Military Training: DOD Needs a Strategic Plan and Better Inventory and Requirements Data to Guide Development of Language Skills and Regional Proficiency
Published: 2009-06-19T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Violent extremist movements and ongoing military operations have prompted the Department of Defense (DOD) to place greater emphasis on improving language and regional proficiency, which includes cultural awareness. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which DOD has (1) developed a strategic plan to guide its language and regional proficiency transformation efforts and (2) obtained the information it needs to identify potential language and regional proficiency gaps and assess risk. To conduct this assessment, GAO analyzed DOD's Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, reviewed the military services' strategies for transforming language and regional proficiency capabilities, and assessed the range of efforts intended to help identify potential gaps.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: DOD has made progress in transforming its language and regional proficiency capabilities over the last 5 years but continues to lack a comprehensive strategic plan to guide this transformation effort. Prior work has shown that implementing significant organizational change--as DOD is attempting to do with language and regional proficiency transformation--requires a comprehensive, integrated strategic plan that sets a clear direction for transformation efforts and includes measurable performance goals and objectives as well as funding priorities that are linked to goals. In February 2005, DOD published the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, which it has used as its key document to guide language and regional proficiency transformation. While DOD has goals, objectives, and a governance structure, GAO found that not all objectives are measurable, linkages between these goals and DOD's funding priorities remain unclear, and DOD has not identified the total cost of its planned transformation efforts. DOD officials acknowledge they are at a point in their efforts where a strategic plan is needed and are in the process of developing one; however, the issue date has not been determined. In the absence of an approved plan, it will be difficult for DOD to guide the military services as they develop their approaches to language and regional proficiency transformation. Furthermore, it will be difficult for DOD and Congress to assess progress toward a successful transformation. DOD lacks the comprehensive regional proficiency inventory and validated language and regional proficiency requirements that it would need to identify gaps and assess risk to its ability to conduct military operations. Risk assessment helps decision makers identify and evaluate potential risks so that alternatives can be designed and implemented to mitigate risk. DOD is in the process of developing a management tool designed to match its inventory of language and regional proficiency skills to requirements for these skills so that DOD can identify potential gaps. While DOD has developed an inventory of its language capabilities, it does not yet have an inventory of its regional proficiency capabilities because DOD lacks an agreed upon way to assess and validate these skills. Also, although DOD has a process to identify its language and regional proficiency requirements, it lacks a transparent, validated methodology to aid combatant commanders, DOD components, and defense agencies in identifying these requirements. In the absence of a validated methodology, estimates of requirements have differed. For example, as of February 2008, U.S. Pacific Command's requirements outnumbered the requirements of all other combatant commands combined. DOD has two assessments under way, which DOD officials expect may assist them in developing a validated methodology for determining their requirements. These efforts are in the early stages of planning and, while they have a scope, it may not take into account the full range of requirements, such as non-warfighting activities. Overall, without a complete inventory and a validated methodology, DOD cannot effectively assess risk and make informed investment decisions in its language and regional proficiency capabilities.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Today and in the foreseeable future, military operations—including  counterinsurgency and stability operations—require the Department of  Defense (DOD) to work alongside multinational partners and interact with  local populations in a variety of regions and contexts. Violent extremist  movements, such as al Qaeda, and recent military operations in Iraq and  Afghanistan have prompted DOD to place greater emphasis on improving  the foreign language and regional proficiency of U.S. forces. Additionally,  DOD is placing increasing importance on non-warfighting activities, as  demonstrated by DOD’s establishment of U.S. Africa Command in 2008. As  early as 2004, a DOD-sponsored study noted that DOD needs to treat  developing language skills and regional proficiency as seriously as it treats  combat skills. In February 2005, DOD issued the Defense Language  Transformation Roadmap to guide language and regional proficiency  transformation efforts. Moreover, in 2006, the Secretary of Defense,  through the Quadrennial Defense Review, called on organizations across  DOD to increase investments focused on developing and maintaining  language and cultural skills. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel  and Readiness (USD(P&R)), as well as the military services, combatant  commands, and other DOD organizations, have various responsibilities  regarding the development, maintenance, and use of foreign language and  regional proficiency capabilities.
