 Figure 1. Capability Rating Scale |
Document created: 6 December 01
Published Aerospace Power Journal -
Winter 2001
DISTRIBUTION
A:
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz, USAF
Lt Col James A. Hubert, USAF
Maj Keith H. Maxwell, USAF
| Editorial Abstract: As a service, the Air Force fights much better than it buys things. In fact, our service—the world’s most powerful and capable air force—would probably fail quickly as a business corporation. We must do better, and this article raises some thought-provoking ideas about how to improve. |
IN LATE 2000, the service chiefs testified before Congress that the US military required upwards of $100 billion per year of additional spending (a 30 percent increase) to maintain readiness and modernize the force. But the recent tax cut, a slow economy, and spending increases needed for nonmilitary priorities make a 30 percent increase in defense spending unlikely. Without the needed funds, the military will face many difficult decisions concerning allocation of the remaining resources. The question is and always has been, What is the best way to allocate those limited resources?
The approach to allocating resources throughout the Department of Defense (DOD) at the beginning of the twenty-first century has several deficiencies. It doesn’t provide a connection among where we are (performance), where we want to go (strategy), and how we get there (resources). In addition, the process identifies shortfalls but not the sources to pay for them. It rewards advocates who are the most adept at articulating increases in spending but sometimes punishes programs that can produce savings. Even worse, it lacks fundamental measures of value on which to base decisions. Eliminating these deficiencies may not solve the shortfall in resources, but it can ensure that we spend the money we have more wisely.
The key to enabling Air Force leaders to make better resource decisions lies in implementing three major changes in the way we do business. First, we must link resource allocation to performance management and strategic planning. These three management functions must work in unison to ensure consistent direction. Second, we need a process that is simple, transparent, and reproducible. It must be simple enough to be implemented quickly and improved upon; it must be transparent to identify the trade-offs and provide incentives for cost reduction; and it must be reproducible through a structured planning framework that relates capability to cost. Third, we must deliver the best value to the war fighter over time and with the resources available. This requires measuring Air Force capabilities and relating them to resources and operational effectiveness for the near, mid, and long terms.
Such changes are within reach; however, getting there requires a cultural change. The Air Force management processes currently in place provide little incentive to reduce costs and only limited accountability for those costs. Gen Gregory S. Martin, commander of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), recently observed that “the only way we’re going to get anywhere in the Air Force today is to develop the tools and performance measures which will allow our people to have control and accountability for their resource and mission performance. And then we can push decisions hard and fast to the lowest level possible. . . . That’s the only way we’ll really make major progress in the future.”1
The Air Force has recognized the need for change and is making the transition. Under the leadership of F. Whitten Peters, the former secretary of the Air Force, and Gen Michael E. Ryan, the former chief of staff, Headquarters Air Force created a team to reengineer the Air Force Resource Allocation Process (AFRAP).2 Led by Maj Gen Danny A. Hogan, the AFRAP team recommended a capabilities-based process for allocating resources.3 As a result, Headquarters Air Force chose a new approach for building the budget for fiscal year 2003 (FY03) as an initial step to implementing the AFRAP recommendations. Each major command received a top-line dollar amount along with the direction to present a balanced, capabilities-based input to the Amended Program Objective Memorandum for FY03.
The USAFE team responded by developing a Resource Allocation Model (RAM) that produced a balanced program and at the same time provided tremendous insight into the command’s capabilities. The purpose here is not to wave the USAFE flag but to use its experience as a case study. The USAFE RAM not only works for an operations and maintenance command but also offers promise towards improving resource allocation for the entire Air Force.
Throughout history, military spending has been based on available resources that the citizens of a country were willing to spend in peacetime and war. At the macrolevel, we won the Cold War by engaging in a long-term expenditure of resources while maintaining a large standing military. Today, with our vision of Global Vigilance, Reach, and Power, significant technological advantages have changed this equation. Vigilance has progressed from scouts and spies taking days or weeks to provide information, to satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles producing results in minutes. Reach has progressed from the walking pace of horse-drawn wagons to moving millions of ton-miles-per-day (thousands of tons halfway around the world every day). Technological advances in precision and stealth have significantly changed the nature of power in battle from using numerous, large munitions to destroy a target, to using fewer, more precise weapons to achieve desired effects. Beginning with Operation Desert Storm and progressing further during the air war over Serbia under the leadership of Gen John P. Jumper, then the commander of USAFE, the goal has now become “effects-based” operations.4 Technology has enabled us to pick and choose which of the enemy’s centers of gravity to affect and to strike them with crippling speed.
