Quadrennial Defense Review
Future Reviews Can Benefit from Better Analysis and Changes in Timing and Scope Gao ID: GAO-03-13 November 4, 2002Congress mandated that every 4 years the Department of Defense (DOD) conduct a review to examine the national defense strategy and its implications for force structure, modernization, infrastructure and the budget. Because the 2001 review, which was issued on September 30, 2001, will have a significant impact on the department's planning and budget, GAO was asked to assess (1) the strengths and weaknesses of DOD's conduct and reporting of the review, and (2) whether changes in the QDR legislation could improve the usefulness of future reviews.
DOD's 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) was marked by both strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, the review was enhanced by the sustained involvement of the Secretary of Defense and other senior department leaders. It also led to the development of a new defense strategy that underscores the need to transform the forces to better meet the changing threats of a new security environment. On the other hand, DOD's decision to delay the start of the review until late spring 2001 constricted an already tight timetable; there was not always a clear link between the study team assignments and the legislatively required issues; the thoroughness of the analysis on these required issues varied considerably; and the assessment of force structure needs had some significant limitations. As a result, Congress did not receive comprehensive information on all required issues, and DOD lacks assurances that it has optimized its force structure and investment priorities to balance short-term and long-term risks. Options exist for changing the timing and refocusing the scope of the QDR to make it more useful to Congress and DOD. To address concerns that a new administration cannot study all the issues by the September 30 deadline, especially when there is a major change in the defense strategy, Congress could (1) delay the report by 4 months until the second February of a President's term, (2) delay the due date for 12 to 16 months, allowing significantly more time for analysis, or (3) require the report in two phases, the first to discuss the defense strategy, and the second--due during the second year of a 4-year term--to address force structure and other issues. Each option would also better support DOD's planning and budget cycle. In terms of the QDR's scope, Congress could eliminate issues that are less relevant in the new security environment or that are included in other routine DOD analyses. Congress could also reinstitute an advisory panel to help set the QDR's agenda.
RecommendationsOur 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.
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Report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Committee on
Armed Services, U.S. Senate:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
November 2002:
Quadrennial Defense Review:
Future Reviews Can Benefit from Better Analysis and Changes in Timing
and Scope:
GAO-03-13:
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
QDR Process, Analysis, and Reporting Are Marked by Strengths and
Weaknesses:
Legislative Options Are Available to Improve Usefulness of QDR:
Conclusions:
Recommendations:
Matters for Congressional Consideration:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Quadrennial Defense Review Legislation in Effect as
of September 30, 2001:
Appendix III: QDR Follow-On Studies, Plans, Reviews, and Concept
Development Taskings:
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Figures:
Figure 1: Organizational Structure for the Development of the 2001 QDR:
Figure 2: Timeline of Strategic Reviews and 2001 QDR Activities:
Figure 3: Confirmation Dates of Department of Defense Leadership in
2001:
Figure 4: Timing Options for Conducting the 2005 QDR:
Abbreviations:
DOD: Department of Defense:
OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense:
QDR: Quadrennial Defense Review:
November 4, 2002:
The Honorable Carl Levin
Chairman
The Honorable John W. Warner
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate:
To ensure that the country‘s defense needs are reviewed periodically,
Congress directed the Department of Defense to conduct comprehensive
Quadrennial Defense Reviews to examine the national defense strategy,
force structure, modernization, infrastructure, and the budget. In
response to this mandate, the department submitted on
September 30, 2001, its second quadrennial report to
Congress.[Footnote 1] This was the first quadrennial report submitted
by the new administration that took office in January 2001. Moreover,
it established a new defense strategy, which revolves around four
critical goals: to assure allies and friends that the United States is
capable of fulfilling its commitments; to dissuade adversaries from
undertaking activities that could threaten U.S. or allied interests; to
deter aggression and coercion; and to decisively defeat any adversary
if deterrence fails. Moreover, the review shifted the basis of defense
planning from the long-standing ’threat-based“ model, which focuses on
specific adversaries and geographic locations (e.g., two-major-
theater-war scenario), to a ’capabilities-based“ construct that
emphasizes the need to prepare for a range of potential military
operations against unknown enemies. The report concluded that the
current force structure generally can implement the new defense
strategy goals with moderate operational risk,[Footnote 2] although the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff cautioned that additional war-
fighting analyses are needed to confirm this initial assessment.
Because the 2001 review will have a significant impact on the
department‘s defense planning and budgetary decisions over the next
several years, you asked us to evaluate the review and the process that
the Department of Defense used to conduct it. In this report, we assess
(1) the strengths and weaknesses of the department‘s conduct and
reporting of the 2001 review, and (2) the legislative options that are
available to Congress to improve the usefulness of future quadrennial
reviews. In addition to this report, we plan to issue a separate
classified report that discusses the thoroughness of the department‘s
analysis of force structure alternatives to determine the one best
suited to carry out the new defense strategy.
To evaluate the conduct and reporting of the 2001 Quadrennial Defense
Review, we documented and analyzed the department‘s timetable and
management structure for conducting the review, compared the
department‘s guidance for the review with the legislative reporting
requirements, and assessed the thoroughness of key analyses, such as
the department‘s examination of force structure requirements. Although
the department provided us with access to analyses completed between
June and September 2001, the period of time that the department defines
as comprising its quadrennial review, department officials did not
provide us with access to documentation on preparatory activities and
analyses that occurred prior to June 2001. As a result, we were not
able to fully assess the department‘s efforts to prepare for the review
or the extent to which analyses conducted during this time frame may
have influenced the review‘s key conclusions. To examine legislative
options that might enhance the usefulness of future reviews, we
identified potential options from our analyses of the 1997 and 2001
quadrennial defense reviews and obtained the views of defense
department civilian leaders, military leaders, and nongovernment
defense analysts who played a key role in the 2001 quadrennial review
or in prior defense strategy reviews. The scope and methodology we used
in our review are described in further detail in appendix I.
Results in Brief:
The Department of Defense‘s 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review was marked
by both strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, the review was
enhanced by the sustained involvement of the Secretary of Defense and
other senior department officials who provided top-down leadership for
the process. In addition, it led to the adoption of a new defense
strategy that underscores the need to transform the force to meet
future military threats and adopt more efficient business practices.
However, several weaknesses in the department‘s process, analysis, and
reporting limited the review‘s overall usefulness as a means for
fundamentally reassessing U.S. defense plans and programs.
Specifically, the Secretary of Defense‘s decision to delay the review‘s
start until late spring 2001, when the department completed a series of
strategic reviews led by outside defense experts, imposed additional
time constraints on the quadrennial review‘s already tight schedule. In
addition, because the study‘s principal guidance document was designed
to emphasize the Secretary‘s priorities, there was not always a clear
link between the specific reporting requirements in the legislation and
the issues assigned to study teams for analysis. Moreover, the
thoroughness of the department‘s analysis and reporting on issues
mandated by legislation varied considerably, and some significant
issues, such as the role of the reserves, were deferred to follow-on
studies. Finally, the department‘s assessment of force structure
requirements had some significant limitations--such as its lack of
focus on longer-term threats and requirements for critical support
capabilities--and the department‘s report provided little information
on some required issues, such as the specific assumptions used in the
analysis. As a result of these shortcomings, Congress did not receive
comprehensive information on all of the legislatively mandated issues,
the department lacks assurance that it has optimized its force
structure to balance short-and long-term risks, and the review resulted
in few specific decisions on how existing military forces and weapons
modernization programs may need to be changed in response to emerging
threats.
Several options exist for changing the timing and refocusing the scope
of the quadrennial defense review to improve its usefulness both to the
Department of Defense and Congress. These options would address
concerns identified by department officials, defense analysts, and our
analysis that the current deadline--September 30--does not provide a
new administration with adequate time to analyze a range of complex
defense issues (particularly when it is considering making significant
changes to the nation‘s defense strategy) and integrate the review‘s
findings with the department‘s planning and budgeting process. Each
option, however, could have some positive as well as negative effects.
One option is to extend the review‘s deadline by 4 months, from
September 30 to early February; while this option would allow the
review to coincide with an administration‘s first budget submission, it
would only provide a few more months for analysis. A second option is
to extend the deadline by 12 to 16 months; this would allow
considerably more time for analysis, but it would delay the impact of
the quadrennial review until an administration‘s second full budget
cycle. A third option is to divide the review into two phases, with an
initial report on broad security and strategy issues due on September
30 and a final report on the remaining issues, including force
structure, to be submitted the following year. Several options also
exist to respond to concerns that the legislative requirements are
currently too numerous and detailed and should be better focused on a
few high-priority issues. Many defense officials believe that some
requirements, such as the one to examine the extent to which military
forces would need to be shifted from one theater of operations to
another, are no longer as relevant given the defense strategy‘s
decreased emphasis on planning for two-major theater wars. In addition,
some legislative requirements that ask DOD to address important issues
such as mobility needs and the alignment of military commands may not
have to be included in future quadrennial reviews because they require
significant time for analysis and DOD has separate processes to review
these issues. Finally, most department officials and defense analysts
we spoke to believe that a congressionally mandated advisory panel of
outside defense experts should precede the next quadrennial defense
review to identify the key issues and alternatives that the department
needs to examine as part of its review.
