The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel & Readiness), referred to throughout this report as P&R, is responsible for the total force management of all Department of Defense (DoD) components including the recruitment, readiness, and retention of personnel. Its work and policies are supported by a number of organizations both within DoD, including the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), and externally, including the federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) that work for DoD. P&R must be able to answer questions for the Secretary of Defense such as how to recruit people with an aptitude for and interest in various specialties and along particular career tracks and how to assess on an ongoing basis service members' career satisfaction and their ability to meet new challenges. P&R must also address larger-scale questions, such as how the current realignment of forces to the Asia-Pacific area and other regions will affect recruitment, readiness, and retention. While DoD makes use of large-scale data and mathematical analysis in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and elsewhereâ€"exploiting techniques such as complex network analysis, machine learning, streaming social media analysis, and anomaly detectionâ€"these skills and capabilities have not been applied as well to the personnel and readiness enterprise. Strengthening Data Science Methods for Department of Defense Personnel and Readiness Missions offers and roadmap and implementation plan for the integration of data analysis in support of decisions within the purview of P&R.

This paper presents an analytic framework that builds from previous work to yield the systematic and defendable readiness analysis that must underlie decisions ranging from budget allocation to force employment and even strategy development. To manage readiness, the Department of Defense (DOD) must balance the supply and demand of deployable forces around the world. The readiness of an individual unit is the result of a series of time-intensive force generation processes that ultimately combine qualified people, working equipment, and unit training to produce military capabilities suitable for executing the defense strategy. Therefore, managing readiness is as much about understanding the complexities of human resource management and the technical details of weapons system availability as it is about measuring the ability of U.S. forces to support the national security strategy. Policymakers, military members and command leaders, plus senior Department of Defense team staff, ROTC, military science, and human resource management students may be interested in this illustrated resource about military readiness prior to national security situation deployments. Related products: Military Engagement and Forward Presence: Down But Not Out as Tools to Shape and Win is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/military-engagement-and-forward-presence-down-not-out-tools-shape-and-win Russian Military Power: Building a Military To Support Great Power Aspirations is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/russian-military-power-building-military-support-great-power-aspirations The Armed Forces Officer is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/armed-forces-officer Other products produced by the US Army, National Defense University Press can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/national-defense-university-ndu

Throughout most of American history, U.S. military forces proved unready for the wars that were thrust upon them and suffered costly reverses in early battles. During the Cold War, for the first time, U.S. defense policy tried to maintain high readiness in peacetime. But now, with the Cold War over and defense budgets falling, what will happen to U.S. military forces? Will they revert to a state of unpreparedness or find a new balance? Politicians and military planners alike have found this crucial issue especially difficult to deal with because they have often misunderstood what readiness really means. In this book, security expert Richard Betts surveys problems in developing and measuring combat readiness before, during, and after the Cold War. He analyzes why attempts to maximize it often have counterproductive effects, and how confusions in technical concepts cause political controversy. The book explores conflicts between two objectives that are both vital but work against each other because they compete for resources: operational readiness to fight immediately, and structural readiness—the number of organized units that increase military power, but require time during a crisis to gear up for combat. Betts also discusses the problem brought on by the Cold War and plunging defense budgets: mobilization readiness—the plans and arrangements needed to shorten the time for recreating a large military if it once again becomes necessary. Betts offers new ideas for understanding the dilemmas and tradeoffs that underlie debates on how readiness should be maintained in peacetime, and he explores the strategic consequences of different choices.

The U.S. military has been continuously engaged in foreign conflicts for over two decades. The strains that these deployments, the associated increases in operational tempo, and the general challenges of military life affect not only service members but also the people who depend on them and who support them as they support the nation â€" their families. Family members provide support to service members while they serve or when they have difficulties; family problems can interfere with the ability of service members to deploy or remain in theater; and family members are central influences on whether members continue to serve. In addition, rising family diversity and complexity will likely increase the difficulty of creating military policies, programs and practices that adequately support families in the performance of military duties. Strengthening the Military Family Readiness System for a Changing American Society examines the challenges and opportunities facing military families and what is known about effective strategies for supporting and protecting military children and families, as well as lessons to be learned from these experiences. This report offers recommendations regarding what is needed to strengthen the support system for military families.

This important report was issued by the Department of Defense in June 2019. The Indo-Pacific is the Department of Defense's priority theater. The United States is a Pacific nation; we are linked to our Indo-Pacific neighbors through unbreakable bonds of shared history, culture, commerce, and values. We have an enduring commitment to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, are secure in their sovereignty and able to pursue economic growth consistent with accepted international rules, norms, and principles of fair competition. The continuity of our shared strategic vision is uninterrupted despite an increasingly complex security environment. Inter-state strategic competition, defined by geopolitical rivalry between free and repressive world order visions, is the primary concern for U.S. national security. In particular, the People's Republic of China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, seeks to reorder the region to its advantage by leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce other nations. In contrast, the Department of Defense supports choices that promote long-term peace and prosperity for all in the Indo-Pacific. We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order - an order that benefits all nations. We are committed to defending and enhancing these shared values.China's economic, political, and military rise is one of the defining elements of the 21st century. Today, the Indo-Pacific increasingly is confronted with a more confident and assertive China that is willing to accept friction in the pursuit of a more expansive set of political, economic, and security interests. Perhaps no country has benefited more from the free and open regional and international system than China, which has witnessed the rise of hundreds of millions from poverty to growing prosperity and security. Yet while the Chinese people aspire to free markets, justice, and the rule of law, the People's Republic of China (PRC), under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), undermines the international system from within by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously eroding the values and principles of the rules-based order.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. 1. Introduction * 1.1. America's Historic Ties to the Indo-Pacific * 1.2. Vision and Principles for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific * 2. Indo-Pacific Strategic Landscape: Trends and Challenges * 2.1. The People's Republic of China as a Revisionist Power * 2.2. Russia as a Revitalized Malign Actor * 2.3. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a Rogue State * 2.4. Prevalence of Transnational Challenges * 3. U.S. National Interests and Defense Strategy * 3.1. U.S. National Interests * 3.2. U.S. National Defense Strategy * 4. Sustaining U.S. Influence to Achieve Regional Objectives * 4.1. Line of Effort 1: Preparedness * 4.2. Line of Effort 2: Partnerships * 4.3. Line of Effort 3: Promoting a Networked Region * Conclusion

In this report, the authors assess the state of artificial intelligence (AI) relevant to DoD, conduct an independent assessment of the Department of Defense's posture in AI, and put forth a set of recommendations to enhance that posture.