A debate will likely occur in 2009 about U.S. global national-security strategy. The authors describe and illustrate a methodology to help frame and evaluate resource-informed strategies. The core is an integrated portfolio-analysis approach that compares options by their anticipated effectiveness, risks, and resource implications — all three of which are multifaceted.

The approach deals explicitly with both uncertainty and differences of strategic perspective. Three illustrative grand strategies are compared, which deal in different ways with the problems of our time — including terrorism and more classic long-term strategic considerations such as general deterrence and competition.

BACKGROUND
The United States will soon be conducting another major review of national-security strategy. It will be the responsibility of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to provide resource-informed assessments and recommendations to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) and the President.

This monograph illustrates newly developed methods and tools to support the chairman’s efforts. We sought a way to compare strategies that would integrate expectations about effectiveness, risks, and resource implications.

Such an approach would tie into the Department of Defense’s themes of capabilities-based planning, risk management, and portfolio analysis. To permit timely responses to senior-leader guidance, questions, and feedback, we put a premium on relatively simple methods.

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Published 2008 by the RAND Corporation
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PREFACE
This monograph reports the results of a project to provide the Joint Staff’s Vice Director for Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment (J-8) with methods, desk-top tools, and initial data to help the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff develop resource-informed assessments and recommendations for the Secretary of Defense on national military strategy.

The project was requested and sponsored by the Vice Director, J-8, MG Michael Vane (USA) and was completed under his successor, MG William Troy (USA). It was co-sponsored by the Office of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for Policy and by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Program Analysis and Evaluation.

The monograph should be of interest primarily to those senior leaders and their staffs—military and civilian—who are involved in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) strategic planning.

It should also be of interest to strategic planners in other government agencies. Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be addressed to the project leader, Paul K. Davis, in Santa Monica, California.

This research was sponsored by the Joint Staff and was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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