TRANSFORMATION FOR WHAT?

John P. White

December 2005

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FOREWORD

 Security transformation is vital for the United States to promote 

national security in rapidly changing times, but it is also a moving 

target. American policymakers and strategists must, on a regular 

basis, reassess the global security environment and the trajectory of 

transformation. One of the most significant of such reassessments 

is currently underway, driven by Operations IRAQI FREEDOM 

and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, continuing technological 

developments, budget constraints, and the debate associated with 

the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review.

 To provide senior defense leaders with ideas on security 

transformation, the Strategic Studies Institute has joined with 

the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard 

University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to bring together 

top experts on an annual basis. For the third meeting in this series—

held in November 2004—the National Defense University joined as 

a partner. The informed and free flowing debate at this conference 

generated a range of frank assessments and creative ideas about the 

status of security transformation.

 This report summarizes the debates and findings of the November 

session. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer it as a 

contribution to the ongoing debate on security transformation and 

the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

JOHN P. WHITE is Lecturer in Public Policy and Chair of the 

Kennedy School Middle East Initiative. He served as U.S. Deputy 

Secretary of Defense from 1995 to 1997, Deputy Director of the Office 

of Management and Budget from 1978 to 1981, Assistant Secretary of 

Defense, Manpower, Reserve Affairs and Logistics from 1977 to 1978, 

and as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps from 1959 to 

1961. Prior to his most recent government service, Dr. White was 

the Director of the Center for Business and Government at Harvard 

University and the Chair of the Commission on Roles and Missions 

of the Armed Forces. He holds a B.S. degree from Cornell University, 

and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the Maxwell Graduate 

School, Syracuse University.
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TRANSFORMATION FOR WHAT?

Key Insights.

 • Stability and reconstruction (S&R) operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have slowed the pace 

of the transformation programs. 

 • The government is making little progress in building an 

effective intergovernmental capacity for stability and 

reconstruction operations.

 • The Department of Defense (DoD) budget is unlikely to be 

adequate to meet both the needs of continuing operations and 

transformation during the coming years.

 • In light of the likely budget constraints, it is vital that DoD 

undertake a fundamental reassessment of the alignment of 

the force structure (especially expensive new platforms) to 

anticipated threats.

 • DoD has a vital role to play in homeland security but the 

department is not engaged in the interagency process and 

is not adequately planning for needed homeland security 

capabilities.

The Report.

 The third annual conference on security transformation was 

held on November 18-19, 2004, at the National Defense University 

(NDU). The conference was organized by the Belfer Center for 

Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard University’s 

John F. Kennedy School of Government. It brought together current 

and former defense officials and military commanders to discuss 

progress in achieving transformation of U.S. national security. The 

Army War College, NDU, and BCSIA sponsored the conference.

 The purpose of this annual conference is to examine progress in 

achieving national security transformation. The fundamental idea 

of transformation is that changes in the geopolitical environment 

and in technology require the United States to change dramatically 
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its defense enterprise to meet the range of new national security 

threats by adopting new technologies and operational procedures. 

Transformation affects DoD and all other agencies involved in 

national security. It is a broad concept that encompasses change in 

doctrine, technology, and business practices and should be seen as a 

continuous process.

 This year’s discussion centered on factors that are slowing the 

process of transformation: managing the stability and reconstruction 

(S&R) operations that are now on-going in Afghanistan and Iraq; the 

outlook for the defense budget; the implications of a change to the 

nature of the future threat on the future force structure; and slow 

progress on homeland security. 

Stability and Reconstruction Operations.

 The Operation IRAQI FREEDOM experience demonstrates 

the difficulty we continue to have in carrying out successful S&R 

operations. This deficiency is particularly serious because past 

evidence (in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo) suggests that Iraq 

is not the last time that our nation will be involved in peacemaking 

and peacekeeping operations. Astonishingly, we have not found a 

way to build an effective S&R capability that brings together the 

necessary elements of organization, resources, and operational 

control. A central difficulty is that successful S&R operations require 

the involvement of the Department of State as well as domestic 

agencies, for example, the Departments of Justice, Homeland 

Security, and Health and Human Services, with expertise in public 

health, public safety, infrastructure repair, and civil government. 

