Defense Strategy: Revised Analytic Approach Needed to Support Force Structure Decision-Making

DOD's 2018 National Defense Strategy continues the department's shift toward focusing on the challenges posed by major powers—China and Russia. The strategy concludes that DOD must pursue urgent change at a significant scale and starkly warns that failure to properly implement the strategy will rapidly result in a force that is irrelevant to the threats it will face. To implement the change DOD envisions, senior leaders must have quality information.

Senate Report 115-125 includes a provision for GAO to review DOD's analytic approach for informing force structure decisions to implement the National Defense Strategy. This report assesses, among other things, whether DOD's analytic approach has provided senior leaders with the support needed. GAO reviewed DOD guidance, assessed whether DOD was meeting the objectives identified in its guidance, and interviewed agency officials. This is an unclassified version of a classified report issued in February 2019. Information that DOD deemed classified has been omitted.

The Department of Defense's (DOD) analytic approach has not provided senior leaders with the support they need to evaluate and determine the force structure necessary to implement the National Defense Strategy. DOD's analytic approach—Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA)—is used by the services to evaluate their force structure needs and develop their budgets. However, GAO found that SSA has been hindered by three interrelated challenges:

Products are cumbersome and inflexible. Although DOD guidance states that SSA products are to be common starting points for analysis on plausible threats, including threats identified in strategic guidance, DOD has not kept the products complete and up to date in part because they were highly detailed and complex and therefore cumbersome to develop and analyze.

Analysis does not significantly deviate from services' programmed force structures or test key assumptions. Although DOD's guidance states that SSA should facilitate a broad range of analysis exploring innovative approaches to mitigate threats identified in the strategy, the services generally have not conducted this type of analysis because guidance has not specifically required the services to do so.

DOD lacks joint analytic capabilities to assess force structure. Although DOD guidance states that SSA is intended to facilitate the comparison and evaluation of competing force structure options and cross-service tradeoffs, the department has not conducted this type of analysis because it lacks a body or process to do so.

DOD efforts to revise its analytic approach are in the early stages and have not yet identified solutions to these challenges. Moreover, DOD has attempted reforms in the past without success. Without a functioning analytic process that addresses the above challenges, senior leaders do not have the analytic support they need to prioritize force structure investments that would best manage risk and address the threats outlined in the National Defense Strategy.

GAO recommends that DOD (1) determine the analytic products needed and update them, (2) provide specific guidance requiring the services to explore a range of alternative approaches and force structures, and (3) establish an approach for conducting joint force structure analysis across the department. DOD concurred with the recommendations and noted the department has begun addressing them.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) 2018 National Defense Strategy  continues the department’s shift away from a focus on violent extremism  and toward a focus on the challenges posed by major powers. According  to the strategy, the central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the  reemergence of long-term, strategic competition with “revisionist powers”  China and Russia. After two decades of unchallenged U.S. military  dominance, the strategy notes that the future strategic environment  demands analysis that accepts uncertainty and complexity and that is  capable of driving innovation amid rapidly changing threats. U.S. military  advantage, as stated in the strategy, has been eroding as rapid  technological changes spread globally and potential adversaries actively  seek to undermine DOD’s advantages. The strategy concludes that the  department must pursue urgent change at a significant scale and starkly  warns that failure to properly implement the strategy will rapidly result in a  force that is irrelevant to the threats it will face.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 increased defense discretionary  spending limits by a total of $165 billion for fiscal years 2018 and 2019.  However, the department faces difficult choices for how to best balance  the readiness of its current force, which is being heavily utilized, against  the modernization needed to implement a strategy focused on highly  capable adversaries. Moreover, rapid change can be difficult for any  organization, especially one as large as DOD. Any significant change  from the status quo requires sustained senior leader involvement. Senior  leaders are better positioned to do that when they have quality  information to help them weigh options and determine the best path  forward for implementing a strategy. However, DOD has reported facing  challenges implementing a process to provide analytic support to DOD  senior leaders as they deliberate strategy and budget matters, even after  years of reform efforts.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report accompanying a bill for the  National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 notes that DOD  has varied its approach for determining force structure needs and  included a provision for us to review DOD’s analytic approach for  informing force structure decisions. In this report, we (1) describe the  approach that DOD has established to provide senior leaders with  analytic support for making force structure decisions to support the  strategic priorities identified in the National Defense Strategy and (2)  assess whether that approach has provided senior leaders with the  analytic support needed for making force structure decisions to implement  the National Defense Strategy.

This report is a public version of our February 2019 classified report.  DOD deemed some of the information in the prior report as classified,  which must be protected from public disclosure. Therefore, this report  omits classified information such as specific information on the military  threats and capabilities of adversaries identified in the National Defense  Strategy, and the DOD products and analysis available to help senior  leaders prioritize the force structure needed to mitigate those threats.  Although the information provided in this report is more limited, the report  addresses the same objectives as the classified report and uses the  same methodology.

