Interview with Arthur K Cebrowski, Director DOD Force Transformation from Government Computer News
Arthur K. Cebrowskii is the Director of Force Transformation—a post created by Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Cebrowski’s job is to challenge the status quo in the Defense Department and the military services.
Question from Computer News: “Can you elaborate on some of the prototypes you find interesting?
CEBROWSKI: In the war itself, one of the things that we saw was the emerging use of Personal Role Radios.
The thing that’s really neat is that previously exercise tactics were confined by how far you could shout and be heard, or a hand signal seen. In the din and confusion of combat, frequently that’s not far.
But when you go to these radios, suddenly you can try tactics that you couldn’t use before, and you know that’s the same thing that’s happening in the world of business, when firms started to connect. All of a sudden they found out they could compete in ways that they couldn’t before. Firms created new tactics.
We said a long time ago that that is what would happen in the military, but the military people said, “No, no, no. You can’t take a lesson from business and apply it to the military because we’re different.”
Well, they were wrong. Of course they’re different, but that doesn’t mean you can’t apply the lessons.
The Personal Role Radios came into the force because they were needed to support our warfighters in Iraq, not as part of the acquisition process. That constitutes an example of transformation in conflict. Conflict does not hamper transformation. Conflict accelerates transformation.”
Details on TV Equipment’s Personal Role Radios at http://www.swatheadsets.com/PRR/prr.html
View the complete interview at http://www.gcn.com/22_32/interview/24048-1.html
