversaries recognize theimportance of information superiority to U.S. strat-egy and operations, they are seeking to acquire sim-ilar advantage. To offset U.S. conventional militarycapabilities, they are also pursuing asymmetricstrategies, including information operations, spacewarfare, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

These asymmetric threats pose dauntingnew intelligence challenges. To respondeffectively, the Department will vigorous-ly pursue new processes and proceduresto better exploit existing assets whileaggressively developing new technolo-gies that offer great potential forresponding to new threats and require-ments. In particular, the Department willtreat information operations, intelli-gence, and space assets not simply asenablers of current U.S. forces but ratheras core capabilities of future forces.

Requirement to Transform DefenseIntelligence Capabilities: Intelligence—and how we use it—is the first line ofdefense against terrorists and the threatsposed by hostile states. Originallydesigned around the priority of gathering

enormous amounts of information about a massive,fixed object (e.g., the Soviet bloc), the U.S. intelli-gence community is now coping with the challengeof following a far more complex and elusive set oftargets. We must transform our intelligence capabil-ities within the Department and build new ones tokeep pace with the nature of these threats. Clearly,we must improve or redesign our intelligence system


Figure 8. Imperative of Interoperability

Not on the net

Not contributing

Not benefiting

If you are not interoperable, you are…

Not part of the information age

so it is capable of providing unambiguous warningsooner. In a world of multiple terrorist threats andthe increasingly widespread availability of WMD,the United States and our allies cannot afford to waitfor the enemy to deliver the first blow. This is simplyunacceptable. Yet, the challenge faced by the U.S.intelligence community is daunting because of thenature of terrorism.

Over the course of the next decade and beyond,the Department’s intelligence capabilities mustbecome more proactive, intrusive, networked,responsive, and integrated. The Department ismaking major investments now in global ISR capa-bilities, especially those that prepare the intelli-gence and operational battlespace by supportingthe interoperability objectives previously identi-fied. The Department’s transformation strategycalls for such investments because they are criticalprerequisites for the type of networked joint forcescapable of achieving and fully exploiting decisionsuperiority. The Department’s investments in intel-ligence are also required to provide better warningof emerging crises, identify critical targets foreffects-based campaigns, measure and monitor theprogress of campaigns, and provide indicators ofsuccess.

Global Intelligence: Throughout the Cold War,the singular nature of the strategic threat from theSoviet Union provided U.S. intelligence with aremarkably stable target. Today, intelligence isrequired to provide political and military leaderswith strategic and operational information on anincreasingly diverse range of political, military,leadership, and scientific and technological devel-opments worldwide:

• Human Intelligence: Experience gained duringrecent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, aswell as in other parts of the world, in the con-duct of the global war on terrorism, has rein-forced the need for improved humanintelligence (HUMINT). The conduct ofHUMINT collection, analysis, and reportingmust be optimized to gain access and insightsinto some of the most difficult “targets,” suchas terrorist cells, hard and deeply buried tar-gets, closed regimes, and WMD developmentand deployment plans. The United States needsto enhance HUMINT capabilities and tools notonly to gather better intelligence but also togain the synergy of technical collection sys-tems through better positioning. Finally,

HUMINT reporting must be integrated into thesituational awareness display that providesjoint forces with battlespace visualization.

• Emerging Technologies: The Department willvigorously pursue the development andexploitation of technologies that can signifi-cantly increase the U.S. advantage in intelli-gence collection, analysis, and security. Some ofthe most promising follow:

– Low-observable technologies that may beapplied to collection platforms

– Nanotechnology that may result in minia-ture, mobile, autonomous sensors capable ofpenetrating the secure and remote facilitiesof an adversary

– Ubiquitous, networked sensors providingfriendly forces with a continuous, highlyaccurate, real-time display of the enemythroughout the battlespace

– Advanced parallel processing and quantumcomputing to provide real-time processes,decryption, translation, and transcription ofcommunications

– Biometrics for tracking adversaries and pro-viding secure authentication of individualsseeking network or facility access

– Commercial imagery for remote sensing ofthe earth.

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance:The Department is pursuing investment strategiesand migration plans for an integrated, cost-effec-tive mix of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),manned platforms, and spaceborne, maritime, andterrestrial systems responsive to future collectionneeds and challenges. As these strategies and plansare developed, the horizontal integration of intelli-gence and surveillance content and processes isneeded along with the indicated policy and organi-zational changes. Efforts are underway to acceleratethe procurement of additional UAV platforms andsensors. Enhanced space-based radar systems arealso required to provide global, long-range, groundmoving target indicator capability to augmentexisting airborne capabilities. Commercial systems,especially satellite imagery, are being integratedinto U.S. government ISR capabilities.

• Sensors: A wide range of imagery intelligence(IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), andmeasurement and signature intelligence(MASINT) sensors are needed to respond to cur-


rent and future requirements. Satellite IMINTsensors need to provide long-dwell capabilities.SIGINT payloads are needed for UAVs as well asfor specialized shipboard collection sensors tocapture radio frequency signals emanating fromstate and non-state threats. Extensive airborneSIGINT modernization efforts are needed toprovide low- and high-band collection capabili-ties that elude currently deployed systems.MASINT’s multi-disciplinary scope offers greatpotential. MASINT sensor development anddeployment, particularly for such purposes assampling for agents and collection against hardand deeply buried targets, is critical to main-taining U.S. military advantages.

