Hurricane Katrina Response Shows Need to Tailor Some National Guard Units for Disaster Work - June 4, 2007

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath caused enormous physical destruction and human suffering, but it also offers lessons for how the nation can better prepare for natural disasters and large-scale terrorists attacks. The most important problem was the speed with which local, state and federal civilian organizations were overwhelmed, but the military response also had shortcomings in the critical first few days.

News Release Research Brief Full Document

The Counterinsurgency Fight: Think Globally, Lose Locally - April 27, 2007

Confronted with insurgents in several countries and a true global terror network operating in others, some people are tempted to incorrectly to view these opponents as a monolithic force, waging a global insurgency to destroy freedom. The reasons for this misconception and proposals for successful responses are the subject of this commentary by James T. Quinlivan and Bruce R. Nardulli for the Washington Post.

Read Commentary

Jeffrey A. Isaacson appointed Vice President and Director of RAND Arroyo Center - April 11, 2007

Former RAND Corporation Vice President Jeffrey A. Isaacson has returned to RAND as vice president and director of the RAND Arroyo Center. A physicist and expert on national security issues, Isaacson returns to RAND from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. Isaacson succeeds Thomas L. McNaugher, who has served as a RAND vice president and director of the RAND Arroyo Center for five years. Read More

Coordination Could Breed Control in Iraq

Teamwork and coordination are vital for success in all sorts of activities — on the athletic field, in business, in government and in war. Yet too often, the different branches of the U.S. military and the U.S. government in Iraq have failed to effectively coordinate their activities with each other and with their Iraqi counterparts. Be assured that better coordination alone won´t solve America´s problems in Iraq and guarantee victory. But without it, achieving victory will be much harder regardless of the number of troops the U.S. maintains, because successes achieved by one arm of the U.S. effort is too often undone by another.

Read Commentary

Human Resource Management and Army Recruiting - Analyses of Policy Options

U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) is faced with the challenge of ensuring that the flow of qualified volunteers is adequate to meet future active-duty accession requirements. This report documents research methods, findings, and policy conclusions from a project analyzing human resource management options for improving recruiting production. It details research designed to develop new insights to help guide future recruiter management policies. The research involves econometric analyses of three large and rich datasets. The first analysis compares the career paths of enlisted personnel, including recruiters. The second analyzes individual recruiter characteristics and links those characteristics with their productivity, controlling for a variety of independent factors. Finally, the research focuses on station-level recruiting outcomes, paying close attention to the management options that can affect recruiter production and effort. This work will interest those involved in the day-to-day management of recruiting resources as well as researchers and analysts engaged in analyses of military enlistment behavior.

Full Document

Assessing the Value of U.S. Army International Activities

A number of important steps have been taken in recent years to improve the planning and management of Army International Activities (AIA). Still, a need remains, and is widely recognized, for a high-level assessment mechanism to allocate AIA resources more efficiently, execute AIA programs more effectively, and highlight the contributions of AIA to the National Military Strategy, the DoD Security Cooperation Guidance, and The Army Plan. This report presents a framework for assessing the value of the Army’s non-combat interactions with other militaries.

Full Document

Human Resource Management and Army Recruiting

U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) is faced with the challenge of ensuring that the flow of qualified volunteers is adequate to meet future active-duty accession requirements. This report documents research methods, findings, and policy conclusions from a project analyzing human resource management options for improving recruiting production. It details research designed to develop new insights to help guide future recruiter management policies.

Full Document

Unexploded Ordnance Cleanup Costs: Implications of Alternative Protocols

With continued military downsizing and base closures, cleanup of unexploded ordnance (UXO) at former weapons ranges has become one of the most costly environmental problems the military faces. This study examines cost estimation for UXO remediation conducted at closed military installations, the difficulties of accurately estimating cleanup costs, and the major effects that different cleanup requirements and methods can have on cost. It assesses previous estimates of UXO cleanup costs and evaluates the strengths and limitations of the military’s preferred cost-estimation tool, the remedial Action Cost Engineering Requirements (RACER) software package. Using a modified method of implementing RACER, the study shows how costs change depending on which cleanup protocol is followed. The results show that the choice of cleanup protocol has major cost implications.

Full Document Research Brief Read Commentary