CHALLENGING TRANSFORMATION’S CLICHÉS

Antulio J. Echevarria II

December 2006

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ISBN 1-58487-266-7
iii

FOREWORD

Most of the ideas underpinning the foundation of 

American defense policy and military strategy today 

were once new and untested concepts at the edge of 

strategic thought. Critical thinkers had to analyze and 

refine those ideas so the defense community could 

apply them in strategy and force development. This is 

an ongoing process: new ideas emerge, are tested, and 

adopted, revised, or discarded.

To aid the process of identifying and examining 

new ideas and concepts, the Strategic Studies Institute 

publishes a special series called “Advancing Strategic 

Thought.” This series offers a forum for putting forth 

original and innovative concepts and perspectives 

concerning national security policy and military strategy. 

Yet, it also challenges accepted notions which might have 

become part of the foundation of American defense policy 

a bit too quickly. All of this is done, again, in the interest 

of advancing strategic thought.

The following monograph by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria 

II challenges some of the accepted notions that have 

become foundational to contemporary theories of military 

transformation. The larger point in Dr. Echevarria’s view 

is that any endeavor as resource-intensive as military 

transformation is too important to rest on uncontested 

truths.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer 

this analytical study as part of its series dedicated to 

advancing strategic thought.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

Antulio J. Echevarria II is currently assigned as the 

Director of Research and the Director of National 

Security Affairs. He graduated from the U.S. Military 

Academy in 1981, was commissioned as an armor 

officer, and has held a variety of command and staff 

assignments in Germany and Continental United States. 

Dr. Echevarria is the author of After Clausewitz: German 

Military Thinkers before the Great War, the University 

Press of Kansas (2001), Clausewitz and Contemporary 

War, the University of Oxford (forthcoming 2007), and 

Imagining Future War, Praeger (forthcoming 2007). He 

also has published articles in a number of scholarly and 

professional journals to include the Journal of Military 

History, War in History, War & Society, the Journal 

of Strategic Studies, Parameters, Joint Force Quarterly, 

Military Review, and Airpower Journal. Dr. Echevarria is 

a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General 

Staff College and the U.S. Army War College, and holds 

M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from Princeton 

University.
v

SUMMARY

Much of the dialogue concerning military 

transformation in the United States employs a number 

of popular, but hitherto unchallenged clichés. Clichés 

and catchwords are merely handy ways of capturing 

and conveying truths. Unsubstantiated clichés, however, can masquerade as truths and, unless exposed 

in time, ultimately prove costly and harmful to policy. 

This monograph examines five of the more popular 

clichés, or myths, found in transformation literature 

today. The fact that they continue to gain currency in 

the dialogue suggests that we need to examine our 

accepted truths more regularly.

The first cliché is that military transformation is 

about changing to be better prepared for the future, 

as if we could somehow separate the future from our 

current agendas, and as if we had only one future for 

which to prepare. In fact, transformation is more about 

the present than the future. Our views of the future 

are just as distorted by our biases and perspectives as 

are our views of the past or present. If forecasting the 

future is always affected by the present, the influences 

of the present are not always bad. Without biases, 

much of the information we receive would remain 

unintelligible. What we need, then, are the means and 

the willingness to recognize our biases, and to test 

them—to filter our filters. 

The second cliché is that strategic uncertainty 

is greater today than it was during the Cold War. 

Unfortunately, this view overstates the amount of 

certainty that existed then and exaggerates the level of 

uncertainty in evidence today. We should not forget the 

amount of uncertainty that clouded conflicts in Korea, 

Indochina, the Middle East, and northern Africa, as well 
vi

as the invasion of Hungary in 1956, the Cuban missile 

crisis of 1963, the Munich crisis of 1972, the Suez crisis 

of 1973, and the many tense moments that attended the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. Today’s uncertainty may 

be qualitatively different, but it is hardly greater than 

that which obtained during the Cold War. Moreover, 

we actually know a great deal about today’s threats, 

especially that of transnational terrorism; many recent 

works have added, and continue to add, to our wealth 

of knowledge about terrorism and specific terrorist 

groups. We know the demographics of these groups; 

their pathologies; the values they hold; their goals; 

the conditions they need for success; their sources of 

support; their methods, even though they continue to 

change; and in many cases, their structures and innerworkings, even though the experts themselves do not 

always agree. 

The third cliché is that mental transformation is the 

most difficult part of any effort to change. Actually, 

the most difficult part of transformation is the complex 

task of managing the change itself. The ideas behind 

Gustavus Adolphus’ reform of the Swedish military 

during the 17th century—which included mobile 

artillery and greater use of musketry—were not hard 

to grasp. Likewise, Napoleon’s tactical and operational 

innovations—which involved combining mass and 

firepower with self-sufficient army organizations 

called corps—were not difficult to understand. In 

fact, the truly hard part about change is managing the 

change. That requires backing up vague visions and 

lofty goals with concrete programs that can provide 

meaningful resources for new roles and functions, and 

offering incentives or compensation packages capable 

of appeasing institutional interests, especially the 

specific interests of those groups or communities most 

threatened by change. 
vii

The fourth cliché is that imagination and creative 

thinking are critical for any successful transformation. 

While these qualities certainly are important, they 

are only vital when the effort is open-ended, or in 

its early stages. Once the transformation effort gains 

momentum, a new orthodoxy replaces the old one, 

and creative thinking, unless it remains “in the box,” 

becomes inconvenient. To be sure, creative thinking 

can generate a wealth of potential solutions to the 

practical problems and the incidental friction that 

come with implementing change. However, the next 

step, the critical analysis of those solutions, is essential 

to moving forward. In short, the only truly essential 

key to transforming successfully is the capacity for 

critical analysis, which enables us to challenge clichés 

and assumptions, to expose vacuous theories and 

seductive jargon, and, in theory at least, to assess the 

results of war games and other exercises impartially. 

Finally, the last cliché is that militaries tend to 

transform slowly, or not at all, because they like to 

“refight the last war,” rather than preparing for the next 

one. While militaries tend to rely on historical models 

almost to a fault, organizations need to learn from their 

experiences. An organization that cannot, or will not, 

learn from its past is not likely to prepare itself very 

well for the future either, except by chance. Assessing 

what worked and what did not from historical data is 

integral to critical analysis. Learning from the past and 

preparing for the future require an ability to evaluate 

events as rigorously and objectively as possible. 

Admittedly, readers easily can find more than five 

such catchwords or myths running through today’s 

transformation literature. However, the purpose here 

is not to address every particular cliché, but rather to 

point out the need to challenge accepted “truths.”

1

Challenging Transformation’s Clichés

Much of the literature concerning military 

transformation in the United States employs a 

number of popular, but hitherto unchallenged clichés. 

