In 1931, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur penned the following thoughts on innovation: "We must hold our minds alert and receptive to the application of unglimpsed methods and weapons. The next war will be won in the future, not in the past. We must go on, or we will go under." As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) adapts to the emerging strategic environment, it must consider innovative organizational structures that will allow it to harness the potential of its European partners. In this monograph, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen examines NATO's enduring deficiencies and their detrimental effect on military capabilities. The decade following the end of the Cold War has revealed a far different world than envisioned. As the United States ruefully discovered, the reduced threat did not diminish security obligations. NATO's European members hoped otherwise and paid insufficient attention to military capabilities. NATO enlargement exacerbates the existing problems.

Considering its long string of successes, it is curious that NATO has so many critics chanting the mantra of irrelevancy or decrying its post-Cold War initiatives. Paradoxically, pan-Europeanists seem quite willing to accept an ineffective security organization as long as it has a European label on it. Applying parochial protectionist practices on regional security may be irrevocable and certainly ruinous. In this monograph, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen examines NATO's extraordinary performance and incisive initiatives during the immediate post-Cold War years. While other security organizations and concepts have faded in importance and utility, NATO has made sweeping changes to remain relevant, and its unique enforcement mechanism means it has no security peer. Organizationally, NATO remains the greatest cost effective hedge against future threats and possesses the greatest potential for the full spectrum of conflict, to include crisis management.

What design would I be forming if I were the enemy? "Y Frederick the Great The great difficulty in forecasting the future strategic environment and the force structure needed in response is the plethora of variables that change the calculus. Only hindsight reveals the failure of a Maginot Line or the brilliant success of a mechanized Blitzkrieg doctrine. In the final analysis, the reader must judge the line of reasoning. In this monograph, Dr. Steven Metz and Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen examine the trends in the strategic environment in their development of the Future War/Future Battlespace. One fact is clear. Traditional warfighting has changed in the post 9-11 era. The U.S. military must adapt or fail. There is no other recourse. Dr. Metz and LTC Millen have superbly framed the strategic environment into four strategic battlespaces and have examined the ways future adversaries will operate within them to thwart U.S. strategic initiatives. In this context, these variables influence the path that Transformation must take. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as a topic of debate concerning Transformation and the Objective Force. Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr. Director Strategic Studies Institute