Presents key research and analysis conducted by the center and its associate members.

In a rapidly evolving business environment, many successful companies have transformed themselves by reexamining their core missions and competencies and exploiting innovation in nontraditional ways. Applying this business model to national defense, the innovation landscape can be said to have three regions: products (airplanes, tanks, ships), processes (integrated systems), and retrofits of legacy systems. While the DoD is not a commercial enterprise, nor can it change its critical missions as a private firm might do, it, too, operates in a dynamic environment and should be in a continual process of transformation to adjust to and exploit change. Achieving the right balance of effort in these three regions will pay handsome dividends. Diagrams.

Proposes a new and comprehensive military framework to help guide NATO improvements in the years ahead. This framework envisions a pyramid-like structure of future NATO forces and capabilities in 5 areas: a new NATO Special Operations Force, the NATO Response Force, high-readiness combat forces, stabilization and reconstruction forces, and assets for defense sector development. The U.S. would provide 1/3 of the forces, and Europe would be responsible for the other 2/3. If NATO succeeds in creating these forces for power projection and expeditionary missions, it will possess a broad portfolio of assets for operations against such threats as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and cross-border aggression.

Year ago the Chief of Staff of the Army initiated the Army After Next Project (AANP) as a means of stimulating constructive thinking about the Army's future throughout the service. AANP has quickly developed into a primary vehicle for long-range planning. Under the leadership of the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), the AANP has conducted an ambitious program of studies, symposia and workshops, culminating in a Winter War Game and Senior Seminar held at Carlisle, January 27-February 6, 1997. A key line of initial inquiry for us has been to forecast the nature of the future security environment in which the Army will operate. That is the task Dr. Steven Metz set for himself in this monograph. In the pages that follow he propounds "currents of change" that will determine the future and sketches a series of plausible future security systems. Each system is characterized by the forms of conflict that will dominate it, the major strategic issues the United States might face, and the resulting military implications. While Dr. Metz's analysis leads to observations certain to be controversial, he illustrates quite clearly the primacy that environmental context will have in shaping our national security outlook and military strategy. Thus, Dr. Metz's observations on trends and systems warrant careful consideration as national policymakers and the Army's leaders build the military force of the future.

Information and information technology (I/IT) can significantly increase the likelihood of success in stability operations if they are engaged as part of an overall strategy that coordinates the actions of outside intervenors and focuses on generating effective results for the host nation. Properly utilized, I/IT can help create a knowledgeable intervention, organize complex activities, and integrate stability operations with the host nation, making stability operations more effective. Key to these results is a strategy that requires that 1) the U.S. Government gives high priority to such an approach and ensures that the effort is a joint civilian-military activity; 2) the military makes I/IT part of the planning and execution of the stability operation; 3) preplanning and the establishment of I/IT partnerships are undertaken with key regular participants in stability operations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank; 4) the focus of the intervention, including the use of I/IT, is on the host nation, supporting host-nation governmental, societal, and economic development; and 5) key information technology capabilities are harnessed to support the strategy. Implementing the strategy will include 1) development of an information business plan for the host nation so that I/IT is effectively used to support stabilization and reconstruction; 2) agreements among intervenors on data-sharing and collaboration, including data-sharing on a differentiated basis; and 3) use of commercial IT tools and data provided on an unclassified basis.