Unfortunately, when phrases are repeated frequently 

enough, they begin to sound true. In policy circles, 

where haste often is by necessity the order of the day, 

that poor basis can suffice to justify any number of 

decisions. Clichés and catchwords are merely handy 

ways of capturing and conveying truths; they may 

reveal a lack of imagination on the part of the user, but 

they are hardly dangerous. Unsubstantiated clichés, 

however, are another matter. They can masquerade 

as truths and, unless exposed in time, ultimately 

prove costly and harmful to policy. This monograph 

examines five of the more popular clichés, or myths, 

found in transformation literature today, and argues 

that they are baseless.1 Only by regularly challenging 

the many expressions we take for granted can we avoid 

wasting ever-scarce resources, and keep our military 

transformation on course.

The first cliché is that military transformation is 

about changing to be better prepared for the future, 

as if we could somehow separate the future from our 

current agendas, and as if we had only one future 

for which to prepare. In fact, transformation is more 

about the present than the future. In effect, there are 

as many “futures” as there are forecasts, and all are 

powerfully influenced by the present. The second 

cliché is that strategic uncertainty is greater today 

than it was during the Cold War. Unfortunately, this 

view overstates the level of certainty that existed 

then overstates while also exaggerating the amount 

of uncertainty in evidence today. The third cliché is 
2

that mental transformation is the most difficult part of 

any effort to change. Actually, the most difficult part 

of transformation is the complex task of managing 

the change itself. The fourth cliché is that imagination 

and creative thinking are critical for any successful 

transformation. While these qualities are certainly 

important, they are only vital when the effort is openended, or in its early stages. Once the transformation 

effort gains momentum, a new orthodoxy replaces the 

old one, and creative thinking, unless it remains “in the 

box,” becomes inconvenient. The only truly essential 

key to transforming successfully is the capacity for 

critical analysis. The last cliché is that militaries tend 

to transform slowly, or not at all, because they like to 

“refight the last war,” rather than preparing for the 

next one. While militaries tend to rely on historical 

models almost to a fault, organizations need to learn 

from their experiences; this is particularly true of 

organizations that lay claim to the status of professions. 

Such organizations, according to current theory, must 

cultivate a corpus of knowledge, usually historically 

derived, which the members of the profession must 

master to qualify as professionals.2

The remainder of this monograph will address 

each of the five clichés in more detail. To be sure, 

readers easily can find more than five such catchwords 

or myths running through today’s transformation 

literature. However, the aim here is not to address 

every particular cliché, which would make for a very 

lengthy work indeed, but rather to point out the need 

to challenge accepted “truths.” 

Transformation and the Future.

As previously mentioned, the first unchallenged 

cliché is that defense transformation is about changing 
3

military organizations in anticipation of the future. 

Actually, any effort to transform an organization, 

whether military or civilian, is less about the future than 

the present. We can only imagine tomorrow through 

the lenses we have available today; thus, the future is 

just as distorted by our biases and perspectives as is 

the past or the present. In effect, the future is always 

plural, never singular. To forecast about the future is, of 

course, to speculate, and speculation is demonstrably 

more art than science.3 To be sure, futurists often try 

to cast their predictions within a scientific framework.4

The well-known works of Alvin and Heidi Toffler 

attempted to do that by basing their forecasts on an 

economically deterministic interpretation of history, 

as if the complexity of human intellectual, cultural, 

and political history could fit into such a limited 

framework.5

While continuities certainly exist linking the past 

and the future, the future is not obligated to behave 

like the past. Hence, the past does not provide a reliable 

basis for predicting the future. Just as any painter can 

turn a blank canvas into a unique painting, so any 

forecaster can predict a unique future. Each future will 

depend, as it must, on the tools, skills, and biases of the 

individual forecasters. It is no secret that many defense 

forecasts deliberately render the future in a particular 

way, either to make a case for a specific theory or weapon 

system, or to undermine the rationale for a competing 

one. Of course, not all forecasts are intentionally selfserving. But, all are more or less biased.

The operational forecasts sponsored by each of the 

services in the 1990s, when talk of a possible revolution 

in military affairs was gaining momentum, are a case in 

point.6 The U.S. Army’s reports of that time focused on 

the threats land power would likely face in 20-30 years, 
4

and the capabilities needed to meet them.7 Likewise, the 

U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy published similar studies 

addressing the unfolding security environment from 

the standpoint of their respective domains of concern.8

In fact, it should not surprise us to see such studies 

and their follow-on reports markedly influenced by 

service perspectives; after all, each of the services has 

an obligation to prepare for the future, and it needs to 

project its roles and missions in order to do so. Moreover, 

in each of the above cases, the services’ research and 

experimentation efforts led to the development of new 

concepts. Whether those efforts went as far as they 

might have is another matter. Still, the point is that 

the future, per se, does not exist, except through the 

perspectives available to us in the present. That means, 

again, that there are many futures, not one, and they 

are more about what is, than what will be.

If forecasting the future always is affected by the 

present, the influences of the present are not always 

bad. They are the lenses through which we perceive 

and make sense of the world. Our biases accrue over the 

course of years of decisionmaking and value tradeoffs. 

They usually are considered negative, but they have 

a positive side: they assist in screening information, 

filtering and interpreting it. Without biases, much of the 

information we receive would remain unintelligible. 

What we need, then, are the means and the willingness 

to recognize our biases, and to test them—to filter the 

filters, so to speak.

Although forecasts of the future always are biased, 

they still can have considerable value. Even service 

forecasts, parochial as they may be, often highlight 

legitimate concerns. Even before the transformation 

of the American military began, the U.S. Army and 

U.S. Marine Corps rightly were concerned about their 
5

tooth-to-tail ratio and combat in urban environments, 

and still are; the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force were 

correct to point out the rising trend toward anti-access 

weaponry. Similarly, the threats of nuclear, biological, 

and chemical terrorism described in other studies 

underscore legitimate security concerns, even if these 

threats are sometimes inflated, and even if the stockpiles 

of such weapons actually have declined overall.9

The threat of infectious diseases also remains valid.10

Naturally, each report tends to portray its particular 

threat, or set of threats, as the most urgent. Policymakers 

are then left to assess the various studies, weigh their 

findings against those of other sources, prioritize the 

many legitimate dangers they forecast, and determine 

how to address them. The task is difficult, to be sure, 

but not impossible. Yet, the decisions that result will 

take place in the present and will thus be influenced by 

today’s circumstances, rather than tomorrow’s. Trends 

analysis has its advantages, but also its disadvantages; 

today’s futures are not necessarily tomorrow’s.11

If addressing such “forecasted” futures is 

problematic, dealing with “un-forecasted” ones is even 

worse. A study recently published by the U.S. National 

Intelligence Council illustrates the point; it posits four 

“forecasted” alternative worlds: a “Davos world,” in 

which Asia emerges as a principal economic player; 