• Collaborative Intelligence, Surveillance, andReconnaissance Operations: The ISR commu-nity must move toward a collaborative enter-prise to achieve more responsive support forcivilian decision-makers and commandersengaged in planning and executing operations.Collaborative capabilities are needed to permitagile and adaptive strategies, plans, and opera-tions, as well as rapid sharing of analysis andtime-sensitive information. A fused informa-tion picture must provide decision-makers andcommanders with a near-real-time capability tosupport operations and visualize the opera-tional space. Decision aids and other tools areneeded to enable decision-makers to develop acoherent strategy and plan and to adjust rapid-ly to emerging situations. Such systems areessential to establishing an effective, efficient,and responsive ISR posture in joint and com-bined operations.

• Task, Post, Process, and Use: The rapid tempoand agility of future military operations willrequire innovative information handlingapproaches that more effectively integrate allcollection disciplines (e.g., IMINT, SIGINT,MASINT, HUMINT, and open sources) andenable immediate and simultaneous access toinformation by a variety of users. The tradi-tional sequential model (task, collect, processexploit/analyze, disseminate) is being supple-mented by an information-handling conceptfor NCW expressed by the functions: “task,post, process, and use (TPPU).” Immediate,simultaneous, and integrated intelligenceprocesses must accommodate new types ofreadily available multimedia, multi-spectral,and multi-source information.

Pillar Three: ConceptDevelopment andExperimentation

Pillar Three involves experimentation with newapproaches to warfare, operational concepts andcapabilities, and organizational constructs (e.g., theU.S. Army’s Interim Brigade Combat Team) throughwar gaming, simulations, and field exercises focusedon emerging challenges and opportunities.

Concept development and experimentation gohand-in-hand. Experiments designed to evaluatenew concepts provide results that help refine thoseconcepts in an iterative fashion. The spiral experi-mentation process features the use of joint limitedobjective experiments (LOEs) networked among allof the combatant commanders. The Departmentexpects to have multiple joint and Service conceptdevelopment efforts underway, conducted by thecombatant commands and the Services to ensure therobust competition of ideas. The TransformationPlanning Guidance (TPG) provides detailed joint con-cept development and experimentation guidance.

Joint Concept Development and Experimenta-tion Criteria: The Director of the Office of ForceTransformation (OFT) has published criteria for suc-cessful experimentation programs. These criteriaaddress the following areas:

• Scientific method and its role in the U.S. ArmedForces achieving competitive advantage

• Experimentation in exercises and operationsand considerations for design, data collection,analysis, and sharing results

• Experimentation with virtual capabilities andthreats to explore mid- and far-term transforma-tional possibilities

• Experimentation with prototypes that allow co-evolution of concepts, technologies, processes,and organizations

• Experimentation with aggressive threats thatinclude asymmetric capabilities and the possi-bility of technological breakthroughs and thatspan a variety of environments

• Use of red teams operating at the tactical, opera-tional, and strategic levels

• Establishment of procedures and repositories forcapturing and sharing lessons learned.

Service Role in Experimentation: Service-ledexperimentation efforts should be consistent with


each Service’s transformation roadmap and jointexperimentation efforts by JFCOM and other JFCs.Components are working with JFCOM on develop-ing joint experimentation that assigns highest prior-ity to generating the following results:

• Fast-deploying joint C2 structures that exploit glob-al information access to distributed, non-deployingcenters of information worldwide and that betterenable the synchronized and synergistic employ-ment of forces provided by the Services

• Tools enabling the timely correlation and dissem-ination of mission-specific information to com-manders at all levels

• Tools enabling the closer integration of ISR effortsand their output

• Joint capabilities enabling the near-simultane-ous deployment, synergistic employment andsustainment of air, land, sea, and space warfight-ing capabilities

• Resource reallocation recommendations aimed atovercoming low-density/high-demand constraints

• Improvements to joint operations in urban ter-rain and jungle environments, with specialemphasis on LOEs in urban C4ISR.

Supporting Infrastructure: Vigorous and dynamic con-cept development and experimentation will need to besupported by a dedicated infrastructure. This infrastruc-ture includes the following elements:

• War Gaming: War games can help Services and agen-cies develop and evaluate future concepts. Servicesand agencies can combine near-, mid- or long-termcapabilities and concepts with each other’s, as well asthe joint community’s, to examine key ideas andidentify conceptual gaps or flaws. War gaming canalso take place in a distributed fashion, thus drawingupon all Services and agencies as appropriate. Theresults can be analyzed for continued developmentand refinement of the future concepts.

• Modeling and Simulation: A new generation ofmodeling and simulation (M&S) is needed to supportconcept development. M&S should promote experi-mentation and training by linking many types ofsimulations, from aggregate and detailed computermodels, to simulators and man-in-the-loop hardwarecomponents.