To enhance the usefulness of future quadrennial defense reviews, we are
recommending that the Secretary of Defense clearly assign
responsibility for addressing all legislative requirements and provide
Congress with more complete information on the department‘s analyses to
meet the legislative reporting requirements, particularly its
examination of force structure requirements. In addition, Congress may
wish to consider extending the time frame for the review, reassessing
the legislative requirements and focusing them on a clear set of high-
priority issues, and establishing an advisory panel to identify the
critical issues the next review should address. In its written comments
to our report, the Department of Defense partially agreed with our
first recommendation and noted that the clear assignment of
responsibilities is important to the success of the review. The
department did not take a position on our second recommendation but
noted that it had provided Congress information on the Quadrennial
Defense Review decisions and the basis for them. The department also
stated that it supports, and has proposed, changes in the timing of
future reviews. See the ’Agency Comments and Our Evaluation“ section
for our detailed response to DOD‘s comments.
Background:
The idea of a comprehensive quadrennial review by the Department of
Defense (DOD) of the country‘s defense strategy and force structure was
initially proposed in May 1995 by the Commission on Roles and Missions
of the Armed Forces. In August 1995, the Secretary of Defense endorsed
the idea, and the following year Congress mandated that DOD conduct the
1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).[Footnote 3] Congress also
authorized establishing a National Defense Panel, composed of national
security experts from the private sector, to review the results of the
QDR and conduct a subsequent study to identify and assess force
structure alternatives. After DOD completed its first QDR in May 1997,
the National Defense Panel concluded that (1) DOD had focused its
resources on the unlikely contingency that two major theater wars would
occur at the same time, and (2) DOD should begin vigorously
transforming the military so that it would be capable, for example, of
quickly moving to and conducting military operations in overseas
locations that may lack permanent U.S. bases.
Our review of the 1997 QDR highlighted several opportunities for
improving subsequent reviews.[Footnote 4] Specifically, we noted that
the 1997 QDR, although broader in scope and more rigorous in some
aspects than prior reviews of defense requirements, did not examine
enough alternatives to the current force and that DOD‘s modernization
assessment did not reflect an integrated, mission-focused approach. We
also recommended that DOD take a number of steps, such as considering
the need for changing the structure and timing of the QDR process, to
prepare for the next review.
Purpose of QDR:
With the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2000 in 1999, Congress created a permanent requirement for DOD to
conduct a QDR every 4 years and specified that the next report was due
no later than September 30, 2001.[Footnote 5] According to this
legislation, DOD is to conduct a comprehensive examination of the
national defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans,
infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the country‘s
defense program and policies with a view toward determining and
expressing the nation‘s defense strategy and establishing a defense
program for the next 20 years. (See app. II for the text of the
legislation governing the 2001 QDR.) The legislation also identifies 13
specific issues that DOD is to address, such as the extent to which
resources would have to be shifted among two or more geographic regions
in the event of conflict in these regions and the effect on force
structure of new technologies anticipated to be available in the next
20 years. Moreover, it allows the Secretary of Defense to review any
other issues he considers appropriate. Finally, it directs the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review the QDR report and include an
assessment of the risk associated with implementing the defense
strategy.
The QDR is a key component of national security planning. Other
legislation requires the President to submit to Congress a national
security strategy along with budgets for each fiscal year.[Footnote 6]
(The current administration issued its National Security Strategy on
Sept. 17, 2002.) The national security strategy is intended in part to
(1) identify U.S. interests, goals and objectives vital to U.S.
national security and achieving security, and (2) explain how the
United States uses its political, economic, military, and other
elements of the national power of the United States to protect or
promote the interests and achieve the goals and objectives as
identified above. The QDR, in turn, is intended to outline a national
defense strategy that supports the national security strategy.
2001 QDR Process:
Some preliminary planning for the 2001 QDR began in February 2000 when
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff organized eight panels within
the Joint Staff to conduct preparatory work for the review. Although
the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has the lead role in
conducting the QDR, the Joint Staff plays a supporting role in the
process and has primary responsibility for leading the analytical work
to support the Chairman‘s risk assessment. Each Joint Staff panel was
assigned to address specific topics, such as strategy and operational
risk assessment, modernization, and readiness. At the same time, the
military services set up separate QDR offices, which were composed of
panels that paralleled those of the Joint Staff, and assigned
representatives to the Joint Staff panels. These panels continued to
operate throughout 2000, but they were put on hold in early 2001 when
the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense decided to undertake a series
of strategic reviews led by defense experts from the private sector.
The strategic reviews covered a wide spectrum of subjects, including
missile defense, conventional forces, and transformation, and,
according to DOD officials, were designed to stimulate the Secretary‘s
thinking about the critical issues that faced the department. However,
these reviews were not completed as part of the QDR, according to OSD
officials. The strategic reviews culminated in a series of briefings to
the Secretary of Defense in the spring of 2001.
OSD began its work on the QDR in May 2001 when it established a
structure and process for the review. It set up seven integrated
project teams to undertake the analysis for various issues such as
strategy and force planning; personnel and readiness; infrastructure;
and space, information, and intelligence.[Footnote 7] These study teams
were generally led by OSD staff and included service and other DOD
analysts. On June 22, the Secretary of Defense approved the Terms of
Reference, which outlined the policy guidance and specific tasks that
the study teams were to follow during the review. The study teams were
to undertake initial analyses in their subject areas and develop
options and alternatives for the executive working group to consider.
The executive working group was led by a special assistant to the
Secretary of Defense and included the head of each of the study teams.
The executive working group was responsible for ensuring that the teams
coordinated their work and for determining what information each study
team would provide to the senior-level review group, which consisted of
the Secretary of Defense, the services secretaries, the Joint Chiefs,
the under secretaries of defense, and the special assistant to the
secretary. According to OSD officials, the senior level review group
issued guidance to the study teams and made all decisions that were
included in the QDR report. Figure 1 shows the structure that OSD
established to conduct the QDR.
Figure 1: Organizational Structure for the Development of the 2001 QDR:
[See PDF for image]
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
The Secretary of Defense issued the QDR report on September 30, 2001,
as required by law, despite the September 11 attacks on New York City
and the Pentagon. At the time of the attacks, OSD officials had
developed a draft of the report. Although final preparation and
approval of the report were made more difficult by the immediate issues
confronting senior OSD officials and the physical condition of the
Pentagon following the attacks, OSD officials obtained and responded to
comments from numerous DOD offices during September and issued the
report as planned. According to OSD officials, although the draft
report was modified to include references to the attacks and noted the
need for more study of the implications of the attacks on future DOD
requirements, the initial draft recognized the need for more attention
to homeland defense.
QDR Process, Analysis, and Reporting Are Marked by Strengths and
Weaknesses:
DOD‘s 2001 QDR had several strengths; however, its usefulness in
stimulating a fundamental reexamination of U.S. defense plans and
programs was limited by some significant weaknesses in its process,
analysis, and reporting. The review benefited from the sustained
involvement of the Secretary of Defense and other senior officials who
provided critical management direction and oversight. It also led to
the adoption of a new defense strategy that extends defense planning
beyond a two-major-theater-war scenario and underscores the need to
transform the services‘ military capabilities and business processes to
meet future threats and to use defense resources more efficiently.
However, the Secretary of Defense‘s decision to delay the start of the
QDR until late spring 2001, when DOD had largely completed a series of
strategic studies led by outside experts, further compressed an already
tight schedule. In addition, the QDR‘s terms of reference did not
clearly assign responsibility to project teams for studying some issues
that were specified in the legislative mandate, and the thoroughness
and reporting on study issues mandated by the legislation varied
significantly. Moreover, DOD did not provide Congress with detailed
information on its force structure analysis, such as the key
assumptions used, because much of this information is classified and
DOD chose not to report any classified information. As a result,
although the review established a vision for change in the department,
the 2001 QDR did not result in many decisions on how DOD‘s force
structure, acquisition programs, and infrastructure should be adjusted
and realigned to implement this vision. Moreover, Congress did not
receive comprehensive information to help them assess the basis for
DOD‘s conclusions or the need for changes in DOD‘s programs.
Senior Leadership Provided Direction and Oversight to QDR:
One of the strengths of the 2001 QDR was the sustained involvement of
the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and other
DOD senior leaders who provided the direction and oversight that the
QDR process needed to initiate the development of a new defense
strategy. According to current management studies, such top-level
leadership is crucial for engineering major changes in an organization.
Top leaders establish the framework for change and provide guidance and
direction to others to achieve that change. According to this research,
senior leadership involvement is needed because middle managers often
are reluctant to promote and foster new ideas and concepts through fear
of reducing their opportunities for advancement. As such, best
practices clearly indicate that top-level management involvement is
needed to effect major institutional changes.
In assessing past defense reviews, defense analysts have also noted the
need for more guidance and involvement by senior leaders in
facilitating change within DOD. For example, an assessment of the
lessons learned from the 1997 QDR by the Rand Corporation cited the
absence of OSD leadership, control, and integration of the study groups
as contributing to the lack of fundamental changes proposed in DOD‘s
force structure, infrastructure, and modernization programs.[Footnote
8] Moreover, the report of the U.S. Commission on National Security in
the 21st Century noted that strategic planning in the department
suffers because senior defense leadership has spent a disproportionate
amount of time on budgeting rather than on strategic planning. To
address this concern, the commission recommended that the Secretary of
Defense develop defense policy and planning guidance that defines
specific goals and establishes relative priorities. This guidance would
provide the basis for defining the national military strategy and
conducting the QDR and for supporting other DOD planning efforts.