“Pax Americana,” where the United States takes a 

multilateral approach to security; a “New Caliphate,” in 

which radical religious-political movements continue 

to challenge Western norms and values; and a “Cycle of 

Fear,” where security measures become more intrusive 

in response to the increasing proliferation of weapons 

of mass destruction.12 Notably, these scenarios are 

not mutually exclusive: combinations of two or more 

of them certainly are possible. Yet, it also is possible 
6

that none of them will occur. The point is that the 

future may well turn out to be entirely different from 

anything forecasted. This is particularly true when we 

remember that other actors, our adversaries among 

them, are envisioning futures of their own. If the past 

and the present are worth fighting for, surely the future 

is. To be sure, many of the decisions we make today 

will contribute to shaping our future. Still, the same 

can be said of the decisions of our antagonists, who, 

naturally, will seek to advance their own interests. Put 

differently, the range of futures we forecast today will 

change not only because of what we do, or neglect to 

do, now, but also because of what others do, or do not 

do. Truly, the future may not be ours to see. Indeed, it 

may not be ours at all. 

Strategic Uncertainties, Yesterday and Today.

The second oft-repeated and gravely misleading 

cliché is that strategic uncertainty is greater now than 

during the Cold War.13 This assertion is evidence 

either of a relatively short memory, or of a reluctance 

to abandon the so-called comfortable, if incomplete, 

paradigm of a now faded bipolar world. We should not 

forget the amount of uncertainty that clouded conflicts 

in Korea, Indochina, the Middle East, and northern 

Africa, as well as the invasion of Hungary in 1956, the 

Cuban missile crisis of 1963, the Munich crisis of 1972, 

the Suez crisis of 1973, and the many tense moments 

that attended the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today’s 

uncertainty may be different qualitatively, but we 

hardly can maintain that it is greater than that which 

obtained during the Cold War. 

We should also not forget that the threat of nuclear 

annihilation loomed large during this time, and 
7

profoundly affected every aspect of strategic thinking.14

The famed strategist and historian Bernard Brodie, for 

instance, advanced the view that nuclear weapons 

had brought about a revolution in strategy, one in 

which the avoidance of armed conflict or, failing that, 

its containment, were practically the only permissible 

objectives.15 Even small conflicts posed a threat of 

escalating. Deterrence theory, which relies on the threat 

of punishment or of denial, practically was elevated to 

a science in academic circles. Yet, its underlying and 

inevitable uncertainty is how believable one’s threats 

are to the other side. That question always has been 

difficult to answer. Interestingly, not all scientists 

and strategists—most notably, the physicist Herman 

Kahn, who claimed to have had the highest IQ in 

American history to that point—thought a nuclear war 

necessarily had to be avoided.16 Brodie’s view thus 

was not accepted by all. So this debate added another 

dimension to the uncertainty that characterized 

strategic thinking during the Cold War. What seems 

conventional wisdom now—the idea that a nuclear 

war would be suicidal—actually was contested then. In 

short, because we know the outcome of the Cold War, 

we find it easier to believe the degree of uncertainty that 

existed during it somehow was less than it probably 

was.

Moreover, this assertion ignores how much we 

actually know about today’s threats. We need not go 

as far as those who have mapped out neatly all the 

faults and fissures of the contemporary world.17 Yet, 

we sell ourselves short if we do not acknowledge what 

we do know. The word most often used to capture the 

uncertainty of contemporary threats is “asymmetric.”18

Unfortunately, that term probably has done more to 

obscure the nature of those threats than to illuminate 
8

them.19 In fact, throughout history, every conflict has 

been more asymmetrical than symmetrical. One could 

easily argue that symmetry itself never exists in practice. 

We can categorize asymmetries in terms of kind or in 

terms of degree. The hoplite wars of ancient Greece, 

for instance, would appear, on the surface at least, to 

have been about as symmetrical as it is possible to be. 

Yet, closer examination reveals the numbers engaged 

on each side were rarely the same; the leadership and 

training almost never were equal; and the geographic 

positions, strength of economies, and the number and 

value of allies almost always were uneven.20 All of these 

factors matter; some of them matter enormously.21

Disparities in numbers, training, and leadership 

are asymmetries of degree. Fundamental differences 

in military strategy, types of weapons, or sources of 

strength—Sparta was clearly a land power and Athens 

a naval power—are examples of asymmetries of 

kind.22 Distinguishing between asymmetries of degree 

or of kind helps to demystify the term by providing 

a simple, but viable, framework for understanding 

the types of differences and their significance. Yet, it 

also shows that asymmetrical wars are the rule, rather 

than the exception. Asymmetries of kind may appear, 

at first, to be more decisive, and thus more important, 

than those of degree; indeed, some would argue the 

term asymmetry should only be applied to a major 

difference in kind. However, asymmetries of kind are 

not necessarily more important or decisive than those 

of degree. Superiority of numbers, an asymmetry of 

degree, helped a Theban army overcome a Spartan 

one at the battle of Leuctra (371 BC), and changed the 

regional balance of power in ancient Greece, at least for 

a time. Also, it is rarely a single asymmetry, but rather 

a combination of them—such as strategy, leadership, 

resources—which proves key.
9

As for today’s threats, we actually know a great 

deal about them, especially two of the most significant 

ones, violent Islamic extremism and so-called “failed” 

or “failing states.” The former has been under serious 

study for some time. Recent works by Peter Bergen, 

Marc Sageman, Michael Scheuer, Bruce Hoffman, 

Stephen Ulph, and many others, have added, and 

continue to add, to our wealth of knowledge.23 To 

this list, we must include the many classified reports 

which also have contributed to our knowledge of 

terrorism, and of specific terrorist groups. We know 

the demographics of these groups; their pathologies; 

the values they hold; their goals; the conditions 

they need for success; their sources of support; their 

methods, even though they continue to change; and, in 

many cases, their structures and inner-workings, even 

though the experts themselves do not always agree.24

Higher levels of knowledge appreciate conflicting 

points of view, and seek to fit those views together into 

a larger mosaic.

As for the second threat, failed and failing states, we 

also know a fair amount about what causes states to fail 

and the dangers they pose.25 We know which states are 

failing, or already have failed. Intelligence organizations 

have methodologies for assessing failed states, while 

publications, such as Foreign Policy magazine, offer 

open-source indices of some 60 “failed” or “failing” 

states.

