'Transformation' of the Army considerably predates Iraq or Marshall's arrival in the administration, and was not initially aimed at COIN per se.

In late summer of 1999 I was at Fort Knox, minding my own business, when then-MG B.B. Bell called a muster alert of the Armor community leadership to discuss 'transformation'. We were to select an 'off-the-shelf' light armored vehicle to be the centerpiece of a new 'medium-weight' maneuver unit. The vision encompassed a brigade-sized element that could be deployed by C-130, could operate shortly after rolling off the back ramp, and would depend on a highly developed situational awareness to fight and survive. Labeled the Intermediate Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), it was intended as a stop-gap for the next decade or so until fully developed technologies could be integrated into a future custom-built Unit of Action. Oh, and we would bring back the black beret.

The impetus, as MG Bell explained, was our problems in the Balkans, from the Sava River to Apaches in Albania to the Russians at Pristina. Shinseki, Abrams, Bell, and others had suffered through our consistent inability to move with any agility in that theater and wanted an Army that was better suited to difficult terrain and capable of operational maneuver. Thus, we had to lighten up, both in terms of vehicle size and in terms of organizational size. In order to do that, we incorporated just about every buzz-word extant at the time: accelerated decision making, improved situational awareness, just-in-time logistics, network-centric operations, etc.

For the next four years, the Armor Center was consumed by transformation. Our 'off-the-shelf' vehicle became the Stryker, the IBCT morphed into the SBCT, and the FCS appeared on the horizon. More importantly, those with a desire to get ahead or get resources jumped on the transformation bandwagon. Bell earned a third and fourth star - despite never having commanded a division - by becoming an ardent supporter of Shinseki's concept. By 2002, the Army had begun to believe its own press clippings, though we had not yet actually cobbled together a workable organization or developed the mature technologies that transformation depended on. Nevertheless, we trumpeted our agility, deployability, and our relevence.

When OIF loomed - and this is my own second-hand opinion, as I was operating far from the corridors of power - the Army's bluff was called. I think part of Rumsfeld's problem with the Army leadership, and Shinseki in particular, was that all of a sudden he was hearing a different story from the transformation narrative he had been fed. The same guys who had been briefing how more could be done with less were all of a sudden admitting that the emperor was still pretty much naked. He saw this as cold feet and backsliding rather than a blunt admission that we weren't quite ready to operate as advertised.