Defeat: A Motivation for Organizational Change?
Abstract
The Department of Defense in many ways - and for many reasons - was not ready to fight and win during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The United States military didn't have the training, the procedures, or the proper resources to fight a counterinsurgency-type war. Still structured and resourced for conventional war, the Department of Defense (DoD) must change the course of its current transformation strategy or continue its poor record of dealing with terrorism and counterinsurgency. This paper will suggest two critical transformational changes required to maintain our military superiority. The most desperately-needed change is revamping the military personnel system to improve the way strategic leaders are developed. The second is developing an agency within the DoD that can fill the current void between military operations that defeat an enemy nation-state and assistance with the reconstruction of that society afterward. Without change, we can expect more situations like post-war Iraq, where in a country of 26 million people, conditions have deteriorated into an insurgency mixed with sectarian violence and where achieving a lasting victory with a predominantly military solution is proving not realistic or possible.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 28, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA468391
Entities
People
- Scott M. Carlson
Organizations
- United States Army War College