• Joint National Training Capability: The JointNational Training Capability (JNTC) will provide areal-world laboratory with the capability to conductexperiments that assess new doctrine, tactics, tech-

niques, and procedures using live military forcesagainst professional opposing forces in realistic com-bat conditions. Lessons learned from the JNTC’sexercises and experiments will be a principal sourceof insight for generating new operating concepts.

• Operational Lessons Learned: Lessons learnedfrom operational missions should be systematicallycaptured, analyzed, and incorporated into ongoingexperimentation and concept development. Theseactions will allow the Department to test new tac-tics, techniques, and procedures by introducingthem into an experimental environment to deter-mine whether they are worthy of consideration inoperating concepts. Proven results can then be insti-tutionalized within the forces.

Pillar Four: DevelopingTransformational Capabilities

The Department requires strong mechanisms forimplementing results from concept development andexperimentation, and more immediately, for developingthe capabilities needed to meet the six operational goalsof transformation. To accomplish these operationalgoals, and more broadly develop the capabilities neces-sary for achieving future operating concepts, theDepartment must develop actionable transformationroadmaps, promote rapid and innovative Research,Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) alterna-tives, and transform joint training and education. Itmust also continue to make organizational changes, asappropriate, within the combatant commands andother military organizations.

Developing Actionable Transformation Roadmaps:The initial Service and agency transformation roadmapefforts established a baseline assessment across theDepartment’s transformational activities. The next set ofroadmaps will address capabilities and associated metricsto address progress toward the six transformational goalsand the JOCs. In addition, the Service roadmaps will pro-vide a plan for building the capabilities necessary to sup-port the JOCs. Similarly, the joint roadmap developed byJFCOM with input from the defense agencies will pro-vide a plan for building joint capabilities in support ofthe JOCs. Guidance for the development of transforma-tion roadmaps is provided in Appendix Three of theTPG.

Rapid RDT&E Programs: The transformation roadmapsserve as baseline plans for achieving the desired JOCs.However, it is possible that the roadmaps may not befully executed due to competing priorities elsewhere in


the defense program. To ensure execution of criticalroadmap areas, or to stimulate alternative ways to moreefficiently and effectively achieve desired capabilities,perhaps at higher technical risks, the Department is ini-tiating the following RDT&E programs with substantial-ly greater flexibility and rapidity:

• Transformation Initiatives Program: One of thekeys to achieving the Department’s transforma-tional goals is the involvement of combatant com-mand commanders in the experimentationprocess in operational environments.Consequently, the Transformation InitiativesProgram (TIP) is being developed by the Director,OFT, to enable these commanders to implementunprogrammed transformation initiatives thatsupport transformational opportunities. The TIPwill enhance the combatant commanders’ abilityto pursue unforeseen but potentially high-payoffjoint transformation initiatives. These initiativesare expected to be time-critical and present them-selves as opportunities to co-evolve JOCs and tech-nologies in contingencies, joint operations,exercises, and experiments.

• Joint Rapid Acquisition Program:Transformation of defense management includesthe reduction of acquisition cycle time. The jointRapid Acquisition Program (RAP) administered byJFCOM will accelerate the implementation andfielding of projects employing newly maturedtechnologies to meet the immediate needs of thewarfighter. Its purpose is to serve as a source ofbridge funding to transition a program from thestatus of an ACTD, Advanced TechnologyDemonstration (ATD), or experimental prototypeinto a program of record, funded by a component,combatant command, or defense agency.

Transformation of Training: The military advan-tages that U.S. forces enjoy today are due in large partto the way we train our forces. The rigorous and real-istic training regimen that our military conducts pro-vides our forces with extraordinary battlespaceadvantages. This training enables the warfighter tomaximize the potential of technologically advancedplatforms, thus widening the gap between the UnitedStates and its adversaries. For this advantage to persistinto the future, the transformation of training must

parallel and be equally as robust as all other areas ofthe Department’s transformational efforts. To thisend, JFCOM is planning for the establishment of thenew JNTC.

Transformation of Joint Education: Joint education isfundamental to creating a culture that supports trans-formation, founded on leaders who are joint by dispo-sition and comfortable with change. This culturerequires a fundamentally revised approach to joint pro-fessional military education. Joint education must pre-pare our leaders both to conduct operations as acoherently joint force and to think their way throughuncertainty.

Transformation of Organizations: Organizationalchange is fundamental to transformation efforts. Forexample, recent changes in the missions and geo-graphic areas of responsibility of selected combatantcommands and the establishment of a new combatantcommand, have been an important, but sometimesoverlooked, dimension of military transformation.During Fiscal Year 2002 , these changes were highlight-ed by the new Unified Command Plan (UCP). Theyresulted from a careful consideration of new andemerging capabilities within the U.S. Armed Forces andthe fast-changing strategic and operational environ-ment within which they are operating:

• The U.S. Northern Command was established todefend the U.S. homeland and provide militaryassistance to civil authorities.

• JFCOM is to focus on transforming U.S. militaryforces. Its geographic responsibilities were shiftedto the U.S. Northern Command and the U.S.European Command.

• The merging of the U.S. Space Command and theU.S. Strategic Command created an expanded U.S.Strategic Command; new missions (Global Strike,Missile Defense, Information Operations C4ISR)have been assigned to this command in additionto its traditional missions and responsibilities.