According to OSD and service officials, the Secretary of Defense, other
key OSD officials, and senior military leaders from each of the
services actively participated in planning and implementing the 2001
QDR. DOD officials characterized the process as a top-down effort where
the leadership provided direction and the staff responded to the
priorities the leadership established. According to one service
official, the Secretary of Defense and the service chiefs attended a 5-
day meeting to discuss issues related to threats, capabilities, and
force structure. These discussions ultimately culminated in the Terms
of Reference, which provided guidance on what issues should be assigned
high priority during the QDR, how the process would be structured, and
what issues the study teams would tackle. Each of the study teams also
presented one or more briefings on their analyses and options between
June and August 2001 to the Secretary of Defense and other members of
the senior-level review group. Moreover, according to service officials
and the OSD official who had primary responsibility for drafting the
QDR report, the Secretary was directly involved in reviewing and
revising drafts of the QDR report. One high-ranking OSD official stated
that he had not seen as much interaction among the senior leadership in
any of the three prior defense planning studies he had participated in.
The broad consensus of officials we spoke with across DOD is that the
QDR report represents the Secretary‘s thinking and vision.
QDR Sets Framework for New Defense Strategy and Emphasis on Military
Transformation:
DOD and other defense analysts we met with generally agree that the
2001 QDR successfully laid out a new defense strategy--a broad
framework that can guide planning for a range of military operations
and that places less emphasis on planning for specific military
scenarios, such as two major theater wars. As noted earlier, the
strategy is focused on four key tenets: (1) assuring allies and friends
that the United States is capable of meeting its commitments; (2)
dissuading adversaries from undertaking activities that could threaten
U.S. or allied interests; (3) deterring aggression or coercion; and (4)
decisively defeating any adversary if deterrence fails. In addition to
adopting a new strategy, the QDR concluded that force structure
planning should be based on a capabilities-based approach that focuses
more on how a range of potential enemies might fight rather than on
defining who the adversary might be and where a war might occur.
During the last few years, a number of military commissions and panels
have concluded that DOD needed to shift its defense planning paradigm-
-and restructure its military forces--to meet the changing threats of a
new security environment. Beginning in the mid-1990s and including the
report of the 2000 U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st
Century, military analysts have called for the replacement of the two-
major-theater-war model with a broader and more flexible model to serve
as the basis for force planning. The commission noted that DOD‘s
dependency on the two-war model has failed to produce the capabilities
that the military needs to confront the various and complex military
contingencies that occur today and are likely to increase in the years
ahead. DOD officials and outside defense analysts we spoke to see DOD‘s
adoption of a new strategy and a ’capabilities-based“ approach to force
planning as significant steps that should better enable defense
planning to focus on future, rather than near-term, threats.
The QDR report also identifies a number of steps that DOD must take to
advance military transformation to achieve the objectives of the
defense strategy, which can range from exploiting new approaches and
operational concepts to a fundamental change in the way war is waged.
The QDR report concluded that the needed transformation of the armed
forces can be achieved by exploiting new approaches, technologies, and
new organization. It also unveiled six critical goals that will provide
the focus for DOD‘s transformation efforts. For example, three of the
goals are to (1) protect critical bases of operations; (2) project U.S.
forces in distant locations against enemies who seek to deny the U.S.
access; and (3) enhance the capabilities and survivability of space
systems. To support the transformation effort, DOD‘s senior leadership
agreed to establish a new transformation office reporting directly to
the Secretary of Defense and develop transformation roadmaps for the
services and defense agencies. To improve the services‘ ability to
operate together in situations that require a rapid response, the
Secretary directed the department to develop a prototype for a Standing
Joint Task Force Headquarters--a headquarters with representatives from
each of the services and other DOD organizations to provide uniform
standard operating procedures, tactics, and techniques.
The QDR also recognizes that DOD has lacked an overarching strategy to
improve its business practices to free up resources to support
transformation efforts. Although the QDR legislation does not
specifically require DOD to report on its business practices, the 2001
QDR report outlines the Secretary of Defense‘s vision for making DOD
more efficient by reforming its financial systems, reducing the size of
headquarters staffs, and consolidating DOD‘s facilities and supply
chain. Although the report does not include many specific decisions on
how these goals will be accomplished, it highlights them as issues that
are important to the Secretary and identifies several specific
councils, boards, and follow-on studies to develop plans in these
areas.
Decision to Delay Start of QDR Further Compressed Time Available for
QDR Analysis:
The Secretary of Defense‘s decision in early 2001 to delay the start of
the QDR until late spring 2001, following a series of strategic reviews
by military experts in the private sector, compressed the already-tight
time frame available to conduct the QDR. As a result, many QDR study
teams had little time available to conduct original analysis of issues
required by the QDR legislation. Instead, they relied heavily on
previous analytical work that was often based on the former defense
strategy or had only enough time to identify significant issues
requiring further analysis.
The QDR timetable is short under normal circumstances: the report is
due to Congress no later than September 30 of the first year of an
administration. Anticipating these time constraints for the 2001 QDR,
the Joint Staff and the services began informal preparations (without
direction from OSD) nearly 1 year ahead of time by establishing panels
or offices to study a number of issues, such as defining the force
needed to meet the defense strategy, and developing core themes to
study, such as the mismatch between the defense strategy and force
structure. According to service and DOD officials, these efforts slowed
down considerably or stopped completely early in 2001 at OSD‘s
direction when the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense initiated a
series of outside strategic reviews. Service and Joint Staff officials
told us that they had only limited involvement in the strategic
reviews. Some service officials also said that at the time they were
unclear if the strategic reviews were part of the QDR process.
Led by military experts from outside DOD, the strategic reviews
addressed a wide spectrum of topics, including missile defense,
conventional forces, and transformation. According to DOD officials,
these outside reviews resulted in numerous briefings to the Secretary
of Defense during the spring of 2001 and were designed to stimulate the
Secretary‘s thinking about the major issues that the department faced.
Moreover, some OSD officials informed us that the results of the
strategic reviews were considered by some of the QDR study teams.
However, we could not assess the extent to which they were used during
the QDR process because OSD officials consider the strategic reviews to
be separate from the QDR, and they did not provide us with access to
briefings and other documents that the strategic review teams produced.
Rather than conducting the QDR concurrent with the strategic reviews
(or making the strategic reviews an official part of the QDR process),
OSD waited until May 2001 to establish the organizational structure and
process for the QDR. Also, OSD did not finalize and issue the terms of
reference until June 22. (See fig. 2 for a detailed timeline of the
strategic reviews and QDR process.) After the terms of reference were
issued, most study teams had only until mid-July at the latest to study
issues, identify options, and develop briefings for the executive
working group and senior-level review group. In some cases, study teams
were required to begin briefing DOD management before their specific
taskings had been finalized. For example, the strategy and force
planning team was required to provide an interim briefing on June 12
even though the terms of reference detailing its responsibilities were
not finalized until June 22. Although all of the teams were supposed to
submit their final results to senior leadership by July 11, at least
one provided briefings after this date.
Figure 2: Timeline of Strategic Reviews and 2001 QDR Activities:
[See PDF for image]
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
According to several study team officials who met with us, some teams
had insufficient time to conduct comprehensive analyses of some issues
specified in the QDR legislation. They pointed out that the limited
time available was particularly difficult because the new defense
strategy required new analyses. To meet their deadlines, some study
teams relied on previous work or reached conclusions based on informed
opinion rather than on detailed analysis. For example, the
infrastructure team was tasked with finding the most efficient way to
align infrastructure with force and mission requirements, work that was
heavily dependent on the findings of the force structure team. However,
the force structure team performed its work concurrently with the
infrastructure team. Although the infrastructure team developed a plan
called Installations 2020 to guide the transformation of DOD‘s
infrastructure, it is limited in part because the team did not receive
any information from the force structure team on how force structure is
likely to change in the future due to changes in the threat and
technologies. Moreover, infrastructure team officials said that they
would have required more time (at least 6 months) to conduct in-depth
analysis even if it had had data on likely force structure changes.
Instead, the infrastructure team relied on earlier analytical work that
had a short-term focus and was based on the previous defense strategy
and current force structure. The team concluded that installations
should prepare and implement 20-year strategic plans and that these
plans must support changing force structures and new mission
requirements.
Study Guidance Did Not Clearly Assign Responsibilities for Addressing
All Elements of the Legislative Mandate:
Our analysis of the terms of reference that DOD provided to study teams
demonstrates that there was not always a clear link between the
specific reporting requirements in the QDR legislation and the issues
that the teams were directed to study. According to OSD officials, this
discrepancy stems from the Secretary of Defense‘s decision to place
more emphasis on some requirements and less on others within the
context of a tight QDR timetable.
The QDR legislation requires DOD to address several broad policy
issues, including delineating the national defense strategy; defining
the force, infrastructure, and budget needed to carry out the strategy;
and assessing the magnitude of risk associated with carrying out the
missions expressed in the strategy. The legislation also identifies 13
specific issues that need to be addressed, such as the forward presence
necessary under the national defense strategy and the strategic and
tactical airlift, sealift, and ground transportation capabilities
required to support the strategy.
Although OSD and service officials agreed that it would have been
reasonable to expect the department to ensure that all of the specific
legislative requirements were assigned to a study team, OSD officials
stated that, in developing the guidance, they followed the Secretary‘s
desire to place more emphasis on some issues and less on others, given
the limited time frame. According to OSD officials, the Secretary‘s
priorities were to: (1) define the security environment, (2) present
the defense strategy, and (3) discuss the capabilities required to meet
the strategy.
As a result, several critical issues were among the requirements that
were not specifically tasked to a study team. For example, DOD is
required to examine the manpower and sustainment policies needed under
the national defense strategy to support any engagements in conflicts
lasting longer than 120 days. However, the only assignment related to
manpower in the guidance directs the personnel and readiness team to
develop policy alternatives for strengthening the recruitment and
retention of military and civilian personnel, with attention to such
issues as career paths and mandatory retirement extensions. The
legislation also requires that the QDR assess the advisability of
changes to the Unified Command Plan and the effect that participation
in operations other than war and smaller-scale contingencies will have
on readiness for high-intensity combat. However, the study guidance did
not task any of the study groups with addressing these issues.
