Transformation Has Limits

Despite the wonders technology can contribute to enhance the capabilities of our fighting forces, transformation and its soul mate, network-centric warfare, cannot replace adaptability the warrior must bring to the fight-whether in the streets of Baghdad or the mountains of Afghanistan.

The U.S. defense transformation project fails to pass conceptual muster. Policy documents issued by the White House, secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Office of Force Transformation articulate three basic goals for defense transformation: transforming how we do business, how we work with others, and how we fight.¹ Of these, only the last has been described in any kind of detail, and those details give cause for concern.

"Transforming how we fight" is a euphemism for "instituting network-centric warfare." All transformation policy documents celebrate the notion of "a smaller, more lethal and nimble joint force" built on information technology, but none articulates an alternative force structure.² This vision is too narrowly conceived to be effective. To avoid strategic failure, those reshaping our military first must recognize the severe limits that historical complexity places on their vision. Second, they must accept the limits imposed by the range of warfare on the effectiveness of technology. The resulting force structures may include network-centric elements, but they will prioritize adaptability over technology.

Short-Circuiting History

The transformation project is based on a contradiction; it assumes that although "the United States cannot know with confidence what nation, combination of nations, or non-state actors will pose threats to vital U.S. interests or those of our allies and friends decades from now," we can "anticipate the capabilities an adversary might employ" decades from now.³ In other words, we can predict the future even though it is unpredictable. Transformation is intended to defeat, not a particular set of opponents, but history itself.

The idea is to preserve a historical moment-the present moment, in which the United States enjoys unrivaled military supremacy. We believe "victory in the Cold War opened an historic window of opportunity" to impose a favorable and eternal peace on the world. We seek to flout "the historic norm . . . the rapid rise of a major competitor," and to "answer the fundamental questions of how one shapes the scope, pace, and intensity of competition" itself.⁴ Logically, this requires two things: (1) that history be a manageable process, and (2) that Pentagon planners crack the code of this process.

The transformation documents imply both these things. Conveniently for techno-savvy America, history does have a single mainspring, and it is technology: "throughout history, warfare has assumed the characteristics and used the technology of its era" (and, apparently, nothing else). History boils down to a series of technological "ages," and "the United States is transitioning from an industrial age to an information age."⁵ It follows that, if the United States wants to maintain its supremacy, it need only identify the dominant technology of the age and employ it better than anyone else. Accordingly, transformation sees "aggressive and wide-ranging science and technology efforts" as the route to dominance.⁶ We assume "our supremacy will rapidly diminish over time if we do not continue to enhance our military prowess."⁷ The converse, then, also must be true: continual technological improvement can guarantee perpetual supremacy.

Unfortunately, reality cannot be reduced to a technology game. History, the reality of human experience, is a complex process driven by so many factors—environmental, demographic, geographical, economic, technological—as well as the kaleidescope of cultural, social, religious, and political trends around the globe, that even the most sophisticated analyses fall short. Wild-card elements such as personality and free will make generalizations all but impossible, even in local scenarios. Beyond this, these variables remain in constant relative flux, so that every historical moment is unique. Human events, in short, are unpredictable, and history offers no model that can be co-opted to the United States' advantage.

Military innovation always has and will occur within the confines of historical unpredictability. Effective military innovation is an interactive cultural, political, economic, and strategic learning process. It occurs only in response to the demands of a unique historical situation; universalized theories will apply to only a few actual situations, and then only partially and in unexpected ways. Ultimately, we cannot conceive of solutions until our situation has defined the problems.

At best, any new warfighting methods we develop today will dictate the starting point of the next fight. After that, a variety of opponents will answer in a variety of ways. From this perspective, the technology one brings to a war is far less important than the adaptability one exhibits after it begins.

It seems fair to say, then, that the transformation project attempts to plan too much based on too little. It tries to preempt the future and, in so doing, promises to expend enormous resources shooting in the dark. Network-centric warfare may or may not address the threats that will arise in decades to come; we simply have no way of knowing. Those responsible for reshaping the U.S. military should salvage the useful aspects of network-centrism (such as a universal communications structure) and base subsequent plans on the fact that, however well we prepare, we usually will find ourselves facing the unexpected.8 A redesigned military always should be consciously and actively adaptive.

