This is the gist of what U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Casey told an editor from the Chief Executive Magazine, J.P. Donlon.
The U.S. military has learned that it must adopt to the new playing field in the world of war and violence; the military learned that as a result of the wars launched in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Donlon. He asked Casey a number of cogent questions regarding how the army is coping with the challenge of a transformational change in strategy and tactics -- as a response to the new kind of war, terrorism.
One of the ways that Casey will lead his army into that pivotal strategic transformation is to educate himself. He is committed to leading the charge by becoming knowledgeable about how commercial civilian companies go about transforming themselves. In that vein, he will visit DELL, where he will focus on organizational transformation, and he indicated he had already visited Google, and Cisco, where he learned how technology...
The editor asked him how he will go about gaining the support (financial and political) from Congress, given the recession and tight budgets. To that he said that he will make the case that there are new conflicts that involve extreme acts by terrorists, and the U.S. must be prepared to deal with them.
Moreover, he agreed that cyber attacks on U.S. institutions present real threats and as of the time of this interview he admitted the U.S. is not ready to ward off those attacks. He downplayed China's threat to the U.S., he urged civilian employers to hire army veterans, and said the most difficult thing he ever did was to try to assist three different Iraqi governments to become organized democratic states, while fighting insurgencies at the same time.
Works Cited
Donlon, J.P. (2009). U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey: How the Army Manages
Transformation. Chief Executive Magazine.
