Gauging Secretary Rumsfeld's Leadership
on Readiness Issues

Charles Knight, Project on Defense Alternatives, 617-547-4474

The notion of a readiness crisis in the armed forces of the United States has become the primary political lever lifting defense expenditures. Remarkably, there is little credible evidence of broad-based readiness declines in the armed forces. Most measures of overall readiness indicate that readiness levels are at or above levels in the mid-1980s, five years after the Carter/Reagan buildup began in 1979. In the limited number of cases where broad readiness declines can be demonstrated there is only a modest decrease from the levels of the late 1980s.

Rather than constituting a resource problem requiring budgetary increases, the most significant readiness problems of the present period can be resolved by modest adjustments to strategy and changes in management of the armed services.

Donald Rumsfeld is reputed to bring strong management experience into his job as Defense Secretary and he has pledged to make strategy the driver of his defense review. The success of Rumsfeld's leadership in the Pentagon will be judged in part by whether his team: i) revises strategy and reforms force structure towards greater congruity, and, ii) achieves meaningful reforms of management practices in the services, particularly those that affect readiness.

The Evidence from the Recent Past

In 1999 two Army divisions received low readiness ratings because they could not (in a planning scenario) disengage from the Balkans, re-train, and re-deploy on schedule for the second war of the two-war strategy. The poor rating of these units had little to do with their leadership or the quality of their training or equipment; for the most part, it was an artifact of an over-blown strategy. Because this strategy lays claim to most of our armed forces, even small contingencies can appear to put readiness at risk.

More generally, reduced budgets and increased activity are said to have eroded readiness. But this explanation fails on both counts. Since the Gulf War the number of military personnel deployed in operations on any one day has averaged 40,000. Even when this number is quadrupled to provide for troop rotation, the total amounts to less than twelve percent of the force. In an efficient military this level of deployment would not be a cause of distress.

Relatively speaking, money has not been in short supply either. When annual defense outlays are measured per person, the budgets for the Clinton years exceed those of the Reagan years by 12 percent on average. Readiness spending per person in uniform averaged 22 percent more (in inflation-adjusted terms) during the Clinton years than on the eve of the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

Beyond the anecdotal, there have been three main areas of measurable readiness decline in recent years-base operations support, personnel shortages in certain categories, and equipment mission capable rates. There have been specific near-term causes in each area. Discrete policy or management decisions have played a key role in precipitating "crisis." In several instances the problems are most closely tied to management errors or misjudgments. In the case of base operations support, the source of difficulty has been the impasse between the Pentagon and the Congress over the disposition of excess service infrastructure.

Another readiness concern has focused on so-called "high-demand, low-density" assets and units, such as special operations forces, military police units, various types of service support units, A-10 attack aircraft, and electronic warfare, reconnaissance, and lift aircraft. Indeed some of these units and their equipment have been overused, but the fact that these shortages persist despite the expenditure of more than $250 billion on procurement during the past five years indicates a failure to configure our armed forces to meet current needs.

Regarding heightened operational tempo which can negatively effect morale, there has been only a modest increase in overall activity levels since the Cold War's end. By and large, the problem associated with operational tempo has been its uneven distribution across systems and commands. Some parts of the military, like the Air Combat Command, have faced extraordinary operational demands, while others have been less burdened. This has generated pockets of real stress, and pockets of dissatisfaction as well. Significantly, these outcomes are not principally a product of increased operational tempo, but instead a result of how it has been managed. Furthermore, the narrow fixation on "peace operations" in the readiness discussion is unwarranted. Peace operations account for only a fraction of temporary duty assignments and are not the primary detractor from training time; Rather the services have not yet adjusted their training regimes to accommodate more frequent temporary deployments.

The Need for Management Reform to Achieve Greater Efficiency

Readiness, more than any other aspect of military capability, depends on how a military is organized and carries out its business. For this reason a failure to adapt the organization and functioning of our armed forces to new circumstances tends to express itself as readiness problems. And, indeed, in a variety of ways defense managers have failed to adapt our armed forces to the new era. Rhetorically, the need for transformation is broadly recognized. Nonetheless, the actual progress of U.S. military reform, restructuring, and transformation has been desultory.

The effectiveness of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's defense review in addressing readiness issues can be assessed along several lines:

• Does it relax the ambitious strategic requirements of the "two-war" standard, thereby freeing up more of the force structure for routine activities and temporary duty to smaller contingencies without sacrificing readiness?
• Does it give "high-demand, low-density" equipment and units greater priority in procurement plans and in the force structure?
• Does it give due emphasis to eliminating the excess 20% of infrastructure?
• Does it call for reform of training regimes and deployment practices so as to better fit the role(s) of the military in the new era?
• Does it eliminate redundant service structures and capabilities, many of which have little justification when improved communications technology and modern organizational principles are employed?
• Does it result in fewer layers of organization, and a smaller officer corps?

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