The quadrennial review legislation also requires DOD to identify a
budget plan to successfully execute the full range of missions called
for in the defense strategy at a low to moderate level of operational
risk, and to identify any resources beyond those programmed in the
current years‘ defense program to achieve such a level of operational
risk. Although some study teams were tasked with addressing budget
issues in their limited area of research, we did not find any
requirement for a team to address this issue from a departmentwide
perspective.
Thoroughness of QDR Analysis and Reporting on Key Issues Varied
Considerably:
The thoroughness of DOD‘s analysis and reporting on the issues it was
required to address as part of the QDR varied considerably. Overall,
DOD undertook substantial analysis and reporting on the security
environment and defense strategy, but it conducted limited analysis and
reporting on several other issues required by the legislation. In
addition, DOD‘s analysis and reporting on force structure--an essential
component of the review--was marked by several limitations, such as its
near-term focus. As a result, while the QDR report provides broad
direction in many areas, its limited analysis of some issues meant that
DOD did not obtain sufficient information to make many specific
decisions on the need for changes to existing modernization,
infrastructure, and force structure plans.
As noted earlier, many DOD officials and analysts we spoke with cited
the QDR‘s emphasis on assessing the future security environment and
evaluating alternative defense strategies as examples of sound, well-
focused analysis. According to OSD officials, OSD‘s Office of the
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy drew on a wide
variety of sources, from the strategic reviews to intelligence reports,
to develop an initial paper discussing these issues. The Secretary then
held meetings with his top military and civilian staff to discuss and
decide on a defense strategy. As such, the QDR report includes
considerable discussion about broad geopolitical trends, regional
security developments, the increased number of weak and failing states,
and the diffusion of power to nongovernment actors such as terrorist
groups. Moreover, this discussion sets the stage for the QDR‘s
conclusion that a broader defense strategy is needed to focus on
threats from other than traditional regional powers.
In contrast, DOD‘s analysis and reporting on some legislatively
mandated issues, such as the role of the reserves, the need for changes
in the defense agencies, and the Unified Command Plan, were limited.
The QDR report identifies over 30 issues that will be the focus of
follow-on studies. (See app. III for a listing of all QDR follow-on
studies.) Although not all of these studies correlate directly to
specific legislative requirements, a number of them do. For example,
the legislation asks DOD to examine the role and missions of the
reserve forces in the national defense strategy and identify what
resources they need to discharge those duties. However, OSD officials
decided to defer the study of this issue due to its complexity and the
limited time available, effectively limiting the amount of information
on this topic in the report. The QDR report notes that DOD will
undertake a comprehensive review of the active and reserve mix,
organization, priority missions, and associated resources at a later
time. According to a November 27, 2001, memo, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense directed OSD, with support from the Joint Staff and the
services, to conduct this review. OSD officials informed us in late
August 2002 that the results of this review and other follow-on studies
will be communicated to Congress in a variety of ways, including the
administration‘s next budget submission, once they are completed.
Likewise, there was limited discussion in the QDR report on the
appropriate number and size of defense agencies[Footnote 9] needed to
support combat operations, because the infrastructure study team did
not have time to conduct a detailed analysis. The report indicated that
DOD would begin a review of the defense agencies to improve their
business practices, and, in a November 2001 memo, it instructed the
defense agencies to develop transformation roadmaps for the Secretary
of Defense‘s review that outlined their planned contributions toward
helping DOD meet its critical operational goals. In addition, while the
study teams did address the need for changes in overseas presence,
neither they nor the QDR report specifically addressed changes to the
Unified Command Plan. However, DOD subsequently announced changes to
the Unified Command Plan that took effect on October 1, 2002. These
include establishing the U.S. Northern Command to defend the United
States and to support military assistance to civil authorities and
focusing the efforts of the U.S. Joint Forces Command toward
transforming the U.S. military.
In addition, DOD‘s analysis and reporting on force structure issues had
several limitations. The QDR legislation asks DOD to define the size
and composition of the force that it needs to successfully execute the
full range of missions called for in the national defense strategy. It
also specifically asks DOD to identify ’the force structure best suited
to implement that strategy at a low-to-moderate level of risk.“
However, the force analysis had a near-term focus that provided few
insights into how future threats and planned technological advances in
U.S. capabilities may affect future force structure requirements.
Moreover, in assessing the numbers and types of forces required to
achieve U.S. objectives in the specific scenarios examined, DOD relied
primarily on existing military war plans and military judgment; it used
analytical tools such as computer modeling and simulation only to a
limited extent. Such tools can provide a significant amount of
additional data and insights to help decision makers assess operational
risk and evaluate force structure requirements for a range of scenarios
and time frames. Additionally, the analysis only examined requirements
for major combat forces and did not address the types of critical
support forces that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
identified as presenting the highest risk in carrying out the new
strategy. As a result, DOD currently lacks assurance that it has
optimized its force to effectively balance short-term and long-term
risks.[Footnote 10] DOD officials cited the lack of time as the primary
reason its analysis was not more comprehensive and detailed. However,
some officials also pointed to the inherent difficulty of examining
future force structure requirements given uncertainties in future
threats.
The QDR report also provided little explanation of how DOD reached its
conclusion that the current force structure is generally capable of
executing the defense strategy at moderate operational risk, and it
contained little information on the specific assumptions that DOD made
concerning warning time and the intensity and duration of conflicts
examined, although these are specific items that the report is intended
to address. A DOD official stated that it did not provide a more
complete explanation of the analysis done and key assumptions used
because it would have required discussing classified information.
However, DOD could have chosen to provide Congress with information on
some legislative requirements in a classified format, in addition to
issuing an overall unclassified report. By not providing this
information, DOD limited Congress‘s ability to assess the
reasonableness of DOD‘s assumptions and better understand the
methodology used to arrive at key conclusions regarding force
structure.
Legislative Options Are Available to Improve Usefulness of QDR:
A number of legislative options are available for improving the QDR‘s
usefulness to both DOD and Congress. These options would ameliorate
some of the concerns that we and many defense experts have expressed as
a result of examining DOD‘s process and analysis for the 2001 QDR and
prior defense reviews--namely, that the QDR is required too soon after
a new administration assumes office, that its timetable does not
coincide with DOD‘s planning and budget process, and that its scope is
not adequately focused on high-priority issues. Several options exist
for extending the QDR deadline to provide DOD with more time to conduct
the comprehensive analysis required to reassess force structure,
infrastructure, and acquisition decisions and better link the QDR to
DOD‘s budget and planning process. Moreover, DOD officials and defense
experts we spoke to agree that options exist to better focus the
legislative requirements on critical issues required for congressional
oversight and internal DOD planning. Specifically, this could be
accomplished by eliminating issues that have become less relevant given
the changing security environment or that may not be needed as part of
the QDR because DOD has other studies in place to periodically review
them. Finally, a congressionally mandated advisory panel could be
convened prior to the next QDR to help identify the critical issues and
alternatives that DOD should examine in its review.
Changing QDR Deadline Would Give DOD More Time to Examine Complex
Issues:
One of the main concerns with the QDR process has been its short time
frame (approximately Feb. to Sept.). In our report on the 1997 QDR, we
noted that the 6-month time period available for the QDR was extremely
tight, given the complex nature and large number of issues, even for
second-term administrations that may have relatively little turnover
among DOD‘s senior personnel. We found that the short time frame was a
key factor in limiting the thoroughness of DOD‘s analyses. We also
noted that the conduct of the 2001 QDR could be further complicated
because it would take place just after a new administration assumed
office and at the same time that DOD was experiencing a large turnover
in senior officials. For example, during the first 5 months of
President Clinton‘s first administration, the Secretary of Defense had
less than half of his top managers in place.
These concerns again materialized during the 2001 QDR when, except for
the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Defense had no top
management officials in place until May 1, 2001, when the Comptroller
was confirmed. (See fig. 3.) Many senior officials were not confirmed
until sometime during the May to August time frame.
Figure 3: Confirmation Dates of Department of Defense Leadership in
2001:
[See PDF for image]
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
DOD officials informed us that they found it extremely difficult to
conduct the type of work the legislation required without these
officials in place. Moreover, several DOD officials noted that
conducting thorough analyses within the current time frame is a major
challenge when an administration makes significant changes in the
defense strategy and can no longer rely on prior department analyses.
The Secretary reiterated these concerns about the challenges posed by
the QDR-reporting deadline in news conferences. A few defense analysts
we spoke to did not agree that the difficulty in getting appointees
confirmed is a justification in and of itself to change the date of the
QDR. One official noted, for example, that unconfirmed appointees could
advise and consult with the Secretary. Moreover, we noted that one OSD
official who played a key role in the review, the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Strategy, had worked on the 1997 QDR and the
service chiefs and many of the members of QDR study teams were
comprised of military officers and civil servants whose tenure is not
affected by the change in administrations. Nevertheless, defense
analysts who have studied the QDR process generally agreed that the
timing is not practical from other standpoints. For example, two
defense researchers concluded that the tight timetable inhibits the
Secretary‘s ability to perform the in-depth analysis necessary. This is
especially troublesome since the QDR should form the basis for the
defense agenda and major changes to future budgets.
Additionally, some defense analysts have noted that the QDR was not
synchronized with DOD‘s long-term planning and budgeting process even
though the QDR should set the framework for budgetary decisions. For
example, on September 30 when the QDR is due, DOD is still in the
process of reviewing the services‘ budget proposals and analyzing
whether changes are needed. DOD does not finalize its budget request
until late January or early February when the President submits the
budget to Congress.
