This report represents the findings and recommendations of the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. Congress asked the commission to "conduct a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of policies that provide opportunities for the promotion and advancement of minority members of the armed forces, including minority members who are senior officers." The commission's recommendations support two overriding and related objectives: (1) that the armed forces systematically develop a demographically diverse leadership that reflects the public it serves and the forces it leads and (2) that the services pursue a broader approach to diversity that includes the range of backgrounds, skill sets, and personal attributes that are necessary to enhancing military performance. The commission finds several tacit barriers to advancement throughout a service member's career, such as a lack of clarity regarding promotion opportunities, and also one overt barrier: the policy excluding women from combat. The commission proposes changes which would start at the moment of recruiting, and proposes allowing women to serve in combat.

The objective of this evaluation was to determine the extent to which the DoD implemented the objectives, strategic actions, and initiatives from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission’s 2011 Final Report, “From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st Century Military,” and the “Department of Defense Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan (2012‐2017).” We found that the DoD and the Services implemented 6 of the 18 recommendations identified in the 2011 MLDC report.

Two recent policy documents lay out a new vision for diversity in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD): the Military Leadership Diversity Commission's From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st-Century Military and the Department of Defense Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, 2012-2017. These documents define the mission, set goals for diversity, and provide a general strategic framework for achieving these goals. The purpose of this report is to provide a framework to support DoD in the implementation of its strategic plan and to ensure that the resources devoted to these efforts are targeted for long-term success. The framework emphasizes the creation of an enduring accountability system; categorizes the strategic initiatives specified in DoD's strategic plan along three key dimensions -- compliance, communication, and coordination ("the three Cs"); and prioritizes them across time -- short, medium, and long term. The framework can help all DoD components work toward the vision described in the strategic plan in a deliberate, synchronized effort by complying with current laws, regulations, and directives; communicating effectively to internal as well as external stakeholders; and coordinating efforts to ensure continuing change.

The topic of civil-military relations has high significance for academics, for policy makers, for military commanders, and for serious students of public policy in democratic and other societies. The post-Cold War and post-9-11 worlds have thrown traditional as well as new challenges to the effective management of armed forces and defense establishments. Further, the present century has seen a rising arc in the use of armed violence on the part of non-state actors, including terrorists, to considerable political effect. Civil-military relations in the United States, and their implications for US and allied security policies, is the focus of most discussions in this volume, but other contributions emphasize the comparative and cross-national dimensions of the relationship between the use or threat of force and public policy. Authors contributing to this study examine a wide range of issues, including: the contrast between theory and practice in civil-military relations; the role perceptions of military professionals across generations; the character of civil-military relations in authoritarian or other democratically-challenged political systems; usefulness of business models in military management; the attributes of civil-military relations during unconventional conflicts; the experience of the all-volunteer force and its meaning for US civil-military relations; and other topics. Contributors include civilian academic and policy analysts and military officers with considerable academic expertise and experience with the subject matter.