An Alternative Future Force: Building a Better Army

R ecent operations in Iraq highlight the need for the Army's leadership to rethink major aspects of its transformation strategy.While the threeweek period of combat operations that toppled the regime illuminates one set of implications, the continued and contested postwar operations illuminate another.Furthermore, the insights emerging from Iraq are not isolated, but part of a growing body of operational knowledge gleaned from post-Cold War operations in Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.In the light of this decade of hard-won experience, it seems that the Army's transformation concept rests on a set of major assumptions which should be questioned.This article examines some of those assumptions and suggests an alternative pathway for preparing US ground forces to meet the challenges of the next several decades. 20Parameters