• The expansion of the U.S. Special OperationsCommand’s role in the global war on terrorism,directed by the Secretary of Defense, is also part ofthis process.

We should expect organizational transformation toextend down through small unit levels.


THE EMERGING WAY OF WAR

“. . . we are entering a new era of military operations andcapabilities. The very character of warfare is changing toaccount for the massive implications of the information age.It embodies the new decision logic with attributes we willbecome increasingly familiar with and comfortable. We canalready see its effects in current operations. The last timewe witnessed change of this magnitude was with the adventof the industrial age and the levée en masse (the mobiliza-tion of entire societies for war). Both of these events arerapidly receding into the past. A new American way of warhas emerged – network-centric operations.”


“New Rules, New Era,” Defense News, October 21-27, 2002, page 28

The emerging way of war is a unique approachto the conduct of joint warfare in the informationage. Constructed around the fundamental tenetsof network-centric warfare (NCW) and emphasiz-ing high-quality shared awareness, dispersed forces,speed of command, and flexibility in planning andexecution, it will result in U.S. forces conductingimmensely powerful effects-based operations (EBO)to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objec-tives across the full range of military operations.Although the transformation of the U.S. ArmedForces is a continuing process, the recent perfor-mance of U.S. forces in the successful conduct ofOperation Enduring Freedom and Operation IraqiFreedom has provided a glimpse of the futurepotential of the emerging way of war.

The basic tenets of NCW, set forth in NetworkCentric Warfare: Department of Defense Report toCongress (July 27, 2001), are as follows:

• A robustly networked force improves infor-mation sharing.

• Information sharing enhances the quality ofinformation and shared situational awareness.

• Shared situational awareness enables collabo-ration and self-synchronization and enhancessustainability and speed of command.

• These, in turn, dramatically increase missioneffectiveness.

NCW, the key enabler of EBO and the emerg-ing way of war, involves a new way of thinkingabout how the U.S. Armed Forces accomplishtheir missions and how they organize and inter-relate. It represents a powerful set of warfightingconcepts and associated military capabilities thatallow warfighters to take full advantage of allavailable information and bring all availableassets to bear in a timely and flexible manner.

The transforming joint force—organized,trained, and equipped to conduct the emergingway of war—will be capable of achieving U.S.strategic and operational objectives more quicklywhile employing agile, more rapidly deployableforces. This force must be able to gain and main-tain decision superiority, influence or rapidlyalter the initial conditions, and conduct network-centric operations to resolve a crisis or decisivelydefeat any adversary.

The ongoing transformation of the U.S. ArmedForces is crucial to ensuring that our forcesare capable of attaining the four major goals ofthe U.S. defense strategy: assuring allies andfriends, dissuading future military competition,deterring threats and coercion against U.S. inter-ests, and decisively defeating any adversary ifdeterrence fails.

Military Transformation and theStrategic Environment

Transforming defense—its role in national secu-rity, its management, and the force itself—is anational, corporate, and risk management strategythat responds to profound change in the strategicenvironment. As we move forward, we mustunderstand how transformation addresses uncer-tainty. For many years, our strategic focus has beenat the top: great power war in a global securityenvironment where our security concerns werelargely viewed through the lens of state-on-stateconflict. Even as the threat of great power wardiminished, we remained focused largely on con-flict between nations with the threat recast as the“rogue state.” Meanwhile, sources of power, con-flict, and violence continued to change and spreadmore broadly within the system.

Today, we find that power is moving to the larg-er system level, an international system evolving asa consequence of globalization, while violence ismigrating downward to the level of individuals or


collections of individuals. To be sure, state-on-stateconflict is by no means obsolete, nor is it likely tobecome so. As illustrated by North Korea, Iran, andothers, the potent threat posed by “rogue states”armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD)remains. At the same time, new threats are emerg-ing from societies and people who remain discon-nected from the larger evolving global system.These threats have the potential to create severeperturbations to the international system, and theresulting shockwaves cross all economic sectors andsocial boundaries as they propagate around theworld.

On September 11th, 2001, we witnessed thisphenomenon. We were not attacked by a nationor by an army; we were attacked by a group ofindividuals who were willing to die for their causeand could not be deterred. As the consequences ofthis systemic change become more apparent, weare discovering that our force capabilities are outof balance with emerging realities. We are justnow readjusting our security perspectives in lightof this altered system; a strategy that emerges istransformation.

The magnitude and pace of change in the strate-gic environment compel a transformation of theU.S. military, as well as the organizations andprocesses by which it is controlled, supported, andsustained. And although we might point to abeginning of transformation, we should not andcannot foresee the end. President George W. Bush’smandate for military transformation was “to chal-lenge the status quo and envision a new architec-ture of American defense for decades to come.”Both he and Secretary Rumsfeld view transforma-tion as a continuing process that not only antici-pates the future but also seeks to create that future.It does so, in part, by co-evolving technology, orga-nizations, and processes. However, transformationbegins and ends with culture.

