In the Middle of the Fight: An Assessment of Medium-Armored Forces in Past Military Operations – 2008

This monograph presents a qualitative assessment of the performance of medium-armored forces in 13 past conflicts that span the range of military operations. The accompanying analysis is designed to help inform U.S. Army decisions about fielding medium-armored forces in the future. The case histories yielded three major insights. First, medium-armored forces fare poorly against competent, heavily armored opponents. This finding will prove relevant to the U.S. Army's medium-armored forces if their survivability and lethality do not live up to expectations or cannot be fully realized in battlefield conditions. Second, doctrinal and organizational steps can, in certain circumstances, mitigate medium armor's liabilities. These steps include the implementation of high-quality combined-arms tactics down to the lowest echelons, the effective application of supporting firepower, and training for crews and junior leaders. Finally, the U.S. Army has lacked a forced-entry armor capability since the retirement of the M551 Sheridan. Neither the Stryker vehicle nor the Future Combat Systems (as currently envisioned) can fill that critical void. The authors conclude that it would be prudent for the U.S. Army to maintain a mix of heavy, medium-armored, and light forces that can be task organized and employed in conditions that best match their attributes. Medium-armored forces have much to offer in such a mix.

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Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence: Assessing the Options — 2008

One of the questions in the fight against terrorism is whether the United States needs a dedicated domestic intelligence agency separate from law enforcement, on the model of many comparable democracies. To examine this issue, Congress directed that the Department of Homeland Security perform an independent study on the feasibility of creating a counterterrorism intelligence agency and the department turned to the RAND Corporation for this analysis but asked it specifically not to make a recommendation. This volume lays out the relevant considerations for creating such an agency. It draws on a variety of research methods, including historical and legal analysis; a review of organizational theory; examination of current domestic intelligence efforts, their history, and the public's view of them; examination of the domestic intelligence agencies in six other democracies; and interviews with an expert panel made up of current and former intelligence and law enforcement professionals. The monograph highlights five principal problems that might be seen to afflict current domestic intelligence enterprise; for each, there are several possible solutions, and the creation of a new agency addresses only some of the five problems. The volume discusses how a technique called break-even analysis can be used to evaluate proposals for a new agency in the context of the perceived magnitude of the terrorism threat. It concludes with a discussion of how to address the unanswered questions and lack of information that currently cloud the debate over whether to create a dedicated domestic intelligence agency.

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Developing Resource-Informed Strategic Assessments and Recommendations — 2008

A debate will likely occur in 2009 about U.S. global national-security strategy. The authors describe and illustrate a methodology to help frame and evaluate resource-informed strategies. The core is an integrated portfolio-analysis approach that compares options by their anticipated effectiveness, risks, and resource implications — all three of which are multifaceted. The approach deals explicitly with both uncertainty and differences of strategic perspective. Three illustrative grand strategies are compared, which deal in different ways with the problems of our time — including terrorism and more classic long-term strategic considerations such as general deterrence and competition.

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Analysis of Strategy and Strategies of Analysis — 2008

In a fluid global security environment such as ours, assessing the costs, risks, and likely consequences of alternative national defense strategies is as hard as it is essential. The “Global War on Terror,” for example, has cost as much as $800 billion more than was first projected. Too often, strategies are chosen without disciplined analysis in response to external events and under pressures of time and politics. The authors show how, even in the face of uncertainty, the costs and other implications of any strategy can be assessed by examining the capabilities needed by U.S. combatant commands — the chief agents of strategy — to fulfill what the strategy expects of them. They then demonstrate how such “outside-in” strategy assessment can be integrated with “inside-out” analysis of how core national strengths can best be exploited in national defense.

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