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Buying Military Transformation: Technological Innovation and the Defense Industry. By Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 224 pages. $45.00. Reviewed by Dr. Richard Meinhart, Defense Transformation Chair and Professor of Defense and Joint Processes, US Army War College.
The title of this book, Buying Military Transformation, is intriguing; most readers would be rather skeptical as to whether one could actually buy transformation. The authors adequately describe the initial focus on the part of military and civilian defense leaders to create a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). They highlight the fact that this "revolution" would be fueled by an emphasis for new technologies provided by firms generally outside the existing defense industry. However, the RMA's practical application to date has been more of an integration of technology and the leveraging of concepts associated with network-centric principles provided by firms long established with the defense industry. The goal was to create evolutionary changes in existing systems or platforms and then to progress to achieving revolutionary changes over time. In examining this process, the authors explain the complex interaction, as it applies to technology and innovation, between military and civilians within the defense arena who determine requirements and the Congressional appropriators. The need to understand this complex interaction adds markedly to the book's relevance. Even those familiar with the actual process may anecdotally be only...