In the past, military spending drove the pace of technology. Militaries were both technology- and resource-limited. Over time, technology became profitable enough so that the private sector now takes the lead in many areas. As a result, we are faced with more technological choices than we can pursue with our available resources. Being resource-constrained puts a premium on planning that is compounded by a rapid increase in system complexity. Automation and computers have resulted in systems-of-systems interdependent with other systems-of-systems. For example, satellite navigation, radio communications, precision weapons, and aircraft form complex systems-of-systems used to perform many attack missions.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his “whiz kids” responded to the increasing difficulty in allocating resources with the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS).5 Until that time, each department received fiscal spending limits along with direction on how to spend the resources. Today, the major force programs and associated program elements provide the PPBS framework. Each program element is programmed with funds for five to six years in advance of the current budget. DOD went from little involvement in how the services spent their resources to detailed programmatic insight.
At the time of PPBS development, the military planning system was considered the best ever. But we have since realized that military planning has two broad categories: operational planning and force planning.6 Although military operational planning and the associated logistical planning have proven extremely capable, force planning has never been highly developed. Even today, the Quadrennial Defense Review is part of an informal process used by DOD to establish force structure.7
In 1993 Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Act, which requires government agencies to take responsibility for effectively allocating and expending resources through strategic planning and performance management.8 It also spawned the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, which, over the last eight years, has fostered numerous studies, experiments, and reforms in government planning and management.9 In response to the Government Performance and Results Act, DOD published its performance plan and captured its strategic plan through the Quadrennial Defense Review. Until recently, DOD and Air Force reforms have failed to address the key deficiencies in the PPBS process.
In 2000, the AFRAP process reengineering team developed a capabilities-based approach for resource allocation, reviewing PPBS and the related processes in place to establish requirements, make acquisition decisions, manage execution, and perform analysis. The recommendations included significant enhancements to the planning portion of PPBS by combining programming and budgeting and adding execution management.10
The fundamental key to implementing AFRAP is development of an Air Force capabilities framework to tie the elements of resource allocation together and serve as a basis for making decisions. Once the capability relationships are established, the AFRAP solution develops numerical capability objectives and projects them over time. These objectives are validated through the rest of the process by planning the capability solutions and associated resources over an 18-year time frame. Finally, accounting and performance-management systems provide feedback directly to the capabilities assessment in order to judge progress.
DOD and the Air Force have transformed themselves in many ways recently, but until AFRAP, neither adequately addressed the overarching issue of affordability. As a result, we still don’t really know whether we are spending our resources effectively and efficiently. A recent acquisition-reform effort first identified affordability as the missing link. In 1995 Dr. Paul G. Kaminski, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, created an initiative called “Cost as an Independent Variable.”11 A team, formed with the objective of treating cost as importantly as performance, concluded that the key lay in establishing “affordable cost targets” for acquisition programs.
Since one can define “affordable” only in relation to the total budget, the solution lies not in acquisition reform but in improving the resource-allocation process. Our entire culture focuses on stovepiped portions of resource allocation, producing a system that sometimes encourages self-serving resource-allocation behaviors instead of a cross-functional capabilities approach.
The root cause of this behavior within our process is that we manage by shortfall. Dr. James G. Roche, secretary of the Air Force, said, “Given the demands on the forces, . . . the demands for situational awareness, and a great deal of technology, . . . you can’t do the stovepipe game the way you used to.”12 In our current process, we direct the participants to identify their shortfalls and bring them to the table. The result is a process designed to spend more money. Those who are successful in funding their shortfalls are the winners. In addition, since everything we do in the military is very important—life or death issues—cutting back or canceling a program is extremely hard to do. A process of managing by shortfall provides no information on where we can afford to make those cuts. A lack of information increases the impact of opinions. In other words, personalities fill the vacuum.
