This site provides information to the American people and military service members about the policies and programs regarding the Defense Department's transformation initiative, and it also provides substantive information to government policy makers, journalists and members of international allied military services.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States accelerated the need to transform to better meet the challenges of the 21st century, thus, sustain American competitive advantage in warfare.

Transformation is foremost a continuing process that does not have an end point. It is meant to create or anticipate the future. Transformation is meant to deal with the co-evolution of concepts, processes, organizations and technology. Change in any one of these areas necessitates change in all.

Transformation is meant to create new competitive areas and new competencies. It is meant to identify, leverage and even create new underlying principles for the way things are done. Transformation is meant to identify and leverage new sources of power. The overall objective of these changes is simply – sustained American competitive advantage in warfare.

New weapons systems and state-of-the-art technology are important parts of the Defense Department’s transformation, but the key to the process is the people involved.

Most of the ongoing transformational process is cultural, thus, people are necessary for changing the ways the military operates. Commanders cannot be threatened when subordinates have new ideas, but rather need to encourage new ideas and give subordinates the room and budget to try those ideas out.

In a culture such as the military, change is a constant. But transformation represents a shift in fundamental rules. That type of shift is not always a comfortable experience for everyone involved. Once the shift has been recognized and made, however, comfort zones return.