A Revolution Realized: Envisioning the War Department in a Post-Reform Era By Donald E. Vandergriff, Major, U.S. Army (Retired), November 12 2025

This vision is what could have been if Secretary Thomas White’s 2002 endorsement of Path to Victory as the “blueprint for the future Army” had endured beyond his ouster.

It has been nearly three decades since I penned my first article in Armor magazine in 1997, challenging the U.S. Army’s rigid, bureaucratic approach to officer development and calling for a fundamental shift toward adaptability and initiative in the face of emerging fourth-generation warfare.

In my article, “Creating the Officer Corps of the Future to Execute Force XXI Blitzkrieg,” I issued a clarion call driven by frustration with a personnel system that valued checklists and careerism over combat readiness, and by foresight into the chaotic, non-linear battlespaces of the 21st century. The evaluation system was so bloated that a single less-than-perfect report, lacking the right buzzwords, could derail a career. Ethically flawed, it allowed evaluators to undermine careers with faint praise, avoiding direct confrontation with those they harmed. Promotion and selection boards, years later, would deliver the final blow on their behalf.

What followed were books like The Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs (2002, revised 2013), where I dissected the Army’s industrial-age personnel management roots tracing back to Elihu Root’s reforms at the turn of the 20th century, and Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture (2019), which laid out practical blueprints for embedding Auftragstaktik—the German philosophy of mission-oriented orders—into our command culture.

Had the Department of Defense—now the War Department, but let’s reclaim the old name for its grit and focus—fully embraced these reforms from the outset, we would not be mired in the protracted stalemates of Afghanistan and Iraq, nor scrambling to counter peer competitors like China and Russia with outdated doctrines.

Instead, by 2025, the War Department would stand as a lean, adaptive powerhouse: a force where human ingenuity amplifies technology, where leaders at every level thrive on decentralized decision-making, and where victory is not a product of overwhelming mass but of agile, cohesive teams outthinking the enemy.

This is not utopian speculation; it’s the logical endpoint of evidence-based reforms grounded in military history, organizational science, and the hard lessons of our post-Cold War failures. Let me paint that picture, drawing on the principles I’ve advocated for years.

The Architectural Shift: Decentralized Personnel Management as the Foundation

At the heart of my reforms lies a radical overhaul of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) of 1980, that bureaucratic behemoth enforcing “up or out” promotions and centralized assignments. In The Path to Victory, I argued that this system, inherited from the attritional mindset of World Wars I and II, stifles initiative by rewarding compliance over competence. It creates a “competitive ethic” where officers chase “key billets” like command slots or aide-de-camp roles, leaving vast swaths of talent untapped and units starved for experienced leaders.

Implementation would have begun in the early 2000s, post-9/11, with Congress amending DOPMA (father and institutionalized to the Officer Personnel Act (OPA) 1947 Act, to allow lateral entry, flexible career paths, and unit-based assignments rather than the annual Human Resources Command (HRC) shuffle.

By 2025, the War Department’s personnel apparatus would resemble a dynamic talent marketplace, not a Soviet-style planning bureau. Officers and NCOs would self-nominate for roles via a digital platform integrating AI-driven matching algorithms with commander feedback—think LinkedIn meets Boyd’s OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

Promotions would hinge on 360-degree evaluations emphasizing adaptability, as measured by outcomes-based metrics from field exercises, not just time-in-grade. Historical precedents abound: the Prussian reforms after Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, led by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, decentralized officer selection to foster initiative, enabling the agile armies that humbled Napoleon.

We saw echoes in the U.S. Army’s own post-Vietnam experiments, like the COHORT unit-manning system, which boosted cohesion by keeping teams together longer.

The result?

A 20-30% reduction in officer corps bloat—I’ve long called for trimming the top-heavy structure from 17% of the force to closer to 10%, as in maneuver-focused armies like the pre-WWII Germans. This slims the bureaucracy, freeing resources for combat training.

