Subject: Terms of Reference--Defense Science Board 2005 Summer Study on Transformation: A Progress Assessment.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

3010 DEFENSE PENTAGON

WASHINGTON, DC 20301-3010

JAN 13 2005

MEMORANDUM FOR CHAIRMAN, DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD

SUBJECT: Terms of Reference--Defense Science Board 2005 Summer Study on Transformation: A Progress Assessment

Since the end of the Cold War, the Department of Defense has engaged in a wide range of military and humanitarian operations. As President G.W. Bush stated in the 2002 National Security Strategy, "The major institutions of American national security were designed in a different era to meet different requirements. All of them must be transformed." In response to this call to arms, the Department of Defense initiated wide-ranging plans, policies, and programs to transform itself. As described in the Secretary of Defense's 2003 Transformation Planning Guidance (TPG), the scope of the Department's transformation efforts encompassed how we fight, how we do business, and how we work with others. While the TPG states, "There will be no moment at which the Department is transformed," the Department must evaluate both the effectiveness and the direction of its transformation efforts.

You are requested to form a Defense Science Board Summer Study to provide an assessment of the Department's continuing transformation process. The assessment should describe the current status of the Department's transformation efforts, identify the appropriate transformation objectives, and recommend ways and means to meet the emerging and persistent challenges as identified in the 2004 National Defense Strategy.

The TPG outlined the Department's three-part strategy for transformation: Transformed culture, Transformed processes, and Transformed capabilities. Within the Department's transformation scope and strategy, the Study should consider all the following:

1) Concepts and Experimentation. Post-Cold War operational concepts are continuously evolving. In response to the Secretary's request for joint concepts of operations, the concept community developed a family of joint concepts organized in a hierarchy including the overarching Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsC), subordinate Joint Operating Concepts (JOC), supporting Joint Functional Concepts (JFC), and detailed Joint Integrating Concepts (JIC). In addition, the Services developed supporting service concepts. The Air Force is developing the Air Force Concepts of Operations (CONOPS); the Navy and Marine Corps are developing the Naval Operating Concept for Joint Operations (NOC); and the Army is pursuing the Future Force concept. These concepts address the development of future joint forces' transformational capabilities and characteristics, but an assessment is needed of the state of the joint concept development and experimentation process that integrates Service-provided capabilities into effective joint operational capabilities. Further, the assessment should examine how well the Department integrates the rest of the U.S. Government (USG) capabilities to provide the capabilities to deal with 21st Century adversaries. The Study should address alternative operational constructs and concept development processes, which would enable the Department of Defense to better meet the challenges of the 21st century by applying the entire array of power available to the USG. The Study must focus on important functional concepts and capabilities, such as logistics and battlespace awareness, which provide essential elements to implementing joint concepts. Finally, experimentation provides an important feedback mechanism into the iterative development of joint concepts. Consequently, the study must assess the state of experimentation, the interrelationships between a series of experiments within an experimental campaign, and, especially, the relationship and involvement of Service and Combatant Command experimentation efforts.

2) International competitors seek to develop and possess breakthrough technical capabilities intended to supplant U.S. advantages in particular operational domains. Because of this aspect of the security environment, the study should address disruptive challenges from a variety of sources such as technology, demographics, and legal. In addition, the Study should define the scope of the problem and capabilities DoD requires to address these challenges.

3) As an element of net-centric operations, the Department is developing a broad range of networked systems to generate new capabilities and multiply existing force structure effectiveness. The Study should assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the approaches to realize the potential advantages of net-centric operations.

4) The Department's force structure still is burdened with Cold War legacy components. A significant transformation effort seeks to transform the joint force into smaller, rapid, more agile forces with greater deployability and lethality than much of the current force. However, strategic guidance and operational experience confirm that some joint force operations will continue to require sustained presence and an ability to confront heavy, concentrated firepower to achieve desired effects and mission accomplishment. Since the Department's transformation efforts must reconcile expeditionary agility and responsiveness with persistence and durability, the study should focus on the Department's need for evolving joint forces to cover the spectrum of military engagement and accomplish the full range of missions assigned to DoD.

5) The Study should provide insights into two approaches to adaptability. The first examines how DoD might provide for high adaptability of the force by increasing the tempo of inserting promising science and technology initiatives into the acquisition process. The second approach should compare materiel, technological, conceptual, and organizational efforts to provide adaptability to surprise.

6) Industry partners are key to providing transformational capabilities. Consolidation since the Cold War peak has reduced the number of market participants (~32 to 8) at prime and subsystem levels. The Study should assess the suitability of the structure of the defense industry to the needs of Transformation.

7) Culture is a decisive characteristic of innovative military organizations. Future joint operations envision increasingly complex and heavy cognitive demands on personnel at all levels. The Department must examine how to adapt its culture to producing personnel able to meet the high knowledge demands of interdependent joint, interagency, and multinational operations. In addition, the Study should focus specifically on the human resources needed to develop and acquire new materiel, adapt existing systems to leverage past investment, exploit technologies, design organizations, and devise knowledge management procedures.

8) The Department's business processes, including its logistics and acquisition practices, must support and facilitate transformation. The assessment should evaluate progress made towards streamlining and reforming these processes and recommend a strategy for going forward especially in the area of acquisition of joint interoperable systems.

The Task Force will provide an interim report by May 2005.

The Study will be sponsored by me as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), Director, Force Transformation, and Director, Defense Research and Engineering. Gen Larry Welch, USAF (retired), and Dr. Robert Hermann will serve as the Task Force Chairmen. Dr. Jerry McGinn, OUSD(P), will serve as the Executive Secretary, and Lt Col Dave Robertson, USAF, will serve as the Defense Science Board Secretariat representative.

The Task Force will operate in accordance with the provisions of P.L. 92-463, the "Federal Advisory Committee Act," and DoD Directive 5105.4, the "DoD Federal Advisory Committee Management Program." It is not anticipated that this Task Force will need to go into any "particular matters" within the meaning of Section 208 of Title 18, U.S. Code, nor will it cause any member to be placed in the position of acting as a procurement official.

Michael W. Wynne

Acting