Management by shortfall also leads to a tremendously inefficient process for resource allocation. Because individual shortfalls tend to differ each year, the majority of the information needed by the process must be generated anew. Also contributing to this busywork is the fact that the relative priority of the shortfalls changes as well. Adding a 30–50 percent turnover in personnel every year to these conditions has the potential for disaster.
Ultimately, we are trying to determine how much of each capability to invest in relation to maintaining readiness of the forces we have. But how can we do this without knowing the relative value of each capability? All the new business practices coming out of for-profit industry could help the Air Force if it weren’t for one detail—we don’t make a profit! As Secretary Roche has said, “We recognize this is not a business. We don’t have a product, as in the open market.”13 All tough business decisions are based on the relative value of the choices. The new process improvements coming from the commercial sector are designed to help industry leaders find a balance between short-term profitability and sustained health of the business. Without profit as a value measure, the military must develop standards of value to improve resource allocation.
In August 2000, USAFE began creating its RAM in response to the Air Staff’s direction to develop a balanced, capabilities-based input to the Amended Program Objective Memorandum for FY03. USAFE’s approach entailed dividing the initial top line into groups of capability by assigning each program element to a cross-functional capabilities group. Formation of the groups was based on the relationships between the command’s mission-essential tasks and goals, with the scope of responsibility defined by the synergies between the products of these tasks, their relationships to the command’s goals, and efforts to minimize the resources that cross group boundaries.
Because USAFE is an operations and maintenance command, management of day-to-day resources drove the definition of capability groups. The command created five groups—Information Superiority, Aerospace Operations, Logistics Support and Infrastructure, People, and Medical—tasked with assessing the capability provided by each program element and developing a balanced capability within the assigned top line. Each group also had to provide information for USAFE’s leadership to balance resources across the groups.
A simple rating system facilitated comparisons among diverse capabilities. Each program-element monitor was tasked to quantify the capability provided by his or her program element. The maximum usable and minimum acceptable capabilities were defined and assigned scores of 1.00 and 0.70, respectively (fig. 1).14 Each monitor was also tasked to assign a dollar amount to the maximum and minimum capabilities and define what the resources would purchase. Once the scale was established, the monitor was then tasked to assign a capability rating to the initial top line (fig. 2). Although in many cases data were not available to assign a truly objective rating, each program-element monitor had to defend his or her assessment under the scrutiny of peers and to the group.
Figure 1. Capability Rating Scale |
 Figure 2. Capability versus Resources |
Although the capability ratings provided a means for portraying the health of each program, they did not form the basis for decision making. Balancing resources within a group or between groups is a process of making trades—taking from one program to help another. To facilitate balancing resources, program-element monitors were tasked to identify trade-ups and trade-offs of capability with the associated resources for their programs. In this way, the group could compare the value of a given trade-up for one program with a trade-off for another and develop an understanding of where the balance lay. Each group identified trades that achieved improved balance across its programs and then prioritized trade-ups and trade-offs for the group as a whole. The groups presented this information to the USAFE leadership, who used it to balance capabilities and resources among the groups. Assuming that the overall command is capable of performing its mission beyond the bare minimum, the goal of making trades was to ensure that each element of capability had enough resources to earn a rating greater than 0.70.
This simple methodology resulted in vastly improved understanding of the capabilities and needs within the command. During the trading process, over $50 million moved among programs to correct imbalances. This amount represented only 2 percent of the command’s total resources, but the movement represented 65 percent of those resources within USAFE’s control, indicating how unbalanced the program had become without meaningful participation from the major commands.15 Implementing this process also highlighted several improvements needed within USAFE, along with information the command required from the Air Force to improve the balance further. The command used these lessons learned to make improvements for the next cycle.
One key to successfully implementing a process change is to include continual pro-cess improvement in the design. A good example of preplanned improvement comes from software developers as they actually define processes. In the software industry, the incremental approach for continual improvement is called spiral development, whereby a spiral includes the development and fielding of operational code.16 The first spiral might field 60 percent of the desired functions, with succeeding spirals learning from the previous one and fielding increased functionality. In this light, USAFE’s RAM for the Amended Program Objective Memorandum of FY03 is Spiral 1, and the command’s approach for the Program Objective Memorandum of FY04 is Spiral 2. The improved RAM/Spiral 2 is the result of lessons learned during the FY03 Amended Program Objective Memorandum and the desire to tie the model to strategic planning and performance management.