Such an approach to transformation will work within history, seeking to leverage the innovative potential in current fights. Because real conflicts confront us with the component experiments can never reproduce—an independent antagonist—relevant innovation must be the byproduct of historical competition." In solving the dilemmas created by real-world enemies, operators learn to employ equipment in ways the designers never could have imagined, and troops develop tactics that could not evolve in training. For this reason, the fight presented by current circumstances offers the only reliable laboratory for military innovation.

The Defense Department should capitalize on this dynamic by funding experimental units designed, trained, and led by veterans of current contingencies. Warriors learn in combat; the solutions they come out with are always superior to the ones they went in with, and this is the seed of innovation. Would-be commanders (of any rank) who have returned from the fight could submit proposals for constructing units with novel capabilities using a certain amount of money over a certain amount of time—the military equivalent of a business plan. The resulting experimental units would be deployed back to the trouble spots that sparked their commanders' visions. If proved useful, they could be retained or even expanded. This process would maximize the innovative potential inherent in the historical process by connecting experimentation with real-world enemies and rewarding inventiveness in the officer corps.

To be relevant, the transformation project must construct a continually evolving force whose structure cannot be predicted or defined at this time. Practices such as those outlined here would transform the U.S. military in unpredictable ways. They would ensure we have a variety of embryonic forces that could be expanded to meet every developing threat on its own terms. Such practices would prevent us from overcommitting resources to force structures that are marginally relevant to the current situation and might turn out to be inadequate in the future. Perhaps most important, such practices would foster a habit of adaptability in our institutions, so that when the unexpected happens, they will recover quickly and respond effectively.

Network-Centrism: Defining Warfare Down

For almost a decade, many top U.S. strategic thinkers have agreed that the present strategic situation entails a long series of small wars for U.S. armed forces. The world's societies continue to integrate through global commerce conducted under the aegis of U.S. hegemony. In this environment, the primary threat to international security springs from regions that have either opted out or been left out of the globalizing trend. These "gap" regions appear to be caught in a vicious cycle of economic depression and political instability, and they host the lion's share of the world's terrorist groups and two-bit tyrants.10

Addressing these unstable regions requires a multipronged approach. The task is to promote the social stability and trustworthy institutions required for economic prosperity to reach every corner of the globe, a sort of "no country left behind" policy. Achieving such an ambitious goal requires adroit use of financial aid to foster growth and counter corruption. Diplomatically it entails cultivation of regional blocs of stable nations to take collective responsibility for adjacent pockets of instability. Militarily, the primary task must be a mix of limited conventional wars and wide-scale nation building.

This stability-building approach to world security appears to be the best bet for forestalling or at least shaping the next Big War. Our strategic choice lies not between war and peace but between

numerous, apparently endless small conflicts . . . linked by a commitment to re-enforcing world order, or a gradually increasing anarchy that leads to intervention at a much costlier level or even a cataclysm of global proportions preceded by a period of relative if deceptive peace.¹¹

Cooperative, long-term military interventions, then, will be the Defense Department's primary contribution to a multifaceted strategy to prevent localized instability from triggering global insecurity and large-scale rearmament.

The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) reflects this thinking. It seeks to "ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and trade"; to "expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy"; and to "develop agendas for cooperative action with other main centers of global power." While the NSS stops short of announcing a series of small wars, the task clearly is implied, and the project already is under way in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, Colombia, and elsewhere. Yet, because the Pentagon is culturally and structurally unprepared for this task, its transformation project fails to address it adequately.

The small wars the NSS calls us to fight have unique characteristics. They are fought with restricted means for limited ends. They are wars of policy, not national survival, so policy requirements (not military imperatives) set the objectives and place artificial constraints on tactics. Opposition forces usually consist of guerrilla fighters too dispersed to be detected or countered by technological means. Such armed threats only exacerbate the core problems of a small war: nonexistent infrastructures, widespread skill deficiencies, corrupt administration, and the disease that accompanies deep poverty. Because the challenges are so complex, most small wars last for decades, and when they end-if they end-usually do so without much in the way of formal resolution.

Because survival is not at stake, this kind of war tends to become a political football, so if the public at home happens to notice them, small wars usually are divisive. Accordingly, the warriors who fight them tend to return home without fanfare, and regiments end up honoring their dead in quiet obscurity. Like it or not, this is the kind of war implied by our NSS, the kind required by the strategic dynamics of a globalized economy.

