The U.S. Department of Defense's Planning Process: Components and Challenges

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) relies on planning processes to size, structure, and posture its military forces. To size and shape its military forces, DoD needs a reasonably coherent defense planning methodology. Unless its choices concerning the size, composition, and capabilities of its military forces, including its army, are entirely political or arbitrary, DoD must develop some rational mechanism for generating requirements. How many ground forces (and air, sea, space, cyber, and other capabilities) are appropriate for supporting the nations defense strategy, and why? This is the burden of defense planningthe employment of analytical, planning, and programming efforts to determine what sort of armed forces a state needs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1085848

Entities

People

  • Burgess Laird
  • Dan Madden
  • Eric V. Larson
  • Katharina L. Best
  • Michael E. Linick
  • Michael J. Mazarr

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Air Defense
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Defense Planning
  • Department Of Defense
  • Force Structure
  • Governments
  • International Organizations
  • Law
  • Military Strategy
  • National Security
  • Reliability
  • Strategic Analysis
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Cyber
  • Space