Cebrowski died Nov. 12 of cancer. The previous year he had stepped down from his post as the first director of the Pentagon Office of Force Transformation, a job he took in 2001 following his retirement from the Navy after 37 years in the service.

J. Adam Fenster
Arthur K. Cebrowski

A veteran of Vietnam and the first Gulf War, he served as president of the Naval War College during his final years in uniform. As chief of the Pentagon transformation team, Cebrowski defined the doctrine that is now the template for Defense's restructuring-both internally and on the battlefield. Today, net-centricity is a term used up and down the command chains.

"Even if the admiral had not become the first OFT director, he was truly an advocate for transformation-of the U.S. armed forces and of the U.S. government in its approach to global problems such as terrorism, poverty and informational disconnectedness-because he believed that transformation was utterly necessary, as surely as the first rule of evolution: Adapt or die. He was not content to leave well enough alone because, in pondering the matter as thoroughly as his brilliant mind did, he concluded that the status quo was not well enough at all to be left alone, that the status quo was ill, sick, harming actual people and destined to harm even more unless somebody spoke up and urged a change. But who should that person be? If not he, then who? If not now, then when? And so he spoke up, repeatedly, using language that encouraged others to look at the issue itself, not so much at him."

-John Heidenrich, former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst and consultant to the Office of Force Transformation, in a remembrance posted on washingtonpost.com

purchase reprint

link to this page