Congress has emphasized the need for operational forces to have  improved language and cultural awareness capabilities. The Senate  Report that accompanied the Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense  Authorization Act directed us to review various aspects of DOD’s plans  for developing language and cultural awareness capabilities. In response  to this mandate, we issued an initial report in November 2008 with our  preliminary observations on the extent to which DOD had developed plans  to guide its language and regional proficiency transformation efforts,  inventoried existing capabilities, identified requirements, developed  training programs, and developed acquisition programs for language and  cultural awareness capabilities.
This report provides additional information on DOD’s progress in  developing plans and assessing its current capabilities and needs.  Specifically, we assessed the extent to which DOD has (1) developed a  strategic plan to guide its language and regional proficiency  transformation efforts and (2) obtained the inventory and requirements  data it needs to identify potential gaps and assess risk.
To address our first objective, we assessed DOD’s goals and objectives,  funding, and governance structures for language and regional proficiency  transformation. We also analyzed DOD’s Defense Language  Transformation Roadmap and the military services’ strategies for  transforming language and regional proficiency capabilities. For our  second objective, we analyzed information about the range of DOD’s past,  current, and planned efforts to identify DOD’s language and regional  proficiency capabilities and related requirements, and to identify  capability gaps and assess risk. For these objectives, we compared DOD’s  efforts to best practices for strategic planning and risk assessment. We  also interviewed officials from the Office of the USD(P&R), the Office of  the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Defense Language Office,  the Joint Staff, Special Operations Command, and the military services.  For the purposes of this review, we focused on general purpose forces,  conducted only limited work at Special Operations Command regarding  language and regional proficiency for special operations forces, and did  not conduct audit work with the DOD intelligence community. Therefore,  our findings and recommendations primarily address DOD’s general  purpose forces. More detailed information on our scope and methodology  is provided in appendix I.
We conducted this performance audit from November 2008 to June 2009 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those  standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,  appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence  obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions  based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Traditionally, DOD has focused on its professional communities to ensure  that it has the language and regional proficiency capabilities it needs, but  in recent years—prompted by the events of September 11, 2001, and  military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq— DOD has grown increasingly  aware of the need for these capabilities among the general purpose forces  in addition to the professional communities. DOD’s professional  communities of linguists and regional experts generally include  personnel—such as human intelligence collectors, signal intelligence  analysts, and Foreign Area Officers—who require language and regional  proficiency to perform their primary functions. DOD has also explicitly  identified language and regional proficiency as critical warfighting skills to  be integrated into future operations to ensure that combat forces deploy  with the essential ability to understand and effectively communicate with  native populations, local and government officials, and coalition partners  while in theater.
The responsibility for developing and maintaining language and regional  proficiency capabilities is shared among several DOD components,  including the military services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  Each military service is responsible for staffing, training, and equipping  both general purpose forces and personnel whose professions require  language or regional proficiency to ensure they have the language and  regional proficiency capabilities necessary to support the needs of  combatant commanders. As of April 2009, the Air Force, Army, Navy, and  Marine Corps have developed strategy documents intended to guide  efforts to develop language and cultural awareness skills within their  respective forces. Additionally, the military services provide  predeployment training—the amount of which depends on the unit’s  mission and the amount of time available for such language and culture  training, as articulated by the commander of the unit—to general purpose  forces, and each of the services has established a center to assist in  coordinating, developing, distributing, and providing basic language and  regional proficiency training. The military services have also taken steps to  incorporate language and regional proficiency into their professional  military education for general purpose forces.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has taken a number of steps over  the past 5 years to transform language and regional proficiency  capabilities, including developing a governance structure, updating  policies, and—in February 2005— publishing the Defense Language  Transformation Roadmap (Roadmap), the primary document DOD has  used to guide efforts. For example, DOD established (1) the DOD Senior  Language Authority, (2) the Defense Language Steering Committee, (3) the  Defense Language Action Panel, and (4) the Defense Language Office. The  Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans, under the USD(P&R), has  been designated as the DOD Senior Language Authority, and serves as the  DOD-wide sponsor for language and regional proficiency. As such, the  Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans oversees efforts—in  coordination with other DOD components—to align DOD’s policies and  doctrine in order to support the strategic relevance of language and  regional proficiency capabilities, oversees and maintains responsibility for  DOD’s official system for testing service members’ language proficiency,  and ensures the integration of language and regional proficiency into  training policy. The Defense Language Steering Committee, which is  comprised of Senior Language Authorities from DOD organizations other  than the Office of the USD(P&R) and chaired by the DOD Senior Language  Authority, provides senior-level guidance regarding the language  transformation effort and the development of DOD’s language  capabilities. The Defense Language Action Panel, which is comprised of  less-senior representatives from the same entities represented on the  Defense Language Steering Committee, supports the activities, functions,  and responsibilities of the Defense Language Steering Committee. The  Defense Language Office supports the DOD Senior Language Authority in  carrying out their assigned responsibilities. Additionally, the Defense  Language Office is responsible—according to Defense Language Office  officials—for day-to-day oversight of tasks contained in the Roadmap.
