The United States faces extraordinary challenges on both the strategic and operational levels. At the strategic level, the national security environment is in flux and many of the structures, concepts, and methods of the past no longer apply to the conditions we now face. Containment, the alliance system, our military doctrine, and many other elements of national security policy were not designed for prolonged struggle with militant Islam, an ascendant China, a Russia which is no longer a containable super power enemy but a rival for influence at America's expense, a decline in American influence, and a sharply divided American polity. Generals Zeb Bradford and Frederic Brown, co-authors of the highly influential book on the U.S. military in Vietnam, U.S. Army in Transition, have teamed up again to discuss the need for a new era of transition within the Armed Forces.
Bradford and Brown point to the current war in Iraq, a lack of interagency competence across the national government, and the botched disaster relief efforts of Katrina as glaring examples of the failure of America's Army to adapt to present-day challenges. Given the rapid and dramatic changes throughout the world, the authors stress how selective adaptation of specific programs and procedures can contribute to improving policy execution within and across all facets of government, including the armed forces. Yet this adaptation to change must be institutionalized, requiring the Army to become a constantly evolving learning organization. Only within this context can the army manage to act on the myriad demands of the day including taking the leadership in international cooperation, fighting the amorphous enemy of The Long War against terrorism, responding effectively to disaster scenarios, and engaging in stabilization and reconstruction efforts around the world.
ZEB B. BRADFORD, JR. (Brig. Gen., U.S. Army, Retired) is a business consultant and national security analyst. A graduate of West Point, he taught politics and economics at the Military Academy. He is also a graduate of Harvard University's Graduate School of Government and of its Senior Executive Seminar on National and Intl Security. He was Senior Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Resident Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Intl Center for Scholars. A highly-decorated combat arms officer, he served in numerous command and staff positions in the United States, Vietnam, Korea, and Europe, including service as head of strategic planning at NATO headquarters in Belgium. He is a widely published author on national security affairs, co-authoring with Frederic Brown the influential United States Army in Transition on the rebuilding of the Army after Vietnam.
FREDERIC J. BROWN (Lt. Gen., U.S. Army, Retired) is currently Senior Mentor for establishing Knowledge Management in the U.S. European Command. He received his doctorate, as a West Point Olmsted Scholar, from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. As a military officer he commanded army units at virtually every level in the United States, Germany, and Vietnam, including as Chief of Armor and Cavalry where he was deeply involved in rebuilding the American armored forces prior to Desert Storm. He has also served in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council Staff and the West Wing White House staff. He is co-author, with Zeb Bradford, of
United States Army in Transition and author of the subsequent
The United States Army in Transition II: Landpower in the Information Age.
