As the general election gears up, questions surrounding defense and national security are likely to dominate the national discussion.  While defense transformation remains an important issue for the Defense Department, it will most likely be lost in policy debates about Iraq and Iran.  But defense transformation is not an arcane policy issue; rather it is critical to ensuring that the U.S. retains its preeminent position in world affairs.  Simply put, transformation refers to the optimal alignment and development of capabilities, organizations and processes in support of the warfighter to reflect the ever-changing nature of warfare.  It is an issue that will confront the next president of the United States. 

Current U.S. military operations are a case in point.  The Defense Department must be prepared to conduct counterinsurgency operations in one part of the world while simultaneously working to dissuade an emerging peer competitor from taking provocative actions in another part of the world.  The next administration must continue to transform the capabilities, processes and organizations within the Department to reflect the diverse array of challenges facing the Department.  Transformation efforts should focus on not only the development of innovative military capabilities but also on human capital.  A strong executive with a history of innovation and reform should lead this effort within the Department.  Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be an excellent choice given his executive experience in the private and public sectors.  One major task for the next administration will be leaning out the Office of the Secretary of Defense which has become extremely bloated.  Originally established to offset the power of the Services in the acquisition process, it has become a stove-piped organization.

The next president will, however, confront the same barriers and challenges its predecessor faced-namely the bureaucracy of the Pentagon.  Strong executives will be required to tame the bureaucracy.  In order for the United States to maintain its preeminent position in world affairs, its defense apparatus must be transformed.  When Donald Rumsfeld returned to the Pentagon in 2001, transformation was at the top of his agenda.  However, the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq obviously shifted the focus of the Department’s senior leadership. 

Transformation, as Andrew Krepinevich noted in his 1992 assessment on the future of warfare, is not the rapidity of change but the “magnitude of the change itself.”   Unfortunately, transformation has become another buzzword in the Defense Department lexicon.  There have been countless studies on how to transform the Department by Washington think-tanks.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies has done several studies examining Defense Department governance structures as part of their “Beyond Goldwater-Nichols” series.  The issue is implementation.  Implementation will require dedicated executives willing to innovate and facilitate a cultural shift inside the Pentagon.  The imperative of transformation cannot be forgotten by the next administration.  A failure to transform will result in adverse consequences for the power and security of the United States.