How Well Do the Military Services Perform Jointly in Combat? DOD Joint Test-and-Evaluation Program Provides Few Credible Answers

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) joint test-and-evaluations (JT&E) program, which was established in 1971, to determine how well the military services can perform their missions and roles in joint operations under combat conditions.

GAO found that the office responsible for JT&E of DOD weapon systems has been dependent on organizations with vested interests in JT&E results. Joint tests have been managed, carried out, and partially funded by the individual services, which have vested interests in the results. It is not yet clear how new legislation will affect the organization of the program or alter JT&E dependence on the services for resources and capabilities. Most of the JT&E that have been completed were requested by organizations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) while the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the services have been infrequent requesters of joint tests. In the three JT&E which GAO analyzed in depth, it found that: (1) factors important to judging operational effectiveness were omitted; (2) the validity of the test data could seriously be questioned; (3) the data were often not qualified with respect to the tests' constraints; (4) conclusions and recommendations were not always supported by test results; (5) the reports did not always address the concerns of the requesters; and (6) the requesters made little use of the tests. GAO believed that the reasons for the flaws of the joint tests could lie in the organizational structure of the program including: (1) its organizational placement; (2) its limited staff size; (3) failure to choose staff members for their testing expertise; (4) its limited budget; (5) its dependence on the services for resources; and (6) the absence of a strategic plan that sets priorities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Michael J. Wargo Team: General Accounting Office: Program Evaluation and Methodology Division Phone: (202) 275-3092