But these agencies currently do not have the authority, mission, and 

resources to participate in peacekeeping operations.

 At the conference, one presenter outlined a plausible way for the 

United States to achieve such a capability that involved establishing 

executive authority in the National Security Council for coordinating 

S&R efforts. A second presenter stressed the need to include 

peacekeeping considerations in advance of military operations 

(through the use of “soft power”) to ease the problems of posthostility occupation. It was noted that today’s enemy is intelligent, 

aggressive, and, most importantly, highly innovative. 
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 However, as the failure of passage of the Lugar-Biden legislation 

(that sought to authorize a modest step in creating an office in 

the Department of State devoted to coordinating post-conflict 

occupation) illustrates, no significant change should be anticipated 

soon. Little progress has been made since the last conference where 

we concluded that a better way is urgently needed for the United 

States to carry out peacekeeping operations. The absence of progress 

is more surprising since the attributes of a successful organization 

for stability are clear and well-acknowledged. They include:

 • A division of labor among the various agencies and a definition 

of the DoD role, with appropriate authorities and funding;

 • A mechanism for effective interagency cooperation;

 • Strong leadership at the center from the National Security 

Council and Office of Management and Budget;

 • A management concept for stability operations with someone 

in charge, including provision for international participation; 

and,

 • A program for building capacity, especially in domestic 

agencies, with an innovative focus.

 The S&R operations in Iraq and Afghanistan do have aspects that 

are helpful for modernization. Field operations give the opportunity 

for “little t” transformation based on quick adaptation to technology 

by operating forces. This adaptation is especially valuable because 

the transformation usually focuses on joint operations, the measures 

frequently are not costly, and the process circumvents the more 

cumbersome “big T” transformation process associated with 

new platforms. Various suggestions were made to strengthen the 

“little t” transformation process, for example, greater reliance on 

the acquisition system used by the Special Operations Command 

(SOCOM), and greater use of special limited acquisition authorities 

by joint commands to fund field “experiments.” Such changes would 

assure field trials of new systems before their final specification.
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Budget Outlook.

 Participants discussed at length the outlook for the defense 

budget. Although the United States can well afford devoting a 

larger share of the gross domestic product (GDP) to defense (and 

has consistently done so in the past), participants generally expected 

that defense budgets were unlikely to continue to grow, and indeed 

might decline. The external factors leading to this expectation of 

pressure on the defense budget were the twin budget and trade 

deficits, anticipated continued growth in nondiscretionary federal 

expenditures, reform of Social Security and other entitlement 

programs, and increased demand for discretionary spending, 

including for homeland security. 

 Also, internal pressures on the defense budget suggest that 

resources for the investment accounts—procurement and research 

and development (R&D)—will be constrained. These pressures 

include the apparently inexorable increase in operations and 

maintenance expenditures per soldier (in part due to continually 

growing benefits packages), the call for increased Army and 

Marine force strength for Iraq and beyond, the high cost of the Iraq 

deployment, and deferred cost of replacement and reconstitution 

of the equipment used in Iraq. Participants noted that a significant 

portion of the Army’s modernization program is being funded by 

supplementals to the DoD base budget. The supplements will cease 

when the Iraqi occupation ends, and the Army may well be left with 

unfunded modernization requirements. 

 Conference participants were skeptical, to varying degrees, that 

resources would be available to fund the currently programmed 

modernization programs, especially for costly platforms (ships, 

tactical aircraft) and the Army’s Future Combat System. Estimates 

varied, but one knowledgeable observer suggested a funding 

shortfall of 20 percent to 30 percent, based on current program cost 

estimates. Participants made suggestions of activities that should be 

terminated or missions that should be abandoned. One participant 

did suggest that the research, development, test, and evaluation 

budget may offer an opportunity for savings; this budget category 

has grown, especially because of large development programs. 
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 The choices that face us if the DoD budget does not continue to 

grow are all difficult:

 • Change the U.S. role in the world by reducing missions;

 • Renegotiate benefits in the all-volunteer force;

 • Reduce force structure; and,

 • Reduce the content of modernization programs.