No more “parking” mid-career officers in make-work staff jobs; instead, specialists in cyber, drones, or logistics could rise on merit, with seamless transitions to industry or reserves. In simulations run by the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), where I consulted, such systems improved unit readiness by 40% by aligning talent with mission needs.

The War Department would thus field cohesive brigades capable of sustained operations, avoiding the “revolving door” that plagued our rotations in Iraq, where units lost 50% of their leadership annually.

Education and Training: Forging Adaptive Warriors, Not Assembly-Line Grunts

My 1997 Armor article targeted the Army’s training paradigm, critiquing its focus on rote checklists for “Force XXI” digitization without building the human judgment to wield it. In Adopting Mission Command, I proposed Outcomes-Based Training and Education (OBT&E) paired with Adaptive Course Models (ACM), shifting from input-heavy syllabi to output-focused exercises that reward improvisation. Full implementation would have integrated this into West Point, ROTC, and NCO academies by 2005, replacing scripted war games with tactical decision exercises (TDEs) and human-in-the-loop wargames.

What happened to my suggestions?

In the summer of 2002, my reform ideas gained significant traction. A two-star general invited me for a discussion, and we delved into my article for a full two hours. This meeting opened doors to further high-level engagements, including an hour-long conversation with the Chief of Staff of the Army. My visibility increased after being featured in the Washington Post and then appearing twice on the cover of The Army Times in June and September 2002. These opportunities led to a pivotal two-hour briefing with Acting Chief of Staff of the Army, General Jack Keane. Following this, he directed me to present my ideas to a distinguished audience of 38 key figures, including generals, congressmen, and senators as well as the House Armed Services Committee or HASC.

Despite these opportunities, I faced significant personal and professional challenges. At the time, I was recovering from major foot surgery, relying on my wife to drive and assist me as we navigated these high-stakes engagements. I received no logistical support or relief from my demanding duties as Commandant and Operations Officer of Georgetown University’s ROTC program. Yet, I persevered, balancing both roles while seizing the chance to advocate for my reforms to some of the most influential leaders in the military and government. This period marked significant progress in spreading my vision for change.

What’s Next?

I continued to thrive, delivering countless briefings and lectures to VIPs and at conferences, while being featured in various articles across social media and journals. By 2005, however, it became clear that the anticipated reforms were not happening. Despite this I was made ROTC Instructor of the year in 2002 and ROTC Brigade Instructor of the Year in 2003. My book Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution of the War won the prestiges New York Military Symposium book of the year for 2002. This drove me even harder.

Did I give up?

Never. To this day, I continue to fight for reforms, not only with the Army but across the services, and also include Allied militaries, as well as First Responders, non-profit and Corporations, large and small. There have been many successes, but the military overall remains in the 2nd Generation War.

But what needs to happen under President Trump’s and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s Leadership?

Today, the War Department’s training ecosystem would be a network of “learning labs”—decentralized centers at places like Fort Benning and Fort Hood—where soldiers hone Auftragstaktik through immersive scenarios blending live-fire, VR simulations, and AI opponents mimicking hybrid threats. No more “crawl-walk-run” drudgery; instead, OBL allows first line facilitators adapt in real-time to trainee performance, accelerating high-potentials while remediating others. Evidence from my work with TRADOC shows OBL cuts training time by 25% while boosting problem-solving scores by 35%, as validated in pilot programs with the 101st Airborne. It is now referred to as Outcomes Based Learning (OBL).

Drawing from Prussian Kriegsakademie models and post-WWII Marine Corps experiments, and the Case Method learning approach mastered and implemented by Dr. Bruce I Gudmundsson (USMC ret), this system would embed mission command from day one: commanders issue intent two levels up, subordinates exercise disciplined initiative.

By 2025, annual combat training centers (CTCs) like the National Training Center would evolve into multi-domain proving grounds, integrating space, cyber, and urban ops. Soldiers would graduate not with certificates but with “adaptability profiles”—data-backed assessments tracking their OODA cycle speed under stress. The payoff? Units that dismantled ISIS in weeks, not years, by outmaneuvering decentralized foes, as Boyd’s theories predicted in his 1980s briefs to the Marine Corps.

