Crs Report for Congress Received through the Crs Web Defense Transformation : Background and Oversight Issues for Congress Updated April 4, 2005

By O’Rourke, Ronald

Book Id: WPLBN0000206790
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.2 MB
Reproduction Date: 2008

Title:	Crs Report for Congress Received through the Crs Web Defense Transformation : Background and Oversight Issues for Congress Updated April 4, 2005
Author:	O’Rourke, Ronald
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Government publications, Legislation., Government Printing Office (U.S.)
Collections:	Government Library Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Government Printing Office


Citation APA MLA Chicago O'rourke, B. R. (n.d.). Crs Report for Congress Received through the Crs Web Defense Transformation : Background and Oversight Issues for Congress Updated April 4, 2005. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Excerpt
Summary: The Bush Administration identified transformation as a major goal for the Department of Defense (DOD) soon after taking office and has since worked to refine and implement its plans for defense transformation. Defense transformation can be defined as large-scale, discontinuous, and possibly disruptive changes in military weapons, concepts of operations (i.e., approaches to warfighting) and organization. The issue for the 109th Congress is how to take the concept of defense transformation into account in assessing and acting on Administration proposals for DOD.

Table of Contents
Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Issue For Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Related CRS Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Organization of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 What Is Defense Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 What Are The Administration’s Plans For Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 DOD Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Overall Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Service and Agency Transformation Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Office of Force Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 U.S. Joint Forces Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 New Weapon Acquisition Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 How Much Would Transformation Cost? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 What Weapons And Systems Are Transformational? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 How Might It Affect the Defense Industrial Base? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 How Might It Affect Operations With Allied Forces? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 What Transformational Changes Has Congress Initiated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Oversight Issues for Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Is Defense Transformation Necessary or Desirable? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 New Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Asymmetric Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Preserving Conventional Superiority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Opportunity And Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Comparative Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 If So, Is The Administration’s Plan Appropriate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Proposed Direction Of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Proposed Strategy For Implementing Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Potential Implications for Congressional Oversight of DOD . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Committee Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Adequacy of Information and Metrics for Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Oversight Of Weapons Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Transformation As All-Purpose Justification Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Congressional Transformation Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Appendix A: Additional Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 White House Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 DOD Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 CRS Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 GAO Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Other Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41