Defense Acquisitions: DOD's Requirements Determination Process Has Not Been Effective in Prioritizing Joint Capabilities
Released: 2008-09-25T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Historically, new weapon systems have been developed by the military services to counter specific threats. Under DOD’s Requirements Generation System, the precursor to JCIDS, requirements frequently grew out of the military services’ unique strategic visions and often lacked clear linkages to the national military strategy and the needs of the joint force commanders, who are responsible for carrying out military operations. This service-centric, stovepiped approach often created weapon systems that lacked interoperability, were duplicative, or did not fill critical gaps. In a 2002 memo, the Secretary of Defense expressed dissatisfaction with the requirements system and commented that the system “continues to require things that ought not to be required, and does not require things that need to be required.”

As part of its 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, DOD determined that the department needed to shift from threat-based defense planning to a capabilities-based model that focuses more on how an adversary might fight than who the adversary might be or where a war might be fought. JCIDS was established to provide the department with an integrated, collaborative process to identify and guide development of a broad set of new capabilities that address the current and emerging security environment. Through JCIDS, capabilities are to be developed from national military strategy and should relate to joint concepts that describe how the strategy will be implemented. JCIDS is also intended to ensure a strong voice for warfighters and identify needs from a joint perspective to ensure that current and future warfighters are provided the capabilities they need to accomplish assigned missions. Furthermore, JCIDS emphasizes that needs be derived in terms of capabilities instead of specific system solutions.

The JCIDS process is overseen by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and supports the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense on the priorities of military requirements in supporting the national military strategy. Within JCIDS, FCBs—headed by a general or an admiral and made up of military and civilian representatives from the military services, joint staff, COCOMs, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense—manage different capability area portfolios. The FCBs are intended to support the JROC by evaluating capability needs, recommending enhancements to capabilities integration, examining joint priorities, assessing program alternatives, and minimizing duplication of effort across the department.

The JCIDS process requires that gaps in military capabilities be identified and potential materiel and nonmateriel solutions for filling those gaps be developed based on formal capability assessments. The results of these capability assessments are formally submitted as initial capabilities documents (ICD)—a capability proposal—by a military service, defense agency, COCOM, FCB, or other sponsor. ICDs are intended to document a specific capability gap or set of gaps that exist in joint warfighting functions and propose a prioritized list of various solutions to address the gap(s). When a capability proposal is submitted, a Joint Staff “gatekeeper” conducts an initial review to determine what level of joint interest and review there should be and which FCB should take the lead. Capability proposals deemed to have a significant impact on joint warfighting, such as those involving potential major defense acquisition programs, are designated as “JROC interest” and must be validated or approved by the JROC.

A JROC-validated ICD provides the basis for starting a major weapon system acquisition. Specifically, it should lead to an analysis of alternatives, a concept refinement phase, and a decision on a preferred system concept. Before a weapon system program is approved to begin system development, the sponsor is required to submit a capability development document (CDD)—which defines a specific solution as identified in the analysis of alternatives—through JCIDS for approval by the JROC. The CDD defines the system’s key performance parameters or attributes against which the delivered increment of capability will be measured. Finally, the sponsor prepares a capability production document (CPD) to address the production elements of an acquisition program prior to the program starting production. Figure 1 shows how the documentation relates to the major milestones for a weapon system program in the Defense Acquisition System.

JCIDS Is Not Meeting Its Objective to Prioritize Joint Warfighting Needs

While JCIDS is intended to determine needs from a joint, departmentwide perspective, capability needs continue to be proposed and defined primarily by the military services, with little involvement from the joint community—including the COCOMs, which plan and implement military operations. This can lead to stovepiped and duplicative solutions that do not necessarily support a joint force on the battlefield. In addition, virtually all of the proposals for new capability needs and weapon system solutions completing the JCIDS process since 2003 have been validated.

The JCIDS process has also proven to be lengthy, taking on average up to 10 months to validate a need. Such a protracted process further undermines the department’s efforts to effectively respond to the needs of the warfighter, especially those that are near term.

The Services, Not the Joint Warfighting Community, Continue to Sponsor Most JCIDS Proposals

Our review of the documentation associated with 90 “JROC interest” ICDs submitted to JCIDS since 2003 showed that 60 proposals, or 67 percent, were sponsored by a military service, and 23, or 26 percent, were sponsored by a COCOM, an FCB, or the Joint Staff. (See fig. 2.)