DOD also updated long-standing policies—as called for by the Deputy  Secretary of Defense in a May 2004 memorandum—and published  implementing guidance that sets forth responsibilities for the management  of its efforts to transform language and regional proficiency capabilities.  Specifically, in October 2005, USD(P&R) updated its 1988 policy on DOD’s  Language Program. The updated policy calls for DOD to consider foreign  language and regional proficiency critical competencies that are essential  to DOD’s mission and to manage these capabilities so as to maximize the  accession, development, maintenance, enhancement, and employment of  these critical skills appropriate to the DOD’s mission needs. Additionally,  in June 2007, USD(P&R) published implementing guidance to accompany  the updated policy. This implementing guidance assigns responsibilities  for managing DOD’s foreign language and regional proficiency capabilities,  establishes the DOD language proficiency goal for language professionals,  identifies foreign language and regional proficiency as a mission-critical  skill, and publishes DOD’s regional proficiency skill level guidelines.
section_title: DOD Lacks a Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Guiding Transformation of Language and Regional Proficiency Capabilities
paragraphs: Prior work shows that implementing significant organizational change—as  DOD is attempting to do with language and regional proficiency  transformation—requires a strategic plan or set of linked plans that sets a  clear direction for transformation efforts. DOD has made progress in  transforming its language and regional proficiency capabilities, but  continues to lack a comprehensive strategic plan.
subsections: section_title: Significant Organizational Change Requires a Sound Strategic Plan
paragraphs: Our prior work and the work of others has shown that implementing  significant organizational change—as DOD is attempting to do with  language and regional proficiency transformation—requires a  comprehensive, integrated strategic plan that sets a clear direction for  transformation efforts and includes measurable performance goals and  objectives and funding priorities that are linked to goals. Table 1  describes these elements in greater detail, which are based on our prior  work.  Collectively, these elements form a framework that can help  decision makers more effectively guide and assess progress, and to do so  in a clear and transparent manner.
section_title: DOD Has Some Elements of a Strategic Plan, but Lacks Others
paragraphs: In February 2005, DOD published the Defense Language Transformation  Roadmap— which officials consider to be the key document DOD has  used to guide language and regional proficiency transformation. While  DOD officials said that the Roadmap was not intended to be a strategic  plan, the Roadmap establishes goals and desired outcomes, which DOD  officials told us are the same as objectives. Table 2 lists these goals and  the objectives for each. Each goal in the Roadmap is supported by several  tasks, for a total of 43 tasks. In response to the Roadmap tasks,  organizations across DOD have undertaken specific initiatives. For  example, DOD has centralized and standardized contract language  support, and published a Strategic Language List that identifies prioritized  languages for which DOD has current and projected requirements and for  which training and testing will be provided, incentives applied, and other  resources allocated. Moreover, each military service has developed a  strategy for language and regional proficiency transformation, using the  Roadmap either as guidance or as a complementary document.
