Lisa Saum-Manning

This report seeks to address how the U.S. Army can most effectively project and employ land power in the Indo-Pacific, during competition and conflict, with a focus on scenarios involving China. The authors developed three concepts to guide the Army's ground force role in the theater, offering the essential architecture of basing, information, relationships, and flexible combat power needed to make the joint force effective.

Company leaders in the U.S. Army have long been recognized as overworked, partly because of the number of requirements imposed on them by higher headquarters. This report is intended to help the Army identify ways to reduce and manage the time burdens on Active Component company leaders in garrison by addressing the challenges of reducing time burdens at both organizational and individual worker levels.

The authors describe Puerto Rico's communities in terms of population characteristics, community and individual preparedness, and economic pressures leading up to Hurricanes Irma and Maria. They detail the storms' impact in terms of damage, community stress, and migration. The researchers developed courses of action to improve capacity for emergency preparedness, coordination, communication, recovery planning, and research and training.

Security cooperation's importance, scale, and complexity have grown substantially in recent years, but efforts to develop and manage the Department of Defense security cooperation workforce have lagged. This study informs the development of career models for the security cooperation workforce, assesses potential requirements for competencies and experience, and identifies potential job families within the workforce to facilitate management.

Provides a historical analysis of the ways in which militaries have deployed light and mechanized infantry with armored forces during close urban combat in order to to identify the advantages and costs of this warfighting approach and inform how the Army might confront foes in complex, urban environments in the future.

RAND Arroyo Center explored how the U.S. Army might need to adapt its personnel management policies and practices to support the Regionally Aligned Forces concept. Authors estimated the scope and scale of the requirement for regional expertise; modeled the Army s current ability to produce soldiers with the required expertise; and identified changes to the personnel management system to develop and match such soldiers with appropriate positions."

Strategic imperatives sometimes compel the United States to work with partner nations that lack the characteristics that favor success in building partner capacity. This report explores what the United States can do in such contexts to maximize prospects for success by specifically looking at potential challenges and workarounds and deriving recommendations for future engagements.

This report describes how to best measure and assess the progress and outcomes of locally focused stability operations (LFSO) the missions, tasks, and activities that create stability by building security, governance, and development. It identifies assessment and foundational challenges and outlines solutions, along with recommendations and implementation guidance. The report concludes with an assessment plan for a notional LFSO scenario."

In this report, the authors assess how the complex array of roles, responsibilities, and authorities (RRA) that shape the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process are first defined in policy and related guidance and then implemented in practice by a diverse variety of stakeholder organizations at strategic, operational, and tactical levels of execution.

The authors examined the friction between the U.S. Army's People First objectives (which focus on command climate, cohesive teams, career goals, and work-life balance) and Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model objectives (which focus on mission readiness) and developed strategies to mitigate this friction.

Researchers sought to identify the root causes of underrepresentation for women and members of racial/ethnic minority groups in the U.S. Coast Guard; factors shaping representation at each phase of the career life cycle; and facilitators of and barriers to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This report documents the results of a study examining challenges that Air Force civilian women, racial/ethnic minorities, and individuals with disabilities may face in advancing to higher pay grades as well as factors influencing retention decisions. The study analyzed demographic differences in advancement and retention patterns and conducted focus groups and interviews with close to 300 participants.

In Puerto Rico's post-hurricane reconstruction, the 78 municipal governments will be responsible for an estimated $4 billion in reconstruction funds and will need to manage complex projects while coordinating with the government of Puerto Rico and federal government. The authors recommend ways to target federal and Puerto Rico government technical assistance where it is needed most to help the municipalities in their reconstruction efforts

This report looks at demographic differences in U.S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training completion. It presents potential challenges that women and racial and ethnic minorities might face in entering and completing the training, as well as demographic differences in attrition rates, reasons for attrition, and an analysis of whether certain individual characteristics account for differential rates of attrition.

This report documents the results of a qualitative study designed to better understand the factors that female Air Force officers consider when deciding whether to remain in the active duty Air Force. It describes the key retention factors identified through focus groups and provides recommendations for improving Air Force policies and programs to help address potential barriers and improve female officer retention.

This report discusses the challenges associated with potential confrontations between the United States and hostile states with small nuclear arsenals. It examines prospects for neutralizing their nuclear capabilities via combinations of offensive and defensive options at varying levels of opponent nuclear development and managing escalation risks in conventional wars with them across a range of scenarios.

The Department of Defense conducts an assortment of building partner capacity (BPC) efforts. The needs and existing capabilities of various nations differ, however, as will results. Planning for each BPC effort carefully, assessing progress while the effort is in progress, and assessing results are all important to ensure that it meets U.S. goals and partner expectations. This report presents a framework intended to aid all these steps.