To address our first objective, we analyzed Office of the Secretary of  Defense guidance to determine how DOD’s analytic approach is used to  inform senior leaders’ force structure decisions. We reviewed the   relevant guidance to determine the roles and responsibilities for the DOD  organizations involved with developing and maintaining products that  serve as starting points for analysis throughout the department,  definitions of those products, and the approach for developing and using  them. We reviewed the four military services’ respective guidance to  determine how the services are directed to identify and evaluate force  structure needs. We also reviewed the 2018 National Defense Strategy  and supplemental Defense Planning Guidance to describe the key threats  against which the department is required to plan its force structure to be  prepared to deter or defeat. We interviewed knowledgeable officials from  the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSD (Policy));  the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Joint Staff); the  Office of the Director, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE);  and the four military services to corroborate our understanding of the  guidance we reviewed.

To address our second objective, we assessed whether DOD’s approach  provided senior leaders the information they need for making force  structure decisions. We reviewed DOD’s relevant guidance documents,  developed by senior leaders such as the Secretary of Defense and the  Deputy Secretary of Defense, which defined key objectives for DOD’s  analytic approach and discussed whether the department was meeting  those objectives. We reviewed documentation on the status of analytic  products DOD has developed since 2012 that are currently available for  the military services to use when conducting their force structure analyses  and assessed whether these products were developed in accordance  with DOD’s relevant guidance. We also reviewed documentation  provided by the military services, including examples of recent force  structure analyses and additional analysis they conducted. We reviewed  DOD documentation to identify past reforms to guidance, products, and  processes and interviewed knowledgeable officials to understand  changes the department is currently considering to how it provides  analytic support to senior leaders. We also reviewed GAO’s Cost  Estimation Guide and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal  Government to identify best practices for sound analysis, which call for  sensitivity and risk analyses, among other things. We also interviewed  officials from OUSD (Policy), the Joint Staff, CAPE, and the four military  services to corroborate our understanding of their development and use  of analytic products and to identify their perspectives on the benefits of  and challenges to using existing products and processes. For all of our  objectives, we performed work at the organizations responsible for  analyzing force structure needs within the Office of the Secretary of  Defense, the Joint Staff, and the military services.

The performance audit upon which this report is based was conducted  from August 2017 to February 2019 in accordance with generally  accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that  we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to  provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our  audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a  reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit  objectives. We subsequently worked with DOD to prepare this  unclassified version of the report for public release from February 2019 to  March 2019. This public version was also prepared in accordance with  these standards.

The National Defense Strategy is DOD’s primary strategy document,  providing a foundation for all other strategic guidance in the department.  The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 required  DOD to develop a national defense strategy and update it at least once  every 4 years and, during the years without an update, to assess the  implementation of the strategy and whether any revision is necessary.  The National Defense Strategy replaces the Quadrennial Defense  Review, which the Armed Services Committees concluded had become  too slow and ineffective to provide relevant strategic direction to the  department. For each new strategy, DOD is required to identify, among  other things:

DOD’s strategic priority missions;  the force structure, readiness, posture, and capabilities needed to  support the strategy; and major investments required by the strategy.

A separate provision in the act also established a Commission to assess  the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The provision required the  Commission to review the assumptions, missions, force posture and  structure, and risks associated with the strategy. Congress expressed  continued interest in DOD’s strategy implementation and assessment in  the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year  2019, which included several provisions related to these matters.

The National Defense Strategy falls under the President’s National  Security Strategy, which outlines the overarching security strategy for the  federal government. The National Defense Strategy is above the National  Military Strategy, which provides more detailed military direction. Figure 1  provides the hierarchy and description of key U.S. strategic guidance  documents.

Organizations across DOD play a role in providing analytic support to  senior leaders as they make force structure decisions to support the  National Defense Strategy. Table 1 provides a summary of the  organizations with key roles and responsibilities for providing analytic  support to senior leaders making force structure decisions.

DOD Has Established an Approach to Provide Senior Leaders with Analytic Support for Making Force Structure Decisions

DOD established its approach, Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA), in  2002 to provide analytic support to DOD senior leaders as they deliberate  strategy and budget matters and to support evaluations of force structure  needs across the joint force. SSA is structured to do this by providing a  common set of assumptions for various military threats that form the basis  for further analysis across the department. DOD guidance states that  SSA is intended to provide a common starting point for the exploration of  various approaches to address the threats. DOD guidance further states  that analyses should provide senior leaders with insights on the relative  risks of various operational approaches and force structures. Senior  leaders would then have a basis to weigh options, examine tradeoffs  across the joint force, and drive any force structure changes necessary to  meet the strategy. For more information on the origin of SSA, see the  sidebar below.