While DOD has goals and objectives, some of DOD’s objectives are not  measurable or time-bound. For example, one of DOD’s objectives is for the  total force to understand and value the tactical, operational, and strategic  asset inherent in regional expertise and language. However, DOD does not  define how it intends to measure the total force’s understanding of  language and regional expertise or provide a time frame for achieving the  objective. In the absence of such measurable objectives, DOD officials  assess progress toward goals and objectives by tracking the number of  associated Roadmap tasks that they consider to be fully operational,  meaning the DOD Senior Language Authority has determined the intent of  the task has been met. According to DOD officials, 93 percent of the tasks  in the Roadmap were fully operational as of April 2009. However, this  approach focuses solely on the achievement of specific tasks rather than  the extent to which these tasks support progress toward language and  regional proficiency transformation goals. In addition, we found that DOD  may consider a task fully operational before the task is complete, further  complicating DOD’s ability to measure progress toward goals and  objectives. For example, DOD considers the Roadmap task that assigned  responsibility to the Secretary of the Army to create courses for emerging  language needs to be fully operational because a plan to build these  courses has been developed. Still, work remains to be done to complete  this task—specifically, the creation of the courses themselves. DOD does  not continue to formally track these fully operational but uncompleted  tasks.
DOD officials state that they identify funding priorities for language and  regional proficiency in their budget requests, but linkages between these  funding priorities and the goals in the Roadmap are unclear and DOD  lacks information about the total cost of language and regional proficiency  transformation. According to DOD officials, the 22 major language and  regional proficiency programs contained in the Defense Language  Program of Record—DOD’s term for its projected language and regional  proficiency budget—are its funding priorities. DOD estimates that they  will receive a half-billion dollars in fiscal year 2009 for these programs. In  addition, DOD estimates that they will receive about one billion dollars in  the fiscal year 2009 supplemental funding for the Army contract for  linguist services. However, our analysis shows that there is not a clear  linkage between the Defense Language Program of Record and the  Roadmap goals. For example, 1 of the 22 programs is the Service  Academies’ language training program, which redirects the Service  Academies’ language programs’ focus to strategic languages and  immersion programs. While this program may provide needed capabilities,  DOD does not identify the goals or tasks which this program supports.  Further, because the Roadmap does not have information about funding  and DOD has not identified funding necessary to implement the tasks in  the Roadmap and other language and regional proficiency transformation  efforts, DOD lacks information about the total cost of this transformation.
DOD officials acknowledge that they are at a point in their language and  regional proficiency transformation efforts where a strategic plan is  needed. Building on the foundation of the Roadmap, DOD officials are in  the process of developing a strategic plan to guide transformation efforts  for fiscal years 2010-2015. DOD officials expect to complete this plan in  September 2009; however, the issue date has not yet been determined.  Until DOD has an approved and comprehensive strategic plan or set of  linked plans that sets a direction for transformation efforts and includes  measurable performance goals and objectives, it will be difficult for DOD  to provide direction to the military services as they develop their  approaches to language and regional proficiency transformation. Also, in  the absence of funding priorities that are linked to goals, DOD, as well as  Congress, will face challenges in assessing overall progress toward a  successful transformation.
section_title: DOD Has Not Fully Identified Gaps in Language and Regional Proficiency to Effectively Assess Risks
paragraphs: In response to the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, DOD is in  the process of developing a strategic management tool, called the  Language Readiness Index, so that it can determine potential gaps and  assess risk by matching its inventory of skills to its requirements for these  skills. However, DOD does not have a comprehensive inventory of its  regional proficiency capabilities and lacks a transparent, validated  methodology to aid combatant commanders, DOD components, and  defense agencies in identifying language and regional proficiency  requirements.
subsections: section_title: DOD Lacks a Comprehensive Inventory to Support the Identification of Potential Capability Gaps
paragraphs: DOD is in the process of developing a strategic management tool, called  the Language Readiness Index, to match DOD’s inventory of language  skills and regional proficiency to its requirements for these skills. This will  enable DOD to determine potential gaps and assess risk to its ability to  conduct current military operations, as well as risk to its ability to conduct  potential future military operations. The Language Readiness Index is  intended to provide DOD decision makers with information related to  DOD’s language and regional proficiency needs; however, it is not  intended to be used to source—or fill—these needs with individuals that  possess the appropriate skill sets. Filling the language and regional  proficiency requirements of combatant commanders by providing trained  personnel remains the responsibility of the military services.
