Pentagon May Close Transformation Office: Helped Establish Innovative Outlook To DoD Challenges, By Christopher P. CavasOFT's demise was pretty much preordained by Art's departure and passing, but there's little injustice in that ending. The office did a lot of cool things, and just this article's quick review of the ongoing projectts shows how much wonderful creativity and new thinking was being enabled.
The Office of Force Transformation (OFT), a small but significant element of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s vaunted push to change the military, may be reaching the end of the line.
High-level Pentagon discussions were held earlier this month to discuss the fate of the office, which has not had a permanent director since retired Navy Vice Adm. Art Cebrowski left for health reasons in January 2005. Cebrowski died in November.
A senior Pentagon source said Aug. 22 “there has been talk about reorganizing, consolidating or disestablishing OFT over the last year. Several options have been discussed.”
[Editor's note: The article passed to Tom is subscribers-only at DefenseNews.com. I found a similar (free) article at Navy Times.]
But Bob Work is right: the Long War is simply taking over. OFT's decline simply represents the end of the pre-9/11 focus on transformation, which, absent 9/11, was a much needed bureaucratic push.
Art and others played out a most excellent string following 9/11, using OFT as a pulpit to push Network-Centric Warfare's "many and the cheap" mantra in ways most helpful to waging the Long War. But Art's success in mainstreaming his thinking meant that OFT always had a limited shelf life.
NCW is everywhere now.
So is Transformation.
And now the Long War's emphasis on small wars, the many and the cheap, etc. supercedes the requirements originally met by creating OFT.
Art himself saw this coming and had no problem with it. He simply would have moved on to the next great definition.
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Comments (4)
OFT created lots of great power point slides and signalled the services which buzz-words you need to include in naming your system to get them funded. OFT never had a real portfolio and was basically a cheerleading organization. I had immense respect for Cebrowski, but think OFT is going away because it was always personality-driven and there is no heir apparent, not because it was really successful.
Posted by john | August 27, 2006 12:04 PM
Tom,
Fascinating blog. Question: does anyone in the upper ranks (i.e., Pentagon strategic planning) take seriously comparisons of Empire between the U.S.A. and say Britain? Before reading your books I read "Colossus" by NYU historian Niall Ferguson (and British citizen). It strikes me that Americans really are not interested in placing the stars & stripes on Iraqi oil (i.e., nationalizing), but take seriously the free market mechanics. Is it that American empire has an agenda to "fill" the gaps with the current strategy (- a kind of feedback loop) while Britain saw her role as occupying the gaps (e.g., a classic colonial model)?
Again, great site and will keep reading your works.
Best regards,
James
Posted by James Hopkins | August 27, 2006 2:52 PM
I am finally coming to an understanding about Barnett’s ideas and realize I agree with most what his take is. I found myself reading through his book and making my own leaps like "yes, but we would need this and that..." only to read on a few pages and see he dealt with the topic. I think my main difference is that me being a Taurus rather than an idealistic Virgo optimist, brings me to say that NCW will be eaten, disgusted, and made to stink inside the bowels of the military bureaucracy and then eliminated like the OFT. Luckily I am wrong 49% of the time. ;)
Posted by Jim Eagle Feather | August 27, 2006 5:55 PM
It is time for T. Barnett to leave the Navy War College. The criteria for selecting faculty members should include better credentials, such as military and combat experience and who have lived in foreign countries, than a degree from Harvard.
I am a retired Air Force Colnel who spent several tours in southeast asia and also the middle east.
Posted by Anthony J DeCarlo | September 11, 2006 2:28 PM