Buying Military Transformation

Buying Military Transformation

Author: Peter J. Dombrowski

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 023113570X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Buying Military Transformation, Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz analyze the United States military's ongoing effort to capitalize on information technology. New ideas about military doctrine derived from comparisons to Internet Age business practices can be implemented only if the military buys technologically innovative weapons systems. Buying Military Transformation examines how political and military leaders work with the defense industry to develop the small ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, advanced communications equipment, and systems-of-systems integration that will enable the new military format. Dombrowski and Gholz's analysis integrates the political relationship between the defense industry and Congress, the bureaucratic relationship between the firms and the military services, and the technical capabilities of different types of businesses. Many government officials and analysts believe that only entrepreneurial start-up firms or leaders in commercial information technology markets can produce the new, network-oriented military equipment. But Dombrowski and Gholz find that the existing defense industry will be best able to lead military-technology development, even for equipment modeled on the civilian Internet. The U.S. government is already spending billions of dollars each year on its "military transformation" program-money that could be easily misdirected and wasted if policymakers spend it on the wrong projects or work with the wrong firms. In addition to this practical implication, Buying Military Transformation offers key lessons for the theory of "Revolutions in Military Affairs." A series of military analysts have argued that major social and economic changes, like the shift from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age, inherently force related changes in the military. Buying Military Transformation undermines this technologically determinist claim: commercial innovation does not directly determine military innovation; instead, political leadership and military organizations choose the trajectory of defense investment. Militaries should invest in new technology in response to strategic threats and military leaders' professional judgments about the equipment needed to improve military effectiveness. Commercial technological progress by itself does not generate an imperative for military transformation. Clear, cogent, and engaging, Buying Military Transformation is essential reading for journalists, legislators, policymakers, and scholars.


Hope Is Not a Method

Hope Is Not a Method

Author: Gordon R. Sullivan

Publisher: Currency

Published: 1997-09-02

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 076790060X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States Army has been reengineered and downsized more thoroughly than any other business. In the early 1990s, General Sullivan, army chief of staff, and Colonel Harper, his key strategic planner, took the post-Cold War army into the Information Age. Faced with a 40 percent reduction in staff and funding, they focused on new peacetime missions, dismantled a cumbersome bureaucracy, reinvented procedures, and set the guidelines for achieving a vast array of new goals. Hope Is Not a Method explains how they did it and shows how their experience is extremely relevant to today's businesses. From how to stay on top of long-range issues to how to maintain a productive work force during times of change, it offers invaluable lessons in leadership and provides proven tactics any business can implement.


DoD Digital Modernization Strategy

DoD Digital Modernization Strategy

Author: Department of Defense

Publisher:

Published: 2019-07-12

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 9781081748562

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The global threat landscape is constantly evolving and remaining competitive and modernizing our digital environment for great power competition is imperative for the Department of Defense. We must act now to secure our future.This Digital Modernization Strategy is the cornerstone for advancing our digital environment to afford the Joint Force a competitive advantage in the modern battlespace.Our approach is simple. We will increase technological capabilities across the Department and strengthen overall adoption of enterprise systems to expand the competitive space in the digital arena. We will achieve this through four strategic initiatives: innovation for advantage, optimization, resilient cybersecurity, and cultivation of talent.The Digital Modernization Strategy provides a roadmap to support implementation of the National Defense Strategy lines of effort through the lens of cloud, artificial intelligence, command, control and communications and cybersecurity.This approach will enable increased lethality for the Joint warfighter, empower new partnerships that will drive mission success, and implement new reforms enacted to improve capabilities across the information enterprise.The strategy also highlights two important elements that will create an enduring and outcome driven strategy. First, it articulates an enterprise view of the future where more common foundational technology is delivered across the DoD Components. Secondly, the strategy calls for a Management System that drives outcomes through a metric driven approach, tied to new DoD CIO authorities granted by Congress for both technology budgets and standards.As we modernize our digital environment across the Department, we must recognize now more than ever the importance of collaboration with our industry and academic partners. I expect the senior leaders of our Department, the Services, and the Joint Warfighting community to take the intent and guidance in this strategy and drive implementation to achieve results in support of our mission to Defend the Nation.


The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76

The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76

Author: Robert A. Doughty

Publisher:

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.


Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century

Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century

Author: Australian Government - Department of Defence - Defence Publishing Service

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780642297020

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This new Defence White Paper explains how the Government plans to strengthen the foundations of Australia's defence. It sets out the Government's plans for Defence for the next few years, and how it will achieve those plans. Most importantly, it provides an indication of the level of resources that the Government is planning to invest in Defence over coming years and what the Government, on behalf of the Australian people, expects in return from Defence. Ultimately, armed forces exist to provide Governments with the option to use force. Maintaining a credible defence capability is a crucial contributor to our security, as it can serve to deter potential adversaries from using force against us or our allies, partners and neighbours.


Transformation planning guidance

Transformation planning guidance

Author:

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 39

ISBN-13: 1428980393

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The United States is transitioning from an industrial age to an information age military. This transition requires transformation in warfighting and the way we organize to support the warfighter. Although the end-state of transformation cannot be fully defined in advance, we do know some of the necessary prerequisites for transformation. In particular, we know that early transformation requires exploiting information technology to reform defense business practices and to create new combinations of capabilities, operating concepts, organizational relationships and training regimes. Successful transformation of U.S. military forces and Department of Defense (DoD) processes requires a strategy with clear objectives. Effective implementation of the strategy requires commitment and attention from the Department's senior leadership and clearly assigned roles and responsibilities. This document communicates the Department's strategy for transformation and assigns senior leader roles and responsibilities to ensure implementation of the strategy. Senior leadership commitment to transformation will mobilize the rest of the Department and stimulate the bottom-up innovation required for successful transformation. Effective implementation of the transformation strategy is an essential prerequisite for strategic management of the Defense program. It will allow the Department to define transformation investments that address future risk with enough specificity that they can be balanced against the other three primary risk areas identified in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR): force management, operational, and institutional risk.