One lesson learned was that managing five groups requires too much manpower from headquarters. In addition, several changes to the group structure were needed to align complementary capabilities, resulting in three groups: Command and Control, Aerospace Operations and Logistics, and People and Infrastructure. The realignment added logistics to aerospace operations, where it is needed most. It also put medical and people together with the infrastructure that supports them and operations.
Another lesson was simply that more time, more training, and a more rigorous process were needed to better implement USAFE’s RAM. Following the submission of the Amended Program Objective Memorandum for FY03, the process was refined, with detailed work sheets provided to the program-element monitors. They were tasked with defining the capabilities and supporting measures for each of their programs during summer 2001 in advance of the command’s effort to balance resources. These definitions were documented and available for continual improvement during each cycle of the process. In addition, USAFE held a capabilities workshop with Air Force Materiel Command personnel who were involved in performance-based budgeting. The workshop also received support from the Air Force Studies and Analysis Agency, which shared techniques for assessing programs and tieing their performance to higher-level capabilities.
A major change implemented for Spiral 2 came from aligning the processes for strategic planning and performance management with USAFE’s RAM. During a two-day workshop in March 2001, the command’s senior leaders created the integrated-management construct for the USAFE Strategic Vision Process (fig. 3), intended to define where USAFE is through performance management, where it wants to go through strategic planning, and how it is going to get there through resource allocation.
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Figure 3. Integrated Management Construct for the USAFE Strategic Vision Process |
The integrated-management construct links the three process elements and ties them directly to resources; links capabilities to resources by defining the command’s total mission capability within three capability areas; and then breaks those three capabilities into 14 subelements defined as new mission-essential tasks of the command. Assigning each program element to a mission-essential task aligns all command resources with the capabilities. The construct aligns strategic planning and resource allocation by identifying a command goal for each of the three capability areas. One achieves linkage between performance management and resource allocation by aligning the performance measures directly to the mission-essential tasks. The result is a simple framework for aligning strategic planning and performance management with resource allocation.
In addition to aligning resources to take USAFE from where it is to where it wants to go, the new construct will directly improve the resource-allocation process. Dividing the capability groups into 14 mission-essential tasks increases the fidelity for making trades. The new capability groups and their mission-essential tasks used in Spiral 2 align the command’s 124 program elements (fig. 4). The approach for the FY04 Program Objective Memorandum involves balancing the resources within each program element, balancing the program elements assigned to each mission-essential task, and then balancing those tasks within each group. The approach is simple, but experience during Spiral 1 proved that establishing capability measures and requirements is challenging. Few programs have useful measures of what is expected from the resources allocated. Comparing the health of each program element and its contribution to total capability requires measures of that capability that cascade down to the program-element level.
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Figure 4. USAFE’s RAM |
Another significant change during Spiral 2 involves integrating the wings’ financial and manpower planning into USAFE’s RAM. The wings were tasked to create a capabilities-based financial plan for FY02. The groups reviewed the results of the plan along with manpower assessments to refine their understanding of command capabilities. For FY03, the wings are using Spiral 2 of the RAM to develop an improved capabilities-based financial plan and manpower assessment. Each subsequent spiral will iterate between the wings and command headquarters to develop affordable standards of performance across the command. Those standards will improve USAFE’s ability to provide balanced inputs to the Air Force’s Program Objective Memorandum.
The biggest change needed for full implementation of USAFE’s RAM will not occur until Spiral 3 or beyond and must come from implementation of AFRAP. The required balance among capabilities within the command ultimately depends on having an Air Force definition of the relative value of each capability. As an operations and maintenance command, USAFE receives forces based on higher-level decisions on what capability each weapon system should have, how many systems to purchase, and whether to place them in-theater or deploy them from the continental United States. Implicit in these decisions are value judgements based on each system’s contribution to national security. An operations and maintenance command has neither the resources nor the information to make such judgements. For this reason, USAFE is working to define what is required from the Air Force to enable the command’s resource allocation.
