Author Description

One of the primary management functions of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is managing Total Force preparedness to prevail in conflict and competition across different time horizons and strategic objectives. In 2023, DoD codified the concept of strategic readiness to evaluate readiness through a lens that considered building capability for future conflicts while still meeting current missions. The new policy established a framework for assessing strategic readiness and assigned oversight functions. After a year of initial implementation, RAND researchers examined progress toward these goals and considered next steps. RAND was asked to develop ways to ensure that department decisionmaking regarding strategic readiness is pedagogically coherent, objectively grounded, informed by data, and based on risk. This report is structured around three questions: (1) Is the strategic readiness concept sufficiently clear to be useful to DoD stakeholders? (2) How can DoD risk management of strategic readiness be improved? (3) How can DoD leverage ongoing data efforts to better inform its decisionmaking? The authors approached these questions by reviewing DoD's policies, strategic guidance documents, and risk and readiness assessments. They conducted a literature review of RAND, academic, professional military, and business literature for best practices for military readiness, risk management, and data analytic methods. To gain first-hand insights and critiques, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with key Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff stakeholders, as well as a red team panel with subject-matter experts. Finally, they examined ongoing department data modeling efforts and experimented with using artificial intelligence to support analysis of strategic readiness.