Connor McLemore

Military Readiness Modeling: An Actionable Framework

Although the purpose of the Department of Defense (DoD) is accepted broadly to be “to provide ready and sustainable military forces to protect the nation’s vital interests,” the meaning of that statement is largely reliant upon the definition of the word “ready.” Yet it is generally unclear what it means to be ready. Ready for what? How ready? By when? To address this problem, we recommend the DoD adopt a simple, interpretable, and actionable data framework using stochastic scenario libraries that permit calculation of the probabilities of military readiness for specified missions at uncertain future times across unit types and military branches. It is based on the concept of auditable, stochastic scenario libraries long in use in financial engineering and the insurance industry. If implemented by the military, such a framework could allow mathematically coherent readiness estimates to better communicate “how ready for what” combinations of military assets are. Additional details can be found in our paper published in MOR Journal 2021 Vol. 26, #1, “Military Readiness Modeling: Changing the Question from ‘Ready or Not?’ to ‘How Ready for What?’”