Military Readiness

Today's American military forces have earned the reputation of being among the best, if not the best, trained forces in the world. Yet, after nearly a decade of military downsizing, concerns have been raised about the potential for a new "hollowing" of U.S. forces. Concerns voiced by military personnel to congressional staff during field visits are very different from official unit readiness assessment reports forwarded through service headquarters to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This difference has raised questions about the true measure of readiness of U.S. military forces. This testimony addresses three questions: What disconnects are associated with readiness reporting, and why do they exist? What corrective measures have been proposed and taken to measure readiness? What further actions are needed?

GAO noted that: (1) formal readiness reports provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Status of Resources and Training System (SORTS) have sometimes indicated a higher state of readiness than appears warranted based on other information coming from military personnel in the field; (2) the implications are that the formal reporting system is overly optimistic in its readiness assessments, and questions can be legitimately raised about its credibility; (3) as GAO and others have reported, there are many shortcomings in SORTS that need to be addressed, including the: (a) lack of emphasis on readiness on a long-term basis, contrasted with the snapshot in time currently provided; (b) use of insufficient indicators to ensure a comprehensive assessment of readiness; and (c) inability to measure integrated readiness of joint operating forces; and (4) GAO's recommendations have been targeted toward helping the Department of Defense identify indicators most relevant to developing a more comprehensive readiness assessment and ensuring that comparable data are maintained by all services to allow the development of trends on the selected indicators.