Command Culture: From Risk-Averse Bureaucracy to Empowered Initiative

The cultural rot I diagnosed in The Path to Victory (and won awards for the book)—a legacy of scientific management where leaders micromanage to avoid blame—would be excised through doctrine rewritten around mission command. FM 6-0, already nodding to Auftragstaktik, would be the law of the land, enforced by evaluation systems punishing “zero defects” mentality. In this reformed War Department, generals like those in my 2013 revision’s foreword by COL (Ret.) Douglas MacGregor would champion decentralized execution, with staffs reduced by 50% to focus on planning, not oversight.

Picture brigade commanders in the Indo-Pacific theater granting platoon leaders autonomy to counter Chinese gray-zone tactics, backed by real-time intel from squad-level drones. NCOs, empowered by revised AR 600-20 leadership doctrines, mentor on the fly, fostering the “band of brothers” cohesion Jonathan Shay described in Achilles in Vietnam—a dynamic I referenced in my 2001 book Spirit, Blood, and Treasure.

Accountability shifts from process audits to after-action reviews emphasizing “what would you do differently?” This culture, proven in the Bundeswehr’s post-Cold War adaptations, would slash PTSD rates by 20% through trust-based teams, per studies from the Walter Reed Army Institute. The War Department would thus project power not through endless deployments but through expeditionary forces that adapt and win decisively.

Operational Impacts: A Department Primed for 21st-Century Victory

The downstream effects would ripple across warfighting. In maneuver warfare, as I advocated in Path to Victory, brigades would prioritize speed and surprise over firepower attrition—think Schwerpunkt thrusts against Russian A2/AD bubbles in the Baltics, enabled by lateral-entry cyber specialists.

Logistics?

Decentralized, with AI-optimized supply chains drawing from a reserve pool of industry-experienced talent. Budgets, freed from officer bloat, would pour into human capital: $10 billion annually into leader development, yielding a 15% edge in force-on-force simulations against peers, as per RAND analyses of similar reforms.

Strategically, this War Department would deter aggression through demonstrated adaptability—perhaps averting a Taiwan crisis by outflanking PLA island chains with initiative-driven task forces. Domestically, it would attract top talent, with recruiting slogans like “Lead, Don’t Follow” filling ranks with innovators, not box-checkers. As I wrote in 2019,

“By implementing these recommendations across the Army, other necessary reforms will take place,” cascading into joint forces where Marines and airmen adopt OBT&E seamlessly.

The Road Not Taken—And the One Still Open

This vision is what could have been if Secretary Thomas White’s 2002 endorsement of Path to Victory as the “blueprint for the future Army” had endured beyond his ouster. Instead, inertia prevailed, costing lives and treasure in endless wars. Yet, glimmers persist: TRADOC’s talent management pilots and Mission Command’s doctrinal foothold show reform is possible. To leaders reading this—implement now, before defeat forces your hand. As Boyd warned, “To win, machines don’t fight wars; people do, and they must be defeated in their minds.” In my reformed War Department, those minds would be unbreakable, innovative, and victorious. The revolution in human affairs awaits—not as a dream, but as our duty.

Donald E. Vandergriff Retired U.S. Army and Marine veteran, Military Historian, Author of the forthcoming military fiction *Reforging the Sword* series (December 2025), author, editor and contributor to 11 books and over a 100 articles. He also consults Ukraine and Taiwan as well as First Responders on Mission Command and Maneuver Warfare, while USMC TECOM has barred him (and William S. Lind) from speaking at any TECOM USMC courses or schools.

Subscribe for more to my Substack articles at https://donvandergriff.substack.com

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Walsh, Michael. The Fiery Angel: The Sequel to The Devil’s Pleasure Palace. New York: Encounter Books, 2018.This article is dedicated to Bill Brindley— a warrior for truth.