Development of an Air Force RAM is consistent with the direction being taken by AFRAP and would enable the Air Force to balance its resources, based on capabilities. Building an Air Force RAM requires three crucial steps: dividing the resources among capabilities, determining the value of those capabilities, and implementing a process to balance them over time. Dividing our resources in a meaningful way requires development of a planning framework to categorize capabilities. Setting the values for those capabilities demands analysis coupled with continual process improvement. Balancing our capabilities over time means adding another dimension to the RAM.
Henry Ford taught us that managing anything requires breaking it down into definable pieces. The key lies in making the pieces meaningful and useful for resource allocation. Over the last 20 years, DOD, the Joint Staff, and the Air Force have developed many excellent planning frameworks (table 1). These frameworks were developed for many different purposes but not specifically for resource allocation. Consequently, they don’t include all resources, don’t adequately address support functions, and don’t provide distinct categories meaningful to operations. These characteristics are fairly easy to achieve, but none of the existing planning frameworks has them all.
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Table 1 US/DOD/Joint Planning Frameworks • 13 Title 10 functions Air Force Planning Frameworks • 3 aspects of the vision |
Since the purpose of the framework is to allocate resources, one must include all resources. Existing frameworks for visions or concepts of operations address operational functions, but they leave out the significant peacetime roles assigned by Title 10, United States Code. Balancing only a part of the budget will fail to provide the information that decision makers need.
The Air Force’s core competencies provide an excellent list of the service’s unique functions, but the fact that they are unique keeps them from being complete.
Dividing the whole into manageable pieces is particularly important. Joint and Air Force task lists provide definition for operational tasks but combine all Title 10 functions under a single category. Title 10 breaks “organize, train, and equip” into 13 functions, showing that greater detail is required to describe the roles. However, Title 10 does not address the operational roles of our forces.
Our customers are the joint operations we are tasked to support. Since the customer establishes value, the framework must relate our resources distinctly to operational effects. The Air Force’s core competencies provide an excellent list of the service’s unique functions, but the fact that they are unique keeps them from being complete. Resources cannot be cleanly divided between precision engagement and global attack. One approach puts weapons under precision engagement and platforms under global attack. But both are usually needed to engage targets, and the operational customer cannot possibly choose between them.
The Air Force Task List describes all the activities performed by our service.17 A thorough review of this list, along with application of the above characteristics, leads to a possible Air Force RAM intended to relate directly to effects-based operations:
These three areas encompass the capabilities that directly contribute to operational effects.
The proposed RAM also provides coverage of all the Air Force’s Title 10 resources in sufficient detail:
Each of these four capability areas includes assets that deploy to support operations, along with many used only for Title 10 functions.
All seven of the proposed areas need to have direct costs allocated as much as possible. For example, if hangars are needed for global-attack platforms, the cost of construction and use should be captured under global attack. The costs of acquiring, operating, and maintaining the platforms and associated equipment need to be allocated as well. In addition, manpower and any specialized training attributable to global attack must be accounted for. This is the key to implementing activity-based costing. As Secretary Roche said, “We start really hampered by the fact there’s not an activity-based costing system.”18 Accounting for costs of the products we deliver is the only way to assess their value.
Once a planning framework is established, the hard part becomes determining the value of the individual capabilities. To do so, one must define the optimum capability measures and associated requirements, which necessitates defining standardized or generic effects applicable to different operational scenarios. For example, we successfully use the “ton-miles-per-day” unit to help describe our ability to move materiel. Similarly, we need to address the number of meaningful targets-per- day of power. Then we must do the same for vigilance and the other capability areas. Finally, we must apply these effects to a variety of standardized operational scenarios to determine the driving requirements.
Repeated use of capability measures for allocating resources will result in standards of performance, some of which we can adapt from measures already available, such as C-ratings for combat and support systems. We already apply C-ratings to our facilities. Over time, expectations will be generated for other peacetime services as well. As standards are developed and adjusted, the process of allocating resources will become simpler. These standards will flow directly down to the major command and unit levels through the capabilities framework. The three USAFE capability groups in Spiral 2 map onto the proposed Air Force RAM.
