Rumsfeld’s Organizational Transformation

In a recent article, DID linked to a full roster of the key decision-makers in the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and national intelligence agencies, including personal backgrounds and contact info. To understand the players, however, it’s necessary to understand the over-arching game. In the Pentagon, that game is “transformation.”

Thomas P. Barnett, the author of The Pentagon’s New Map, has a July 2005 Esquire article called Donald Rumsfeld: Old Man in a Hurry, which covers that very subject. Instead of focusing on the military aspects of transformation, however, he focuses on an often-neglected area: the organizational aspect. See also this think-tank briefing, which addresses the issue of Rumsfeld as a bureaucratic reformer – Brookings Institution: Rumsfeld’s Revolution at Defense.