JCIDS is intended to encourage collaboration among the services, COCOMs, and other DOD organizations to identify joint solutions to capability gaps, and there are some cases where this has occurred. For example, the Navy submitted a capability proposal through JCIDS to get a precision and landing system in place to avoid delays in delivering its aircraft carriers in development. The lead FCB reviewed the Navy’s proposal and recognized that it was similar to a need identified by the Air Force and determined that the Air Force’s needs could be met under the same proposal. However, according to JCIDS officials, FCB, COCOM, and other stakeholder reviews have had little influence in promoting joint solutions.

Past studies have also raised concerns that the services and the COCOMs do not routinely collaborate to identify possible joint solutions. For example, in 2006 the Army Audit Agency recommended that the Army improve collaboration with the joint community early in the capabilities planning process to improve the quality of its capabilities documents and facilitate more timely reviews of proposals that are submitted into the JCIDS process. In January 2006, the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Panel concluded that JCIDS resulted in capabilities that did not meet warfighter needs in a timely manner and recommended that JCIDS be replaced with a COCOM-led requirements process in which the services and defense agencies compete to provide solutions. The Defense Science Board similarly reported that JCIDS has not provided for increased warfighter influence, but instead actually suppresses joint needs in favor of military service interests, and recommended an increase in the formal participation role of the COCOMs in the JCIDS process. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has also pointed out that while the services are responsible for supplying operationally capable armed forces, the COCOMs are responsible for responding to threats and executing military operations. Therefore, it recommended that the Joint Forces Command take the lead in conducting capabilities development planning for the COCOMs and become a formal member of the JROC.

By continuing to rely on stovepiped solutions to address capability needs, DOD may be losing opportunities to improve joint warfighting capabilities and reduce the duplication of capabilities in some areas. In January 2006, we reported that military operations continue to be hampered by the inability of communication and weapon systems to operate effectively together on the battlefield. In May 2007, we reported that while the military services have successfully planned and fielded a number of unmanned aerial vehicle systems over the past several years, DOD has struggled to coordinate the development of these systems across the services and ensure that they complement one another and avoid duplicating capabilities. Specifically, despite similarities in proposed capabilities between two key unmanned aerial vehicle systems—the Air Force’s Predator program and the Army’s Warrior program—the Army awarded a separate development contract to the same contractor producing the Predator. By taking separate tracks to developing these two systems, the Air Force and the Army missed an opportunity to identify potential similarities in their requirements and thereby avoid redundant or non-interoperable systems. Although the Army and Air Force agreed to consider cooperating on the acquisition of the two systems, the services are struggling to agree on requirements.

Virtually All Capability Proposals That Have Completed the JCIDS Process Are Validated

JCIDS is intended to support senior decision makers in identifying and prioritizing warfighting capability needs. As such, it is meant to be an important tool in maintaining a balanced portfolio of acquisition programs that can be executed within available resources. However, the vast majority of proposals completing the JCIDS process are approved—or validated. Adding to a portfolio that already contains more programs than resources can support is likely to perpetuate instability and poor outcomes in weapon system programs.

Of the 203 JROC-interest capability proposals (ICDs and CDDs) we reviewed, 140 completed the JCIDS process and were validated. Of the remaining proposals, 57 are still under review, and 6 are considered inactive (see fig. 3). According to a Joint Staff representative, some proposals are returned to sponsors for modifications because the supporting documentation lacked sufficient analysis to justify the capability gap and solutions being presented, or because reviewers raised other technical concerns that needed to be resolved. Returned proposals are usually modified and resubmitted to the JCIDS process. The 6 proposals that are considered inactive were not resubmitted by the sponsors.

According to JCIDS officials, proposals are not prioritized across capability and mission areas. Instead, the extent to which any prioritization has occurred within JCIDS has been limited to the key performance parameters or requirements within individual capability proposals. For example, the Special Forces Command wanted to add capabilities to a Navy-sponsored JCIDS proposal—described in a CDD— for a high-speed intratheater surface lift capability to transport military units and supplies into shallow and remote areas. However, addressing a key capability requested by the Special Forces Command—to land a V-22 aircraft on the surface ship—would have necessitated a major redesign for the proposed Navy ship and delayed providing capabilities to the warfighter by several years. While the JROC agreed that the Special Forces Command’s requirement was valid, it decided to approve the Navy capability proposal without the Special Forces Command requirement and requested that a study be undertaken to identify how this requirement could be addressed in the future.

The lack of early prioritization of capability needs through JCIDS makes it difficult for DOD to balance its portfolio of weapons programs. Validated proposals tend to gain momentum and win approval to become formal weapon system programs—in part because other reviews are not conducted prior to the start of system development and demonstration, or Milestone B. In prior work, we found that 80 percent of the programs we reviewed entered the acquisition system at Milestone B without a Milestone A or other prior major review. By this time, the military services have already established a budget and formed a constituency for their individual capability needs. Successful commercial companies we have reviewed value and use a disciplined approach to prioritize needs early and often—one that views potential product development programs as related parts of a companywide portfolio. These companies make tough decisions to defer or say no to proposed products and achieve a balanced portfolio—one that matches requirements with resources and weighs near- and long-term needs.