Origin of Support for Strategic Analysis  DOD officials told us that the department  developed what became SSA because then  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was  frustrated by the lack of objective measures to  compare competing force structure proposals.  During the 1990s, each service developed its  own analytic process and assumptions for  assessing force structure needs to develop  requirements for budget submissions. Each  service’s analytic process tended to favor its  preferred force structure and operational  approach. DOD officials stated that the lack of  a common analytic starting point for all of the  services also meant that senior leaders had  difficulty getting beyond debates about the  services’ respective assumptions during  discussions on force structure priorities. As a  result, the Secretary of Defense had no  objective basis by which to decide whether,  for example, a Navy proposal to buy more  ships or an Air Force proposal to buy more  fighter aircraft was the best way for the  department to use its limited resources to  support strategic priorities.

SSA is led by OUSD (Policy), the Joint Staff, and CAPE—collectively  referred to as the Tri-Chairs. DOD guidance assigns each Tri-Chair  responsibility for creating one of three increasingly detailed products for a  variety of military threats that, taken together, comprise the common  starting point for additional analysis of that threat. The resultant SSA  product library is then available to the services and other DOD  organizations for further analysis.

DOD guidance notes that the threats SSA products address are  examples of the types of threats U.S. joint forces are expected to be able  to address with acceptable risk. However, the guidance states that the  forces described in the products are not intended to constitute DOD’s  force structure requirements. Instead, analysis using these products is  intended to help senior leaders establish force structure requirements that  balance risk across a range of threats, within fiscal constraints. Table 2  identifies the three SSA products that are intended to form the common  starting point for analysis for a given plausible threat, along with the lead  Tri-Chair for each product type.

According to DOD guidance, the military services are to support the Tri- Chairs in developing the SSA products and, according to DOD officials,  are the primary users of these products. The guidance requires that the  services use SSA products as common starting points for studies  evaluating their force structure needs for implementing the defense  strategy and supporting their budget development, among other things.  Although the starting points are common across the department, each  service uses its own analytic process to evaluate its specific force  structure needs for implementing the strategy and supporting its budget  development (see app. I for further details on each service’s analytic  process).

The services may examine any plausible threat in the SSA library that  they believe may help them understand their force structure needs.  However, the 2018 National Defense Strategy identifies several key  threats and the principal priorities for the department that the services  must prioritize when developing their force structures. Specifically, the  unclassified summary of the strategy calls for the department to increase  and sustain investments towards the long-term strategic competitions with  China and Russia, and to concurrently sustain its efforts to deter and  counter rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran, defeat terrorist  threats to the United States, and consolidate gains in Iraq and  Afghanistan with a more resource-sustainable approach. Further, budget  guidance—in particular the Defense Planning Guidance—directs each  service on which threats it must focus as part of its budget development  process. Figure 2 provides a generalized overview of how the SSA  process was designed to operate.

DOD’s Analytic Approach Has Not Provided Senior Leaders with Needed Support for Major Force Structure Decisions and Alternative Approaches Are Incomplete

SSA has not provided senior leaders with the analytic support they need  to evaluate and make fully informed decisions regarding the force  structure needed to implement the National Defense Strategy. DOD has  recognized this and attempted to reform SSA for several years, including  exploring alternative options for providing senior leaders with better  decision-making support. However, DOD has not fully developed these  approaches and it is unclear whether they will provide the analytic support  needed.

Support for Strategic Analysis Has Not Provided Senior Leaders with Needed Analytic Support Due to Three Interrelated Challenges

To date, SSA has not provided the analytic support senior leaders need  to evaluate and determine the force structure required to implement the  defense strategy. DOD senior leaders have documented concerns with  SSA in relevant guidance. For example, DOD’s 2016 Defense Analytic  Guidance stated explicitly that there were cracks in the department’s  analytic foundation, many of which originate within SSA. Further, CAPE  and the Joint Staff had disengaged from the SSA process by this time  but, as of September 2018, the services were still using SSA products for  their force structure analyses and budget development.

Based on our analysis, we believe that SSA has not yielded the analytic  support that it was intended to provide owing to three interrelated and  persistent challenges: (1) cumbersome and inflexible products, (2) limited  analysis that tends not to deviate from the services’ programmed force  structures and has not tested key assumptions, and (3) an absence of  joint analysis evaluating competing force structure options and cross- service tradeoffs.

SSA Products Are Cumbersome and Inflexible

DOD has not kept the SSA products complete and up to date because  they are cumbersome and inflexible. DOD guidance states that SSA  products are to be common starting points for analyses, including key  threats identified in strategic guidance. DOD guidance also states that  SSA products should retain consistency with DOD strategy and current  intelligence and should incorporate operational approaches effective at  mitigating future threats. Credible independent analysis of an issue  requires a detailed, well-understood, up-to-date common basis for that  analysis.

