How the U.S. Army Manages Transformation: Gen. George Casey

Introduction: Recognizing the Need for Change

In a 2009 interview published in Chief Executive Magazine, editor J.P. Donlon spoke with U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Casey about the sweeping organizational transformation underway within the American military. Donlon opened by observing that U.S. combat involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq had made it clear to military leaders that the Army was "organizationally out of balance." This imbalance stemmed from the nature of the new battlefield, which increasingly centered on terrorism and insurgency rather than conventional state-on-state warfare.

When asked when the realization of the need for major change first took hold, Casey pointed directly to the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The new Army, he explained, would feature a "versatile mix of multipurpose forces" capable of responding to a wide range of threats. This reconfigured force would include specialized units covering intelligence, engineering, logistics, and communications, all of which would require new and rigorous training programs.

Technology, Training, and Corporate Lessons

Donlon pressed Casey on the role that technology would play in the Army's new configuration. Casey emphasized that training — beginning at the highest levels of military leadership — was the critical first step. "We will send a senior brigadier to a university's business school for a week," he explained, after which that officer would take an advanced course within a specific industry to understand how to employ a given technology in an Army context (Donlon).

Casey also described his personal commitment to learning from the civilian corporate world. He noted that he planned to visit Dell in Texas — not to study computers or digital products, but to observe how the company manages organizational change at scale. He had already visited Google and Cisco to study how those firms use technology "to enhance their ability to adapt" (Donlon). These visits reflected a broader philosophy: that the Army could and should draw lessons from organizations outside the military that had successfully navigated large-scale transformation.

Paraphrase: Adapting to a New Kind of War

On the subject of cyber threats, Casey acknowledged that cyberattacks on U.S. institutions represent a genuine and growing danger. He admitted candidly that, at the time of the interview, the United States was not yet fully prepared to defend against such attacks. When asked about the military threat posed by China, Casey largely sidestepped the question. He also took time to urge civilian employers to hire Army veterans, reflecting his concern for the well-being of service members returning from deployment.

In a world that is increasingly violent — yet where the conflicts that break out rarely resemble traditional combat — an army must fundamentally adjust its strategic approach to meet new challenges. This is the central message that General George Casey conveyed to Chief Executive Magazine editor J.P. Donlon in their 2009 conversation.

The U.S. military came to understand, through its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, that it needed to adapt to an entirely different kind of battlefield. Casey acknowledged that the wars in those countries exposed serious organizational imbalances, and that the Army's response had to be equally far-reaching. Donlon posed a series of pointed questions about how the Army was coping with this transformational challenge — particularly given that terrorism, rather than conventional warfare, now defined the primary threat environment.

One of Casey's key strategies for leading this transformation was personal education. He committed himself to learning from civilian corporations that had successfully reinvented themselves. His planned visit to Dell was oriented entirely around organizational transformation, and his earlier visits to Cisco and Google were focused on understanding how technology is used to drive institutional adaptation.

On the question of securing Congressional support amid budget constraints, Casey made a straightforward argument: the cost of inaction would far exceed the cost of modernization. He contended that the U.S. faced real and evolving threats from terrorism, and that the Army had a responsibility to be ready to meet them. He also acknowledged the emerging threat of cyberattacks and admitted that the nation's defenses in that arena were not yet where they needed to be.