Posted on 02/15/2003 12:14:29 PM PST by uncbuck
Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after changes occur."—Guilio Douhet
When the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor in 1941, they shattered more than the silence of a peaceful Sunday morning; they destroyed the illusion that U.S. military forces were safe at home. During the three-and-a-half years that followed, a world war transformed the U.S. armed forces into a first-rate military. The urgency of fighting a global conflict propelled the genius of Americans to make this transformation a reality.
In a similar manner, the events of 11 September 2001 shattered the illusion that Americans are safe at home. Today, we have the same imperative to transform our military forces to defeat the new threats of the 21st century and protect our nation. Transformation cannot wait—it must take place as we wage the war on terrorism. In his 11 December 2001 remarks at the Citadel, President George W. Bush summed up this challenge: "It's like overhauling an engine while driving 80 miles per hour. Yet we have no choice."
If the U.S. armed forces are to meet the President's expectations, those of us in uniform must have a common understanding of what transformation is and what it is not. Transformation is a process and a mind-set. Adopting a transformational mind-set means applying current fielded capabilities—in the current environment—to accomplish any assigned mission. In today's dynamic world, no armed service's core competencies can accomplish the mission alone. Transformation unites unique service capabilities into a seamless joint framework to accomplish the joint force commander's objectives.
To achieve transformation, the war fighters must understand its intellectual, cultural, and technological elements. The most important breakthroughs will take place between the ears of war fighters and planners. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardmen, and Department of Defense civilians must know their units' technical and operational capabilities. Joint leaders must comprehend the joint force commander's intent and adapt their capabilities—sometimes in an unanticipated environment—to fulfill that intent. They must understand the probable employment of their unit and appreciate its possible employment. In some cases, transformation may mean reaching beyond doctrine—because doctrine may not have described the specific scenario faced by the war fighter. As a result, transformation involves taking operational risks.
Military professionals should not be reckless, however. Commanders and leaders must weigh the options in the context of the ultimate objective. Transformation also means encouraging and rewarding subordinates to take educated and calculated risks. Key to this process is the obligation not to punish subordinates when creative initiatives fail.
During World War II, General George Kenney personified transformation's intellectual element. He adapted the capabilities of the 5th Air Force in the Southwest Pacific Theater to meet General Douglas MacArthur's objectives. In one example, during August 1943, General Kenney employed B-25 bombers to strafe the Japanese airfield at Nadzab in advance of an airborne assault. He then used A-20 Havoc attack aircraft to lay a smokescreen to shield the paratroopers as they descended on the airfield. This innovative use of bombers and attack aircraft allowed U.S. forces to quickly seize the airfield. General Kenney comprehended the potential of his forces and employed them in an imaginative way. He matched his forces' capabilities to the mission and environment—rather than trying to make the environment fit his preconceived notions.
Transformation's second element involves the operating culture within and among military units and services. U.S. military cultures are reinforced by tested checklists and proven tactics, techniques, and procedures. It is a comfortable environment of known quantities, familiar faces, and common verbal shorthand. Transforming the U.S. military means operating in new ways and sometimes with untested procedures. When a new idea surfaces, we first should evaluate its merits. The new idea may not work, but it never should be dismissed because it has not been considered before. Success in embracing the required cultural change will be driven by the joint war fighters' trust and confidence in each other.
In the past, trust and confidence among service components made the difference in combat. In World War II, Generals Joseph Lawton ("Lightning Joe") Collins and Elwood R. ("Pete") Quesada demonstrated what is possible when warriors extend trust across component boundaries. Following the breakout at St. Lo, France, Generals Collins and Quesada created a shortcut in the targeting procedures to support VII Corps' exploitation of the fluid battlefield. General Quesada gave some of his pilots FM radios and had them ride with the lead Army tanks. In the process, they reduced the role of the upper chain of command. Generals Collins and Quesada delegated the target approval to the lowest level—to the warriors facing the enemy.
No one told these soldiers they had to do this. These commanders assumed risk. Without approved procedures or prescriptive doctrine, Generals Quesada and Collins demonstrated flexibility and adaptability. They succeeded because they trusted each other's judgment and experience. As a result, they accomplished the mission and saved American lives. As Army combat historian S. L. A. Marshall wrote in his 1947 Men against Fire, "Improvisation is the essence of initiative in all combat." To succeed in the crucible of combat often requires warriors to adopt innovative approaches.
Planning Reflects 21st-Century Threats
The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review marked a complete departure from Cold War planning. In this document, the Defense Department articulated a more sophisticated appreciation of the 21st-century strategic environment, the challenges to U.S. interests, and what military capabilities are needed.
Today, the threats to U.S. interests go beyond Iraq and North Korea. Political, ethnic, social, and historical factors have given rise to a range of conflict and crisis—from ethnic fighting to mass starvation and massacres—and disparities in resources and populations remain powerful motivators for future intra- and interstate strife. In addition, religious and cultural differences, some reflecting ancient hatreds, can cause additional crises around the globe.
Belligerents motivated by this wide array of influences now have access to modern conventional arms markets, a sophisticated industrial production infrastructure, and advanced communications. Advanced production capabilities also mean that hostile nations and agents might have access to weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, chemical, biological, and radiological. In addition, the global $3-trillion communications network allows previously isolated groups to communicate instantly worldwide and to access a wide array of information and intelligence, at little relative cost.
The past U.S. monopoly on the latest and most sophisticated capabilities is gone.