In our own work and in our discussions with defense experts, we
identified three options that have the potential for alleviating some
of the QDR‘s timing problems. However, each option could have some
positive as well as negative effects. Figure 4 illustrates the
differences in timing for the three options.
Figure 4: Timing Options for Conducting the 2005 QDR:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis.
[End of figure]
Option 1 would extend the QDR process by about 4 months and change the
report submission deadline from September 30 to the following February.
This would give DOD a few extra months to complete the review. More
importantly, it would allow DOD to develop both the QDR and the
administration‘s first full budget (which is submitted during the
second year of a President‘s term) in tandem. Ideally, this would allow
decisions made as part of the QDR process, such as defense strategy and
force structure, to be reflected in the budget plan. Both the QDR and
budget would be submitted to Congress at the same time. A shortcoming
of this option is that DOD and the services would have to work quickly
to translate QDR force-related decisions into budgetary projections.
Moreover, 4 months of additional time may not be sufficient to complete
detailed analysis on all the required issues, particularly if DOD makes
a major change in the defense strategy.
Option 2 would extend the QDR process by 12 to 16 months. The report
submission deadline would change from September 30 of the first year to
September 30 of the second year of a President‘s term at the earliest.
As we noted in our report on the 1997 QDR, this option would give a new
administration substantially more time to put its key officials in
place, develop a defense strategy, make preparations for the QDR, and
conduct the necessary analyses. Moreover, it would provide time for a
new administration to first develop a national security strategy, which
many defense analysts believe should precede the development of a
defense strategy. A disadvantage of this option is that it would
postpone a President‘s impact on the defense budget until his or her
third year in office. To illustrate, the Secretary of Defense stated
that the fiscal year 2003 budget they presented to Congress reflected
the transformation goals they reached in the 2001 QDR. If the QDR had
been delayed by 1 year--to 2002--these decisions would not have been
reflected until the fiscal year 2004 budget request.
Option 3 would establish a two-phase QDR process. A study by the
National Defense University‘s Institute for National Strategic Studies,
as well as a number of analysts and DOD officials with whom we met,
recommended this approach. During the first phase, the QDR would focus
on broad policy issues, such as the security environment and defense
strategy. The first report would be due on September 30. During the
second phase, DOD would conduct comprehensive and in-depth analysis of
force structure, force modernization, and other legislatively required
issues. The final report would be due sometime during the second year.
The strengths of this option are that it would produce a defense
strategy during the first year of a President‘s term that could be used
to lay out DOD‘s strategic plan and prepare the Secretary‘s budget
guidance to the services. Congress could use the new defense strategy
as a framework to evaluate the defense budget that it receives a few
months later. Moreover, according to the National Defense University
review, DOD could take this opportunity to set broad priorities and
decide on major program issues. At the same time, this option would
give DOD up to an additional year to complete its detailed analyses of
force structure and new capabilities, which are needed to support the
defense strategy and provide support for its long-term budget and
program development. However, for this approach to be successful DOD
would have to ensure that each phase receives equal priority and that
the results of both are well integrated. Moreover, this option would
delay major decisions on force structure and major weapon systems until
the latter part of an administration‘s second year in office.
As part of its deliberation on the Fiscal Year 2003 National Defense
Authorization bill, Congress is considering changing the timing for
future QDRs. In mid-2002, the Secretary of Defense requested that
Congress consider delaying the QDR until the second year of an
administration‘s 4-year term. A House version of the bill includes a
provision to allow DOD to submit the QDR in the second year of a
President‘s term of office rather than on September 30 of the first
year as currently required. The House Armed Services Committee‘s report
noted that the complexity of preparing the report could be compounded
by the lengthy confirmation process for presidential appointees and it
concluded that moving the submission of the report back a year would
provide more time to conduct the type of critical review of all aspects
of the department‘s operations envisioned by the statute.[Footnote 11]
The Senate has proposed a shorter extension of the QDR deadline. The
Senate proposal would permit the department to provide the QDR report
in the second year of a President‘s term of office, but not later than
the date on which the President‘s budget submission is due.[Footnote
12] Because the President is required to submit the budget no later
than the first Monday in February, the entire QDR would be pushed back
4 months.[Footnote 13] The differences between the two bills are
expected to be resolved when representatives from the House and Senate
Armed Services committees meet in conference.
Narrowing Scope of Review Could Provide Better Focus:
A second concern with the QDR centers on the broad spectrum of issues
that the legislation requires DOD to address. Our assessment of the
2001 QDR process and our discussions with defense analysts who worked
on prior QDRs and defense reviews indicate that DOD may be able to
provide more useful analysis and reporting to Congress if the specific
legislative requirements are reexamined and adjusted to focus DOD‘s
efforts on a more manageable set of high-priority issues. On the basis
of our assessment of the 1997 and 2001 QDRs and discussions with
defense analysts and DOD officials, we identified a number of study
issues in the current legislation that appear critical to meeting the
QDR‘s purpose of encouraging a fundamental reassessment of the nation‘s
defense strategy and needs. However, some of the required study issues
may be less relevant to DOD and Congress in the future because of
changes in the security environment and the resulting impact on the
defense strategy. In addition, other required issues could be
reassessed and potentially dropped because they are already addressed
by other routine DOD studies that are accessible to Congress.
DOD officials and defense analysts we spoke to agreed that the most
important aspects of the QDR are the legislative requirements that ask
the Secretary of Defense to delineate a defense strategy and define
sufficient force structure, force modernization, and other elements of
a defense program that could successfully execute the full range of
missions called for by the defense strategy. Analyses have determined
that DOD‘s current planning and budget process does not serve as a good
tool for making broad reassessments of defense programs because it has
a near-term focus and is based on a more stovepiped decision-making
process. For example, the U.S. Commission on National Security in the
21st Century concluded that that biggest problem with DOD‘s budgeting
process is that it focuses on minor programmatic details rather than on
significant alternatives to the status quo. As a result, the QDR is
needed to prompt broader thinking on these issues and serve as a
catalyst for change. Many officials we spoke to also noted that in
requiring DOD to analyze the need for changes and report its findings
and rationale to Congress, the QDR should serve as the critical
document that links DOD‘s strategy, force structure, and modernization
priorities and provides Congress with a blueprint for evaluating DOD‘s
budget requests.
On the other hand, our assessment of the QDR and discussions with
defense analysts and DOD officials suggest that the following
legislative requirements could be modified or eliminated because they
no longer adequately reflect the changing nature of warfighting and the
changing security environment.
* A discussion of the ’appropriate ratio of combat forces to support
forces (commonly referred to as the …tooth-to-tail ratio‘) under the
national defense strategy.“ DOD‘s goal has been to reduce the number of
personnel and costs associated with the support forces, or ’tail.“
However, service officials told us that there is no consensus on which
units should be considered support and which should be considered
combat. This has occurred because many support forces that do not
deploy overseas (and therefore have traditionally been considered as
part of DOD‘s ’tail“) have become critical to the success of combat
operations on the modern battlefield. For example, given the
significant improvements in communications, headquarters units located
in the United States, which include intelligence officers and targeting
experts, can play a key role in planning and directing combat
operations. Moreover, DOD officials cautioned that rapidly changing
technologies will make the concept of differentiating between support
and combat troops increasingly irrelevant and difficult to measure. For
example, as the United States moves toward acquiring greater numbers of
unmanned aircraft piloted from remote computer terminals and relies
increasingly on space-based assets operated by personnel in the United
States, it will be more difficult to distinguish between combat and
support personnel.
* Assessments of ’the extent to which resources must be shifted among
two or more theaters under the national defense strategy in the event
of conflict in such theaters,“ and the assumptions used regarding
’warning time.“ A DOD official and defense analysts who addressed this
issue with us stated that both of these requirements should be
eliminated because they are related to the allocation of forces under
the old two-major-theater-war construct. Under this construct, the
amount of time that was assumed available for warning and the
separation time between major theater wars were critical factors in
planning the size and composition of U.S. forces and assessing
operational risk, particularly for assets that might need to be shifted
between theaters. However, the new defense strategy, along with DOD‘s
new ’capabilities-based“ planning construct, recognizes that DOD has
been involved in a wide range of military operations and faces a more
uncertain and unpredictable future, meaning that DOD‘s force structure
assessments should be much less focused on requirements to conduct two
major theater wars in specific geographic locations.
Our review of the QDR process also indicated that the following issues,
while critical, may not need to be addressed as part of the QDR because
(1) they require more time for detailed analysis than is currently
available given the September 30 deadline, and (2) they are examined in
routine DOD studies that are or can be easily provided to Congress.
* An evaluation of ’the strategic and tactical airlift, sealift, and
ground transportation capabilities required to support the national
defense strategy.“ DOD officials and defense analysts believe that the
QDR is not the most appropriate venue for addressing this mobility
issue because it requires detailed and time-consuming analysis that can
best be conducted after DOD decides on a defense strategy, identifies a
range of planning scenarios consistent with the new strategy, and
completes its detailed analysis of requirements for combat forces.
Furthermore, they noted that DOD routinely conducts comprehensive
analyses of its mobility requirements outside of the QDR process. To
illustrate, since 1992 the Joint Staff has coordinated three major
analyses of the U.S. military strategic lift requirements: the 1992
Mobility Requirements Study, Bottom Up Review; the 1995 Bottom Up
Review Update; and the 2001 Mobility Requirements Study, 2005. All of
these studies focused on the requirements needed to support two nearly
simultaneous major theater wars. Recognizing that the 1998 study, which
took 2 years to complete, was based on the previous two-major-theater-
war, force-sizing construct, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in a
November 7, 2001, memo, initiated a follow-on study, to be completed by
March 2004, to examine mobility requirements within the context of the
new defense strategy and force-sizing construct. Overall, analysts
believe that DOD‘s ongoing process works well.
