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Analysis: Pentagon: Stalled Transformation

Council on Foreign Relations

October 26, 2006
Prepared by: Michael Moran

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his senior staff rarely miss an opportunity to tout “transformation,” the idea that the U.S. military must move away from weapons platforms, organizational structures, and doctrines designed for the Cold War toward a more nimble, high-tech, and cost-effective future. This idea won early support from candidate George W. Bush, who signed on to the “next generation military” vision in a 1999 speech at The Citadel.

Since 9/11, however, the “new architecture of American defense” promised by Bush and Rumsfeld necessarily took a back seat to operational realities—first in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. Rumsfeld insists—as he did just last month—that the wars actually complement transformation efforts. But critics, including many high-ranking officers involved in the Iraq planning and combat effort, say the secretary’s zeal to show what a “smaller, more lethal” force can do created the post-war collapse of authority in Iraq . The clash of this vision and Iraq’s reality is chronicled in depth by Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor in their book, Cobra II.

Questions have also been raised about the need for expensive new classes of destroyers and cruisers for the Navy. The General Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog, and others questioned the need for two separate, expensive high-performance fighter jets, the F/A-22 (PDF) and F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter” (PDF), when those in the current U.S. inventory are matched by no foreign foe. "Why is the Pentagon still throwing money (LAT) into high-tech gadgets of dubious utility while ignoring the glaring imperative for more boots on the ground?" asks Max Boot, CFR’s senior fellow on military affairs.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.