Defense Transformation: Background and Oversight Issues for Congress (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Revised April 16, 2007 |
| Report Number |
RL32238 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Ronald O'Rourke, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
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Summary:
The Bush Administration identified transformation as a major goal for the Department of Defense (DOD) soon after taking office, and initially justified many of its proposals for DOD on the grounds that they were needed for defense transformation. Although defense transformation is still discussed in administration defense-policy documents and budget-justification materials, the concept is now less prominent in discussions of U.S. defense policy and programs than it was during the earlier years of the Bush Administration.
The Administration's vision for defense transformation calls for placing increased emphasis in U.S. defense planning on the following: irregular warfare, including terrorism, insurgencies, and civil war; potential catastrophic security threats, such as the possession and possible use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists and rogue states; and potential disruptive events, such as the emergence of new technologies that could undermine current U.S. military advantages. The Administration's vision for defense transformation calls for shifting U.S. military forces toward a greater reliance on joint operations, network-centric warfare, effects-based operations, speed and agility, and precision application of firepower. Transformation could affect the defense industrial base by transferring funding from "legacy" systems to transformational systems, and from traditional DOD contractors to firms that previously have not done much defense work.
Potential oversight issues for Congress regarding defense transformation include the potential for DOD transformation plans to change as a result of Robert Gates succeeding Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense; the merits of certain elements of DOD's transformation plan; overall leadership and management of transformation; experiments and exercises conducted in support of transformation; measures for creating a culture of innovation viewed as necessary to support transformation; the adequacy of information provided to Congress regarding transformation-related initiatives; and whether the Administration has invoked the term transformation as an all-purpose rhetorical tool for justifying its various proposals for DOD. This report will be updated as events warrant.
