Producing Joint Qualified Officers: FY 2008 to FY 2017 Trends

Abstract

Since enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Actin 1986, the Department of Defense (DoD) has continued to reform and refine its policies regarding both joint professional military education (JPME) and joint duty assignments. Once these education and duty assignments have been completed, a servicemember may be designated as a joint qualified officer (JQO) - aligning with a central tenet in the original legislation to increase the quality, stability, and experience of officers assigned to joint organizations with the ultimate intent of improving joint operational outcomes. The fundamental elements for educating and managing JQOs are codified in law and implemented via DoD policy. Over time, these policies have been modified and updated to reflect operational considerations and to provide additional enhancements and flexibilities. Such changes included expanding the institutions that were eligible to provide senior-level JPME and implementing a points-based joint qualification system that recognized career-long accumulation of joint experiences, education, and training. In this report we detail the joint qualifying parameters and characterize their evolution over time. The overall objective of this research was to quantify and assess the production of JQOs by examining trends in achieving educational requirements and accomplishing joint assignments. Similarly, we examined the evolution of policies in these areas and their influence on such trends. In this manner, we established a baseline of outcomes which allows policymakers to evaluate the impacts of both current and future policy changes. This information does not currently exist and is not systematically reviewed for implications and practices that could have cross-service benefits. The report is focused on historical trends for field grade officers (O-4 to O-6) in the active component over a ten-year time period from FY 2008 to FY 2017.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1086708

Entities

People

  • Anthony Lawrence
  • Paul W. Mayberry
  • William Ii H. Waggy

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Cyber
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Combatant Commanders
  • Congress
  • Distance Learning
  • Doctrine
  • Employment
  • Law
  • Military Education
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Students
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.