Ensuring that a modern military has the appropriate personnel and capabilities is the key goal of military force planning. RAND research on such topics as military wages, support for military families, troop diversity, and reenlistment rates ensures that U.S. and allied militaries are well aware of issues related to career field management and personnel retention and recruitment.
America's all-volunteer military has been an overwhelming success, but after four years of war with mounting casualties in Iraq, continuing insurgency attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and multiple deployments throughout the world, the military has experienced recruiting shortfalls for the first time since the late 1970s.
This report challenges the assumption that the timing of deployments and their distribution over time are serially independent, arguing that military interventions occur in temporal clusters driven by the number of interventions in the recent past.
Examines the British, French, and German armies' approaches to accommodating significant budget cuts while attempting to sustain their commitment to full spectrum operations.
The Army has provided the bulk of U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan: over 1.5 million troop-years as of December 2011, and 54 percent of all active component troop-year deployments within the area of operations.
This paper reviews data on the prevalence of sexual assault among servicemembers, predictors of disclosure, efforts to improve disclosure, victim needs, and DoD efforts to provide necessary resources in the immediate aftermath of a sexual assault.
This report analyzes reform of the reserve retirement system, discusses the goals and obstacles to reform, and provides a quantitative assessment of the reserve retention and cost effects of possible reform proposals.
Lessons from the military can be used to inform police personnel management who are concerned about recruiting and promoting a racially/ethnically diverse workforce: qualified minority candidates are available, career paths impact diversity, and departments should leverage organizational commitment to diversity.
This report characterizes the current policy debate on security cooperation and force posture in Europe, develops a framework to describe the environment for the U.S. Air Force there, and defines alternatives for building partnerships.
Explores occupational burnout and retention of Air Force intelligence analysts working in the Distributed Common Ground System.
RAND analysts posit that federal budget deficit pressure may result in further Defense Department reductions, and suggest starting from a strategy basis in determining cuts, prioritizing challenges, and identifying where to accept more risk.
Since World War II, the United States has relied on a global network of military bases and forces to protect its interests and those of its allies. But the international environment has changed greatly and economic concerns have risen, leading some to debate just what America's role should now be in the world.
Recommends changes that can be made to the structure and management of the Air Force's Force Support officer career field to better align development of functional competencies with positional demand for those competencies.
In the absence of official guidance on planning for security cooperation with foreign militaries, this report presents best practices for U.S. Air Force planners on how to develop, resource, execute, and assess country plans.
Assembles the latest available data on recruiting, retention, and military versus civilian pay, and recommends a slower increase in military pay. Discusses implementation strategies if the Defense Department moves forward with limited pay increases.
A new pay structure proposed for members of the U.S. military reserves would be more similar to that of active duty members, cost less than the current system and would not adversely affect recruitment and retention.
Most of the U.S. military positions that remain closed to women service members are those in Army and Marine Corps units and occupations that have a primary mission of engaging in direct ground combat.
Although the retention and promotion of women and minorities has increased among officers in the U.S. military over time, the proportion of those groups in the senior officer corps remains relatively low.
Describes the full range of research products and services that RAND Arroyo Center provided to the Army leadership in FY 2011, including projects, quick-response studies, peer-reviewed publications, and the analytic training of Army officers.
In 2003, the U.S. Army moved from a division-based to a brigade-centric modular force structure. Congress requested a study of the process and outcomes of the initiative to assess the impact on the Army's capabilities in a range of operations.
This report reviews how standardized tests are used as part of a broader selection system for each of the services at different points in an officer's career and discusses key issues that should be considered when using such tests.
An econometric assessment of the effectiveness of incentive pays for retaining remotely piloted aircraft pilots and sensor operators.
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