As of September 2018, DOD’s library of products was incomplete and  outdated. Specifically, the Detailed View was not available for any of the  threats, and Joint Staff officials told us they stopped producing joint  CONOPS through SSA in 2015. Moreover, the Joint Staff retired all of the  existing SSA CONOPS in March 2018 because they were outdated  and/or not aligned with the 2018 National Defense Strategy—though they  were still available for the department to access. Service officials also told  us that many of the approved Defense Planning Scenarios and CONOPS  for the key threats identified in the 2018 National Defense Strategy do not  reflect up-to-date military objectives and adversary capabilities.  Additionally, the 2018 National Defense Strategy outlines a new force  posture and employment model that could have major implications for  future CONOPS. However, DOD is still developing these concepts and,  as such, they are not yet reflected in any SSA products. Specific details  on the status of key SSA products were omitted because the information  is classified.

One of the key reasons DOD did not keep the products complete and up  to date was that developing and approving highly detailed and complex  SSA products was cumbersome, taking a significant level of effort and  time. Tri-Chair officials told us that developing the CONOPS and Detailed  View, in particular, was difficult because there was a desire to gain  consensus with all of the stakeholders and because the services wanted  these products to have high fidelity detail in order to run their campaign  models. For example, CAPE and Joint Staff officials told us that it took  between 1 and 2 years to build and approve the Detailed View for one  threat scenario. The officials added that the level of detail included made  the product inflexible and difficult to vary. CAPE and Joint Staff officials  agreed that this product became far too detailed and time-consuming and  used a substantial amount of the department’s analytic capacity. As a  result, the officials told us that CAPE abandoned building additional  Detailed Views in 2012. The lack of agreed-upon details about the forces  required has had other effects. For example, OUSD (Policy) and Joint  Staff officials told us that the services still wanted the comprehensive  information that the Detailed View was supposed to provide for use in  their campaign models. Without CAPE producing Detailed Views, the  officials noted that some of the detailed information migrated into the  higher level CONOPS, making developing and analyzing that product  more difficult and time-consuming as well.

However, all four military services told us that they need and continue to  use the SSA products—specifically, the Defense Planning Scenarios and  CONOPS—to support program and budget formulation. Service officials  also told us they have adapted CONOPS, as individual services or with  other services, to better reflect the operational environment (e.g.,  updating intelligence estimates on adversary capabilities). However,  CAPE and OUSD (Policy) officials told us that this results in the services’  analyses no longer being common and comparable across the  department. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for  Fiscal Year 2019 reiterates that OUSD (Policy) must, in coordination with  the other Tri-Chairs, develop planning scenarios by which to assess joint  force capabilities, among other things.

Until the Tri-Chairs determine the analytic products needed and the level  of detail that is sufficient to serve as a common starting point but also  flexible enough to allow for variation of analysis, and ensure these  products are updated, the military services will likely continue to generate  budget requests based on analysis that is not comparable. As DOD’s  2016 Defense Analytic Guidance noted about the fiscal year 2017 budget  review, the lack of a common basis for their analysis hampers the  department’s ability to understand the relationship between future  warfighting risks identified in analysis and the services’ programmatic  decisions.

SSA Analysis Does Not Significantly Deviate from the Services’ Programmed Force Structures or Test Key Assumptions

Although DOD’s guidance stated that SSA will facilitate a broad range of  analysis exploring innovative force structure approaches for mitigating  future threats identified in the strategy, SSA has not done so. Innovative  force structure approaches could include, for example, alternative  CONOPS and deviations from programmed forces. The 2018 National  Defense Strategy stated that DOD’s operational approach largely dates  from the immediate post-Cold War era when U.S. military advantage was  unchallenged and the threats were rogue regimes, which is no longer the  case. OUSD (Policy) officials told us that SSA CONOPS also reflect this  outdated approach that depends on overwhelming force for success,  which is unrealistic against advanced adversaries. Similarly, DOD’s 2016  Defense Analytic Guidance called for SSA to emphasize analyzing and  assessing risk against key threats rather than on defending  predetermined force levels or capabilities. Rather, the 2018 strategy  stated that the department must relentlessly pursue innovative solutions  and devise insurmountable dilemmas for future adversaries and that  incrementalism or evolutionary progress is inadequate.

However, Tri-Chair and service officials told us the services have been  reluctant to conduct or share these types of boundary-pushing analyses  through SSA for fear that they will jeopardize their forces or limit their  options. Tri-Chair officials also told us that the services have leveraged  their participation in developing SSA products to ensure their favored  major force structure elements are included in the common starting point.  Joint Staff officials noted that they were able to do this because SSA did  not constrain what force structure the services could use for their  analysis. That is, if the force structure was programmed, they could use it  because the goal was to overwhelm the adversary. However, by not  significantly deviating from the starting points, the services were able to  ensure that their analytic outcomes support the need for the already- programmed force.