The problem is that the U.S. military loathes small wars, and the transformation documents reflect this bias. Admittedly, these documents pay occasional lip service to the "full range of military operations" and "stability operations."12 Some actually advocate full spectrum dominance.¹³ But it is no secret that in real terms "transformation" is synonymous with "network-centric warfare," a concept unsuited for small wars.¹⁴

Based on the "information age" premise, network-centrism defines warfare as a fundamentally technological problem that can be solved using sensors and precision weapons. It sees transformation as a

steady infusion of new technology and modernization and replacement of equipment . . . development of doctrine, organizations, training and education, leaders, and people that effectively take advantage of the technology. . . . Our advantage must, therefore, come from leaders, people, doctrine, organizations, and training that enable us to take advantage of technology.¹⁵

An arena of mechanical competition yielding a decisive outcome, the "battle space" envisioned by transformation is conceptually identical to the battlefields of World War II, America's all-time favorite conflict and the quintessential Big War. The only difference is the presence of gadgets that enable us to emphasize "functional control versus physical occupation of the battlespace"-to fight World War II better.¹⁶

It is here that any gesture toward full spectrum dominance breaks down. Small wars are not confined to a battle space. Armed opponents are only a small portion of the problems small wars seek to address. Physical security is just a prelude to the political, institutional, and structural work that is the main effort. Yet, even the military component of small wars differs fundamentally from the scenario envisioned by the transformation documents. The often-present guerrillas are not subject to "deep sensor reach" or "precision engagement." They are not impressed by "de-massed forces," nor are they affected by "dominant maneuver." They are not easily deterred or dissuaded, and only rarely can they be decisively engaged. Perhaps technology cannot replace human beings in these scenarios because small wars are not mechanical problems. Policing them requires an irreducible number of straight-leg infantry, not to mention civil affairs specialists, engineers, doctors, and human intelligence assets. One has no hope of fighting small wars with a small force and "minimal reinforcements."

Despite its claims to breadth, then, transformation proposes a narrowly conceived force structure based on a narrow definition of warfare. It ignores entire categories of conflict in practice, if not in verbiage. The promised one-size-fits-all solution turns out to be largely irrelevant to numerous scenarios.¹⁷ Instead of adapting to the current strategic demands, we are preparing to fight straw-man adversaries in an idealized future.

Learning the A-B-Cs

Designing a military force structure for the United States poses a basic dilemma, usefully termed the "ABC problem": should one assume the primary threat is

an "A" list of peers such as Germany, Japan, France, or Russia, a "B" list that includes mid-level developing states with modernized conventional forces and primitive weapons of mass destruction such as Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, or North Korea, or a "C" list composed of militarily modest states-such as Libya, Serbia. Cuba-and nonstate actors, such as various terrorist, criminal, or insurgent groups that often pose threats to American national interests?¹⁸

The answer, of course, is all of the above. Addressing B- and C-level threats is essential to world stability; yet, it would be foolhardy to suppose that an A-level competitor-the only foe that would threaten the survival of our nation-will never develop. Different types of threats demand distinct and possibly incompatible techniques, so the question, as the transformation documents (to their credit) repeat again and again, is how a military with limited resources ought to deal with present requirements while remaining ready for total war.

Traditionally, this has been discussed as a dilemma of "the peacetime military," a concept that fits nicely with the narrow definition of warfare that pervades our current military thinking: the raison d'etre of the military is allout war between nation-states.¹⁹ Everything else is just a distraction that dulls finely honed Big War capabilities. In reality, however, one ignores either end of the spectrum at great peril; in reality, there is no such thing as peace for the professional warrior. Fighting is our raison d'etre: our claim to professional status rests on our ability to prosecute every imaginable variety with equal facility.

A realistic force structure, then, should confront the ABC problem-the range of military operations-headon. It should avoid a one-size-fits-all mind-set that attempts to fight small wars with tools designed for Big Wars, or vice versa. Ideally, the United States should have three militaries, one tailored to each level threat.

Or perhaps two would be sufficient-an A/B military and a B/C military. Given the existence of two ground forces among our services, this might be an option. Assuming that small wars would require only minimal adjustments within the Navy and Air Force, the problem with such an approach lies partly in the disconnect between ethos and resources in the Army and Marine Corps. The Army has more bodies than the Marine Corps, so its resources are better suited to fight a number of simultaneous small wars.²⁰ Yet, excepting light infantry units such as the Ranger battalions, and the 101st (Air Assault) and 82nd (Airborne) divisions, the Army personifies a Big-War mind-set. Culturally, it has never embraced the notion that its raison d'etre includes little scraps as well as all-out brawls (despite a string of occupations and peacekeeping missions).

