Shaping U.S. Military Forces Revolution or Relevance

The Bush administration has talked of military transformation, beginning with the 2000 presidential campaign and continuing through military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Senator Sam Nunn called for force transformation. And even earlier, there was much discussion of a "revolution in military affairs." According to Worley, however, today's U.S. military is principally a smaller version of its Cold War forces, despite the fact that strategy and missions have changed dramatically. Significant historical events, mostly from World War II forward, are used to explain belief systems within the individual services and sometimes within specific branches of a single service. Worley includes the most important organisational structures - armoured and infantry divisions, fighter and bomber wings, and carrier battle groups - and does so in the context of modern conflicts, including Vietnam, the Gulf War, operations in Panama, Kosovo, and Somalia, and of course the unfinished conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. He highlights problems associated with the clash of service conceptions of war and the requirements of real conflict.