26 The principal metrics for Foreign Policy’s indices 

include: mounting demographic pressures, refugees 

and displaced persons, groups with major grievances, 

chronic human flight, uneven economic development; 

severe economic decline, delegitimization of the state, 

deterioration of public services, widespread violation 

of human rights, status of security apparatus as 

“state within a state,” rise of factionalized elites, and 
10

interventions by other states or external actors.27 To be 

sure, the term “failed state” itself is controversial, and 

often is exploited for political purposes.28 We also can 

debate whether the factors listed above are sufficient, 

or even appropriate. Yet the point is, regardless of the 

terms and factors we choose, we know a lot more than 

the rhetoric about uncertainty admits. It is not difficult 

to identify the world’s trouble spots, or to point out 

dangerous global trends, which might well warrant 

political, economic, and, possibly military action. This 

is not to say that unexpected events will not happen: 

they will. But that always has been true.

The assertion that uncertainty is higher today than 

during the Cold War also exaggerates how much we 

knew about the Soviet bloc. The most glaring oversight, 

of course, was that the intelligence community failed 

to predict the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.29

This oversight, as analysts have pointed out, was 

nothing short of historical in magnitude.30 Fortunately, 

it did not impact negatively on the West, with the 

exception perhaps on the confidence and credibility 

of its intelligence community. The assumption also 

overlooks the fact that knowledge is cumulative, albeit 

not linearly. In other words, what we knew about 

the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War 

was considerably less than what knew about it in the 

conflict’s final years. We gathered information, assessed 

it, threw out some, and build on the remainder. So, by 

the end of the Cold War, we had a picture, if a fluid and 

dynamic one, of our chief adversary and its partners. 

The same is true in this post-Cold War, informationage, globalized environment. We entertained a great 

many speculations in the years just following the 

collapse of the Soviet Union about how the world 

might look in the “future.” In the decade and a half 
11

since then, we acquired enough information to discard 

some of those, and to focus our efforts more efficiently 

on the rest, and indeed to add forecasts to fill-in some 

of the gaps that have existed. As a result, the view 

that the present security environment is much more 

uncertain than that which existed during the Cold War 

is untenable.

Mental Transformation.

The third cliché is that mental transformation is the 

most difficult part of any major organizational change. 

Getting people to think differently is considered widely 

to be essential to any revolution. It also is supposed to 

lead to greater returns. We often hear that, “Changing 

the way people think about their work will yield better 

results.”31 Unfortunately, this myth gained a great deal 

of currency early in the dialogue about transformation, 

or the revolution in military affairs as it was called 

until shortly after September 11, 2001 (9/11). To take 

the second issue first, the idea that changing the way 

people think about their work will lead to better results 

is questionable at best. Change does not necessarily 

yield better results. In general, change will lead to one 

of two outcomes: better output, or worse. (No change in 

output is rare, and usually means the relevant variables 

were not altered, or the metrics were insufficient to 

capture minor results.) So, any change has, in effect, a 

50-50 chance of producing better results. We can take 

measures to try to tip the balance in favor of producing 

positive results. However, when we look at changes, 

such as military reforms, in the aggregate, we see that, 

in general, for every successful military reform, there 

is an unsuccessful one. The reforms implemented by 

the Russian army between the Crimean War and the 
12

Great War, for instance, illustrate the point; sometimes 

change was successful, and other times not.32 Part of 

the problem is that military reforms, especially, always 

are relative to those undertaken by the competition. 

In truth, some combination of positive and negative 

outcomes is usually the result of efforts to transform: 

for a variety of reasons, not the least of which stem 

from the complexity of the organizations involved, 

some areas improve, while others decline. Progress 

depends on whether the former outweigh the latter.

More importantly, grasping new ideas is hardly 

the most difficult part of any transformation. The ideas 

behind Gustavus Adolphus’ reform of the Swedish 

military during the 17th century—which included 

mobile artillery and greater use of musketry—were 

not hard to grasp.33 Likewise, Napoleon’s tactical 

and operational innovations—which involved 

combining mass and firepower with self-sufficient 

army organizations called corps—were not difficult 

to understand.34 Nor were the concepts implemented 

by the German military—which stressed speed of 

movement and decentralized decisionmaking—

difficult to comprehend.35

On the contrary, if organizations appear reluctant 

to embrace new ideas, the fault might lie with the basic 

ideas themselves. Proponents of change are not immune 

to seductive, but ultimately vacuous, theories or 

jargon. The notions of Network Centric Warfare, Rapid 

Decisive Operations, and Effects-based Operations 

have seduced many in the defense community, and the 

last is working its way steadily into official doctrine. 

Similarly, within the business community, the rage of 

the 1990s was to transform to become more networked, 

flatter, and more agile and flexible. Hierarchies and 

stovepipes were to be demolished, and a premium 
13

was to be put on lateral information sharing. Such 

changes were to enable companies to “self-organize” in 

innovative ways to accomplish tasks more effectively, 

and more efficiently. However, recent observations 

show that “many companies which were once models 

of revolutionary change have come to grief: Enron, 

WorldCom, Vivendi, AOL Time Warner, Qwest, 

Global Crossing, Sunbeam, British Telecom, Marconi, 

Tyco, and AT&T.”36 While the reasons for failure vary, 

accepting “digital jargon” or buying into what might 

be called a “cult of change” without rigorous, critical 

analyses were common factors. To be sure, many 

other companies transformed successfully during this 

period. However, the point is that it might well pay 

to examine the emperor’s new clothes closely before 

deciding to change one’s fashion line.

In fact, the truly hard part about change is managing

the change. That requires backing up vague visions and 

lofty goals with concrete programs that can provide 

meaningful resources for new roles and functions, and 

offering incentives or compensation packages capable 

of appeasing institutional interests, especially the 

specific interests of those groups or communities most 

threatened by change. Irrespective of the core ideas 

involved, transformation efforts, whatever their stripe, 

often are perceived as organizational “trade-offs,” 

which invariably mean certain groups and assets are to 

be “traded,” or “right-sized,” out of the program. Some 

social scientists argue, along similar lines, that the most 

challenging impediments to change are institutional 

interests, such as the tendency to maximize one’s 

budget, and the desire to maintain prestige, autonomy, 

and identity.37 Some scholars suggest that building 

supportive constituencies among senior officers and 

creating promotion paths for younger, innovative 
14

officers would help overcome such impediments and 

facilitate military transformation.38 One analyst even 

went so far as to assert, wrongly, that, before World 

War II, “The German army told a group of lieutenant 

colonels and colonels that, in effect, they could not be 

promoted unless they came up with [a concept] that 

broke current doctrine.”39 However, using promotion 

as a tool to implement change runs the risk of 

politicizing an officer corps, increasing factionalism 

within an organization, and generating more resistance 

to the transformation effort overall. Constituencies, 

or schools of thought, already exist in most military 

organizations in any case; ideas are only as successful 

as the proponents supporting them are powerful. 

