Ready for Strategic Readiness?

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) codified strategic readiness for the first time in DoD Instruction 3000.18, Strategic Readiness, aiming to create a framework to evaluate and improve military preparedness over different time horizons and strategic objectives. One year later, RAND was asked to help ensure that DoD's approach was sound, risk-based, and data-informed.

Research Background

RAND researchers asked three questions: (1) whether the strategic readiness concept was clear and useful, (2) how DoD could improve its risk management, and (3) how ongoing data efforts could better inform decisionmaking.

Researchers started with a thorough review of DoD policies, strategic guidance documents, and risk and readiness assessments. They then studied RAND, academic, military, and business literature to find best practices. They also conducted interviews with key DoD stakeholders and organized a red team panel with subject-matter experts to gain first-hand insights.

The Current Approach Needs Improvement

Large, global organizations often fail at managing risks because they are deficient in five key practices: shared risk appreciation, independent oversight, transparency about cross-silo risk, engaged leadership, and consistent follow-through on mitigation. Three shortfalls stand out.

Strategic Readiness Remains a Vague Concept

The DoD definition of strategic readiness lacks an explanation of how its various dimensions should be measured and how they interact. This makes it difficult for decisionmakers to understand the full impact of their choices. In addition, many readiness dimensions predate the concept and are defined differently across DoD. This lack of consensus makes it challenging to adopt new practices and frameworks uniformly.

Risk Management Practices Are Inconsistent

DoD's risk management practices are inconsistent. Although DoD intuitively weighs strategic readiness impacts when it makes decisions in its five core processes (budget, modernization, force employment, plans review, and defense policies), there is no uniform method for analyzing risks, and governance is siloed (see Figure 1). DoD has updated its reporting systems and data collection for readiness several times since 2001, but the department has not significantly updated its governance structures for readiness since 2002.

What the adversary looks like

Threat Assessments

The missing middle

Risk Management Undetermined

1. Defense Policies: Strategies, security assistance, personnel
2. Force Employment: GFMAP, SDOB, DRT, exercises
3. Modernization: RDT&E, concepts, JCIDS, DAS
4. Budget: PPBE appropriations
5. Plans Review: Contingency, campaign, posture

What the U.S. Total Force looks like

State of the Force

Readiness, safety, training, recruiting, retention

NOTE: DAS = Defense Acquisition System; DRT = Directed Readiness Tables; GFMAP = Global Force Management Action Plan; JCIDS = Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System; PPBE = planning, programming, budgeting, and execution; RDT&E = research, development, test, and evaluation; SDOB = Secretary of Defense Orders Book.

Opportunities to Exploit DoD Data Exist

Although DoD has a wealth of data, it struggles to turn this information into actionable insights because of uncertainties about data quality, inconsistent access to data streams, and a lack of advanced analytics tools. A weakness of dashboards alone is that they depend on structured information that can be read from data tables, manipulated mathematically, put into charts, or distilled to metrics. Much of the rich information about strategic readiness, however, is in the form of unstructured text or data that need to be contextualized against different policy choices.

Three Best Practices

A Common Framework Mapping Input-Output Relationships

DoD should adopt a framework based on a logic model for strategic readiness to map inputs to outputs and outcomes to guide decisionmaking about policy trade-offs. The purpose of the logic model is to advance a common framework for discussing institutional risk management of strategic readiness. Figure 2 shows a pyramid presenting one possible framework for mapping strategic readiness dimension relationships, segmented into DoD systems (purple triangles) that produce foundational warfighting capabilities (blue triangles) and immediate warfighting capabilities (green triangles) over time. Mobilization (the orange triangle) represents the middle-term competitive advantage.

This figure is a three-tier pyramid

The top tier consists of only a single segment: Operational readiness.

The middle tier consists of three segments: Force structure, Global force posture, and Sustainment.

The bottom tier consists of six segments: Allies and partners, Human capital, Mobilization, Modernization, and Business systems.

Along the left, an arrow for "Timeliness of relevance to a given scenario" starts at the bottom with "Immediate to 2+ years", then goes to "2+ years", then "0-2" years and "Immediate" at the top of the arrow.

Along the right, an arrow for "Certainty about return on investment; time it takes to generate results" starts at the top with "Most certainty, least time", then goes to "Most certainty, less time", then "Less certainty, more time" years and "Least certainty, most time" at the bottom of the arrow.

As timeliness of relevance to a given scenario increases, the certainty about return on investment; time it takes to generate results decreases.

NOTE: Though resilience is treated as one of ten strategic readiness dimensions in DoD Instruction 3000.18 (2023), it is more accurately described as a feature that undergirds the other nine. Resilience is embedded in each strategic readiness dimension's ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption.

Sound, Integrated Governance

DoD should establish an independent integrator and oversight function for strategic readiness. This function needs the authorities, relationships, and data to produce integrated assessments, raise issues, and mitigate risk across DoD. Strategic readiness is a continuous process, not an end state, so clear, executable risk guidance and processes must be developed.

Real-Time Data Insights

DoD should use artificial intelligence (AI) models to harness unstructured data in reports, assessments, and memos that are invisible to dashboards and models in order to inform in-stride readiness decisions. AI tools are already giving general analysts the ability to dialogue with the data — by querying a wide range of sources, summarizing unstructured data, and identifying trends across databases — in a way that has not been possible before.

This figure takes the form of a balance. At the center, the fulcrum is "Build, maintain, and balance." The left arm of the balance depicts the White House-NSC decisions to accept risk in their strategic objectives. The right arm of the balance depicts the U.S. Department of Defense and the DoD-CCMDs-services decisions to manage risk in their warfighting capabilities.

The bottom of the figure shows the balance of these two arms allows for civil-military dialogue between the White Houses's questions and decisions and the DoD's assessments and recommendations.

NOTE: CCMDs = combatant commands; NSC = National Security Council.

Conclusion

Research shows that clear conceptual frameworks, sound bureaucratic practices, and the ability to rapidly synthesize and dialogue with data are critical to clarifying the concept of strategic readiness and putting it into action. However, risk management of strategic readiness is ultimately a civil-military dialogue balancing interests, threats, strategic objectives, and capabilities across time. Figure 3 depicts this balance.

In the national policymaking process, it is important for DoD to inform deliberations with rigorous, data-informed, and risk-based analysis of downstream impacts to the strategic readiness pyramid. A more-rigorous framework connecting policy options to implications, sound governance that advances mitigation options, and data-informed decision support that reveals cumulative risks can only lead to a more fruitful civil-military dialogue with the White House and Congress.

Topics

• Military Doctrine
• Military Force Planning
• Military Strategy
• Military Tactics
• Operational Readiness
• United States Department of Defense