Fall 2006 - Air & Space Power Chronicle - Air Force Link

MILITARY TRANSFORMATION 89course, we seldom find ourselves in a perfectworld. The impetus for transformationalchange may arise not only from identifying anew product or ends but also from havingdrivers of ways or means.For example, the period between the worldwars may provide some explanation of howends, ways, or means can drive transformation.Just after World War I, the military found thegeostrategic setting dramatically changed—and still changing. This time, particularly inthe late 1920s and 1930s, was one of “strategicpause.” Because the general public did notshare military leaders’ concerns about risingthreats, the military came under great pressureto reduce budgets. In spite of fiscal constraints—perhapsin some part due to them—the US military developed new organizations,doctrine, and technologies. These developmentspaid great dividends during World WarII, enabling the United States to play the decisiverole in winning that war. The National DefensePanel of 1997 noted the correlation betweenthe present time and the period of the1920s and 1930s:This focus on the long-term capabilities andchallenges [looking 10 to 20 years in the future]is essential, as is the need for military adaptationand innovation. Indeed, one can look back tothe 1920s and 1930s—a period of great geopoliticaland military-technical transformation—and see the services engaged in bold experimentationwithin tightly constrained budgets.That culture and process of innovation must beactively encouraged so that our military willemerge at the end of this transformation able toexploit the full potential of the [revolution inmilitary affairs] and prepared to address thevery different challenges the [Quadrennial DefenseReview] correctly foresees beyond 2010. 9Each of the services approached transformationin a unique and innovative way, focusingon the ends of winning the next war in arapidly changing world. Each of them, however,had different drivers for effecting thosechanges. The budding US Army Air Corpsfound that the driver for change was indeedthe technology of the airplane—the means asthe driver for transformation. The airplaneonly partially realized its utility during WorldWar I, but at Maxwell Field, Alabama, youngAirmen considered how to put this technologyto work in the next war. At the end of WorldWar I, airpower “was in its infancy. The newrole of three-dimensional warfare was eventhen foreseen by a few farsighted men.” 10 Theincreasing capability of the airplane (the means)drove doctrinal development of strategicbombing (the ways) to win the future war (theends). The Air Corps’ strategic focus duringthe 1920s and 1930s remained on the ends—but the driver (the bomber) was the means.The US Navy realized that its ways of approachingwarfare required that it changefrom relying heavily on battleships to usingaircraft-carrier battle groups. After World WarI, the Navy deteriorated, but in 1934 it beganto build up its forces—and in 1940 the servicereceived authorization to build 11 Essex-classaircraft carriers. 11 The goal of winning the waragainst the rising Japanese naval threat (theends), which led to a change in the way offighting by shifting to aircraft-carrier groups,served as the Navy’s driver for transformationin the 1930s.In the Army, drivers of change includedboth ways and means, but the extent of changeproved limited prior to World War II. In 1929Col George C. Marshall became assistant commandantof the Infantry School at Fort Benning,Georgia. As head of the Academic Departmentthere, he had a free hand to developthe course of instruction for young officers.The future chief of staff of the Army played akey role in developing the doctrine and tacticsthat his service would use successfully on thebattlefield. Forrest C. Pogue notes that Marshallhad “strong and revolutionary ideas,many of which had been developing in hismind for some years” and found himself in a“position to apply them to the training ofyoung combat officers [at the] basic trainingground for the Army’s basic fighting branch.”Marshall felt that he “could now transfuse intothe Army’s main blood stream” the things hehad learned and thought. 12George S. Patton had strongly encouragednew tactics and the use of the tank for futurewarfare (at the Army War College, he wrote athesis entitled “The Probable Characteristics