Assessing the choices requires an inquiry about the composition and 

extent of forces needed to meet future threats. 

Alternative Force Postures.

 If resources are unlikely to be adequate to meet current force 

modernization plans, then it is necessary to examine the basis of 

the need for the forces. Participants generally agreed that such an 

examination has not been undertaken recently; however, they did 

not directly address possible alternative force structures or the pros 

and cons of the force structure implicit in the current DoD 5-year 

financial plan. There were several important interventions about 

the need to examine whether the current force structure properly 

meets the needs of realistic future security threats. This situation 

underscores the need for a fundamental review of the future mission 

set, post-Iraq, and implications for the future force structure and 

joint warfighting systems. In particular, a better balance between 

expensive new platforms and network centric systems is needed and 

necessary to meet these future threats. 

 The mandated Quadrennial Defense Review that is due in 2005 is 

seen as having become a bureaucratic exercise in which the services 

and other DoD elements work to defend their programs and 

interests rather than a forum for examining the fundamental basis 

of the defense posture: the relationship of forces to likely future 

threats and security missions. For example, what will be needed for 

counterterrorism and peacekeeping operations relative to the need 

for broad based deterrence and conventional combat capabilities? 
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Homeland Security.

 All agreed on the urgent necessity for the country to counter 

terrorism and increase our homeland security. Last year, our 

discussion noted that while establishment of the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) was the single most important step 

that the government has taken to meet the threat of catastrophic 

terrorism, considerable time and effort would be required to build 

an integrated capability that involved both domestic and national 

security agencies. This year, one knowledgeable participant argued 

that progress in mounting a coordinated effort has proven slower 

than expected, in large part because of DoD’s failure to engage 

seriously in its role in homeland security. It appears that the current 

DoD leadership has decided, perhaps because of the pressure of Iraq 

or perhaps fearing a raid on the DoD budget, not to engage actively 

in the government-wide process to strengthen homeland security, 

other than through force protection. 

 We must conclude that, as yet, there is no agreement on what 

the DoD’s role will be in homeland security or, in DoD terms, 

homeland defense. There are many examples where DoD can and 

must play a role: (1) terminal air defense within CONUS, (2) longrange maritime interdiction beyond Coast Guard capabilities, (3) 

participation in high stress hostage rescue teams’ (HRTs) operations, 

(4) contributions to domestic threat intelligence using approved DoD 

sources of investigatory information, (5) protecting critical facilities 

in high threat circumstances, and, most importantly, (6) assistance in 

the response to an act of catastrophic terrorism, should it occur. 

Other Defense Transformational Issues.

 The conference addressed a number of additional transformational issues. Annually, we address Intelligence Support to Military 

Operations. This year’s discussion was refreshing because it did not 

address organizational issues and because the two presentations 

highlighted, by comparison with other topics, the progress and 

capability of intelligence support to military operations. One 

presentation defined the shift in the paradigm for distributing 

intelligence from an “information push” to a web-based, internal 
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protocol, “demand pull” approach. The arrangement requires high 

bandwidth downlinks and lower bandwidth uplinks to hundreds of 

reception points that, in turn, connect to local area networks. This shift 

permits military commanders to draw on intelligence information 

pertinent to their particular responsibilities. The new approach 

offers the consumer the opportunity to specify what information is 

of interest, while still permitting higher echelons of intelligence to 

“push” new information with which the consumer is not familiar 

through direct broadcast satellites. 

 The success of intelligence support to military operations is an 

example of what can be achieved by transformation. The advances 

that have come in the last 10 years reflect the change in the technology 

balance between collection and the functions for tasking, processing, 

exploiting, and communicating intelligence to military users. It is 

noteworthy that this capability is available as support to military 

operations, but does not exist as yet, at least to the same degree, for 

support to national, i.e. non-DoD, intelligence users, or to homeland 

security users.

 Several participants raised concerns regarding weapons of mass 

destruction. Some observed that, if keeping the worst weapons out of 

the worst hands is a high priority, it seems that we may be focusing 

on the worst people, but not doing much about the worst weapons.