* An assessment of the ’advisability of revisions to the Unified
Command Plan as a result of the national defense strategy.“ Defense
officials as well as outside analysts believe that this requirement is
not needed as part of the QDR because DOD has an ongoing process to
reassess the Unified Command Plan, the assessment is already required
under other legislation, and the timing of the assessment does not need
to coincide with that of the QDR. Specifically, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff is required to review periodically, and not less
than every 2 years, the missions, responsibilities, and force structure
of each combatant command and recommend any changes to the President,
through the Secretary of Defense.[Footnote 14] This legislation also
requires that, except during times of hostilities, the President notify
Congress not more than 60 days after either establishing a new
combatant command or significantly revising the missions,
responsibilities, or force structure of an existing command. As such, a
major event or change in the political or security landscape could
trigger the need for a change in the plan outside or after the QDR
process. Moreover, officials pointed out that such a reevaluation is
time-consuming and may not fit in with the current QDR timetable as the
process is politically sensitive and requires consultation with U.S.
allies. Although the 2001 QDR report did not address the need for
changes in the Unified Command Plan, the Secretary of Defense recently
determined that the changed security environment and change in U.S.
defense strategy required some adjustments to the commands. On April
17, 2002, some 7 months after the QDR was completed, the Secretary of
Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented the
2002 Unified Command Plan, which realigned and streamlined the U.S.
military to better address their assessments of 21st century threats
and reflect the new defense strategy outlined in the QDR. The new plan
led to the creation of a new command, known as the Northern Command,
which is responsible for homeland defense.
Reinstituting an Advisory Panel Could Help Set Agenda:
The 1996 legislation that guided the development of the 1997 QDR
included a requirement for a National Defense Panel. The panel was
composed of national security experts from the private sector and was
tasked to review the results of the QDR and conduct subsequent work on
force alternatives. The panel completed its report in December 1997, 7
months after the QDR report was submitted. Among its conclusions was
that DOD‘s continued emphasis on the two-major-theater-war, force-
sizing construct inhibited its ability to develop the capabilities it
needed to address future threats, and it served to justify DOD‘s
current force structure. The legislation mandating the 2001 QDR and
future reviews, however, did not include a requirement for a similar
panel.
As part of our assessment of the 1997 QDR, we suggested that a
congressionally mandated panel such as the 1997 National Defense Panel
could be used to encourage DOD to consider a wider range of strategy,
force structure, and modernization options. Specifically, we noted that
such a review panel, if it preceded the QDR, may be important because
it is extremely challenging for DOD to conduct a fundamental
reexamination of defense needs, given that its culture rewards
consensus-building and often makes it difficult to gain support for
alternatives that challenge the status quo. Moreover, most DOD
officials and defense analysts who provided us with their views on this
issue believe that an advisory panel could be useful in setting the
agenda for the next QDR and enhancing the potential for the QDR to
tackle difficult issues. Defense analysts generally noted, however,
that the panel‘s structure and timing would affect its usefulness to
DOD and Congress. Based on these views, it appears that a future panel
would need the following ingredients to be successful.
* A clear mandate of expectations. Some analysts suggested that there
would be neither the time nor the need for the panel to look at the
entire defense program or all of the issues included in the QDR
legislation. Rather, the panel should concentrate on those broad but
vital issues that defense and Congress need to consider and that the
QDR should address. The panel would recommend issues for the QDR study
team to review. Such issues could range from the potential need for
changes in the defense strategy to specifying the types of force
structure and modernization alternatives and investment trade-offs that
DOD should analyze as part of the QDR.
* A balanced membership. Analysts and DOD officials who told us they
support an outside panel highlighted the need to obtain a diverse panel
membership to better ensure its objectivity and usefulness. Moreover,
one study found that the 1997 National Defense Panel was not as useful
as it could have been because almost every member of the panel had a
link to a particular service, thereby limiting the flow of independent
ideas. Most analysts we spoke to concluded that a future panel should
draw upon experts in a wide variety of disciplines, including some
beyond the defense community, to stimulate innovative thinking. One
defense analyst also suggested that if the panel begins its work during
an election year, representatives from each presidential candidate‘s
team should be invited to participate in the panel to enhance the
potential that a new administration would use its findings.
* A workable timetable. Most defense analysts we spoke with emphasized
that timing was a critical element for a panel‘s success. They agreed
that the panel‘s report should be completed before DOD starts the
formal QDR process so that it can help stimulate debate and set the
agenda. However, one analyst also suggested that the panel could
conduct its work in two phases: an initial phase to help set the agenda
for DOD‘s review and a second report after the QDR is completed to lay
out programmatic options, trade-offs, and recommendations.
Despite general consensus for advisory panels, two defense analysts we
spoke to did not see much value in establishing an outside panel,
citing the significant problems the 1997 panel faced in arriving at its
conclusions or the limited usefulness of its work. Although we agree
that an outside panel could face significant challenges if required to
recommend specific decisions on force structure and modernization, such
a panel may be more effective if its role were limited to identifying
the types of force structure alternatives and investment trade-offs
that DOD should analyze as part of the QDR.
Conclusions:
Quadrennial Defense Reviews provide DOD with the opportunity to conduct
analysis that can stimulate broad changes in its defense strategy and
programs in response to a changing security environment, guide its
long-term planning, and assist congressional oversight. Such reviews
should be able to link defense strategy to major DOD programs and
initiatives, set clear priorities for change, and establish the
analytical basis for major decisions affecting DOD‘s force structure
and investment needs. Although the 2001 QDR had some strengths, it did
not fully meet these goals because of weaknesses in DOD‘s approach to
conducting the review and the challenges posed by the timing and scope
of the legislative requirements. By not clearly assigning
responsibility for examining all of the required study issues, DOD
focused the 2001 QDR on issues that were important to the Secretary of
Defense but made it less clear to what extent DOD would examine other
issues included in the legislation. Moreover, while the 2001 QDR
established a new defense strategy and force planning construct, some
important issues mandated by the legislation--such as force structure
and the role of the reserves--were not thoroughly addressed or were
largely deferred to follow-on studies. As a result, the review was not
as useful a planning or oversight tool as it could have been, and many
difficult decisions on how the department should change its forces and
programs to address emerging security challenges were postponed. Even
if DOD more clearly assigns responsibilities in the future, Congress
could still have difficulty assessing the reasonableness of DOD‘s
conclusions on key issues such as force structure unless DOD provides
more complete information on its methodology, the types of alternatives
it examined, and its key assumptions. This may require the department
to provide Congress with some information in a classified format.
Changes in the QDR legislation, along with improvements in the way
DOD assigns and reports on QDR issues, could significantly enhance the
usefulness of future reviews. The tight time frame established by
Congress for submitting the QDR report had a significant impact on
DOD‘s ability to conduct in-depth analysis during the 2001 QDR.
Moreover, the broad scope and large number of legislative requirements
provided DOD with a further challenge in conducting meaningful analysis
within the time frame and focusing its attention on high priority
issues. Unless the legislatively mandated issues are reexamined, DOD
may spend considerable effort during the next review assessing some
issues that many defense officials believe are less relevant to the
ongoing debate on force transformation and investment priorities. A
concurrent reassessment of both the QDR‘s scope and time frame could
provide greater assurances that DOD will thoroughly address and report
on the most critical defense issues that both DOD and Congress will
face in the future.
Recommendations:
To enhance the usefulness of future QDRs and assist congressional
oversight, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense (1) clearly
assign responsibility for assessing all review issues required by
legislation, and (2) provide Congress with more complete information
describing the department‘s analysis to meet the legislative
requirements, particularly those related to force structure
requirements. If necessary, DOD should provide certain information,
such as the key assumptions, scenarios, and alternatives it used in
assessing its force structure requirements, in a classified format.
Matters for Congressional Consideration:
Congress may want to consider (1) extending the time frame of the
QDR to allow more time for DOD to conduct comprehensive analyses and to
create a better link with DOD‘s planning and budget process, and (2)
revising the specific requirements of the QDR to clarify what is
expected and set clear priorities for DOD‘s work. Congress may also
wish to consider establishing an advisory panel prior to the next
review to identify the critical issues and programs that the QDR should
address.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD agreed that we
fairly characterized the strengths of the 2001 and agreed that Congress
should consider revising the QDR‘s scope and timeframe. However, DOD
took exception to our conclusion that its force structure assessment
had significant limitations. DOD stated that, given the scope and
timing of the review, it effectively used a combination of analytical
tools and professional judgment to reach its conclusions on force
structure. DOD also stated that our report appears to advocate a
’threat-based“ planning approach for assessing force structure
requirements. Our report recognizes that the QDR was conducted within a
short time frame (June-Sept. 2001) and notes that DOD used a variety of
data sources and analytical methods in reaching its conclusions.
However, we disagree that our report advocates a ’threat-based“
planning approach. Rather, as the scope and methodology makes clear, we
based our evaluation on the specific threats and scenarios that DOD
used to assess force structure requirements for the 2001 QDR. Our
review identified that many of the specific threats and scenarios DOD
examined had a near-term focus and that DOD, in estimating the numbers
and types of forces required for major combat operations, relied to a
significant extent on existing war plans that have been at the center
of U.S. military planning for a number of years. As a result, we
believe that more extensive use of analytical tools such as modeling
and simulation, along with analysis of a broad range of longer-term
scenarios and threats, would have enhanced the QDR‘s usefulness in
fundamentally reassessing force structure requirements.
