Ten years ago, who could have imagined an aircraft cockpit at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., with a pilot flying an unmanned Predator aircraft over the Afghan-Pakistani border and next to him a bombardier firing a guided missile or bomb on an al-Qaida target - all done in nanoseconds by commands that go up to a satellite in stationary orbit 22,300 miles above earth and down to the Predator? The next stage will be to take the pilot out of the cockpit and fly unmanned fighter-bomber sorties and long-range bombing missions thousands of miles away by remote control from the Pentagon.

Cebrowski saw this entirely new world coming - and much more. He was the Pentagon's driving force for change with the title of director of the Office of Force Transformation. His 25-strong team came up with Humvees that combine pain rays with regular guns, and battleship blimps for hauling military cargo.

He lost a long battle with cancer last November and, as a friend and admirer, we recently attended his official funeral with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The 63-year-old transformation czar, after 37 years in the Navy, has already found his place in military history.

In his 1998 Naval Proceedings seminal article - "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future" - Cebrowski described a revolutionary transformation for military thinkers the world over. His understanding of the business world, technology and complexity led him to see how forces should train, organize, equip and fight differently. U.S. forces were already doing what Cebrowski prescribed.

Britain's new defense acquisition plan by Lord Drayson refers to the speed of the U.S. change and the need to keep pace. The Brits call it "Network Enabled Capability." Singapore and Sweden have already adopted NCW and almost all modern militaries have set similar goals.

At graveside in Arlington, foreign military attaches, including a Japanese vice admiral, came up to Kathy Cebrowski to tell her how much her husband's work had influenced their thinking. Cebrowski's influence on military establishments from Moscow to Madrid and from Seoul to Sydney has been enormous. Entire organizations are undergoing radical change to reflect the ideas put forth in a now eight-year-old article.

Network-centric rather than platform-centric warfare means radical changes in how forces train, organize and allocate resources. On "Intellectual Capital," Cebrowski wrote, "Information-based processes are the dominant value-adding processes in both the commercial world and the military. Yet the military fails to reward competence in these areas. 'Operator' status is frequently denied to personnel with these critical talents, but the value of traditional operators with little acumen in these processes is falling, and ultimately they will be marginalized, especially at mid-grade and senior levels."

The Cebrowski revolution is producing a new elite that is rapidly superseding the conventional war fighter. The admiral liked to quote B.H. Liddell Hart who said, "The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is getting an old one out."

The admiral, a naval aviator who racked up 150 combat missions in Vietnam and went on to command the aircraft carrier USS Midway and the USS America Battle Group, said, "Every soldier, every drone, and every general should be linked together into a giant Internet for combat." Today, Cebrowski's vision is almost a reality.

Cebrowski identified the need to move "disruptive technology" more quickly into the hands of those doing the fighting. While already battling cancer, he pushed innovative and still secret equipment and tools to the troops for operational experimentation during the war on terrorism.

Prior to taking over as transformation czar, Cebrowski was president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., where he inculcated his vision to shape a new generation of leaders. It was a vision based on combat experience in Vietnam and in Desert Storm.

"It's frequently said you cannot predict the future," he liked to say, "but, in fact, we know a great deal about the future. There are perfectly predictable surprises, so also are there opportunities for leaders to make things change. And the great burden for leaders in this time is to recognize the inevitable and turn it into a virtue."

Ignored for a few decades, Rear Adm. William A. Moffett eventually became known as the father of naval aviation. Adm. Hyman G. Rickover was recognized as the father of the nuclear Navy. Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski will become known as the father of a network-centric military.

As one of his eulogizers concluded, "Students of warfare and peacemaking will study his ideas and marvel at his contributions for decades to come."

Sometimes it is only with the passage of time and history that greatness is recognized fully. Cebrowski joined the ranks of history's great military thinkers while he was still alive.

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