Transformation is first and foremost aboutchanging culture. In turn, culture is about behav-ior—about people, their attitudes, their values,and their beliefs. What we believe, what we value,and our attitudes about the future are ultimatelyreflected in our actions, in our strategies andprocesses, and the decisions that emerge fromthem. The Department’s strategy for transforma-tion understands this; its actions reflect thatunderstanding.

“We must transform not only our armed forces, but also theDepartment that serves them by encouraging a culture ofcreativity and intelligent risk taking. We must promote amore entrepreneurial approach to developing military capa-bilities, one that encourages people, all people, to be proac-tive and not reactive, to behave somewhat less likebureaucrats and more like venture capitalists; one that doesnot wait for threats to emerge and be ‘validated,’ but ratheranticipates them before they emerge and develops newcapabilities that can dissuade and deter those nascentthreats.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,at the National Defense University,

January 31, 2002

The Department of Defense’s TransformationPlanning Guidance (TPG), approved by the Secretaryof Defense in April 2003, provides a clear, conciseplan for implementing the Department’s force trans-formation strategy. It identifies the critical elementsof force transformation and assigns roles andresponsibilities for actions toward that end. At thesame time, the Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsC),developed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff (CJCS) in coordination with the Commander,Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), provides the over-arching template for future joint operations.Together, the TPG and the JOpsC reflect a capabili-ties-based approach that focuses on how the UnitedStates can defeat a broad array of capabilities thatany potential adversary may employ rather thanwho the adversaries are and where they mightengage the U.S. Armed Forces or threaten U.S. inter-ests. These two key documents are consistent withthe transformation vision outlined in the President’sremarks and continue the process of building andarticulating the emerging way of war that beganwith the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

Deter Forward – A Concept forPrevention

When Secretary Rumsfeld signed the QDR Reportin September 2001, he created the vision for trans-formation. The six operational goals and the four pil-lars of transformation, addressed in the precedingchapters, have received the most attention. However,


one of the most powerful concepts in the QDR Report,and one that has received the least scrutiny, is theconcept of “deter forward.”

Deter forward is profoundly important because itforces us to change the way we think about forcecapabilities and disposition. The capability of U.S.forces to take action from a forward area, to be rein-forced rapidly from other areas, and to defeat adver-saries swiftly and decisively will contributesignificantly to our ability to manage the futurestrategic environment. Consider for a moment theimplications of deterring and defeating an enemywith minimal reinforcements. In peacetime, weassure allies, we dissuade competition, and we deterhostile acts. If it becomes necessary to compel reso-lution with military force, we bring forces to bear.Assuming we continue to use classic industrial agethinking, we vary the speed of force deploymentand the type and volume of capabilities brought tobear according to the degree of risk we are willing toaccept. The equation is, in effect, that if we cannotrespond quickly, then we simply get there withmore massive force than our adversary, ultimatelyoverwhelming him. But this approach is doomed tofailure in the information age.

In the information age, because of the enormousleverage that information technology (IT) providesacross all warfighting functions, armed conflict isincreasingly path dependent: small changes in theinitial conditions result in enormous changes in out-come. Thus, speed becomes a more valuable charac-teristic of the entire force because the ability to decideand act faster than our opponent allows us to defineor alter the initial conditions on terms favorable toour interests. The goal is to develop a dynamic situa-tion, and in particular, one that is changing at a high-er rate of speed than an adversary can keep pace with,while at the same time sharply narrowing the adver-sary’s strategic options. Only certain kinds of forcesare going to be able to do that: forces oriented aroundspeed. This is not so much speed of response as it isspeed within the response: speed of deployment,speed of organization, speed of employment, andspeed of sustainment. In other words, we may chooseour punches with great care (strategy), only tounleash them with blinding speed (operations, tac-tics). Networking is the key enabler of the battlespacetransparency necessary for that speed.

As illustrated in Figure 9, a joint force willachieve its strategic and/or operational objectives


Figure 9. Deter Forward, Alter the Initial Conditions

DURATIONDURATION

Assure, Dissuade, Deter

Compel

Restore

Influence Initial

Conditions

WHAT'S VALUEDNETWORKING

SENSING

ENVELOPE MANAGEMENT

SPEED / ENDURANCE

NUMBERS

RISK TOLERANCE

STAYING POWER

Legend

INT

EN

SIT

YIN

TE

NS

ITY

ALTER INITIAL

CONDITIONS

Transforming Military Forces

Employing Network-Centric

Operations

Traditional Military Forces

Conducting Industrial Age

Warfare

more quickly as an agile, rapidly deployable forcethat can quickly alter initial conditions in its favor.Traditionally, the effectiveness of an industrial agemilitary force has been measured by its ability to useits mass to generate and sustain a peak of intensityover time. Although that ability remains importantin struggles between industrial age organizations, itis immaterial if an information age opponent is ableto seize the initiative and alter initial conditions.Recent operational experience has repeatedly rein-forced the lesson that only forces that are truly joint,with comprehensively integrated capabilities andoperating according to the principles of NCW, canfully exploit the highly path-dependent nature ofmodern conflict. They do so by altering initial con-ditions, developing and sustaining high rates ofchange, and repeatedly creating new operationalrealities which progressively “lock out” an oppo-nent’s ability to cope effectively. These joint forcesretain the ability to generate great intensity, butbecause its onset is more abrupt, this intensity is farmore difficult to counter.

