Thus, command-and-control vehicles rust in the motor pool while twenty directionless anti-tank trucks roam the battlefield, but as far as the USR is concerned, the unit is combat ready. Only strict standardization renders the force legible, whether to the Pentagon or to Congress. It is the work of real readiness. The frequency and high stakes of USRs demand of battalion and brigade staffs days of data compilation that might otherwise be spent planning training. Army mobilization is the process of bringing the Army to a state of readiness for war, contingency, or national emergency. But the price of that due diligence is at times one, if not several, unfavorable USRs, and units are too often unwilling to pay. The dearth of innovation at the top of the Army’s food chain has received due attention, perhaps most famously from former Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in a 2007 article.18 But metric fixation so deadens innovation at the tactical level that it is no surprise little rises to the level of strategy. But because pacers enjoy disproportionate weight in the USR, any self-interested battalion prioritizes the maintenance of the twentieth pacer over the first command-and-control truck. The resultant percentage is often called the operational readiness rate, or OR rate.9. Yet another painful example of goal displacement induced by USR involves what regulation calls “pacing items.” AR 220-1 defines pacing items (colloquially called “pacers”) as “major weapon systems, aircraft, and other equipment items that are central to the organization’s ability to perform its designated mission.”13 A pacer for a medical unit might be a field litter ambulance; for a cavalry squadron, it might be its anti-tank missile systems and the vehicles on which they are mounted. 1 Lastly, lengthening the periods that commanders command to thirty-six months or longer has the potential to preempt the short-termism USRs engender. g. U.S. Army Family Readiness Support Assistant (FRSA) Resource Guide, Edition 1, 2007. h. DoDI 1342.22, Military Family Readiness, 11 April 2017. i. All repair parts for all tanks are then ordered under that single tank’s serial number. Goal displacement in the measured area of equipment readiness (R-level) occurs as battalions grow more concerned with reporting equipment serviceable, such as vehicles, than with fixing equipment. Readiness, it says, is the ability of the Armed Forces to carry out the president’s National Security Strategy, the secretary of defense’s defense planning guidance, and the chairman of the Joint Chief’s National Military Strategy. tional Guard are governed by regulations issued by the Chief, National Guard Bu-reau consistent with Chief, National Guard Bureau’s authorities under 32 USC 110, 10 USC 10503, and DoDD 5105.77. Rather than empowering them to “subjectively upgrade” overall readiness ratings (as AR 220-1 does now), which obscures rather than resolves metric fixation, reporting units ought have a larger role in the selection of what metrics capture readiness on the ground.22, Figure 3. The pacer OR rate is therefore in theory a reliable measurement of a unit’s ability to fulfill its mission, and it enjoys weight in the overall R-level calculus. A 2016 GAO report typifies its argument for hard numbers and the tongue-clicking that ensues when results are insufficiently quantified: “The services have not fully established metrics that the department can use to oversee readiness rebuilding efforts and evaluate progress toward achieving the identified goals.”5 Testimony from the GAO in February 2020 sustains this tone, lauding the Department of Defense’s progress as it develops “metrics to assess progress toward readiness recovery goals that include quantifiable deliverables at specific milestones [emphasis added].”6, In view of the above, Army Regulation (AR) 220-1, Army Unit Status Reporting and Force Registration—Consolidated Policies, endows the USR with an unsurprisingly quantitative structure. The reports do so because they demand inflexible quantitative measurements unfaithful to the outcome they purport to depict—how ready a unit is to accomplish its mission. This way, the digital database through which parts are ordered reports only one broken tank, instead of five or six per company. 2. Army Deployment and Redeployment : Headquarters : Department of the Army . Examples are ubiquitous in the measured area of equipment readiness. SUBJECT: Army Directive 2019-17 (Changes to the Soldier and Family Readiness Group Program) personnel, including single Soldiers and their Families, into … In view of the above, Army Regulation (AR) 220-1, Army Unit Status Reporting and Force Registration—Consolidated Policies, endows the USR with an unsurprisingly quantitative structure. o Contains extensive information regarding Army Strategic Readiness and how it is reported, prepared, reviewed, and submitted (throughout). The various forms of appeal, whether an “operational needs statement” or a “reclamation,” prove so cumbersome and lengthy that staffs rarely pursue them except in the direst cases. Mission. Company commanders reported in a 2019 RAND study that they devoted a full 15 percent of their time to “tracking readiness,” second only to USR-adjacent “equipment maintenance and accountability.” Both outstripped the 13 percent of each quarter commanders professed dedicating to “unit-specific training.” Ironically, soldiers shared that a common means of coping with the time burden was to report readiness metrics inaccurately (see figure 3).19 This spells doom for mission command’s “shared understanding,” as staffs and commanders dedicate to data’s collection and grooming the attention that mission orders desperately need. Enlarge the figure. How to negotiate a balance between the dual risks of harmful standardization and unmanageable chaos is explored deeply in the book Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. And all of the above empower leaders and soldiers within reporting units. The Army Readiness Assessment Program is a web-based initiative designed to help commanders understand and evaluate their unit’s safety climate and culture. Permitting divisions or brigades some role in the authorship of their MTOEs would better marry MTOE materiel with the needs of the unit. Army Command Policy contains guidance on Army Family readiness at para 5-2, page 48 Army Regulation 600-20 (dated 24 July 2020) Because maintenance sections are often stretched for time, vehicles that cannot roll or start at all are reported for weeks if not months as serviceable simply because their issues have not yet been diagnosed. Leaders can increase readiness by talking about the connection of sleep, activity, and nutrition to prevent musculoskeletal injuries. It is in these measured areas where the USR is most rigid and quantitative, and it is where the metrics chosen least reflect the outcome that the report aspires to measure. The goal of a high S-level displaces the goal of a well-equipped unit. According to regulation, for a piece of equipment to be fully mission capable, it must pass a “preventative maintenance checks and services” inspection without failing a single “not ready if” bullet. This warping of organizational behavior is the inevitability of Muller’s metric fixation. Army Methodology for Overall Unit Readiness Assessments (Figure from Army Regulation 220-1, Army Unit Status Reporting and Force Registration—Consolidated Policies, 15 April 2010, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r220_1.pdf) Units delay reporting because it reduces the amount of time the vehicle is deadlined, thereby decreasing the likelihood it is deadlined during a USR reporting window. SFRG Regulations. In his previous assignment, he completed a tour in Germany, during which he served twenty-four months as a troop executive officer with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne). It comprises four measured areas: personnel (the P-level), equipment on-hand (the S-level), equipment readiness (the R-level), and the unit training proficiency (the T-level) (see figure 1 and figure 2). Department of Defense Inspector General (DODIG). 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