As of April 2009, DOD had developed an inventory of its language  capabilities but did not yet have the inventory of its regional proficiency  capabilities necessary to support the identification of capability gaps using  the Language Readiness Index. For language, DOD has information about  the skills of (1) service members who have taken the Defense Language  Proficiency Test and (2) service members who have self-reported language  skills. Service members who have taken the Defense Language Proficiency  Test are given an Interagency Language Roundtable score; this score  shows listening, reading, and speaking proficiency in foreign languages, as  measured on a scale from 0 (no proficiency) to 5 (educated native  proficiency), using DOD’s agreed-upon method to determine proficiency.  Service members who have self-reported language proficiency skills have  done so as a result of a task in the Roadmap that called on the military  services to collect data on current service members’ language skills  through a one-time screening. The military services may also test the  language skills of service members who self-report to determine these  service members’ Interagency Language Roundtable scores. DOD officials  said they also have information on the language skills of DOD civilians and  contract linguists; however, unlike the information about service  members’ language skills, information about DOD civilians and contract  linguists is not currently incorporated into DOD’s Language Readiness  Index. DOD plans to incorporate this information through the third and  final phase of the Language Readiness Index’s development.
For regional proficiency, DOD does not have an inventory of the skills of  service members or DOD civilians because it lacks a mechanism to assess  and validate these skills. DOD is only able to identify and track those  military members serving in specific occupations requiring a high level of  regional proficiency, such as Foreign Area Officers. While DOD policy  provides regional proficiency skill level guidelines intended to be  benchmarks for assessing regional proficiency, these guidelines do not  provide measurable definitions and DOD does not have a way to test or  otherwise evaluate the skills of service members or DOD civilians in  accordance with these guidelines, which it would need to develop an  inventory of its regional proficiency skills. Furthermore, DOD has not  established milestones for developing the ability to evaluate regional  proficiency skills.
section_title: DOD Lacks Validated Methodologies to Determine Language and Regional Proficiency Requirements
paragraphs: While DOD has a process to identify its language and regional proficiency  requirements, DOD lacks a transparent, validated methodology to aid  combatant commanders, DOD components, and defense agencies in  identifying those language and regional proficiency requirements that  DOD then uses to identify potential capability gaps through its strategic  management tool. In 2006, DOD developed a new process to enable  combatant commanders and the military services to submit their language  and regional proficiency requirements. This process called for the  services, defense agencies, and combatant commands to submit  requirements that contained information such as the level of language  proficiency needed, level of the regional proficiency needed, the  occupational specialty needed, the desired number, and the desired source  (such as a service member, federal civilian, or contractor) for filling the  need. Accordingly, the services, defense agencies, and combatant  commands have submitted requirements. However, in the absence of a  validated methodology, estimates of requirements have differed widely by  combatant command. For example, as of February 2008, U.S. Pacific  Command’s requirements outnumbered the requirements of all other  combatant commands combined. A particular reason for this variance is  that U.S. Pacific Command has included low-level language and regional  proficiency requirements associated with general purpose forces while  others have not. Furthermore, the requirements data that DOD uses to  identify potential capabilities gaps have not been updated since March  2008 because DOD acknowledges the need to develop a validated  methodology for determining requirements.
DOD has two assessments under way that DOD officials expect may assist  them in developing a validated methodology for determining their  language and regional proficiency requirements, but neither of these  efforts has yet resulted in a validated methodology. In December 2008, the  USD(P&R) requested that the Joint Staff conduct two capabilities-based  assessments to identify (1) DOD’s foreign language requirements and   (2) DOD’s regional proficiency requirements. USD(P&R) requested that  the assessments identify requirements both in terms of the number of  personnel needed and the needed proficiency level. Additionally, the  Joint Staff, which is coordinating these two requested assessments, has  stated that these capabilities-based assessments need not only to identify  language and regional proficiency requirements—as requested by the  USD(P&R)— but also to develop a validated methodology for generating  language and regional proficiency requirements, identify emerging  requirements, study current reliance on contractors, measure risks and  gaps, and recommend solutions to potential problems found. The Joint  Staff has identified sponsors for both the language capabilities-based  assessment and the regional proficiency capabilities-based assessment.  These sponsors will be responsible for developing the scope of each  capabilities-based assessment, as well as developing the assessments  themselves.  The Army is sponsoring the language-focused assessment  and the Navy is sponsoring the regional proficiency-focused assessment.  DOD expects to complete these capabilities-based assessments by  November 2009.