The step not yet addressed in USAFE’s Spiral 2—which must be addressed for Air Force implementation—is addition of the time dimension. Today’s modernization-planning process is easily adaptable to AFRAP planning. After developing capability measures and values, one can then establish near-, mid-, and long-term objectives. Current imbalances, the environment, and the affordability of potential solutions will drive these capability objectives. Capability options will be established, and a robust set of options will be funded to ensure a reasonable level of risk.
Gen Larry D. Welch said, “It’s all about balancing modernization, readiness, people, and infrastructure: balancing our readiness today with our readiness tomorrow.”19 Achieving this balance requires implementation of the planning portion of AFRAP. The proposed Air Force RAM
The problem we are dealing with in allocating 10s of billions of dollars every year across a nearly infinite series of needs is complex.
enables this implementation by providing the capabilities-based planning framework and the value of those capabilities. Finally, if the Air Force integrates strategic planning, performance management, and resource allocation through a RAM, the result would be a truly “balanced scorecard”20 approach to management.
Making the “billion dollar” decisions that we need to operate efficiently and effectively in the twenty-first century requires three key changes in the way the Air Force does business. The first involves linking resource allocation to performance management and strategic planning. We developed the current processes without a unifying construct. Our experience shows that a management construct relating capabilities to mission-essential tasks and to programs provides the needed linkage. The strategic goals align with each capability, and the organizational-performance measures align with each mission-essential task.
The second key change is to create a process that is simple, transparent, and reproducible. The new process must be simple—both to implement and to use. The problem we are dealing with in allocating 10s of billions of dollars every year across a nearly infinite series of needs is complex. We can’t afford to wait while sophisticated techniques for decision making are developed. We have to get started by tackling the whole budget, not just shortfalls. To do so, we will need to implement an approach based on continual improvement. Our current promotion system serves as a good example of a simple process that is subject to continual improvement; it is also transparent and reproducible. As with any new process, it was not as good when first introduced as it is today. Over the years, improvements have made it a highly rated and fair promotion process.
“Whoever can manage his own house well can also manage an estate, whoever can keep ten men in order in accordance with conditions may be given a thousand.”
To be successful, a resource-allocation process must also be transparent. Discussing the new DOD management councils for improving business practices, Secretary Roche said, “We are going to be extraordinarily transparent, and so when monies are saved in one area, those monies will then be . . . applied to another area. . . . This is the incentive that is healthy; it’s a win-win for everyone.”21 The process has to reveal the total capability provided by every program and lay the facts on the table for all to see. By defining both the trade-ups and the trade-offs, one can establish the relative value of each choice despite a lack of perfect knowledge. Only then can we agree on what is affordable and reward people for taking cuts for the good of the service.
Reproducibility, the key to the new process’s survival, must be based on standards of value that can be established, reused, and improved over time. A single planning framework will help develop the standards, record them as they are established, and clarify the links among programs and their intended operational effects. This framework is actually a categorization scheme. Genghis Khan used a decimal system to manage his armies in groups of 10,000 (called a “tuman”): “Whoever can manage his own house well can also manage an estate, whoever can keep ten men in order in accordance with conditions may be given a thousand and a tuman and he will also keep them in order.”22
The third key change entails developing capability measures that allow Air Force decision makers to deliver the best value to the war fighter over time. Gregory S. Martin, then a lieutenant general and principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said, “Tying our resources to our capabilities is the single most-important issue facing the Air Force today.”23 We have shown that in order to determine value, capabilities must be related to resources on the one hand and to operational effects on the other. After these relationships are established, we can assess the value of our investments over short-, mid-, and long-term planning horizons. Estimating the value of capabilities and investment options will require analysis, but, in the end, the proposed RAM is a tool for the decision maker—not the analyst.
Our warriors can embrace this particular revolution. It is based on the fundamental principles of establishing teamwork, ensuring capability for the war fighter, and following the money! The improved decision making that results will lead directly to real savings and increased performance by spending the resources where they are most needed. In addition to these direct savings, aligning our efforts will enhance the productivity of the entire Air Force. The biggest obstacle to motivation occurs when people don’t know what is expected of them. Sun Tzu said, “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. . . . But when the army is restless and distrustful, trouble is sure to come.”24 The ultimate improvement in the Air Force will come when our people can be rewarded for providing the war fighter the most “bang for the buck.”