The literature on managing organizational change is 

simply too voluminous to discuss here. Suffice it to 

say that the task of managing change is more difficult 

than getting new ideas accepted. In any case, mental 

transformation is at root part of managing change, not 

an ideational or cognitive challenge.

Part of the problem with mental transformation 

is that those charged with selling the change often 

transmit conflicting messages. The first message is that 

the transformation effort is open to creative ideas and 

innovation. Ostensibly, the aim is to promote a culture 

“that rewards unconventional thinking—a climate 

where people have freedom and flexibility to take 

risks and try new things.”40 However, that message 

typically conflicts with a second one, which is that 

change must occur quickly in order for the organization 

to remain competitive; it cannot afford to fall behind 

the transition from the industrial to the information 

age. Military transformation, in particular, is upheld 

as “an imperative for the security environment of the 

information age and globalization . . . either you buy 
15

transformation or you buy irrelevance.”41 The message 

that such rhetoric sends is that every member of the 

organization ought to get on board quickly with 

the purpose and direction of the new vision for the 

organization. Yet, placing emphasis on rapid change 

means sacrificing any number of creative ideas, all of 

which require time to emerge, unless they happen to 

coincide with where the organization’s leaders already 

want it to go. Instead of fostering “out-of-the-box” 

thinking, they merely are replacing the previous box 

with another one.

Transformations may well involve a certain “battle 

of ideas,” wherein those with a stake in the future engage 

in debates about where the organization is headed and 

what it needs to do to get there. Such debates were 

clearly in evidence in the years leading up to World 

War I, and again in the decades before World War II. 

Before 1914, army officers debated the best techniques 

for crossing the ever-expanding deadly zone, as well as 

the tactical and strategic roles of aircraft; naval officers 

discussed how best to address the submarine and air 

threats, among other things.42 During the 1920s and 

1930s, officers of all services debated the potential and 

limits of mechanized forces and airpower, with various 

schools of thought emerging.43 The conventional 

wisdom holds that debates of this sort are beneficial, 

since they allow for ideas to emerge which otherwise 

might not. 

However, for any transformation effort debates 

fundamentally are problematic. Managers need to 

erase doubt about change, not heighten it, and debates 

generally raise more questions than answers. Managers 

need to bring fence-sitters onto their side. They need 

converts, not critics. Typically, those responsible for 

choosing to pursue transformation want it to happen 
16

on their terms; they may have a stake in a certain 

theory, such as Effects-Based Operations, or a particular 

outcome, such as a smaller, more efficient military force. 

Whatever the reason, they need to build momentum, 

and to do that they require consensus, or at least tacit 

consent. So, debates can become inconvenient quickly. 

Consequently, war games, experiments, and research 

in general soon become one-sided, lest they expose 

flaws in the overall vision, its goals, or its underlying 

assumptions, and thus impede progress.44

One way to deal with such criticisms is to discredit 

them, to label them “backward-looking,” entrenched, 

or fearful of change: they do “not understand 

transformation,” and “they just don’t get it” are 

phrases commonly heard.45 This tactic obviously 

is much cheaper, at least in the short-run, than 

addressing whatever problems critics might raise. In 

truth, while such tactics might appear short-sighted, 

this essentially is how the game is played, though it is 

rarely a zero-sum game. As one historical study reveals, 

the carrier revolution took place in the U.S. Navy 

before the battleship-centric theory was discredited.46

In any case, we should not forget that naval gunfire, 

delivered by battleships and other vessels, played a 

key role in the island-hoping campaigns of the Pacific. 

Decommissioning battleships would thus have been a 

mistake. 

The German military between the wars, which has 

long been something of a model for transformation 

advocates, had at least four different schools of 

thought: the maneuver school, promoted by Hans 

von Seeckt and others who believed mobility was 

the key to fighting a potential war on two fronts; the 

defensive school, which held that World War I had 

demonstrated the insuperable power of the defense; the 
17

psychological school, which believed that intangibles, 

such as courage and morale, were the most important 

elements of modern combat; and the Peoples’ war 

school, which argued that modern war had broken 

down distinctions between soldiers and civilians, 

and guerrilla tactics ought thus to be the order of the 

day.47 The debate essentially was resolved in favor of 

the maneuver school when Hitler came to power; he 

needed a military capable of achieving rapid victories 

in order to pursue his policy of expansion. His strategic 

agenda thus provided the imperative that pushed the 

German army’s transformation in a specific direction.

Depending on the nature of the transformation, 

the stakes for some key managers may be very high 

indeed. As all academics know, debates can drag on 

unresolved for years, if not decades. Some are only 

resolved by seismic events, such as the collapse of the 

Soviet Union, which discredited the Marxist school. 

However, policymakers rarely have the luxury of 

time. Due to election or funding cycles, changes are 

sometimes implemented or rejected before they are 

fully thought through.48 That may be one of the reasons 

military reforms rarely live up to expectations. If war is 

an expression of politics, so is the preparation for war. 

Creative Thinking and Transformation.

The fourth cliché, which is closely related to the 

previous one, is that imaginative and creative thinking 

are essential to any major transformation effort.49

Imagination and “thinking outside the box” often are 

touted as keys to success, as if the more creative the idea, 

the more successful the transformation is likely to be. 

As we have seen, creativity is less important to leaders 

of transformation than obtaining consensus. Yet, that 
18

does not rule out the possibility that the transformation 

effort overall might depend to some extent on the 

capacity to develop imaginative solutions. Every 

transforming organization will encounter obstacles 

and other problems. Presumably, how it resolves those 

problems will in large measure determine whether its 

efforts to change will succeed. In problem-solving, 

in fact, critical analysis, rather than imaginative or 

creative thinking, is the most important ingredient for 

success. 

To be sure, creative thinking can generate a wealth 

of potential solutions to the practical problems and 

the incidental friction that come with implementing 

change. However, the next step, the critical analysis 

of those solutions, the examination of their feasibility, 

is essential to moving forward. Science-fiction writer 

and futurist H. G. Wells was as imaginative a mind as 

one was likely to find in Edwardian England. His short 

story, “The Land Ironclads,” published in 1903, has 

been hailed by many as an almost prophetic solution to 

the tactical stalemate that would vex military leaders 

during World War I.50

However, Wells’ ironclads were utterly impractical. 

They were monstrous trench-busters, “something 

between a big blockhouse and a giant’s dish cover,” 

rather than the more familiar box-like tanks of World 

War I, or the speedier ones of World War II.51 The tanks 

of World War II weighed from 5 to 70 tons, were 10 to 

20 feet long, and had a speed of 10 to 30 miles per hour. 