As of April 2009, both of these capabilities-based assessments remain in  the very early planning stages and, while the Joint Staff has developed a  scope and objectives for each, they may not take into account the full  range of requirements. For example, DOD expects the scope of the  language capabilities-based assessment to include the capabilities required  to support three different scenarios including conventional war, irregular  war, and a contingency operation; however, the scope does not include  non-warfighting activities. The scope and study plans of these assessments  are critical to determining whether the assessments will result in a  validated methodology that will aid combatant commanders, DOD  components, and defense agencies in the identification of language and  regional proficiency requirements. For example, the scope and study plan  for each assessment will need to include a review of the language and  regional expertise requirements associated with a number of communities,  such as general purpose forces, human intelligence collectors, signal  intelligence analysts, Foreign Area Officers, and DOD civilians, in addition  to reviewing current reliance on contractors. Furthermore, the  assessments will need to examine the full range of requirements—from the  lowest levels to the highest levels of language and regional proficiency.
While DOD designed its strategic management tool to identify gaps and  assess risk, and officials at the Defense Language Office told us that they  may run different scenarios to determine if there is an unacceptable  capability gap, DOD does not have the information it needs to assess risk  sufficiently. The risk assessment process, as discussed in our prior work,  helps decision makers identify and evaluate potential risks so that  alternatives can be designed and implemented to mitigate the effects of  the risk. For example, alternatives for mitigating risk associated with  language and regional proficiency could include hiring contractors with  these skills or building these skills within the force. Risk assessment also  involves the prioritization of needs that can be based on such factors as  strategic, financial, and operational consequences. For example, the  advantages and disadvantages of hiring contractors to fill gaps differ from  the advantages and disadvantages of building these skills within the force.  Without (1) establishing a mechanism to assess the full range of regional  proficiency capabilities within the military force and civilian workforce  and incorporating it into the strategic management tool and (2) developing  a transparent, validated methodology to aid combatant commanders, DOD  components, and defense agencies in identifying language and regional  proficiency requirements for all communities and at all proficiency levels,  DOD cannot determine capability gaps, assess risk effectively, and inform  its strategic planning for language and regional proficiency transformation.  Moreover, DOD lacks a complete understanding of the extent to which its  current language and regional capabilities meet the requirements of  current and potential future military operations. Without such an  understanding, DOD officials may be limited in their ability to make  informed, data-driven decisions about investments in current and future  language and regional proficiency efforts.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: DOD plays a critical role in conducting and supporting a range of missions  that includes irregular warfare, counterinsurgency, stability operations,  and non-warfighting activities. Ongoing operations in Afghanistan and  Iraq—as well as the newly begun efforts of U.S. Africa Command—provide  daily reminders of how complex and difficult these missions are. DOD has  acknowledged the need to build and maintain certain fundamental  capabilities, such as language and regional proficiency capabilities, which  are critical to success in these operations; accordingly, DOD has  undertaken various initiatives aimed at transforming its language and  regional proficiency capabilities, including developing a governance  structure and a Roadmap to lead and guide these efforts. However,  without a comprehensive strategic plan to guide this complex  transformation that includes measurable performance goals and  objectives, funding priorities linked to goals, and accountability for  achieving results, DOD will not have a sound basis for measuring progress  and making investment decisions, and cannot be assured that it is  developing and maintaining the optimal set of language and regional  proficiency capabilities to achieve its transformational goals. Moreover, in  the absence of a complete inventory and consistently identified  requirements for the type and number of language and regional  proficiency skills it needs, DOD is not in a position to properly assess gaps  in its capabilities and appropriately assess risk so that it can make  informed decisions about the future direction, scope, and nature of its  efforts and investments in support of transforming its language and  regional proficiency capabilities. Furthermore, the identification of  requirements and assessments of gaps and risk are critical to informing  DOD’s strategic planning on language and regional proficiency  transformation. Such efforts to identify requirements are challenging, but  they are especially critical given the increasing importance of language  and regional proficiency skills to mission success, as well as the time and  expense of developing and maintaining these skills. Without an  understanding of gaps in its capabilities, DOD will not be in a position to  effectively identify solutions to fill those gaps, conduct risk assessments to  monitor and mitigate risk when faced with competing demands, and  develop and adapt strategic plans for language and regional proficiency  transformation.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of language and regional  proficiency capabilities transformation efforts already under way, as well  as future efforts, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the  following three actions:    Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to  include in a strategic plan or set of linked plans the following specific  elements for both language and regional proficiency: (1) measurable  performance goals and objectives and (2) investment priorities that are  linked to goals.
Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in  consultation with the Secretaries of the military services and Heads of  DOD’s defense agencies, to establish a mechanism to assess and validate  the full range of regional proficiency capabilities of service members and  DOD civilians, including the development of measurable definitions and  milestones to achieve an assessment, and incorporate the information into  its strategic management tool to allow DOD to determine capability gaps  and assess risk effectively.
Direct the Joint Staff, in coordination with the military services and the  Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to develop a  transparent, validated methodology to aid combatant commanders, DOD  components, and defense agencies in identifying language and regional  proficiency requirements for all communities and at all proficiency levels  in order for DOD to be able to determine capability gaps, assess risk  effectively, and inform strategic planning for language and regional  proficiency transformation.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: In commenting on a draft of our report, DOD concurred with our three  recommendations and identified planned actions. For example, DOD  stated it planned to complete the development of a strategic plan by  September 2009 and provide definitive guidance and definitions for  regional proficiency that would enable the services and defense agencies  to measure and determine appropriate proficiency levels. With regard to  its plans to develop a methodology to aid combatant commanders, DOD  components, and defense agencies in identifying requirements, DOD  concurred with our recommendation and noted that it was currently  planning to complete two assessments by November 2009. Given the 90- day window to conduct these assessments, DOD stated that the scope  would be narrower than what our report called for, which was that the  assessments would need to (1) address language and regional expertise  requirements associated with a number of communities, such as general  purpose forces, human intelligence collectors, signal intelligence analysts,  Foreign Area Officers, and DOD civilians, and (2) address the full range of  requirements—from the lowest levels to the highest levels of language and  regional proficiency. In the absence of a requirements methodology that  addresses the full range of populations and proficiency levels, DOD  officials may be limited in their ability to make informed, data-driven  decisions about investments in current and future language and regional  proficiency efforts, especially given the critical role DOD plays in  conducting and supporting a range of missions that includes irregular  warfare, counterinsurgency, stability operations, and non-warfighting  activities. As such, we believe that DOD would need to undertake  additional efforts to ensure that, ultimately, the methodology it develops  does address the full range of requirements.
DOD also provided additional comments suggesting we (1) clarify the  mission of the Defense Language Office, (2) replace the word “assess” with  “certify” to more accurately describe DOD’s lack of an approach to  inventory its regional proficiency capabilities, (3) clarify that the report  focused primarily on the needs and roles of general purpose forces, and  (4) modify text pertaining to the identification of language and regional  proficiency requirements so that it includes the DOD components and  defense agencies. We have incorporated these comments into the report as  appropriate. DOD’s official comments are reprinted in their entirety in  appendix II.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional  committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Under Secretary of Defense for  Personnel and Readiness; the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Secretaries of the  Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. In  addition, this report is available at no charge on the GAO Web site at  www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me  at (202) 512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of  Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page  of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To determine the extent to which the Department of Defense (DOD) has  established a strategic plan to guide efforts to transform its language and  regional proficiency capabilities, we analyzed DOD’s Defense Language  Transformation Roadmap as the department’s key document for guiding  the transformation of language and regional proficiency capabilities.  Specifically, we compared the Roadmap to key elements of a strategic plan  to determine whether the Roadmap met these key elements. We identified  these key elements by reviewing prior GAO work on strategic planning  best practices and the Government Performance and Results Act. We  then developed a data collection instrument based on these key elements  and used this instrument to perform a document review of the Roadmap.  In conducting this document review, we considered whether the Roadmap  showed evidence of the following elements: (1) measurable performance  goals and objectives and (2) funding priorities linked to goals. Our specific  methodology for this analysis was as follows:    To determine whether there were measurable performance goals and  objectives, we determined whether: (a) the Roadmap identified goals,   (b) its goals flowed from the purpose or mission statement, (c) its goals  were results-oriented, (d) its goals were expressed in a manner that  allowed the department to assess whether the goals were being achieved,  and (e) its goals were identified in order of importance, or otherwise  prioritized.
