We know from our computing, telecommunications, electronic entertainment, and local building codes the power of smart modularity. Open "Plug & Play" architectures (computers, a well-wired home, stereo systems) permit us to configure, reconfigure and update hardware and software from a wide range of general purpose and specialty suppliers. Wide interchangeability permits niche products to address many diverse user communities, creating a large aggregate market and fueling massive private investment, enabling a plethora of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) products at previously unimagined low costs. In parallel, a new networking industry has sprung up, enabling broad interoperability between hosts which are not otherwise necessarily compatible. Thus our economy and culture has been revolutionized within a couple short decades and our institutions and citizens have achieved a quantum leap in operations, competitiveness, and effectiveness.

Globalization-the integration of the political, economic and cultural activities of geographically and/or nationally separated peoples-is not a discernible event or challenge, is not new, but it is accelerating. More importantly, globalization is largely irresistible. Thus, globalization is not a policy option, but a fact to which policymakers must adapt. Globalization has accelerated as a result of many positive factors, the most notable of which include: the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War; the spread of capitalism and free trade; more rapid and global capital flows and more liberal financial markets; the liberalization of communications; international academic and scientific collaboration; and faster and more efficient forms of transportation. At the core of accelerated global integration-at once its principal cause and consequence-is the information revolution, which is knocking down once-formidable barriers of physical distance, blurring national boundaries and creating cross-border communities of all types.

In late 1998 the Undersecretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), the Director, Defense Research and Engineering, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff requested the Defense Science Board to create a task force on training and education. The task force met periodically throughout 1999 and 2000. This document is the report of our deliberations.