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updated/reviewed 5 Jan 2010
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QuotesBack to Top

  • "When you're finished changing, you're finished."
    --- Benjamin Franklin

  • "Fortune favors the prepared mind."
    --- Louis Pasteur

  • "The Future is already here. (It is just not uniformly distributed.)."
    --- William Gibson

  • "Adherence to dogmas has destroyed more armies and cost more battles than anything in war."
    --- J.F.C. Fuller

  • "Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur."
    --- Giulio Douhet

  • "If there is one attitude more dangerous than to assume that a future war will be just like the last one, it is to imagine that it will be so utterly different that we can afford to ignore all the lessons of the last one."
    --- MRAF Sir John C. Slessor

  • "The talk you hear about adapting to change is not only stupid, it's dangerous. The only way you can manage change is to create it."
    --- Peter Drucker

  • "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
    --- Charles Darwin

  • "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
    --- George Bernard Shaw

  • Full fathom five thy father lies;
    Of his bones are coral made;
    Those are pearls that were his eyes:
    Nothing of him that doth fade
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.
    --- Ariel, singing to Ferdinand, in Shakespeare's Tempest

GeneralBack to Top NATOBack to Top Joint/DoDBack to Top
  • See also Strategic Visions - U.S., DoD, & services

  • See also U.S. National Defense Strategy and National Military Strategy

  • Transformation - DoD - apparently this is the current page
  • DoD - Transforming the U.S. Military - this page appears to not have material from later than 2003

  • U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) - leading the transformation of the US military
    • What Is Transformation? - DoD goals below
      • Protect the U.S. homeland and our forces overseas
      • Project and sustain power in distant theatres
      • Deny our enemies sanctuary
      • Protect our own information networks from attack
      • Use information technology to link up different kinds of U.S. forces so they can fight jointly
      • Maintain unhindered access to space and protect our space capabilities from enemy attack

  • DoD Office of Force Transformation - check here for DoD roadmaps to future

  • Changing military culture key to transformation (local copy), 7 Oct 04 notes from interview with Gen Myers
    • The most important area for transformation is the space "between our warfighters' ears," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
    • Gen. Richard B. Myers addressed the need for servicemembers and Department of Defense civilians to transform the way they think. He said DOD people need to be more agile, innovative and not afraid to take appropriate chances.
    • The way the military has trained and educated leaders is a hurdle that must be overcome, the chairman said.
    • "We have to create a new generation of leaders who are not constrained by what the doctrine says," he said.
    • "In today's world, there ought to be a premium for people who are thinking, innovative and are willing to take appropriate risks," he said. "If you don't try, and you stay locked in the doctrine that brought you there, you're going to fail. You are not going to be as good as you can be in terms of efficiency in the battlespace, and you're probably going to hurt your people. You've got to adapt."
    • General Myers said the U.S. Joint Forces Command is the epicenter of transformation in the U.S. military.
    • "In fact, given the threats we face, we have to take a hard look at how we're organized and how we should be organized," he said.
    • The chairman said people are working hard at changing the culture. "But it's a big ship and not much of a rudder," he said. "It's tough to turn the ship in the direction it needs to go."
    • On the battlefield, people will be as innovative as they have to be in order to be successful. "We have to make sure we support that," General Myers said. "It's a formula for disaster if we don't do this transformation."

  • The Top 100 Rules of the New American Way of War (local copy), by Barnett and Gaffney, posted at the NewRuleSets.Project at Naval War College

  • Transformation Begins With Leadership (local copy) - report on 11 Feb 04 speech by DoD's director of force transformation
    • "One of the great rules for transformation," he [Cebrowski] said, "is if you want to transform go where the money is and on arrival, change the rules. That's what we have to do.
    • Leaders must be willing to "devalue" things, said Cebrowski.
    • First and foremost, cultural change is a leadership issue, said the transformation chief. "Culture is what leaders believe and how leaders behave."

  • Integrating Innovation, Leadership, and Cultural Change (local copy), 21 Oct 03 presentation by Garstka at transformation workshop

  • Rumsfeld Tells Congress Changes Needed to Increase Flexibility (local copy)
      "Today, we estimate we have some 320,000 uniformed people doing nonmilitary jobs, yet we are calling up reserves to fight the global war on terror."