In contrast, each of Wells’ ironclads was between 80 

to 100 feet long, about 10 feet high, with 12-inches of 

iron-plating. These dimensions would have resulted in 

a vehicle far too heavy to move on land under its own 

power, even with today’s technologies. By comparison, 

the USS Monitor, a floating ironclad commissioned in 
19

1862, displaced about 987 tons. It was 179 feet long, 

almost 42 feet wide, just over 10 feet high, but only 

had nine inches of armor at its thickest point (the 

cylinder-like pilot house).52 It was thus twice as long 

as one of Wells’ monsters, but similar with respect to 

the other dimensions; hence, the overall weight of the 

land ironclad would have been no less than that of 

the Monitor, since the former had much thicker armor 

all around. In short, the idea alone is never sufficient. 

Critical thinking is needed to reveal the idea’s basic 

problems, which then might be tackled individually, 

assuming the state of technology is capable of doing 

so. Most out-of-the-box ideas, however brilliant, need 

to return to the box at some point in order to become 

practical solutions. Even had Wells’ idea been pounced 

on as soon as it appeared, it is not clear, given the 

propulsion systems then available, that tanks would 

have made their debut on the battlefields of Europe 

much sooner than they actually did. 

Critical thinking also enables us to challenge clichés 

and assumptions, to expose vacuous theories and 

seductive jargon, and, in theory at least, to assess the 

results of war games and other exercises impartially. 

The desire to change an organization thoroughly and 

rapidly can render it vulnerable to seductive theories. 

The purpose of critical thinking is to strip away the 

allure. If the development of mechanized warfare in the 

decades before World War II is considered a military 

transformation, then it was not creative thinking 

that mattered, but critical analysis. The central ideas 

were essentially a return to pre-World War I theories, 

particularly those of Alfred von Schlieffen, which 

emphasized continuous movement in order to keep 

one’s opponent off balance, and those of the elder 

Moltke, who stressed decentralized decisionmaking. 
20

What proved far more valuable than imaginative 

thinking, therefore, was the culture of critically 

examining the results of war games and training 

exercises.53

Critical thinking also assists us in identifying 

signposts, which, in turn, are essential in enabling an 

organization to hedge its bets about how the future 

will unfold.54 Signposts in the form of political, social, 

and technological developments can indicate whether 

an organization’s assumptions remain valid. They can 

serve as decision points, which require policymakers to 

take hedging or shaping actions; the former minimize 

the damage of failed assumptions, while the latter help 

us to prevent the assumption from failing in the first 

place. Preparing for the future is more or less a betting 

game. As in roulette or other games of chance, we are 

wagering on the probability that a particular capability, 

or set of capabilities, will prove useful, perhaps even 

decisive, in the near or long-term future. We may try 

to tip the probability in our favor, but the outcome is 

rarely certain. Compounding the problem is deciding 

how much of that particular capability to buy.

Refighting the Last War.

The fifth cliché is that militaries are slow to transform 

because they like to refight the last war rather than 

preparing for the next one. Actually, many successful 

transformations occurred as a result of refighting the 

last war. The German military’s famed transformation 

after World War I has become the model most often 

used to explain defense transformation in the United 

States. It is upheld as an example of the superiority 

of efficiency over mass and of preparing for the next 

war, rather than the last one. Interestingly, the heart 

of the German transformation effort involved looking 
21

backward to 1870-71, to tried and true principles. It 

was, thus, about refighting not the last war, but the war 

before the last war. Moreover, the core of the so-called 

blitzkrieg theory, which long has been associated with 

this transformation, perhaps erroneously, consisted 

achieving a breakthrough against strong defensive 

positions, the single most difficult task of the Great 

War.55 Famed panzer general Heinz Guderian reiterated 

the importance of this task in his book, Achtung Panzer!, 

published in the late 1930s.56

To be sure, at some point looking backward prevents 

looking ahead. Yet, to suggest militaries should not 

examine the lessons from the last war implies they 

should not learn from their pasts. History does not 

necessarily occur in cycles. So, failure to learn from 

the past does not necessarily condemn one to repeat 

it, or to fail in the future. Yet, an organization that 

cannot, or will not, learn from its past is not likely to 

prepare itself very well for the future either, except by 

chance. Assessing what worked and what did not from 

historical data is integral to critical analysis. Learning 

from the past and preparing for the future require an 

ability to evaluate events as rigorously and objectively 

as possible. The study of history, perhaps more than 

any other discipline, can help develop the requisite 

critical thinking skills which underpin these abilities.57

For this reason, military organizations should not 

approach history as a holy writ, but as a medium 

for exercising critical thinking. As military historian 

and theorist Sir Basil Liddell Hart once said, military 

professionals tend to regard history as a “sentimental 

treasure.”58 Liddell Hart, of course, believed that 

history—if free of prejudice and equipped with 

powers of discernment and proportion—could get at 

the “Truth,” and this should always be its goal, even 

if that goal is not completely attainable. That belief is 
22

something of a sentimental treasure in its own right. 

Nonetheless, the point is that dismissing the past is as 

harmful as trying to relive it. 

Despite teeming rhetoric to the contrary, past wars 

do not always differ substantially from contemporary 

ones. To be sure, details matter. Yet, even a cursory 

glance at American military history shows that smaller, 

“irregular” wars have always been more frequent than 

larger, conventional ones. Between 1898 and 1914, 

the United States fought a number of so-called “small 

wars” in Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, and Mexico.59

In the course of those 16 years, though each of these 

“Banana wars” was obviously different, with unique 

circumstances and characters, none was exclusively 

so. American troops did indeed do some fighting, but 

they performed mostly constabulary duties, such as 

providing security, distributing food and medicine, 

building schools and infrastructure, and similar tasks. 

These duties clearly are more relevant to those that U.S. 

troops regularly perform in the current war on terror 

than contemporary military theory likes to admit. For 

those who insist small wars are the wave of the future, we 

might well ask how that makes the future any different 

than the past. Thus, to ignore the experiences of earlier 

campaigns, such as those mentioned above, is to reject 

a large and growing body of knowledge. Rather than 

dismissing the past (or refighting it), militaries need to 

find better ways to capture, categorize, and access the 

knowledge they gain from their own experiences, and 

those of others.

Conclusions and Implications.

Transforming any organization is always more 

about the present than the future. The future never 
23

exists but in the collective imagination of those in the 

present, and they hardly can lay claim to a consensus 

view. The future we imagine can never be any better 

than the filters through which it must pass. If we want 

to forecast better futures, we need to look to our filters. 

A process for filtering our filters ought to become 

routine.

Transformation also is, ultimately, political in 

nature. The future is contestable, and as such, it forms 

part of organizational power struggles that take place 

in the present. The success of transformative ideas 

depends to a large extent on the power—physical 

and psychological—of the personalities who promote 

them. The intrinsic “soundness” of new ideas may 

not have more than secondary or tertiary importance. 