In contrast, the Marine Corps culture emphasizes "doing windows." Even its junior members embrace the idea that fights come in all shapes and sizes; so at first glance, the Marine Corps would seem to be a natural choice for America's B/C force. The problem here is twofold. First, the Marine Corps is tiny compared to the Army, possessing nowhere near the numbers required to fight multiple simultaneous small wars. Second, the Marine Corps, when combined with the Navy, offers a comprehensive firststrike/first-response capability not duplicated in any other service. Tie it to a single long-term mission, and the President has lost his fire brigade. Either way, once it was decided which force would become the A/B specialist and which the B/C, one force always would have to be stripped to a minimum level. The force least applicable to the existing strategic situation would have to hibernate until strategic needs changed. Addressing the ABC dilemma by creating two "specialty" forces, then, is an awkward and potentially wasteful option.

The alternative is structural adaptation. For this approach, the U.S. military will have to acknowledge that some capabilities that work well in one portion of the spectrum will not apply in others. Rather than seeking a static set of universally applicable capabilities, U.S. forces must develop procedures for rapidly retooling themselves as the threat shifts. In some cases, this could be merely a matter of apportionment. For instance, civil affairs and military police units often constitute the main effort in a C-level environment, while in an A-level situation they are necessary as supporting elements. In other cases, adaptation will require an extensive overhaul of equipment and training. When C-level missions predominate, for example, tank drivers will have to learn to patrol streets on foot.

Differences in scale also will have to be addressed. The inevitable casualties, if not the sheer scope, of A-level wars render them beyond the capabilities of the full-time regulars that police C- and even B-level environments. While we live in a B/C context today, we must prepare to select, equip, train, and discipline conscripts for ?-level fights. We also will have to prepare to deal with masses of people whose mentality differs greatly from that of old-line professionals.²¹ These are issues we have confronted successfully in the past: every jarhead knows the Marines who fought the ?-level battles at Belleau Wood and Iwo Jima were trained and led by veterans of the C-level Banana Wars. Yet this adaptation process always has been ad hoc, and it has involved enough near-fatal missteps to warrant full-time attention today.

A transformed military ought to develop systematic methods for transitioning between various portions of the warfare spectrum. If entire forces cannot be constructed and maintained before the strategic situation demands, it would be worth our money to maintain cadres specifically tasked with developing techniques for the levels of conflict not currently on the table. In a C/B-level threat environment such as we face now, these cadres would not only track developing ?-level threats but also construct comprehensive plans and infrastructure for rapidly expanding and retooling the force to face those threats. In this regard, the transformation documents' proposal to make the Pentagon bureaucracy more flexible and responsive is probably the most intelligent and urgent of the three transformation initiatives.

The commitment to network-centric warfare, on the other hand, is ill advised. Instead of relying on networkcentrism, which seeks to address straw-man threats, we should use the innovative potential inherent in the current threat situation as a springboard for transitioning to other areas of the spectrum. For instance, the current strategic situation consists of C- and some B-level threats, but any claim that B/C-level experience is "of limited value" in other types of warfare, that it "detracts from [our] ability to fight a major conflict," is false." It is no coincidence, for instance, that air-ground coordination techniques developed in Nicaragua during the 1920s translated into crucial close air-support in the South Pacific during the 1940s.

Indeed, B/C-level wars are excellent classrooms for the next big test. Logistical units learn to defend themselves, ensuring that the depots, headquarters elements, and lines of communication in the next Big War will be well defended. Our warriors are hardened. An intelligent use of strategic necessities can maximize this educative tendency in small wars. Transport networks used to support low-intensity operations ought to be designed for maximum utility in a major conflict. Expeditionary units rotating out of C-level environments could be required to conduct the same emergency displacement they would have to perform if a major contingency required their withdrawal. Functions performed in small wars could be designed to maximize their potential in other scenarios.

Focusing on the task at hand, even if that task is not a major war, is not irresponsible; it is essential. A truly transformed military will not necessarily be a network-centric military. Rather, it will be one able to reinvent itself in a heartbeat. When the United States can bring this sort of structural adaptability to bear on an enemy, it will not matter that we cannot predict today what he (or we) will look like tomorrow.