  • Special Briefing on Force Transformation (local copy), 27 Nov 2001, by Arthur K. Cebrowski, Director, Force Transformation

  • DoD Directive 5100.1, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components, 01 Aug 2002 -- with organizational and semantic changes to DoD and the services -- "Cancels DoD Directive 5100.1, September 25, 1987; and Promulgates the functions of the Department of Defense and its major components according to Title 10, United States Code" (local copy)

  • Joint and Service Visions of the Future

  • Deputy SecDef Wolfowitz Testimony to the Senate on Transformation, 9 Apr Jan 02, (local copy)
    • three key points
      1. transformation is about changing the military culture into one that encourages innovation and intelligent risk taking
      2. although we now face the enormous challenge of winning the global war on terrorism, we must also address the equally large challenge of preparing our forces for the future
      3. our overall goal is to encourage a series of transformations that, in combination, can produce a revolutionary increase in our military capability and redefine how war is fought
    • four important new directions set in the QDR
      1. move away from the two Major Theater War (MTW) force planning construct
      2. a new framework for assessing risk
      3. shift planning from "threat-based" model to "capabilities-based" model
      4. determine what the strategic and operational challenges and the goals to address them might be
    • four categories of risk
      1. force management risks dealing with how we sustain our people, equipment, and infrastructure
      2. operational risks dealing with the ability of our forces to accomplish the missions called for in near-term military plans
      3. future challenges risks dealing with the investments and changes needed today to permit us to deal with military challenges of the more distant future
      4. institutional risks involved with inefficient processes and excessive support requirements that jeopardize our ability to use resources efficiently
    • six transformation goals identified in the QDR
      1. First, to defend the U.S. homeland and other bases of operations, and defeat nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery
      2. Second, to deny enemies sanctuary-depriving them of the ability to run or hide-anytime, anywhere
      3. Third, to project and sustain forces in distant theaters in the face of access denial threats
      4. Fourth, to conduct effective operations in space
      5. Fifth, to conduct effective information operations; and,
      6. Sixth, to leverage information technology to give our joint forces a common operational picture.
    • accelerating cultural change and fostering innovation

  • SecDef speech on Transformation, 31 Jan 02 (local copy)
    • ... more realistic and balanced assessment of our near-term warfighting needs.
      • Instead of maintaining two occupation forces, we will place greater emphasis on deterrence in four critical theaters, backed by the ability to swiftly defeat two aggressors at the same time, while preserving the option for one massive counter-offensive to occupy an aggressor's capital and replace the regime.
    • To prepare for the future,
      • we also decided to move away from the so-called threat-based strategy that had dominated our country's defense planning for nearly a half-century and adopt what we characterized as a capability-based strategy, one that focuses less on who might threaten us or where we might be threatened, and more on how we might be threatened and what we need to do to deter and defend against such threats.
    • ... must be focused on achieving six transformational goals:
      1. protect the U.S. homeland and our bases overseas
      2. project and sustain power in distant theaters
      3. deny our enemies sanctuary
      4. protect our information networks from attack
      5. use information technology to link up different kinds of U.S. forces so that they can in fact fight jointly
      6. maintain unhindered access to space and protect our space capabilities from enemy attack
    • And we must transform not only our armed forces, but also the Department that serves them by encouraging a culture of creativity and intelligent risk taking.

Air ForceBack to Top ArmyBack to Top NavyBack to Top
  • See also Navy vision documents

  • Naval Transformation Roadmap, 2003

  • Submarine Innovation, Navy Submarine Warfare Division

  • "Outliers" program at the Naval Postgraduate School
    • Outliers is the new forum for the visionary, revolutionary, controversial and even heretical ideas for military innovation that are not easily incorporated into traditional military-sanctioned briefs or publications. We provide a way for masterful and ingenious ideas to be heard and create a process for their discussion and profiling in the mainstream of society.

MarineBack to Top Coast GuardBack to Top LogisticsBack to Top SpaceBack to Top Key Documents and GuidanceBack to Top Innovation Adoption - Diffusion Model(s)Back to Top Adaptive Learning OrganizationsBack to Top Books, Articles, etc.Back to Top

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