Militarily unsound ideas have been the basis for 

military transformations more than once in history.

Uncertainty is a given in any age. We will always 

know less than we want to know. Yet that should 

not induce us to overlook the quantity and quality 

of what we do know. Overplaying the uncertainty 

card can lead to indefensible policy decisions and an 

inability to prioritize strategy goals. Knowledge and 

the ability to do something with it are not indisputably 

linked. Knowing what we need to do to win the “war 

of ideas” is different from having the ability to do it. 

Distinguishing what we know from what we want to 

know may help us spend transformation dollars more 

wisely.

Critical thinking is far more important to achieving 

a successful transformation than is creative or 

imaginative thinking. Consensus, or at least tacit 

consent, is the lubricant that moves transformation 

along. Creative thinking takes transformation on side 

tours, while critical thinking questions whether the 
24

road being traveled is the best one. Creative thinking 

is best done before the journey begins; critical thinking 

should occur at every mile marker. The political nature 

of transformation makes both inconvenient. The 

unpleasant reality is that funding decisions have to be 

made, and on time. It is probably best to accept that 

errors in judgment will be made. But we want to avoid 

compounding them by refusing to change course.

Learning from the past does not guarantee a better 

future, but it does improve our ability to learn. Trying 

to make the present—or the future—fit the past is 

bound to lead to failure and disappointment. The past 

is never exactly the same as the present, and it is never 

absolutely different, either. If and when the past is 

relevant depends on how we see the present. And that, 

in turn, depends on how frequently, and how well, we 

challenge the accepted “truths” of our times.

ENDNOTES

1. To emphasize: this is not a critique of official policies 

pertaining to U.S. Defense Transformation. Rather, it is an 

examination of a few of the many recurring expressions found in 

discussions of military transformation, or transformation in the 

business world.

2. Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay in the 

Division of Expert Labor, Chicago: Chicago University, 1988; see 

also Don Snider and Gayle L. Watkins, eds., The Future of the Army 

Profession, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

3. Edward Cornish, The Study of the Future: An Introduction to 

the Art and Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow’s World, 

Washington, DC: World Future Society, 1984.

4. Compare Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the 

Future, Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 2004; Nicholas 

Rescher, Predicting the Future: An Introduction to the Theory of 

Forecasting, Albany: State University of New York, 1998; Robert 

Heilbroner, Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, 

Tomorrow, New York: Oxford, 1995. 
25

5. Alvin and Heidi Toffler, “War, Wealth, and a New Era in 

History,” World Monitor, May 1991, pp. 46-52; Alvin Toffler, Third 

Wave, New York: Morrow, 1980.

6. Sam J. Tangredi, All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View 

of the Future Security Environment, 2001-2025, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University, 2000, underscores the problems of 

trying to arrive at a consensus.

7. Knowledge & Speed, Army After Next Report, U.S. Army 

Training and Doctrine Command, 1996; and Knowledge & Speed 

II, 1997.

8. Compare Robert S. Trip, et al., Enhancing the Effectiveness of 

Air Expeditionary Forces, RAND Report, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 

May 1997; Pelham G. Boyer and Robert S. Wood, eds., Strategic 

Transformation and Naval Power in the 21st Century, Newport, RI: 

Naval War College, 1998.

9. Sharon A. Squassoni, “Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical 

Weapons and Missiles: Status and Trends,” Congressional 

Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, January 

14, 2005; Milton Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and 

Bioterrorism Threat, Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 

2005; Robert J. Einhorn and Michele A. Flournoy, Protecting 

Against the Spread of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons: An 

Action Agenda for the Global Partnership, 4 vols., Washington, DC, 

2003.

10. A concern addressed in World Health Organization, Global 

Pandemic Influenza Action Plan to Increase Vaccine Supply, Geneva, 

Switzerland, 2006.

11. Cornish, “Trend Extrapolation: A Method That Everyone 

Uses,” in Study of the Future, pp. 108-111.

12. National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future: 

Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, Washington, 

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004. 

13. John J. Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold 

War,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 266, No. 2, August 1990, pp. 35-

50; this essay was one of the first, perhaps the first, to make this 

argument.

14. Colin S. Gray, “Across the Nuclear Divide—Strategic 

Studies, Past and Present,” in Strategy and History, London: 

Routledge, 2006; this essay was published originally in International 

Security, 1977.
26

15. Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon, New York: Harcourt, 

Brace, 1946.

16. Christopher Coker, “Post-Modern War,” RUSI Journal, Vol. 

143, No. 3, June 1998, p. 9; see Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear 

War, Princeton: Princeton University, 1960; and Thinking about 

the Unthinkable, New York: Horizon, 1962; Barry Bruce-Briggs, 

Supergenius: The Mega-Worlds of Herman Kahn, New York: North 

American Polity, 2000; Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, The Worlds 

of Herman Kahn: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War, 

Cambridge: Harvard University, 2005; Louis Menand, “Fat Man: 

Herman Kahn and the Nuclear Age,” The New Yorker, June 27, 

2005.

17. Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and 

Peace in the Twenty-first Century, New York: Berkley, 2005.

18. “International: Asymmetric War Poses New Challenges,” 

Oxford Analytica, October 24, 2001,p. 1, is representative.

19. Steven Metz and Douglas V. Johnson II, Asymmetry 

and U.S. Military Strategy: Definition, Background, and Strategic 

Concepts, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, 2001, examine uses of the term as it appeared in 

official documents to that point, and attempt to dispel some of the 

confusion surrounding the term; they define strategic asymmetry 

as “the use of some sort of difference to gain an advantage over 

an adversary,” p. 1. I would go one step farther and contend that 

asymmetry often exists even if we are not consciously using it to 

gain an advantage; it’s almost unavoidable. See also Steven Blank, 

Rethinking Asymmetric Threats, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2003, which points out how the 

term can be meaningless for policymakers.

20. Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, New York: Viking, 

2003.

21. Barry S. Strauss and Josiah Ober, The Anatomy of Error: 

Ancient Military Disasters and their Lessons for Modern Strategists, 

New York: St. Martin’s, 1992.

22. J. F. Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study, 

London: Routledge, 2004; Kagan, Peloponnesian War.

23. Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of 

Osama bin Laden, New York: Touchstone, 2002; Marc Sageman, 

Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia: University of 

Pennsylvania Press, 2004; Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why 
27

the West is Losing the War on Terror, Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 

2004; and Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical 

Islam, and the Future of America, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2006; 

Bruce Hoffman, “Combating Al Qaeda and the Militant Islamic 

Threat,” Testimony presented to the U.S. House Armed Services 

Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats 

and Capabilities, February 16, 2006.

24. Bob Woodward, “Secret Reports Dispute White House 

Optimism,” Washington Post, October 1, 2006, p. A01.