Governing Principles of a

Network-Centric Force

Network-centric organizations and an under-standing of the governing principles of NCW arerequired for effective “deterrence forward” forcescapable of conducting EBO. NCW is not just depen-dent on technology per se; it is also a function ofbehavior. Fundamentally, it is about how wars arefought and how warfighting power is developed.During the industrial age, power came from mass.Increasingly, power tends to come from informa-tion, access, and speed. NCW will capitalize on capa-bilities for greater collaboration and coordination inreal time, the results of which are greater speed ofcommand, greater self-synchronization, and greaterprecision of desired effects. It will enable the merg-ing of our current warfighting capabilities into aseamless, joint force that is highly agile and capableof locking out its opponent’s ability to respond tohigh rates of change.

The U.S. Armed Forces have already accumulatedcompelling evidence from simulation, experimenta-tion, and real-world experience that substantiatesthe power of network behavior. Many think of “thenetwork” as a noun, in other words, a “thing.” Theymay not realize that “to network” is also a verb, ahuman behavior. So when we shift from being plat-form-centric to network-centric, we shift from focus-

ing on things to focusing on behaviors or actions.That is where we find the power. The ongoing shiftfrom platform-centric to network-centric thinking isa key to transformation and the emerging way ofwar.

Some governing principles for a network-centricforce, also referred to as terms of reference, have beenidentified, as shown in Figure 10. In effect, theseterms of reference constitute the new rules of warfarein the information age. They are guiding the develop-ment of the JOpsC.

Fight First for Information Superiority: Generateand exploit high-quality shared awareness throughbetter timeliness, accuracy, and relevance ofinformation:

• Increase an enemy’s information needs andreduce his ability to access information.

• Assure our own information access through awell-networked and interoperable force.

High-Quality Shared Awareness: Routinely trans-late information and knowledge into the requisitelevel of common understanding and situationalawareness across the spectrum of participants injoint operations:

• Build a collaborative network of networks, pop-ulated and refreshed with quality intelligenceand non-intelligence data, both raw andprocessed, to enable forces to build a sharedawareness relevant to their needs.

• Information users must also become informa-tion suppliers, responsible for posting informa-tion before use.

• High-quality shared awareness requires secureand assured networks and information that canbe defended.

Dynamic Self-Synchronization: Increase the free-dom of low-level forces to operate nearlyautonomously and to re-task themselves throughexploitation of shared awareness and the comman-der’s intent:

• Increase the value of subordinate initiative toproduce a meaningful increase in operationaltempo and responsiveness.

• Rapidly adapt when important developmentsoccur in the battlespace, and eliminate thestep function character of traditional militaryoperations.

Dispersed Forces: Move combat power from the lin-ear battlespace to non-contiguous operations:


• Emphasize functional controlversus physical occupation ofthe battlespace and generateeffective combat power at theproper time and place.

• Increase close coupling ofintelligence, operations, andlogistics to achieve preciseeffects and gain temporaladvantage with dispersedforces.

De-massed Forces: Move from anapproach based on geographicallycontiguous massing of forces toone based upon achieving effects:

• Substitute information andeffects for mass to limit theneed to concentrate physicalforces within a specific geo-graphical location.

• Increase the tempo and speedof movement throughout thebattlespace to complicate an opponent’s target-ing problem.

Deep Sensor Reach: Expand the use of deployable,distributed, and networked sensors, both distant andproximate, that detect actionable information onitems of interest at operationally relevant ranges toachieve decisive effects:

• Leverage increasingly persistent intelligence,surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

• Use sensors as a maneuver element to gain andmaintain information superiority.

• Exploit sensors as a deterrent when employedvisibly as part of an overt display of intent.

Compressed Operations and Levels of War:Eliminate procedural boundaries between Servicesand within processes so that joint operations areconducted at the lowest organizational levels possi-ble to achieve rapid and decisive effects:

• Increase the convergence in speed of deployment,speed of employment, and speed of sustainment.

• Eliminate “firewalls” between processes (e.g.,organize, deploy, employ, sustain), operations,intelligence, and logistics.

• Eliminate structural boundaries to merge capabil-ities at the lowest possible organizational levels(e.g., joint operations at the company/sub-squadron/task unit level).

Rapid Speed of Command: Create an informationadvantage and convert it into a competitive advan-tage by creating processes and procedures otherwiseimpossible within prudent risk:

• Through battlefield innovation and adaptation,compress sensor-to-decision-maker-to-shootertimelines to turn information advantage intodecision superiority and decisive effects.

• Progressively lock out an adversary’s options,and ultimately achieve option dominance.

Alter Initial Conditions at Increased Rates ofChange: Exploit the principles of high-qualityshared awareness, dynamic self-synchronization,dispersed and de-massed forces, deep sensor reach,compressed operations and levels of war, and rapidspeed of command to enable the joint force, acrossthe cognitive, information, and physical domains ofwarfare, to swiftly identify, adapt to, and change anopponent’s operating context to our advantage.