DOD stated that it partially agreed with our recommendation that the
Secretary clearly assign responsibility for assessing all review issues
required by legislation. However, it noted that the Secretary must be
allowed to manage the QDR in a manner that focuses on issues of primary
importance. While we agree that the Secretary needs to have some
flexibility in conducting the QDR, we continue to believe that the
legislative requirements should guide DOD‘s review and that the
Secretary of Defense should clearly assign all legislative requirements
to study teams in future reviews.
DOD did not take a position on our recommendation that the Secretary
provide Congress with more complete information describing DOD‘s
analyses, particularly those related to force structure requirements,
and consider providing certain information in a classified format, if
needed. However, DOD noted that it provided information to Congress
through briefings, written reports, budget justification materials and
testimonies to support its QDR decisions. We recognize that DOD often
provides some members of Congress and their staffs with briefings and
other materials on a wide variety of topics and that such exchanges are
useful. However, this approach cannot guarantee that all members and
their staff receive sufficient information to evaluate the QDR‘s
conclusions. Therefore, we are retaining our recommendation that DOD
include more complete information on its analysis of key issues in
subsequent QDR reports and, if necessary, consider issuing a classified
supplement to the QDR report.
DOD‘s comments are presented in their entirety in appendix IV.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director, Office of
Management and Budget. We will make copies available to others
upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on
the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report please call
me at (202) 512-4300 or e-mail me at hintonh@gao.gov. Key staff who
contributed to this report were Janet St. Laurent, Tim Stone, Tina
Morgan, Albert Abuliak, Nancy Benco, and Joan Slowitsky.
Signed by Henry L. Hinton, Jr.
Henry L. Hinton, Jr.
Managing Director, Defense Capabilities
and Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To determine the strengths and weaknesses of Department of Defense‘s
(DOD) conduct of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), we examined the
process, schedule, analysis and reporting that DOD undertook to meet
the legislative requirements. To evaluate the process and scheduling,
we obtained and analyzed Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD),
Joint Staff, and service directives, briefings, and documents that
described the organizational structure and procedures developed for
conducting the review. We also interviewed OSD, Joint Staff, and
service officials about their roles in the process and tasks they were
assigned. Moreover, we compared the QDR guidance, known as the Terms of
Reference, with the legislative requirements to determine whether all
of the legislatively mandated study issues were assigned to study
teams. To assess DOD‘s schedule for conducting the review, we
documented and developed a timeline showing important QDR-related
events, such as confirmation dates for key DOD officials and study team
briefings. We also obtained testimonial evidence from OSD, the Joint
Staff, and service officials on the time frame and nature of work
completed prior to June 22, 2001, the date DOD finalized its QDR
guidance, so that we would have a better understanding of the
preparatory work that DOD conducted and the role of the strategic
reviews that were undertaken by outside defense experts for the
Secretary of Defense.
To assess the thoroughness of the analytical work conducted for the
QDR, we interviewed and received briefings from DOD officials who
participated in all seven of the department‘s QDR study teams. We held
follow-up meetings with members of several teams including the strategy
and force planning team, the capabilities and systems team, the forces
team, and the infrastructure team, and we obtained and analyzed
briefings and other documentation that supported these teams‘
presentations to the senior-level review group. After reviewing this
material, we met with study team members to discuss in more detail
their analytical work, including methods and sources of information
they relied on, the key assumptions they made, and the range of
alternatives they considered. For example, to assess DOD‘s analysis to
determine the force best suited to implement the national security
strategy, we obtained and analyzed documentation on the scenarios and
the time frames that DOD used to evaluate force structure alternatives,
the key assumptions made about warning times and other factors, the
methods used for estimating the numbers and types of forces required to
conduct various types of military operations that could occur in the
future, the number of alternative force structures evaluated, and the
extent to which DOD used analytical tools such as computer warfighting
models to assess the operational risks associated with alternative
force structures. We also received and analyzed briefings and
documentation on the methodology the Joint Staff used to develop the
chairman‘s operational risk assessment. Finally, we obtained
documentation identifying the study issues that DOD determined would
require follow-on studies. To evaluate DOD‘s reporting on QDR issues,
we compared the QDR report with legislative reporting requirements to
assess the extent of information DOD provided for Congress on each
requirement.
Although we obtained a significant amount of documentation on the
analysis that study teams conducted after the terms of reference were
issued on June 22, 2001, DOD would not provide access to analyses
conducted by the Joint Staff and the services prior to that time or to
the analyses conducted by the strategic review teams. DOD‘s rationale
was that these analyses were not part of the formal QDR process. As a
result, we were not able to assess the extent to which preparatory work
by the services and the Joint Staff, or the analyses conducted as part
of the strategic reviews, were considered by the study teams or were
used to reach conclusions in the QDR report.
To identify options for changing the timing, scope, and oversight of
the QDR, we examined a wide variety of studies and articles that
discussed the strengths and weaknesses of past reviews and assessed
whether similar issues were likely to affect the 2001 QDR.
Specifically, we reviewed studies on the QDR and other planning
processes from the Rand Corporation, the National Defense University,
the Army War College, the Naval War College, the Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments, the U.S. Commission on National Security in
the 21st Century, and our report on the 1997 QDR. To obtain expert
opinions and develop options for changing the timing and scope of the
QDR, we interviewed OSD officials who led the 2001 QDR and at least one
high-ranking officer from each of the services. We also met with 10
non-DOD defense analysts, who had served in various positions within
and outside DOD, including the 1997 National Defense Panel, the 1997 or
2001 QDR, and the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st
Century. Based on this information, we developed a matrix summarizing
these individuals‘ concerns regarding the QDR requirements and their
views on the options to address them.
We conducted our review from November 2001 through August 2002 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Quadrennial Defense Review Legislation in Effect as of
September 30, 2001:
TITLE 10 U.S.C. Sec. 118. Quadrennial Defense Review:
(a) Review Required. - The Secretary of Defense shall every four years,
during a year following a year evenly divisible by four, conduct a
comprehensive examination (to be known as a ’quadrennial defense
review“) of the national defense strategy, force structure, force
modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of
the defense program and policies of the United States with a view
toward determining and expressing the defense strategy of the United
States and establishing a defense program for the next 20 years. Each
such quadrennial defense review shall be conducted in consultation with
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(b) Conduct of Review. - Each quadrennial defense review shall be
conducted so as -:
(1) To delineate a national defense strategy consistent with the most
recent National Security Strategy prescribed by the President pursuant
to section 108 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 404a);
(2) To define sufficient force structure, force modernization plans,
infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the defense program
of the United States associated with that national defense strategy
that would be required to execute successfully the full range of
missions called for in that national defense strategy; and:
(3) To identify (A) the budget plan that would be required to provide
sufficient resources to execute successfully the full range of missions
called for in that national defense strategy at a low-to-moderate level
of risk, and (B) any additional resources (beyond those programmed in
the current future-years defense program) required to achieve such a
level of risk.
(c) Assessment of Risk. - The assessment of risk for the purposes of
subsection (b) shall be undertaken by the Secretary of Defense in
consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That
assessment shall define the nature and magnitude of the political,
strategic, and military risks associated with executing the missions
called for under the national defense strategy.
(d) Submission of QDR to Congressional Committees. - The Secretary
shall submit a report on each quadrennial defense review to the
Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of
Representatives. The report shall be submitted not later than September
30 of the year in which the review is conducted. The report shall
include the following:
(1) The results of the review, including a comprehensive discussion of
the national defense strategy of the United States and the force
structure best suited to implement that strategy at a low-to-moderate
level of risk.
(2) The assumed or defined national security interests of the United
States that inform the national defense strategy defined in the review.
(3) The threats to the assumed or defined national security interests
of
the United States that were examined for the purposes of the review
and the scenarios developed in the examination of those threats.
(4) The assumptions used in the review, including assumptions relating
to - (A) the status of readiness of United States forces; (B) the
cooperation of allies, mission-sharing and additional benefits to and
burdens on United States forces resulting from coalition operations;
(C)
warning times; (D) levels of engagement in operations other than war
and smaller-scale contingencies and withdrawal from such operations
and contingencies; and (E) the intensity, duration, and military and
political end-states of conflicts and smaller-scale contingencies.
(5) The effect on the force structure and on readiness for high-
intensity
combat of preparations for and participation in operations other than
war and smaller-scale contingencies.
(6) The manpower and sustainment policies required under the national
defense strategy to support engagement in conflicts lasting longer than
120 days.
(7) The anticipated roles and missions of the reserve components in the
national defense strategy and the strength, capabilities, and equipment
necessary to assure that the reserve components can capably discharge
those roles and missions.
(8) The appropriate ratio of combat forces to support forces
(commonly referred to as the ’tooth-to-tail“ ratio) under the national
defense strategy, including, in particular, the appropriate number and
size of headquarters units and Defense Agencies for that purpose.
(9) The strategic and tactical air-lift, sea-lift, and ground
transportation
capabilities required to support the national defense strategy.
(10) The forward presence, pre-positioning, and other anticipatory
deployments necessary under the national defense strategy for conflict
deterrence and adequate military response to anticipated conflicts.
(11) The extent to which resources must be shifted among two or more
theaters under the national defense strategy in the event of conflict
in
such theaters.
(12) The advisability of revisions to the Unified Command Plan as a
result of the national defense strategy.
(13) The effect on force structure of the use by the armed forces of
technologies anticipated to be available for the ensuing 20 years.
(14) Any other matter the Secretary considers appropriate.