Technology is the third element of transformation. For fiscal year 2003, the Department of Defense has requested nearly $128 billion for current and future weapon systems and capabilities. The department must invest in the right capabilities that reinforce its ability to perform the unexpected and master emerging challenges of the 21st century. To be successful, these capabilities must allow joint commanders to integrate our service capabilities.
In the past, joint warfare was segregated warfare. Desert Storm is an example of a successful campaign that had sectored operations. Air operations kicked things off and lasted 38 days. When ground combat began, U.S. Marines attacked in a path along the Kuwait coast; the Arab Coalition forces assaulted the middle sector; and the U.S. VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps swept around the western flank. Close air support sorties during the ground war were employed beyond the sight of the troops they supported. These are a few examples of how we segregated and sequenced our efforts. Instead of integration, it was deconfliction.
In the future, the joint war fighters must meld component capabilities into a seamless joint framework. The key to this effort will be shared information among the components. That is what Generals Quesada and Collins did by having an aviator with a radio accompany the lead tanks. Transformational technologies are an area of great promise for integrated information sharing across service boundaries. Still, such technological solutions must be applied in an environment of trust.
Interoperable and integrated command, control, communication, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) suites are critical. Joint ISR will allow our commanders to "watch" the enemy. Enhanced joint command and control will allow joint commanders to make decisions faster with other members of the joint force. Horizontal and vertical integration of plans and operations will occur at all levels. Moving data faster is no longer the issue—getting the right data to the right people is. When this is achieved, components gain the insight needed to fulfill the commander's intent in an unpredictable environment. Improved joint C4ISR will allow U.S. forces to exploit a decision cycle—to observe, decide, and act—faster than an adversary. And as history documents, the side that does this faster, wins.
Improved C4ISR connectivity is more than a military issue. It must extend to information and knowledge sharing with other federal agencies and with U.S. coalition partners. The war on terrorism has demonstrated that all instruments of national power perform best when they have access to the best available and the most complete information.
Investing in the right new capabilities requires the Defense Department to ensure that new systems are "born joint" to share information with the other services' systems. Acquisition of service-centric technologies risks segregating the battlefield. To ensure that the systems are born joint, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are developing a Joint Capstone Concept to better describe how we will operate across the range of military operations and to better evaluate how individual service capabilities fit into the joint operational framework.
What Transformation Is Not
Transformation is not just about technology. It is not about wheeled versus tracked vehicles, stealthier aircraft, or the types of missiles on submarines. It is not about 20th-century forces being renamed with 21st-century titles. Such approaches risk reducing important concepts to a budget drill. These mind-sets inspire service program managers to declare their programs “transformational” and therefore safe in the budget process. This singular mentality reduces transformation efforts to rear-guard actions to defend rice bowls.
Transformation is not just about seeking revolutionary changes in the conduct of warfare. Sudden and dramatic changes do occur. Nuclear weapons and stealth technology are examples of previous remarkable changes. Silver-bullet solutions, however, are rare and should not be our sole focus.
The Way Ahead
Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) is an ideal facilitator for the intellectual, cultural, and technological mind-set changes we need to inspire our transformation efforts. JPME must reinforce within the U.S. military—both in the officer and senior noncommissioned ranks—the mental agility to understand service and unit capabilities and match them with the mission at hand. A revamped JPME system must foster an ability and a desire to look forward and anticipate future conflict. This requires an approach much different from one that develops the ability to look back and recite past solutions. A transformed JPME system must teach our leaders not what to think, but how to think, and it must foster a culture that accepts intelligent, calculated risk. Most important, JPME must inculcate a culture of understanding and trust among the leaders of the services and agencies.
A transformed JPME requires reforming our intermediate and senior service schools, incorporating new and focused education for our general and flag officers, and offering joint educational and training opportunities for junior officers and senior noncommissioned officers who have not received them before. These reforms will proceed beyond formal education and training opportunities and include how the U.S. armed forces "grow" senior general and flag officers. Joint task force commanders and regional combatant commanders must have an array of leaders with a full understanding of how to integrate the joint team prior to a crisis, when the lives of servicemen and -women are at risk and the mission's success hangs in the balance.
The idea that education must match the demands of the security environment is not new. When President Theodore Roosevelt accelerated the transformation of the U.S. armed forces from a frontier army and coastal navy at the turn of the 20th century, he and his Secretary of War, Elihu Root, placed a premium on the education of the officers who would lead the new forces. Roosevelt's administration matched the procurement of 16 new battleships by expanding West Point and starting the Army War College to educate the officers who would lead the armed forces. Following this model, we know that current and future commanders must have the same intellectual capital to match the technological marvels this nation provides for its defense.
Because of the terrorist attacks in September 2001, we must accelerate our efforts to gain transformation's potential for our new security environment. We cannot wait until the war on terrorism is finished. The joint team needs transformation's agility and responsiveness to defeat those who threaten our nation, our citizens, and our liberties. The United States no longer has the luxury of time to prepare.
I challenge the readers of Proceedings to build on what I have presented. Share your ideas of how transformation applies to our nation's maritime and joint forces. If you think you know a better way to define the potential and promise of transformation, enter the forum. If you send copies of what you write to me, I will get back to you. Do not sit on the sidelines and think that others are responsible for transforming our forces to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Your ideas can and will make a difference. Transformation's result is a dramatically better joint force.
General Myers became the 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 1 October 2001.
This is the most important statement in the article, but the rest is interesting.
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