Network-Centric Operationsand the Domains of Conflict

The JOpsC and its subordinate Joint OperatingConcepts (JOCs), architectures, requirements, andcapabilities will encapsulate the vision of a trans-forming network-centric joint force and a capabili-ties-based defense strategy designed to attain the sixoperational goals established by the Secretary of


Figure 10. New Rules of Information Age Warfare

• Fight first for information superiority• Access to information – shared

awareness• Dynamic self-synchronization• Dispersed forces – noncontiguous

operations

• De-massed forces• Deep sensor reach• Compressed operations and levels of

war

• Speed of command

• Alter initial conditions at increasedrates of change

NETWORK-CENTRIC WARFARE

HIGH RATES OF CHANGE

CLOSELY COUPLED EVENTS

LOCK IN/OUT

SPEED OF COMMAND

SELF SYNCHRONIZATION

WHAT’S VALUEDNETWORKING

SENSING

ENVELOPE MANAGEMENT

SPEED/ENDURANCE

NUMBERS

RISK TOLERANCE

STAYING POWER

The New Rules

Defense. Additionally, the JOpsC will be expressed interms of the physical, information, and cognitivedomains of warfare. The required attributes andcapabilities of a new joint force capable of conduct-ing network-centric operations must be carefullyconsidered for each of these three domains:

• Physical Domain: The physical domain is thetraditional domain of warfare where force ismoved through time and space. It spans theland, sea, air, and space environments wheremilitary forces execute the range of militaryoperations and where the physical platformsand communications networks that connectthem reside. Comparatively, the elements of thisdomain are the easiest to measure, and conse-quently, combat power has traditionally beenmeasured in the physical domain.

• Information Domain: The information domainis the domain where information is created,manipulated, and shared. It is the domain thatfacilitates the communication of informationamong warfighters. It is where command andcontrol (C2) of military forces is communicatedand the commander’s intent is conveyed.Consequently, it is increasingly the informationdomain that must be protected and defended to

enable a force to generate combat power in theface of offensive actions by an adversary. Finally,in the all-important battle for information supe-riority, the information domain is ground zero.

• Cognitive Domain: The cognitive domain is inthe mind of the warfighter. This is the realm ofEBO. Battles, campaigns, and wars are won inthis domain. The intangibles of leadership,morale, unit cohesion, level of training andexperience, and situational awareness are ele-ments of this domain. This is the domain wherea commander’s intent, doctrine, tactics, tech-niques, and procedures reside. This is also wheredecisive battlefield concepts and tactics emerge.

As illustrated in Figure 11, the domain intersec-tions represent important, dynamic areas withinwhich concept-focused experimentation should beconducted. The precision force so vital to the con-duct of successful joint operations is created at theintersection of the information and physicaldomains. Shared awareness and tactical innovationoccur at the intersection between the informationand cognitive domains. Because many battles andcampaigns are actually won or lost in the cognitivedomain, this intersection is enormously important.The intersection between the physical and cognitive


Figure 11. Information Age Warfare . . . Domains of Conflict

ConveyedCommander's

Intent

Plan, Organize,Deploy, Employ, and

Sustain Cycle

Speed and Access

Network-CentricWarfare

PrecisionForce

SharedAwareness

CompressedOperations

InformationDomain

InformationAdvantage

PhysicalDomain

ForceAdvantage

CognitiveDomainDecision

Advantage

Continuous concept-focusedexperimentation (upstream

and downstream)at the domain intersections

domains is where the time compression and lock-out phenomenon occur, where tactics achieve oper-ational and even strategic effects, and where highrates of change are developed. NCW exists at thevery center where all three domains intersect.

Effects-Based Operations

In the emerging way of war, the development ofnetwork-centric organizations and the rapidly grow-ing capability of our forces to conduct network-cen-tric operations are not viewed as ends in themselves.Instead, they provide an essential means to an end,the conduct of EBO by U.S. forces. Unless our forcescan apply their network-centric capabilities to achievestrategic, operational, or tactical objectives, thesecapabilities will be of little value. On the other hand,without the network structure and the phenomenathat go on in network-centric operations, it will be farmore difficult, if not impossible, for U.S. forces to con-duct EBO against adversaries in future conflicts. Thepowerful combination of network-centric capabilitiesin the form of an effects-based approach to planningand execution will provide U.S. forces with the poten-tial to achieve the desired effects on the enemy’sbehavior.

EBO is not a new form of warfighting, nor does itdisplace any of the currently recognized forms of war-fare. Throughout history, decision-makers havesought to create conditions that would achieve theirobjectives and policy goals. Military commandersand planners have tried to plan and execute cam-paigns to create such favorable conditions—anapproach that would be considered “effects-based” intoday’s terminology. Rather than a new form of war-fare, EBO is a way of thinking or a methodology forplanning, executing, and assessing operationsdesigned to attain specific effects that are required toachieve desired national security outcomes.

The EBO methodology is a refinement or evolu-tion of the objectives-based planning methodologythat has been clearly and carefully incorporatedinto U.S. military doctrine over the last decade.Commanders and planners are expected to applythe EBO methodology to all operations, rangingfrom peacetime engagement and stability opera-tions to combating terrorism and major combatoperations.