Additionally, several questionable assumptions underpin the analysis.  Sensitivity analysis examines the effects that changes to key assumptions  have on the analytic outcome and are helpful to understand risk. It can  therefore provide insight to decision makers of how risk levels would  change if conditions did not match the assumptions. However, Tri-Chair  officials told us that the services, using SSA products as a starting point,  generally have not conducted sensitivity analyses on key operational  assumptions or on factors that may not be static (or at least have some  uncertainty) and, if varied, may raise or lower the risk of completing  assigned tasks or missions. According to these officials, as well as our  past work, certain questionable assumptions have not been analyzed  through sensitivity analysis as part of SSA. For example, all four  services tend to assume that their readiness for a conflict will be high,  consistent with the level directed in guidance. However, we reported in  2018 that at the individual service level, the military services continue to  report readiness challenges and readiness rebuilding is anticipated to  take 4 years or more. Specific details of service-specific assumptions  that are problematic were omitted because the information is classified.

The services have been reluctant to independently examine a broad  range of innovative force structure options and conduct sensitivity  analysis on key operational assumptions through SSA because,  according to service officials, due to competing priorities they believe they  can generally only affect marginal changes in their budgets from year to  year and have limited analytic capacity. Service officials noted how the  majority of their service’s budget each year is constrained by must pay  bills, including personnel costs, supporting existing force structure,  established contracts, sustaining the industrial base, and statutory  mandates. As such, unless directed to by senior leaders, service officials  told us that they typically do not use their limited analytic resources to  conduct sensitivity analysis or explore alternative approaches. The  sensitivity analyses they have been directed to conduct have generally  been focused on smaller force structure changes, but have provided  useful insights. For example, the Air Force conducted an analysis for its  fiscal year 2019 budget request of how risk would be affected with various  F-35 buy-rates and investments in munitions and base defense. The Air  Force found that it could reduce risk by keeping its F-35 buy-rate steady  instead of increasing it and could use the resulting savings to bolster its  munitions stocks.

DOD stated in its 2016 Defense Analytic Guidance that SSA is not  adequately exploring innovative approaches to meet future challenges,  and called for OUSD (Policy) to identify key operational assumptions for  the services to use to conduct sensitivity analyses. However, the  direction provided by the department has thus far been limited and has  generally not provided specific guidance requiring the services to explore  a range of innovative force structure approaches or identified key  assumptions on which the services must conduct sensitivity analyses. For  example, the three Defense Planning Scenarios updated in 2018 for the  purposes of analysis in support of the fiscal years 2020 and 2021 budget  requests included a number of parameters for further analytic  exploration. However, the guidance encourages, but does not require,  the services to conduct these analyses. As previously discussed, officials  said the services are reluctant to conduct or share this analysis and are  unlikely to do so without specific direction. As a result, SSA analysis  largely reflects the services’ programmed force structures and has not  driven any significant changes to force structure or resource allocation  within DOD and lacks credibility with senior leaders, as documented in  DOD guidance. Until DOD provides specific guidance requiring the  services to explore a range of innovative force structure approaches  relevant to the threats identified in the 2018 National Defense Strategy,  including identifying key assumptions for sensitivity analyses, DOD senior  leaders may not have full visibility into the risks in the joint force’s ability  to execute the missions set out in the National Defense Strategy.

DOD Lacks Joint Analytic Capabilities to Assess Force Structure

A key stated goal of SSA was to create a common analytic foundation so  that the services’ force structures could be evaluated as a joint force—as  it would fight. However, SSA has not resulted in this type of joint analysis.  Specifically, DOD guidance states that SSA is intended to facilitate the  comparison and evaluation of competing force structure options and  cross-service tradeoffs. DOD guidance also states that assessments of  the aggregate capacity of the joint force can provide an analytic  foundation to identify risk and understand tradeoffs across competing  demands for the force.

According to the services, SSA products provide a valuable resource and  are critical to informing programmatic decisions. However, DOD’s 2016  Defense Analytic Guidance noted that there was a dearth of joint analysis  at the operational and strategic levels; the department lacks a body or  process to conduct or review joint force analysis; and the department’s  SSA efforts were focused on developing, versus analyzing, the common  starting points. Accordingly, it reiterated the need for SSA to free up time  and resources to conduct joint analysis and review competing analyses.  Tri-Chair officials told us that DOD currently compares and makes  decisions on force structure options primarily through the budget process;  however, such budget reviews are typically limited to specific areas of  interest. The officials added that program and budget review is not the  best place to evaluate joint force structure tradeoffs because the kinds of  issues examined in the budget process are more limited in scope and  generally do not include comprehensive cross-service comparisons.

