Implications of the Military Reform Movement for the Army's PPBES.

Abstract

The military reform movement in the United States holds that there are several problems with the US military establishment. These problems are in the broad areas or organization, warfighting concepts, and technology and equipment. In all of these areas money is a major issue and thus inherently interesting to PPBES. Many of the problems identified by the movement and the misconceptions held by them and others can be traced to the instability inherent in an objectives based national planning system with a short term perspective. A superior mental construct would be the Clausewitizian notion of the Center of Gravity. From Center of Gravity based reasoning can be derived clear, stable and persuasive concepts which serve over the long term to provide criteria for force design decisions. The same concepts provide the basis for influencing the political consensus which is decisive in getting balanced resource programs funded. With Center of Gravity analysis as a continuing thread, the reform movements major themes are dealt with in terms of history, national values, the national planning system, development of strategy, the Congress, the bureaucracy, and PPBES itself.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 15, 1986
Accession Number
ADA170766

Entities

People

  • Bruce Gray

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Combat Support
  • Congress
  • Continents
  • Department Of Defense
  • Governments
  • Lessons Learned
  • Military Budgets
  • National Governments
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Procurement
  • Resource Management
  • Security
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Theoretical Analysis.