EBO is not simply a mode of warfare at the tacti-cal level, nor is it purely military in nature. EBOencompasses the full range of political, military,and economic actions a nation might take to shape

the behavior of an enemy, of a would-be opponent,and even of allies and coalition partners. Theseactions may include the destruction of an enemy’sforces and capabilities. However, the objective ofan effects-based strategy, including the actions thatadvance it, is not to win a military campaign or awar through the physical attrition of the enemybut to induce an opponent or an ally or a neutral topursue a course of action consistent with our secu-rity interests.

The question of will is fundamental to both thesymmetric and asymmetric models of conflict but indifferent ways. In a symmetric, attrition-based con-flict, the destruction of the enemy’s physical capacityto wage war is the objective. In an asymmetric con-flict, the destruction is aimed at creating the desiredpsychological or cognitive effect. In the asymmetric,essentially effects-based contest, the objective is tobreak the will or otherwise shape the behavior of theenemy so that he no longer retains the will to fight, orto so disorient him that he can no longer fight orreact coherently. Although physical destructionremains a factor in EBO, it is the creation of such apsychological or cognitive effect that is the primaryfocus of the effects-based approach.

EBO is primarily about focusing knowledge, pre-cision, speed, and agility on the enemy decision-makers to degrade their ability to take coherentaction rather than conducting combat operations onmore efficient destruction of the enemy. The knowl-edge, precision, speed, and agility brought about bynetwork-centric operations provide the necessaryingredients for entry into the realm of EBO. In sum-mary, the combination of network-centric capabili-ties and an effects-based approach provides U.S.commanders and planners with a new potential forattacking the elements of the enemy’s will directly,thereby avoiding, or at least diminishing, ourreliance on sheer physical destruction.

Conclusion

Transformation is yielding new sources of power.Because the global pace of change is accelerating, newsources of power fuel our ability to maintain theadvantage in a competitive landscape where yester-day’s winner is tomorrow’s target. Our ability to capi-talize on new sources of power will determine, in part,our success in the future.

One such source is information sharing throughrobust network structures. The power of network-centric operations and EBO impacts all levels of mil-


itary operations from the tactical to the strategic.Although the order of magnitude changes that occuras a consequence of network activity may seemsomewhat abstract when compared with traditionalindustrial age measures of effectiveness, they arenevertheless quite real. The construct of an informa-tion advantage may seem somewhat intangible, butit can be measured and its impact on military opera-tions can be evaluated in terms of lethality, surviv-ability, and ultimately, mission effectiveness—coinsof the realm valued by warfighters across the ages.

When one considers the core logic of transforma-tion in light of the emerging international securityenvironment, it becomes clear that even as homelandsecurity remains our principal national security objec-tive, the preferred U.S. military strategic method is theprojection of power overseas and deterrence of poten-tial adversaries forward. As a matter of effectiveness,cost, and moral preference, operations will have toshift from being reactive (i.e., retaliatory and puni-tive) to being largely preventative or even, in certainsituations, preemptive.

The implications of “deter forward” necessitate amajor force posture review, rebalancing from thecurrent condition where more than 80 percent ofthe force is U.S.-based and virtually all of theCONUS-based Army, Air Force, and Marine Corpsunits and several key capability sets of the Navy arecompeting for access to the same finite strategic lift.Ultimately, a balance must be achieved amongstrategic deployment from home, forces forward,and reliance on allies. Accordingly, the emergingway of war, as developed by the U.S. Armed Forces,will feature the following:

• Increased focus on highly networked, small, butbroadly skilled and highly trained units whoseextensive local knowledge and easier insertiongive them greater power and utility than otherformations deploying from remote locations

• Expeditionary character: forces that are rapidlydeployable and capable of overcoming anti-accessor area-denial environments with seamless transi-tions from “deployment” to “employment”

• Forces capable of applying information-age tech-niques and technologies to urban warfare in orderto deny the enemy sanctuary

• Surveillance-oriented forces to counter WMD sothat unambiguous warning will not come too late

• Joint concepts that extend down through the tac-tical level of war

• Interagency capabilities for nation building andconstabulary operations, so that our forces do notget stuck in one place when they are needed inanother

• Adjustments in force structure and posture inconsideration of the growing homeland securityroles of the Coast Guard, the National Guard, andthe Reserves.

Adding these new capabilities to the U.S. militaryis not only a natural development but also a positiveone. For it is the United States’ continued success indeterring global war and reducing the likelihood ofstate-on-state war that will allow us to begin tacklingthe far thornier issues of transnational threats andsub-national conflicts—the battlegrounds on whichthe global war on terrorism will ultimately be won.


“The gravest danger our nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and tech-nology. . . . We will cooperate with other nations to deny, contain, and curtail our ene-mies’ efforts to acquire dangerous technologies. And, as a matter of common senseand self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they arefully formed.”

President George W. Bush,National Security Strategy,

September 2002

Director, Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense,1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000

www.oft.osd.mil

Date of Publication: Fall 2003

Cleared for public release by Department of Defense Directoratefor Freedom of Information and Security Review, 03-S-1851.

military transformation: a strategic approach - iws · military transformation: a strategic...

Documents