Transforming Defense

From April 17-20, 2001, the U.S. Army War College sponsored a major conference to examine the many issues and questions surrounding the transformation of the U.S. Armed Forces from a Cold War paradigm into a defense establishment ready to meet the complex challenges of the future. The conference brought together at Carlisle Barracks over 230 American and foreign academic, business, government, media, and military representatives. A series of enlightening-and sometimes troubling- discussions highlighted the many opportunities and challenges involved in executing long-term and extensive defense reform. The conference focused on five general themes: an historical overview of defense transformation, change and organizational dynamics, global perspectives on American defense reform, financing the process, and service plans to execute it. This collection regroups papers and presentations fi'om the conference into three categories: Historical Overviews of Transforming Defense, Transformation Plans and Barriers, and External Views of Transformation. Each section contains an introduction describing the essays that follow, as well as summarizing other relevant conference presentations and discussions bearing on the topic. If presenters did not produce a formal article for publication, their key arguments are still described in the introduction.Army War Coll Strategic Studies Inst Carlisle Barracks PA is the author of 'Transforming Defense' with ISBN 9781423524649 and ISBN 1423524640.