Lacking joint analytic capability to assess force structure needs could be  problematic as the department moves forward to implement the 2018  National Defense Strategy. The John S. McCain National Defense  Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 directed OUSD (Policy), in  coordination with the other Tri-Chairs, to conduct assessments of the  capabilities of the joint force to achieve required objectives. However,  Tri-Chair officials also told us that, as of 2018, there was not a  mechanism in place for DOD to routinely assess joint force needs and  force structure tradeoffs across the military services. As previously  discussed, in 2016 this was identified as an issue, and limited progress  has been made since then to ensure adequate joint analysis to support  senior leader decision-making. Further, OUSD (Policy) officials told us  that SSA has not been responsive to senior leaders because it has not  provided timely and comprehensive answers to important questions that  only joint analysis can provide, such as the extent to which the joint force  can successfully meet a campaign’s overall objectives (e.g., win the war)  or the extent to which cross-service tradeoffs would affect a specific  campaign. As a result, force structure decisions in the department based  on SSA have remained largely relegated to marginal changes through   program and budget review, according to DOD. The department’s gap  in a joint analytic capability is particularly problematic in light of the  National Defense Strategy’s call for urgent change at a significant scale  and recent proposals by the services to greatly expand their force  structure—including the Navy’s plan to grow the fleet by as much as 25  percent and the Air Force’s plan to grow squadrons by 24 percent.

Based on our discussions with officials and our analysis, there are a  number of different options the department has for conducting such joint  analyses, including establishing a separate body with these capabilities or  specifying the organizational responsibilities and processes for  conducting these comparisons and analyses. Until the department has an  approach for conducting joint analyses or comparing competing analyses,  DOD senior leaders will not have a robust joint analytic foundation to rely  on to evaluate competing force structure options and cross-service  tradeoffs.

DOD Is Exploring Options for Revising Its Analytic Approach for Making Force Structure Decisions, but These Efforts Are Incomplete

The department has recognized that SSA has shortcomings and made  repeated efforts to address them, including specific intervention and  supplemental guidance promulgated in 2014 and 2016. However, Tri- Chair officials told us that these prior efforts fell short, and the  department’s struggles with SSA led to two of the three Tri-Chairs  disengaging from the process—CAPE in 2012 and the Joint Staff in 2015.  The Tri-Chairs agree that DOD continues to need a process and products  that are current, more responsive to senior leader needs, and able to  provide insights on alternative approaches and force structures that span  the joint force. In addition, Joint Staff officials noted that SSA was too   focused on force sizing, which is not consistent with the 2018 National  Defense Strategy’s focus on innovation, modernization, and readiness.

In order to address this, the Joint Staff is pursuing an alternative  approach to SSA that would largely eliminate a separate formal analytic  process. Instead, the Joint Staff believes that the Tri-Chairs and the  services can address senior leader needs more efficiently by continuing  to execute their existing statutory roles and responsibilities within their  own individual organizations in lieu of SSA. Since 2016, the Joint Staff  has reinvigorated its own analytic capability to support the Chairman of  the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior DOD leaders, according to Joint  Staff officials.

Although officials from other DOD organizations have supported the Joint  Staff’s reinvigoration of its analytic support, they told us that this approach  is focused on the Chairman’s responsibility rather than on wider  departmental needs and does not address key shortfalls in providing  analytic support to senior leaders, including the need for a common,  flexible starting point. Further, the Joint Staff’s alternative approach would  rely on CAPE’s analysis in the budget process as the culminating point for  final DOD force structure decisions. CAPE officials told us that the  program review can assist DOD leadership in optimizing relatively limited  changes to DOD’s force structure by evaluating service budget  submissions and identifying alternatives for consideration. However,  budget cycle time constraints mean that little analysis occurs within  program review and, as a result, program review relies on the  foundational analysis SSA was intended to provide. As such, CAPE’s  annual program review is inadequate for comprehensively examining  needs and making major tradeoffs across the joint force, according to the  officials. Finally, the department originally created SSA as a separate  analytic process to address a shortfall not addressed by key DOD entities  pursuing their statutory responsibilities.

The Tri-Chairs have also undertaken an effort to identify an alternative  approach to SSA. Specifically, shortly after the new strategy was released in 2018, CAPE initiated a Tri-Chair “blank slate” review of DOD’s analytic  process in order to thoroughly review—without preconceived solutions— how to best provide analytic support to senior leaders. According to Tri- Chair officials, this effort is in the early stages of development and has not  yet identified solutions to the challenges that hampered SSA or  documented any aspects of a new approach.

While the department’s recognition of the challenges confronting SSA is  promising, the two efforts underway to identify alternatives to SSA are not  complete and it is unclear the degree to which these efforts will address  the challenges that have been long-standing with SSA. Addressing these  challenges is critical to being able to provide needed information for  senior leaders to make decisions on how best to implement and execute  the National Defense Strategy.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy calls for the department to make  difficult choices to prioritize what is most important to field a lethal,  resilient, and rapidly adapting joint force needed to address the growing  threats to U.S. security. It also emphasizes that this environment  demands analysis that accepts uncertainty and complexity and can drive  innovation among rapidly changing threats. To prepare the joint force for  the threats identified in the strategy, the department’s leadership needs to  be supported by timely and comprehensive analyses.

