Jeffrey S Niemi

Army Transformation: Optimizing Command and Control for the 21st Century Jeffrey S Niemi

Publisher Marketing: The purpose of this monograph is to determine if the Army missed an opportunity to reduce a level of command as a part of Army Transformation. This monograph demonstrates that the Army failed to maximize Transformation and reduce a level of command in according with its modularity concept developed between 2003 and 205 and espoused as late as the 2005 Army Posture Statement. This monograph explores the historical lineage and culture and how it applies to Army decision making over the last one-hundred years. It then reviews the concept of Network Centric Warfare, its prominence at the turn of the twenty-first century, and the potential to flatten organizations within the military according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense. The analysis then shifts to the Army's Transformational application of this concept: shifting to a brigade-centric organization, reducing a level of command, and changing the culture within the Army. The monograph presents what the Army achieved through Transformation and identifies the "roadblocks" to achieving the initial design. The primary issue focuses on the inverse relationship between the Napoleonic designed hierarchical system the U. S. Army developed to fight major theater wars versus the requirements the Army faces today based on predominately stability operations. The monograph then proposes a method to reap the benefits of the concepts of Transformation, applied to today's stability focused environment, while retaining the vital lineage and culture of over two-hundred years of Army history.