But transformation has also—predictably—become the fashionable Pentagon buzz word. The word means many things to many people, according to their agendas. A plan to acquire a new ship, plane, or tank was labeled transformational by the program’s advocates. Individual service leaders seeking to protect their budgets from being trimmed recast outmoded doctrines, force structures, and strategies as transformational.

Yet a few truly brilliant individuals understood that transformation was not about money, programs, or forces; it was about the nature of the threats and challenges to our national security in the future and how we should train, configure, and plan to best protect our vital interests. It meant that military Services were going to change if only to better integrate their individual strengths. It meant that the components of battle would not be Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, but land, maritime, air, and space. It meant that capabilities would not be capital “A” as in Army but small “a” as in armies, and that the great and useful pride each Service has in its history, uniforms, and ways of doing business would have to be subordinated to what makes best sense when fighting a particular enemy. Transformation was about comparing the Service weapons needed to conduct a mission or do a task—eliminating duplication. It meant training as one, with members from all the Services, in order to build the trust and confidence of a team. It meant that we had to think about war in new ways.

In the operations to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the forces were joint (meaning elements of two or more U.S. Services operated as one force), and combined (meaning forces of two or more nations operated as one). Because of the nature of the enemy force, the terrain, and the constraints placed on the use of force by the political leadership, the primary combat tasks were most often conducted from the air. Once the military leadership gained an understanding of how to transition the conflict from an attrition-based strategy to an effects-based strategy that put unbearable pressure on the Serbian leadership, the conflict was terminated.

One may then ask why this need to transform has been emphasized only recently? Surely our military forces have been fighting jointly since World War II, so what is the big deal?