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Assessing alternative mixes of active and reserve forces is a crucial defense issue. Force structure decisions are made in an inherently uncertain environment: Force requirements can vary unpredictably, sometimes surging dramatically, depending on the types of conflicts that arise. The RAND SLAM program is a software application designed to aid military analysts in exploring the inherent trade-offs between cost, stress, and risk in force structure decisions. Its unique feature is that it models force requirements stochastically, allowing for analysis of requirements that change unpredictably over time. This report serves as a user's guide, explaining the program's features and interface and guiding the user through example analyses. Several of these example analyses examine some of the same force structure decisions as those analyzed with spreadsheet techniques by Lynn E. Davis et al. in Stretched Thin: Army Forces for Sustained Operations, thus validating the RAND SLAM results against this previous work. The authors also discuss the underlying model for the program, including its strengths and limitations and how it might be expanded and improved.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Using the RAND SLAM Program
Chapter Three
Reproducing Stretched Thin Using Only the Active Component
Chapter Four
Reproducing Stretched Thin Using Both Active and Reserve Components
Chapter Five
Exploring the Cost-Effectiveness of the Reserves
Chapter Six
A Stochastic Perspective on Stretched Thin
Chapter Seven
Examining the Active-Reserve Mix
Chapter Eight
Conclusion
Appendix A
A User's Guide to the SLAM Program
Appendix B
Technical Notes on the Implementation of the SLAM Program
Appendix C
Specification of the Integer and Linear Programs
Appendix D
Creating Assignment Rules
Appendix E
Tables and Modules
Research conducted by
This research was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) with NDRI concept development funds, and then as part of the OSD/RA sponsored project “Sustaining the RC”. NDRI is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.
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