Notes
1. USAFE council meeting, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, 20 April 2001.
2. AFRAP was created in January 2000 under Headquarters Air Force 2002, a major process-reengineering effort led by Lt Gen Joseph H. Wehrle, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs (AF/XP), and guided by Mr. William A. Davidson, administrative assistant to the secretary (SAF/AA).
3. General Hogan was the mobilization assistant to AF/XP (see note 2).
4. Col John A. Warden III, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 40–55, on-line, Internet, available from "airchronicles/apj/warden.html" ; and James A. Kitfield, “Another Look at the Air War That Was,” Air Force Magazine 82, no. 10 (October 1999), on-line, Internet, available from "http://www.afa.org/magazine/1099eaker.html" .
5. Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 7045.14, The Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System, 22 May 1984.
6. Joint Publication 5-0, Doctrine for Planning Joint Operations, 13 April 1995, I-1.
7. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3100.01A, Joint Strategic Planning System, 1 September 1999, E-5.
8. Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, Public Law 103-62.
9. “Vice President Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government,” on-line, Internet, 2 October 2001, available from "http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/default.html" .
10. The AFRAP process design consisted of four key subprocesses: Determine Capability Objectives, Develop Capability Options, Allocate Resources, and Assess Performance. The entire process was to be supported by end-to-end analysis.
11. Office of the Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology), memorandum, subject: Reducing Life Cycle Costs for New and Fielded Systems, 4 December 1995, attachment 2, Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV) Working Group Paper.
12. DOD news briefing, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and service secretaries, 18 June 2001, on-line, Internet, available from "http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2001/t06182001_t618dsda.html" .
13. Ibid.
14. Any scale could have been used, including green-yellow-red or A-B-C. However, allocation of resources favors a numerical system because the next step calls for relating the capability rating to dollars.
15. Dollars moved internally totaled $52 million. Total USAFE resources for the Amended Program Objective Memorandum of FY03 were $2.6 billion. A $76 million trade space was calculated by subtracting the estimated discretionary funds required for minimum acceptable performance ($1,376 million) from the top-line discretionary funding ($1,452 million).
16. George Wilkie, Object-Oriented Software Engineering: The Professional Developer’s Guide (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1993), 111.
17. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1-1, Air Force Task List, 12 August 1998.
18. DOD news briefing.
19. Meeting, Headquarters USAFE, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, 2 July 2001.
20. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).
21. DOD news briefing.
22. H. G. Wells, The Outline of History (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1925), 61; and Valentin A. Riasanovsky, Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1965), 200.
23. Tiger Team meeting, subject: Future Modernization Priorities and Process, Arlington, Va., September 1999.
24. Lionel Giles, The Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co., 1944).
Contributors
Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz (USAFA; MPA, University of Northern Colorado) is deputy assistant secretary for budget, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, D.C. He previously served as director of plans and programs, Headquarters US Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein Air Base (AB), Germany. A command pilot with 3,300 hours in eight aircraft, he has served as a staff officer at two major commands, the Air Staff, and the Joint Staff, as well as having commanded an air-refueling squadron and a geographically separated operations group. The general has commanded three wings—an air-refueling wing, an air-mobility wing, and a training wing at the Air Force Academy, where he was also the commandant of cadets. General Lorenz is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, and National War College.
Lt Col James A. Hubert (BS, Oregon State University; MS, George Washington University) is chief of the Strategy and Programming Branch, Headquarters United States Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany. Recent assignments have included member of the Air Force Resource Allocation Process Reengineering Team, Washington, D.C.; chief of Acquisition Management Policy and Acquisition Strategic Planning, Washington, D.C.; electronic-warfare program manager, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and Air Force technology coordinator for identification of ground forces, Langley AFB, Virginia. The holder of two patents and the author of several technical papers, Colonel Hubert is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College.
Maj Keith H. Maxwell (BS, University of Maine; ME, University of Florida) is senior military advisor to the commander for Rhein-Main Transition, Spangdahlem AB, Germany. Recent assignments have included chief of programs and legislative liaison, Headquarters US Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany; Peace Vector IV construction manager, Sakara AB and Gianaclis AB, Egypt; chief of the Geotechnical Division and assistant professor, United States Air Force Academy; and electromagnetic project leader, Phillips Lab, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. Major Maxwell is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College.
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The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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