William Bryant
“Information technology is expected to make a thousandfold advance over the next 20 years. In fact, the pace of development is so great that it renders our current materiel management and acquisition system inadequate. Developments in information technology will revolutionize-and indeed have begun to revolutionize-how nations, organizations, and people Interact. The rapid diffusion of information, enabled by these technological advances, challenges the relevance of traditional organizational and management principles. The military implications of new organizational sciences that examine internetted, nonhierarchical versus hierarchical management models are yet to be fully understood. Clearly, Information Age technology, and the management Ideas It fosters, will greatly Influence military operations in two areas – one evolutionary, the other revolutionary; one we understand, one with which we are just beginning to experiment. Together, they represent two phenomena at work in winning what has been described as the information war – a war that has been fought by commanders throughout history.”
The quotation above was written in 1994. During this period, the Army attempted to marshal its resources to prepare for the future operating environment in anticipation of the information age. While Force XXI Operations correctly identified the characteristics of the information age and the need for adaptation, the Global War on Terror blindsided the United States and interrupted this effort. Now, 31 years later, the U.S.’s adversaries effectively retain the capabilities to outcompete it in the information environment (IE), as seen in modern conflict and within strategic competition. In response, the U.S. military must adapt now to ensure future relative advantages across competition, crisis and armed conflict.
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