After six years of transforming US forces while fighting a war in Iraq, Mr Rumsfeld has resigned and the time has come for a first evaluation of the transformation enterprise. The dream of disruptive innovation and of a rapid change of mentalities towards a seamless Big Joint has given way to a venture generating capabilities under the spell of technology. Training and integration of new capabilities have thus replaced concept development and experimentation in the transformation business model, while the progress of Interagency strikes a hopeful note for the resolution of future crises.
What Remains of Transformation?
‘In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken,
but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.’
Mao Tse-tung, On Contradiction (August 1937)
Driving change in one’s own organisation in the same way that operations are conducted is hard to imagine, but the United States undertook to do just that for its armed forces at the beginning of the century, maintaining absolute faith in their capacity to overcome problems through innovation and technology.
In 2001 US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld initiated a transformation, pointing out the uncertainty of future threats,(1) the outdated view of the world founded on past threats and the inadequacy of force development as a response. This transformation was aimed at changing mentalities hung over from the Cold War and a traditional view of conflicts between states, and focused on creating a culture of continual change intended to generate the ideas required to face up to new threats.
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