Completing the Transformation of U.S. Military Forces: The Updated Military Excelled in Afghanistan and Iraq, But Further Progress Must be Supported Now to Ensure Long-Term Security‪.‬

On taking office in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced his intention to transform the U.S. armed forces to meet today's threats of rogue states and transnational terrorism. The effectiveness of U.S. fighting forces in Afghanistan and Iraq indicate that the transformation, which some have called a "revolution in military affairs," is on the right path. But many technical challenges remain to be met, and today's headlines make it clear that the end of combat between organized armed forces does not necessarily herald the end of a war. If the United States chooses to rest on its military laurels, the nation may in the long run lose the great benefits that have accrued from the armed forces' efforts thus far. The U.S. armed forces today are characterized in large measure by their unique ability to attack opposing military forces with enough precision and speed to prevail against heavy odds. This capability is, as much as any of the armed forces' other features, indicative of their transformation over the past decade and a half from forces tailored for major land war in Western Europe to those far better suited for the new kinds of warfare that have come to face the nation since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.