Since JCIDS was implemented, the number of major defense acquisition programs in DOD’s portfolio has increased from 77 to 93, or by 21 percent. This increase is likely to exacerbate an already sizable disparity between what programs are expected to cost and available funding. The estimated acquisition costs remaining for major weapon system programs increased 130 percent from fiscal year 2000 through fiscal year 2007, while the annual funding for these programs increased by a more modest 67 percent (see fig. 4). During the same time frame, the remaining costs for the major weapon systems in DOD’s portfolio went from being about four times greater to almost six times greater than annual funding.

Shortfalls as significant as this are likely to be fiscally unsustainable. As we recently reported, to compensate for funding shortfalls, DOD has made unplanned and inefficient program adjustments—including shifting funding between programs, deferring work and associated costs into the future, or cutting procurement quantities. Such reactive practices contribute to the instability of many programs and undesirable acquisition outcomes.

JCIDS Has Proven to Be a Lengthy Process

The JCIDS process may lack the efficiency and agility needed to respond to warfighter needs—especially those that are near term—because the review and validation of capability proposals can take a significant amount of time. A proposal submitted to JCIDS can go through several review and comment resolution phases before consensus is reached on the proposal, and through several levels of approval before the JROC validates the proposal. Our review of capability proposals submitted to JCIDS from fiscal years 2003 through 2008 found that review and validation takes on average 8 to 10 months (see fig. 5). JCIDS and service officials also indicated that prior to submitting a JCIDS proposal, the sponsor can take a year or more to complete a capabilities-based assessment and get a proposal approved. In other words, 2 years or more can elapse from the time a capability need is identified by a sponsor to the time the capability is validated by the JROC.

Given the size and complexity and level of funding that will be committed to many of these capability needs, the length of the process may be warranted. However, concerns have been raised by officials within the department about how responsive JCIDS can be—concerns that may prompt some sponsors to bypass the process. According to some department officials, too much time is spent reviewing individual capability proposals with little evidence of increased attention to prioritization or jointness. Senior COCOM officials we spoke with also stated that the JCIDS process is not conducive to addressing near-term requirements—the primary focus of the COCOMs—and that the lengthy nature of the JCIDS process makes it difficult to adjust to emerging needs. In one case, the Army used extraordinary measures, going outside DOD’s normal requirements, acquisition, and budgeting process to acquire and field the Joint Network Node-Network (JNN-N)—a $2 billion, commercial- based system designed to improve satellite communication capabilities for deployed military units in Afghanistan and Iraq. While JNN-N provided enhanced capability for the warfighter, the work-around allowed the Army to bypass the management and oversight typically required of DOD programs of this magnitude.

In 2005, DOD established the Joint Urgent Operational Need (JUON) process to respond to urgent needs associated with combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the war on terror. The JUON process is intended to prevent mission failure or loss of life and is generally considered to be more efficient than JCIDS for meeting urgent needs. However, short-term needs that do not qualify as urgent operational needs—such as JNN-N—must still go through JCIDS.

DOD Has Faced Challenges in Implementing JCIDS but Has Efforts Under Way to Improve the Prioritization of Joint Needs

DOD lacks the necessary framework for more effective implementation of JCIDS. The department has not yet developed a structured, analytical approach to prioritize capability proposals submitted to the JCIDS process. Additionally, the FCBs, which were established to manage the JCIDS process, do not have the capacity to effectively take the lead in prioritizing capability needs. Without an approach and entity in charge to determine what capabilities are needed, all proposals tend to be treated as priorities within the JCIDS process. The Joint Staff has recently taken steps to improve the prioritization of capability needs across DOD.

DOD Lacks an Effective Structure to Facilitate the Prioritization of Capability Needs

DOD’s failure to prioritize capability needs through the JCIDS process is due in part to the lack of an analytic framework to determine and manage capability needs from a departmentwide perspective. To date, JCIDS largely responds to capability proposals that are submitted by component sponsors on a case-by-case basis. Lacking a more proactive approach, JCIDS has been ineffective at integrating and balancing needs from the military services, COCOMs, and other defense components. DOD has several different approaches to identify capability needs but they do not appear to be well integrated with JCIDS. For example, each COCOM submits annually to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff an integrated priority list, which defines the COCOM’s highest-priority capability gaps for the near term, including shortfalls that may adversely affect COCOM missions. However, it is unclear to what extent integrated priority lists or other approaches, such as JUONs and lessons learned from recent and ongoing military operations, inform the JCIDS process. According to officials from several COCOMs, needs identified through integrated priority lists are not typically developed into JCIDS capability proposals. These officials indicated that to be successful in getting a need addressed, they have to build a coalition with one or more services that may have similar needs.

