Ready or Not: The Military Readiness Paradox

The term “readiness,” in the context of the military, is an often used but rarely understood term. It has a broad array of connotations, yet it is routinely used within the Department of Defense and in Congress as a key criterion for decisions from the tactical to strategic. Ready or Not: The Military Readiness Paradox discusses a range of issues found within the concept of readiness: the practical challenges of counting equipment and merging data fields to the strategic implications of being “ready” based on the wrong metric or for an irrelevant war. The author has worked in this area for more than a decade and brought an uncommon mix of military, business, and data experience to this arena. Using this experience, he expanded the scope of “readiness” from a snapshot in time of force availability and/or capability, to a forward-looking projection to aid in strategic decisions. Richard Betts’s work has been required reading for those working with military readiness and Betts has provided the foreword to this book. There have been significant changes in the defense environment and world stage that demand a contemporary look at this subject. The character of war has changed, and therefore how we measure readiness for it must change as well. Military readiness represents a massive investment by taxpayers and should be carefully considered and balanced across a wide range of factors. This work seeks to answer that call by looking at the history and current practice, providing a broader balanced readiness framework that then seeks to help leaders across the defense sector navigate the various technology, people, and political challenges to achieve the needed change. The discussion, while rooted in the U.S. Department of Defense, has general applicability across any nation with a military establishment. The challenges in decision support, managing the ever-expanding data sources, and shepherding institutional change can be useful across any large governmental or military enterprise.