However, SSA—DOD’s current approach for providing such analytic  support—has not provided the timely and comprehensive analyses that  senior leaders need to make informed decisions about the joint force  structure needed to implement the National Defense Strategy. Senior  leaders have documented in relevant DOD guidance that there are cracks  in the department’s analytic foundation, many of which originate with  SSA. This is due in part to highly detailed and complex products that are  difficult to produce and lack flexibility to analyze, insufficient guidance to  overcome the interests of the services to protect their force structure  equities, and the lack of a joint analytic capability. Congress, in the John  S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019,  required OUSD (Policy), in coordination with the other Tri-Chairs, to  develop joint force objectives and conduct assessments of the joint  force’s capability to meet those objectives. The department has  demonstrated a desire to fix SSA’s deficiencies but has thus far been  unable to overcome these challenges. Without determining the analytic  products needed and updating them, issuing specific guidance requiring  alternatives and key assumptions to be fully analyzed, and developing an  approach for conducting joint analysis, DOD may not be providing its  leaders with the analytic support they need to prioritize force structure  investments that would best manage risk and address the threats outlined  in the National Defense Strategy.

We are making three recommendations to DOD as it reevaluates its  analytic approach.

The Secretary of Defense should ensure that OUSD (Policy), the Joint  Staff, and CAPE—in consultation with the services—determine the  analytic products needed and the level of detail that is sufficient to serve  as a common starting point but flexible to allow for variation of analysis to  support senior leader decisions, and update these products to reflect  current strategy and intelligence estimates, as well as the anticipated  operational approaches needed to address future threats.  (Recommendation 1)

The Secretary of Defense should ensure that OUSD (Policy) provide  specific guidance requiring the services to explore a range of innovative  force structure approaches relevant to the key threats identified in the  National Defense Strategy, including identifying key assumptions on  which the services must conduct sensitivity analyses. (Recommendation  2)

The Secretary of Defense should establish an approach for comparing  competing analyses and conducting joint analyses for force structure to  support senior leaders as they seek to implement the National Defense  Strategy. This could include establishing a separate body with these  capabilities and/or specifying the organizational responsibilities and  processes for conducting these comparisons and analyses.  (Recommendation 3)

We provided a draft of the classified version of this report for review and  comment to DOD. That draft contained the same recommendations as  this unclassified version. In its written comments (reproduced in app. II),  DOD concurred with our three recommendations and noted that the  department has begun to address the recommendations with its new  Defense Planning and Analysis Community initiative. We also received  technical comments from DOD, which we incorporated as appropriate.

DOD provided comments on its concurrence with the three  recommendations. In its comments on the first recommendation, DOD  suggested that we revise the recommendation to include that the Tri- Chairs consult with the services as they implement the recommendation.  Throughout our report, we identified the important role the services play in  providing analytic support to senior leaders, including supporting the  development and use of the analytic products that provide the foundation  of analysis in the department. As such, we agree with DOD’s proposed  revision and have incorporated it to further clarify the services’ important  role. In its comments on the second and third recommendations, DOD  advised that we replace the term “force structure” with “force planning” to  ensure that different audiences understand that we are referring to force  sizing, shaping, capability, and concept development. DOD correctly  stated that we were using the term “force structure” in a broad sense.  However, the term force planning is not interchangeable with force  structure because force planning is the act of analyzing and determining  force structure needs. In order to provide further clarification, we added a  note in the body of the report stating that when we refer to force structure  analysis, it includes the force planning elements identified by DOD (i.e.,  force sizing, shaping, capability, and concept development).

The department also provided some general comments on our report.  Specifically, DOD noted that it has reservations about some of the  report’s content because at times it seems to reflect statements based on  particular organizational perspectives. DOD therefore requested that we  acknowledge that Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA) suffered from poor  implementation rather than being fundamentally unsound. However, DOD  also stated that our report outlined that SSA failed due to overall  suboptimal management and unwieldy stakeholder execution, and that  the resulting failure to present analysis in a timely and responsive fashion  impeded the flow of quality information to senior leaders. We believe that  the three interrelated challenges we identified in our report adequately  reflect that SSA faced significant challenges in being implemented as  intended. Further, we identified that there are a broad range of views  within the department on what the challenges have been and how to best  address them. We continue to believe that it is important that these views  be presented in the report and have attributed them as appropriate.

DOD also commented that we reference a desire within the department to  gain “consensus” amongst SSA stakeholders, but thought that  “coordinated” was a more appropriate word than consensus, since  consensus was not required to produce SSA products. In the report, we  did not state that consensus was required, but noted that DOD officials  told us that the desire for consensus amongst SSA stakeholders was a  contributing factor in making SSA products cumbersome and inflexible.  Further, DOD’s 2016 Defense Analytic Guidance similarly identifies the  “degree of consensus” as an area requiring SSA process reform.

