I hear you...
...and agree on effects. Sun Tzu did too "Shape [the enemy] with effects".
As far as new vs. old - Commander Jeff Huber summed up much of what I believe in his October 2003 Proceedings article Invasion of the Transformers. Here are several excerpts:
"Transformation" is the latest and greatest buzzword in U.S. military affairs. It may already have displaced the loathsome "robust"—though you no doubt will hear plenty of talk in coming years about "robust transformation." We should seriously question whether all this transformation talk isn't just another Pentagon/Department of Defense parlor trick. Every few years, our military expends enormous effort and tax dollars to put a new shine on its apple. Transformation has had many predecessors, the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) being just one of them. Will it accomplish anything that RMA didn't, or have we, once again, simply changed "happy" to "glad"?
It is well and good to promulgate doctrine that defines the operating principles of a force or service. It also is well and good to stick with time-tested philosophies. But it is another thing altogether to dust off old ideas, rename them, and market them as new, revolutionary, or transformational.
After 11 September, a horde of military "experts" invaded the print and electronic media, telling us the war on terrorism is a "new" kind of war. "New," they explained, because it involves diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, media, asymmetric threats, competing ideologies, and a whole menu of stuff Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would both tell you have been aspects of warfare since rocks were state-of-the-art standoff weapons.
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