To determine whether the Roadmap delineated funding priorities linked to  goals, we determined whether the Roadmap addresses: (a) funding  required to meet the goals and (b) funding priorities among the goals. In  addition, we obtained and reviewed a copy of the draft Defense Language  and Regional Program Strategic Plan for 2010-2015 in order to determine  whether it contained key elements of a strategic plan; however, because  this draft document was incomplete, we were unable to conduct such an  assessment. Additionally, we obtained copies of the military services’  strategic documents, or draft strategic documents, related to language and  regional proficiency transformation, specifically, the Air Force Culture,  Region, and Language Flight Plan (draft), the Army Culture and Foreign  Language Strategy (draft), the U.S. Navy Language Skills, Regional  Expertise and Cultural Awareness Strategy, and the Marine Corps  Regional, Cultural, and Language Strategy (draft). We reviewed these  documents to determine the extent to which they also addressed language  and regional proficiency and the extent of the alignment between the  services’ strategies and the Roadmap. Finally, we conducted interviews on  the development and status of the Roadmap, the Defense Language and  Regional Program Strategic Plan for 2010-2015, and the services’ strategic  documents with knowledgeable officials from the Office of the Under  Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)), the Office  of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Defense Language Office,  the Joint Staff, the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps.
To determine the extent to which DOD has obtained the inventory and  requirements data it needs to determine potential gaps and assess risk, we  obtained and reviewed information about the range of past, current, and  planned efforts intended to create an inventory, determine requirements,  and identify gaps in DOD’s language and regional proficiency capabilities.  We then evaluated these efforts to determine whether they allowed DOD  decision makers to effectively assess risk in accordance with risk  assessment best practices, as identified in prior GAO work. Specifically,  with regard to efforts to create an inventory of DOD’s language and  regional proficiency capabilities, we reviewed and evaluated the status of  the services’ efforts to conduct a one-time self-assessment of personnel  with language capabilities, as called for by the Roadmap, and to screen  accessions and all personnel periodically thereafter for language and  regional proficiency skills, as required by DOD Directive 5160.41E,  Defense Language Program, (Oct. 21, 2005). We also reviewed preliminary  data gathered by the services for a report that is required by the National  Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 on the foreign language  proficiency of DOD personnel. With regard to efforts to determine  requirements for DOD’s language and regional proficiency capabilities, we  reviewed strategic and Joint Staff guidance that identifies the need for  foreign language skills among U.S. forces and requires commanders to  identify and prioritize personnel language and regional proficiency  requirements. In particular, we reviewed and evaluated DOD’s quarterly  process for reporting language and regional proficiency requirements,  such as the initial submission of requirements for the second quarter of  fiscal year 2008 via spreadsheet and the subsequent institution of the  Consolidated Language and Regional Expertise database for electronic  reporting of requirements. We also reviewed the results of DOD’s  Capabilities-Based Review. With regard to efforts to identify capability  gaps for DOD’s language and regional proficiency capabilities, we  obtained information on and assessed DOD’s development of a Language  Readiness Index that is intended to compare the inventory of personnel  with language and regional proficiency capabilities with the requirements  for these personnel. Moreover, we discussed all of the aforementioned  efforts with a variety of knowledgeable defense officials, in particular with  officials from the Office of the USD(P&R), the Office of the Under  Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Defense Language Office, the Joint  Staff, the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, U.S. Central  Command, U.S. Pacific Command, and U.S. Special Operations Command.  For the purposes of our overall review, we focused on general purposes  forces, conducted only limited work at Special Operations Command  regarding language and regional proficiency for special operations forces,  and did not conduct audit work with the DOD intelligence community.  Therefore, our findings and recommendations primarily address DOD’s  general purpose forces.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the contact named above, key contributors to this report  were Patricia Lentini, Assistant Director; Catherine H. Brown; John  Bumgarner; Gabrielle A. Carrington; MacKenzie Cooper; Joanne  Landesman; Gregory Marchand; Chad Reed; Jay Smale; Kathryn Smith;  and Traye Smith.