25. The literature is extensive; see Robert I. Rotberg, ed., 

When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, Princeton: Princeton 

University, 2004; and more recently, Francis Fukuyama, NationBuilding: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 

University, 2006.

26. See www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3420, 

dated May/June 2006.

27. Ibid.

28. One of the most controversial is Noam Chomsky, Failed 

States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, New York: 

Metropolitan Books, 2006, which argues that the United States 

itself is actually a failed state.

29. John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History, New 

York: Penguin, 2005.

30. As former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates 

remarked in a speech delivered at Texas A&M University on 

November 19, 1999: 

In the economic arena CIA, in its statistical analysis, 

overstated the size and growth rate of the Soviet 

economy and relatedly underestimated the burden 

of military expenditures on that economy and on that 

society. CIA’s statistical analysis of the Soviet economy, 

while the best available, East or West—and I would have 

to tell you, we had clandestine reporting to the effect that 

even Andropov regarded our reporting on the Soviet 

economy as the best available to him—still in absolute 

terms, it described a stronger and larger economy than 

our own interpretive analysis portrayed and that existed 

in reality.

While in 1987 the CIA allegedly warned of impending collapse, 

other intelligence agencies disagreed.
28

31. Steven Donald Smith, “Military Transformation Requires 

Cultural Change: Interview with Thomas Hone, Office of Force 

Transformation,” U.S. Federal News Service, Washington, DC, 

June 8, 2006.

32. Bruce W. Menning, Bayonets before Bullets: The Imperial 

Russian Army, 1861 and 1914, Bloomington: Indiana University 

press, 1992.

33. Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution 1560-1660,” 

in War and Society in the Seventeenth Century, G. N. Clark, ed., 

Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1958; and Gustavus Adolphus, 

2nd Ed., New York: Longman, 1992.

34. David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, New York: 

Macmillan, 1966.

35. James Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and 

German Military Reform, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 

1992. 

36. Paul Bracken, “Corporate Disasters: Some Lessons for 

Transformation,” Joint Force Quarterly, Vol. 32, Autumn 2002, pp. 

83-87, provides a quick summary.

37. Chaim Kaufmann, “Review of Stephen Rosen, Winning 

the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military,” in The American 

Political Science Review, Vol. 86, No. 4, December 1992, p. 1110, 

asserts that such interests stymied efforts to reform military 

organizations prior to the Great War.

38. Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and 

the Modern Military, Ithaca: Cornell, 1991; Barry R. Posen, The 

Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between 

the Wars, Ithaca: Cornell, 1984.

39. Andrew Ross, Michèle A. Flournoy, Cindy Williams, and 

David Mosher, “What Do We Mean by ‘Transformation’? An 

Exchange,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 55, No. 1, Winter 2002, p. 

31. This statement appears to have come from a misunderstanding 

of the role of von Seeckt in the transformation of the German army; 

for clarification of that role, see Corum, Roots of Blitzkrieg.

40. Cited from Robert Holzer, Transformation Trends, February 

17, 2003, p. 1.

41. “Statement of Arthur K. Cebrowski, Director, Office of 

Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense, before 

the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and 
29

Capabilities, House Armed Services Committee,” February 26, 

2004; Cf. Transformation Trends, March 2, 2004, pp. 1-2. In this 

case, Admiral Cebrowski’s message was aimed at demonstrating 

Transformation’s importance to Congress, and was appropriate. 

Frequently, however, this and other statements are taken out of 

context, and directed at critics of Transformation (see endnote 45), 

implying that those who have not bought into Transformation are 

themselves irrelevant.

42. Antulio J. Echevarria II, After Clausewitz: German Military 

Thinkers before the Great War, Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 2000. 

43. Robert M. Citino, Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate 

to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899-1940, Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 2002; Corum, Roots of Blitzkrieg.

44. One such example is covered in Sean D. Naylor, “War 

Games Rigged? General says Millennium Challenge ’02 ‘Was 

Almost Entirely Scripted’,” Army Times, August 16, 2002; Julian 

Borger, “War Game Was Fixed to Ensure American Victory, 

Claims General,” The Guardian, August 21, 2002.

45. Tom Hone, Assistant Director, Office of Force 

Transformation, “Understanding Transformation,” Transformation 

Trends, January 16, 2004, p. 3, uses the first comment in response 

to Frederick Kagan’s writings criticizing Defense Transformation, 

particularly one entitled, “A Dangerous Transformation: Donald 

Rumsfeld Means Business. That’s a Problem,” published in the 

Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2003; comments similar to the 

second phrase are used by both sides of the debate and can be 

found in any number of op-eds.

46. Adam N. Stulberg, “Managing Military Transformations: 

Agency, Culture, and the U.S. Carrier Revolution,” Strategic 

Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, July-September 2005, p. 489.

47. Corum, Roots of Blitzkrieg, pp. 55-67.

48. David A. Fulghum, “Season’s Woes: Budget Maneuvers, 

Unexpected Investigations and Lessons from Iraq Roil Military 

Transformation Plans,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, Vol. 

159, No. 25, December 22, 2003, p. 26.

49. Larry Seaquist, “Where’s Military Creativity?” Christian 

Science Monitor, February 4, 2004, p. 11.

50. H. G. Wells, “The Land Ironclads,” The Strand Magazine, 

Vol. 26, December 1903, pp. 501-513.
30

51. Ibid., p. 505.

52. The Monitor had 8” of armor on the turret, 4.5” on the sides, 

and 2” on the deck.

53. James Corum, “A Clash of Military Cultures: German 

and French Approaches to Technology between the World 

Wars,” Tooling for War, Stephen Chiabotti, ed., Chicago: Imprint 

Publications, 1996; and “A Comprehensive Approach to Change: 

Reform in the German Army in the Interwar Period,” The Challenge 

of Change: Military Institutions and New Realities 1918-1941, Harold 

Winton, ed., Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

54. James Dewar, Carl Builder, William Hix, and Morlie Levin, 

Assumption-Based Planning: A Planning Tool for Very Uncertain 

Times, Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1993. 

55. On the dubious origins of the term, see William J. Fanning 

Jr., “The Origin of the Term ‘Blitzkrieg’: Another View,” Journal of 

Military History, Vol. 61, 1997, pp. 283-302.

56. Heinz Guderian, Achtung—Panzer! The Development 

of Armoured Vehicles, Their Tactics and Operational Potential, 

Christopher Duffy, trans. New York: Sterling, 1992<1937>, esp. 

178-191.

57. Antulio J. Echevarria II, “The Trouble with History,” 

Parameters, Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer 2005, pp. 78-90.

58. B. H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn from History? New 

York: Hawthorn, 1971, 17ff.

59. Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise 

of American Power, New York: Basic, 2002, pp. 129-55.