PART III: TRANSFORMING U.S. ARMED FORCES A Strategy for Military Transformation

The aim of the Department’s transformation strategy, introduced in last year’s report and updated in this chapter, is to ensure U.S. military preeminence well into the 21st century. Much about the future security environment is uncertain, such as the identity of the nation’s adversaries and the precise ways in which they will threaten U.S. interests. However, some aspects of the emerging threat environment are already clear. A number of states will have the capability to threaten U.S. vital interests through coercion, crossborder aggression, or other hostile actions. Other states will face internal humanitarian crises and ethnic conflict, which may require the U.S. military to respond quickly while minimizing risks of American and noncombatant casualties. Whether in the context of major theater war or smaller-scale contingencies, future opponents are likely to threaten or use asymmetric methods such as terrorism, cyber attacks on critical computer-based networks, and weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to offset U.S. conventional superiority.