 The participants agreed that the transformation process must 

cover the full spectrum of operations from concept development and 

experimentation through the acquisition process to new concepts of 

military operations in the field.

The Army’s Problem.

 The conference heard a good deal about how the Army 

was approaching the three challenges of (1) managing the Iraq 

deployment, (2) reconfiguring Army forces to be more responsive to 

the various contingencies that arise, and (3) planning and providing 

resources for transformation to a future combat system that assures 

strategic dominance. Participants were uniformly impressed by the 

description of the Army’s shift to “modular forces” that permits 

more flexible and rapid assembly of “units of action” tailored to 

particular contingencies. The Army is also giving considerable 
8

attention to streamlining logistics and finding the best way to carry 

out spiral development in the evolution to the future combat system. 

The difficulty is that the Army is under-resourced, and it is unlikely 

to meet the three challenges cited above unless it receives a larger 

share of DoD’s total obligational authority.

DoD Personnel Initiatives.

 The Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness delivered an 

informative presentation about personnel initiatives of DoD for 

both the civilian and uniformed workforce. It seems that, up to the 

present, both military recruitment and retention rates of the services 

are remaining firm for the active duty forces. Participants discussed 

the prospects of reducing growing benefit costs and expressed 

differing views about the importance of benefits to maintaining the 

quality of the force. They noted that the Reserve and National Guard 

are experiencing significant change resulting from frequent call-ups 

for S&R operations and from the requirements of homeland security. 

Dr. Chu described a number of initiatives that are underway to adjust 

the management of the reserve forces to meet current requirements. 

Participants did not support the possibility of abandoning the AllVolunteer Force.

The Defense Industry.

 A presentation of the state of the defense industrial base and DoD 

defense industry policy as it relates to transformation prompted 

much interest. The move to network centric warfare and the growing 

concern with counterterrorism and S&R operations indicate a shift 

away from platforms that have been the central focus of the large 

defense contractors. 

 The management of transformation programs is changing. 

DoD is less able to handle the technical and contracting aspects of 

intensive networking in information technology; command, control, 

communications and computing, intelligence, surveillance and 

reconnaissance (C4ISR); and joint warfighting projects that are at 

the heart of transformation. The result is that DoD has been placing 

greater reliance on major contractors to lead system integration 
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contracts and federally funded research and development 

corporations (FFRDCs) to manage system design and technology 

selection for new programs. This marks a shift in responsibilities of 

traditional government functions to industry. It is a critical aspect 

of DoD acquisition policy that has not been adequately debated and 

deserves attention. 

 The defense industry is also becoming increasingly concerned 

about the health of the civilian defense industry workforce. 

Progressive restrictions on defense industry practices—buy 

American, export control regulations, the requirement for a U.S. 

citizen workforce at both prime and subcontractors at a time when 

the number of U.S. citizens graduating with science and engineering 

degrees is declining, the shortage and delays in granting security 

clearances for the workforce—create inefficiency in the industry and 

make it progressively less attractive for our most talented young 

people. 

 An additional problem—mentioned at earlier conferences—is the 

restrictive technology transfer policies of DoD. One might assume that 

at this time the country’s security interest and the defense industry’s 

business interest were aligned toward encouraging the transfer of 

transformation technologies to our allies and vice versa. In fact, 

technology transfer has become more restrictive, and the restrictions 

encourage the Europeans to pursue more costly independent 

development instead of cooperating with U.S. firms. Major revisions 

of our technology transfer and export control policies are certainly in 

order. However, few participants believed that Congress will agree 

to change what amounts to a thinly disguised protectionist policy. 

Concluding Remarks.

 The conference highlighted many aspects of security transformation, both positive and negative. Conference participants were 

disappointed with the overall progress being made. But more telling 

was the collective sense that we are not pursuing solutions broadly 

enough in the full spectrum of military operations or deeply enough 

in the technological and organizational responses to changing 

requirements. After Iraq, what will DoD’s goals be and how will 

they be fulfilled?