(e) CJCS Review. - Upon the completion of each review under subsection
(a), the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall prepare and submit
to
the Secretary of Defense the Chairman‘s assessment of the review,
including the Chairman‘s assessment of risk. The Chairman‘s assessment
shall be submitted to the Secretary in time for the inclusion of the
assessment in the report. The Secretary shall include the Chairman‘s
assessment, together with the Secretary‘s comments, in the report in
its
entirety.
[End of section]
Appendix III: QDR Follow-On Studies, Plans, Reviews, and Concept
Development Taskings:
The 2001 QDR report identified more than 30 issues that DOD planned to
focus on in follow-on studies, plans, reviews and other taskings.
Although not all of the studies correlate directly to specific QDR
legislative taskings, a number of them do. DOD provided us with the
following list.
* DOD will institutionalize definitions of homeland security, homeland
defense, and civil support and address command relationships and
responsibilities within the Department.
* DOD will review the establishment of a new unified combatant
commander to help address complex inter-agency issues and provide a
single military commander to focus military support.
* DOD will undertake a comprehensive review of the active and reserve
mix, organization, priority missions, and associate resources.
* The Secretary of the Army will explore options for enhancing ground
force capabilities in the Arabian Gulf.
* The Secretary of the Navy will explore options for homeporting an
additional three to four surface combatants and guided cruise missile
submarines (SSGNs) in that area.
* The Secretary of the Air Force will develop plans to increase
contingency basing in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as in the
Arabian Gulf.
* The Secretary of the Navy will develop new concepts of maritime
prepositioning, high-speed sealift, and new amphibious capabilities for
the Marine Corps.
* The Secretary of the Navy will develop options to shift some of the
Marine Corps‘ afloat prepositioned equipment from the Mediterranean
toward the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf to be more responsive to
contingencies in the Middle East.
* The Secretary of the Navy, in consultation with U.S. allies and
friends, will explore the feasibility of conducting Marine Corps
training for littoral warfare in the Western Pacific.
* To support the transformation effort and to foster innovation and
experimentation, the DOD will establish a new office reporting directly
to the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The Director,
Force Transformation will evaluate the transformation efforts of the
military departments and promote synergy by recommending steps to
integrate ongoing transformation activities.
* To facilitate transformation, the military departments and defense
agencies will develop transformation roadmaps that specify timelines to
develop Service-unique capabilities necessary to meet the DOD‘s six
operational goals.
* To strengthen joint operations, DOD will develop over the next
several months proposals to establish a prototype for Standing Joint
Task Force (SJTF) Headquarters.
* In addition, the Department will examine options for establishing
Standing Joint Task Forces (SJTFs)... that will seek to develop new
concepts to exploit U.S. asymmetric military advantages and joint force
synergies.
* DOD will establish a joint presence policy to strengthen the
Secretary of Defense‘s management of the allocation of joint deterrent
and warfighting assets from all military departments.
* To ensure effective sustainment, DOD will conduct industrial
vulnerability assessments and develop sustainment plans for the most
critical weapons systems and preferred munitions.
* DOD will explore the need to establish a joint and interoperability
training capability, including a Joint National Training Center as well
as opportunities to build on existing capabilities at Service training
centers and ranges to enable joint transformation field exercises and
experiments and to inform the Services‘ exercises and experiments.
* Combatant Commanders (CINCs) should develop a plan to rotate assigned
forces through a joint training event for regular exercises and
evaluations.
* To support the CINCs effort [to rotate assigned forces through a
joint training event, DOD will consider the establishment of a Joint
Opposing Force and increasing the Joint Forces Command exercise budget.
* DOD is committed to identifying efficiencies and reductions in less
relevant capabilities that can free resources to be reinvested to
accelerate DOD‘s transformation efforts. In support of this goal, the
military departments and defense agencies will identify significant,
auditable savings to be reinvested in high-priority transformation
initiatives.
* DOD will develop a strategic human resources plan for military and
civilian personnel. The plan will identify the tools necessary to size
and shape the military and civilian force to provide adequate numbers
of high-quality, skilled and professionally developed people.
* DOD will review existing quality of life services and policies to
guarantee that they have kept pace with modem requirements.
* DOD has initiated a comprehensive review of all defense and service
health agencies, management activities, and programs.
* DOD will develop recommendations to eliminate redundancy among
functions of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the services, and
the Joint Staff.
* The military departments also are evaluating changes in their
headquarters structures to improve their ability to perform executive
functions at lower staffing levels.
* DOD will explore options to fully redesign the way it plans,
programs, and budgets.
* DOD will assess all its functions to separate core and non-core
function.
* DOD will create a small team to develop alternatives to the agency or
field activity model that permits DOD to produce cross-DOD outputs at a
significantly lower cost.
* To improve the business practices of the defense agencies, DOD will
begin a review of the agencies to seek efficiencies.
* DOD will develop a plan for improving the effectiveness of the
Defense Working Capital Fund.
* DOD will create a department-wide blueprint (enterprise architecture)
that will prescribe how DOD‘s financial and non-financial feeder
systems and management processes will interact.
* The mix of new threats and missions that DOD will consider in the
near-to mid-term requires that the Department reevaluate and adjust the
recommendations of its Mobility Requirements Study completed in FY
2000.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense:
OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 2000 DEFENSE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-2000:
October 18, 2002:
Mr. Henry L. Hinton, Jr. Managing Director Defense Capabilities and
Management:
U.S. General Accounting Office
441 G Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Hinton:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the GAO draft report,
’Quadrennial Defense Review: Future Reviews Can Benefit from Better
Analysis and Changes in Timing and Scope,“ dated September 18, 2002
(GAO Code 350043/GAO-03-13).
We appreciate the report‘s clear statements about the strengths of the
Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), particularly the attention given to
the development of a new defense strategy and the emphasis on
transforming military capabilities and business processes to meet
21st-century challenges. We also appreciate the recognition that the
QDR
benefited greatly from the sustained involvement of the Secretary of
Defense and his senior advisors.
Still, we take exception with the finding that the QDR force structure
assessment had ’significant limitations“ and the suggestion that the
focus of DoD‘s force analysis was misplaced. To the contrary, given the
scope and timing of the review, we effectively employed a combination
of analytical tools (including computer simulations) and professional
judgment to support senior-level deliberations. The ’capabilities-
based“ planning approach that DoD adopted in the QDR requires a
different set of force planning tools than the ’threat-based“ approach
that GAO appears to advocate in the report.
With respect to GAO‘s two recommendations: We partially concur with the
recommendation that ’the Secretary clearly assign responsibility for
assessing all review issues required by legislation.“ The clear
assignment of such responsibilities is important to the success of the
review.
We believe that the QDR covered all issues required by the legislation,
though we recognize that the QDR report addressed some issues in more
detail than others. This is because the Secretary of Defense and the
department‘s senior civilian and uniformed leadership must be allowed
to manage the QDR in a manner that focuses on issues of primary
importance. Throughout the QDR report, we described how we met the
legislative requirements and how subsequent analytic efforts would
devote additional attention to more complex planning matters. The GAO
is correct in stating that ’some of the required study issues may be
less relevant to DoD and Congress in the future because of changes
in the security environment and the resulting impact on strategy.“
We also support GAO‘s acknowledgment that the statutorily-required
timing of the QDR needs revision. Indeed, the department has proposed
language regarding the timing of the QDR in both the House (H.R. 4546)
and Senate (S. 2514) versions of the Defense Authorization Bill.
Regarding GAO‘s recommendation that the Secretary ’provide Congress
with more complete information describing the department‘s analysis to
meet the legislative requirements, particularly those related to force
structure requirements,“ we briefed members of Congress and staff,
provided written reports and subsequent budget justification material,
and offered additional information that gave significant visibility
into the decisions we made and the basis on which we made them.
Moreover, the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior officials gave
hours of testimony on the processes and the substance of the QDR.
Again, we are grateful for the opportunity to review the GAO‘s draft
report on this important matter.
Sincerely,
Signed by Andrew R. Hoehn:
Andrew R. Hoehn
Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Strategy:
[End of section]
FOOTNOTES
[1] The first Quadrennial Defense Review was submitted to Congress in
May 1997.
[2] The Department of Defense defines operational risk as the ability
to achieve military objectives in a near-term conflict or other
contingency.
[3] P.L. 104-201 § 923.
[4] U.S. General Accounting Office, Quadrennial Defense Review:
Opportunities to Improve the Next Review, GAO/NSIAD-98-155 (Washington,
D.C.: June 25, 1998).
[5] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, P.L. 106-
65 § 901, 113 Stat. 512, 715 (1999) (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 118
(2001)).
[6] 50 U.S.C. § 404a (a) also requires a new President to submit a
national security report no later than 150 days after assuming office.
This report is in addition to the report submitted by the outgoing
administration for that year.
[7] We refer to the integrated project teams as study teams throughout
this report.
[8] Schrader, John, Roger Allen Brown, and Leslie Lewis, Managing
Quadrennial Defense Review Integration: An Overview (Rand Corporation,
2001).
[9] The term ’defense agencies“ refers to 15 diverse organizations,
including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense
Commissary Agency, and the Defense Information Systems Agency.
[10] DOD‘s 2001 QDR report identifies a risk management framework for
balancing short-and long-term risks that includes four components: (1)
force management risk (the ability to recruit, train, and equip
sufficient numbers of personnel), (2) operational risk (the ability to
achieve military objectives in a near-term conflict or contingency),
(3) future challenges risk (the ability to invest in new capabilities
needed to defeat longer-term challenges), and (4) institutional risk
(the ability to develop efficient and effective management practices).
[11] H.R. Rep. No. 107-436 (2002).
[12] S. Rep. No. 107-151, (2002) § 901.
[13] 31 U.S.C. § 1105(a).
[14] 10 U.S.C. § 161(b). Periodic Review.
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