What do we mean by "transformation"? An exchange - defense policy, United States

Naval War College Review, Wntr, 2002 by Andrew L. Ross, Michele A. Flournoy, Cindy Williams, David Mosher

Nothing Comes Free

Ten years from now, keeping today's strategy, all of today's forces (equipped in the way that is currently planned), with today's infrastructure, is going to cost somewhere between thirty-five and fifty billion dollars a year more than it does today. However, it is possible instead to have strong forces and a military strategy that meet the challenges of this century instead of the last one, and to do so at today's, or even last year's, level of funding--that is, with a budget held constant for the next decade, adjusted only for inflation every year.

In fact, at least three possible military strategies and plans would allow the Defense Department to hold the line on defense budgets but at the same time to stimulate a significant degree of innovation, pursue a strong modernization program, and still pay the troops as currently planned. (*) Each of the three would produce a very strong military, certainly stronger than today's and probably stronger than the military we will have if we continue down the present path, even spending that extra thirty-five to fifty billion dollars. Of course, nothing comes free. Saving tens of billions of dollars means giving something up. In the three future plans I have looked at, the main engine of savings is force-structure reduction. Each of these three plans cuts forces that are less useful and keeps those that will be more useful in the world of the future. Each also makes modernization cutbacks in areas that do not fit in with its strategic concept.

Of these three plans, one would resonate with a naval audience, and also, I believe, with the Bush administration, much more than would the other two. It assumes that the dangerous fault line that existed on the Eurasian landmass, where Nato and the Warsaw Pact stared each other down across the inter-German border, is gone, more or less for good. Instead, it posits a need for more attention to Asia and the Pacific. It assumes that the United States enjoys overwhelming primacy today but that with that primacy come some pitfalls. One of them is that weaker, and poorer, countries who oppose us are going to look for the cheapest ways they can find to defeat our very expensive systems. That means mines, cheap submarines that operate in coastal waters, and man-portable air defenses--the kinds of things that are often referred to as "asymmetric threats." It assumes, as Michele Flournoy argues, that access to theaters is going to be increasingly difficult to come by.

On the basis of these assumptions, it emphasizes forces that can self-deploy-- especially maritime and space-based forces--more than the nation has emphasized them in the past. It tries through military means to avoid reliance on fixed bases and ports. It emphasizes weapons, techniques, and tactics to defeat other countries' cheap asymmetric threats. It recommends that the Army be cut back substantially and reorganized, but along the lines of the Army's own transformation proposals, and equipped with lighter and self-deploying forces. It recommends that the Air Force be reduced in size somewhat and that its fighters be made more easily deployable. It recommends that the Navy stay at its current size and suggests the innovative use of information technologies and other equipment that might allow us to defeat cheap asymmetric threats.