DOD’s final comment noted that the military services used SSA products  and routinely conducted sensitivity analysis for their internal use. We  recognize in the report that the services conduct a variety of analyses,  including some sensitivity analyses. However, we also identify important  assumptions that remain untested. As we reported, service officials told  us that they have limited analytic capacity and so tend not to do sensitivity  analyses on topics unless specifically directed to do so. Further, we noted  that the services have been reluctant to conduct or share boundary- pushing analyses through SSA for fear that they will jeopardize their  forces or limit their options. As a result of this and the other challenges we  identified in this report, the quality of SSA products and analysis and the  information provided to senior leaders to inform decision-making has  been limited. As DOD moves forward with implementing our  recommendations, it will be important that it take the necessary steps to  ensure that any future analytic processes thoroughly examine and test  key assumptions and look across the joint force. Doing so would help  ensure any new process can overcome the constraints that limited the  effectiveness of SSA.

We are sending copies of this report to congressional committees; the  Acting Secretary of Defense; the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for  Personnel and Readiness; the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; the  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Director, Cost Assessment and  Program Evaluation; the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air  Force; and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. In addition, the report  is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-3489 or pendletonj@gao.gov. Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this  report are listed in app. III.

Appendix I: Military Services’ Analytic Processes for Assessing Force Structure Needs

Each military service has its own process for determining its force  structure requirements using national strategies, defense planning  guidance, and Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA) products. Below is a  description of each service’s process as of September 2018.

Army. The process the Army uses for identifying its force structure  needs has two phases: (1) “Capability Demand Analysis” where the  Army uses SSA-approved Defense Planning Scenarios to determine  how large a force is needed to support the National Defense Strategy  and with what mix of units and (2) “Resourcing and Approval” where  senior Army leaders assess each capability within the Army to  determine where reductions and growth need to occur given available  resources. The Secretary of the Army approves changes to force  structure through the end of the Future Years Defense Program in a  decision memorandum, and these decisions are documented in an  Army Structure Memorandum.

Navy. The process the Navy uses for identifying its force structure  needs begins with the identification of the Navy’s steady-state,  peacetime operations requirements. The Navy then conducts  campaign and warfighting risk analyses to determine the force’s ability  to fight and win SSA-approved Defense Planning Scenarios.  Specifically, the Navy tests each force element against the most  stressing Defense Planning Scenario, which provides the Navy with  its battle force warfighting—to include surge—requirements. These  warfighting requirements are compared with steady-state  requirements and the more stressing forms the basis of the Force  Structure Assessment, which establishes the long-term force structure  goals of the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan and aviation plan, and  informs the programming and budget processes, among other things.

Air Force. The Air Force has a largely decentralized process for  identifying its force structure needs that is part of the Air Force’s  annual budget development process. The Air Force manages its  activities and budgets primarily across 12 Core Functions—the broad  capabilities the Air Force provides to the combatant commanders.  Much of the force structure analysis that informs budget decisions is  also conducted at the Core Function level. The Air Force also  conducts occasional leadership-directed studies on future capability  needs in certain mission areas (e.g., air superiority needs beyond  2030) as well as a unified risk analysis of its entire force structure that  is intended to inform senior leader budget decisions. The Air Force is  currently revising its approach to better integrate its capability  development and analysis earlier in the process.

Marine Corps. The Marine Corps conducts service-level reviews of its  force structure at the discretion of the Marine Corps Commandant. A  Force Structure Review is typically directed as a result of major  service-level issues, such as end strength or capability changes.  Marine Corps Force 2025 is the most recent comprehensive  assessment of the Marine Corps’ force structure and organization.  This was a three-phased effort that relied on one Defense Planning  Scenario to develop alternative force structures and evaluate them  against a near-peer adversary. The Commandant directed this review  to emphasize growing information warfare capabilities. The Marine  Corps also conducts Force Optimization Reviews, which are biennial  reviews designed to optimize the current and planned future force,  taking into consideration new and emerging requirements.

Table 3 shows some of the comparable elements of the individual service  force structure development processes.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense

In addition to the contact name above, Patricia Lentini, Assistant Director;  Nicolaas Cornelisse; Martin De Alteriis; Carly Gerbig; Mae Jones; Amie  Lesser; Shahrzad Nikoo; Carol Petersen; and Alex Winograd made key  contributions to this report.

To adapt to growing threats, the Department of Defense says it must urgently change.

We looked at DOD's process for providing senior leaders with the information they need to adjust the size and capabilities of the U.S. military to meet top defense priorities.

Senior leaders are not getting the information they need to make these important decisions. Our recommendations address the following challenges:

It was difficult to develop a common "starting point" for force structure analysis

The military services' analyses largely supported the status quo

There was no way to compare options and identify tradeoffs across DOD