At the same time, the military services continue to drive the determination of capability needs, in part because they retain most of DOD’s analytical capacity and resources for requirements development. According to Air Force and Army officials, they have several hundred staff involved in capabilities planning and development. In contrast, the FCBs are relatively small, with the majority having 12 or fewer staff members. FCB officials noted that the assessments that must be conducted to support a capability proposal can cost several million dollars and require several staff years of effort. Consequently, the FCBs only sponsored five capability development proposals over the last 5 years and generally devote most of their time and effort to reviewing documents submitted by sponsors and providing recommendations on them to the JROC. In March 2008, we reported that the FCB responsible for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities lacked sufficient resources to engage in early coordination with sponsors and review the sponsors’ capability assessments. Representatives from several of the FCBs also indicated that they lack the expertise to effectively weigh in on the technical feasibility and costs of sponsors’ capability proposals and identify trade-offs that may be needed to modify proposals. A study performed under contract for the Joint Staff in July 2007 also found that some FCBs were under resourced for performing their duties.

COCOMs, particularly the regional commands, also lack analytic capacity and resources to become more fully engaged in JCIDS—either by developing their own capability assessments or participating in reviews and commenting on proposals submitted to JCIDS. Some COCOM officials pointed out that because of their limited resources, they must pick and choose capability proposals to get involved in. Several studies have recommended that DOD increase joint analytic resources for a less stovepiped understanding of warfighting needs.

Efforts Under Way to Improve Prioritization and Streamline the JCIDS Process

In 2006, the JROC developed a most pressing military issues list in an effort to identify the most important high-level issues facing the department and thereby provide better guidance to sponsors and FCBs on what capability assessments to focus on. In addition, the JROC directed the FCBs to develop and implement an approach to synthesize the COCOMs’ annual integrated priority lists and bring greater focus to prioritizing joint capability needs. This resulted, in 2007, in a consolidated list of capability needs. The JROC has also increased its involvement with the COCOMs through regular trips and meetings to discuss capability needs and resourcing issues. According to joint staff officials, these efforts have helped the JROC gain an increased understanding of the COCOMs’ needs as well as provided the COCOMs with a forum for communicating their needs. Officials from several COCOMs noted that many of the near- term needs reflected in their integrated priority lists are now being addressed more effectively through annual budget adjustments and force structure changes.

At the direction of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff has also recently begun a project to provide a more systematic approach to prioritizing capability areas and gaps that need to be addressed across the department. This effort is intended to identify the near-, mid-, and long- term needs of the military services and other defense components and synthesize them with the needs of the COCOMs. The project’s first step, which is expected to be completed by the Joint Staff by the end of 2008, focuses on establishing what capabilities are most important to carrying out military operations either now or in the future. Capability areas will then be assessed to identify and prioritize where deficiencies or gaps in capabilities exist, and where additional capabilities may or may not be needed. The framework being used in the project is similar to one that the Institute for Defense Analysis developed with the U.S. Pacific Command a few years ago to strengthen the analytical basis for the integrated priority lists. The framework used by U.S. Pacific Command links capability needs to elements of the operational plans that the command is responsible for executing. Capability needs are determined by consolidating the views of operational planners, capability developers, and other subject matter experts from within the command.

If the project achieves expected results, the FCBs—and ultimately, the JROC—would be able to screen new capabilities proposals during the JCIDS review process while having knowledge of the capacity and sufficiency of existing requirements. According to Joint Staff officials, however, there are key challenges to implementing the project and coming up with a credible prioritization of capability needs. A major challenge will be to determine how best to integrate service and COCOM capability perspectives that are typically based on different roles, missions, and time frames. The military services tend to address capabilities in terms of defense planning scenarios that identify the mid- and long-term challenges the department must be prepared to handle. This has led to the development of capability proposals that advocate the need for the “next generation” of weapon system capability. In contrast, the COCOMs tend to address capabilities in terms of being able to execute operational plans they have developed for assigned missions in their geographic areas of responsibility. As such, the COCOMs’ focus has been on current and near- term needs. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and others have advocated that mid- and long-term capability planning capacity is needed for COCOMs and that the functional COCOMs should perhaps play a stronger role in representing the regional COCOMs. Another challenge will be in developing appropriate criteria and measures for identifying capability gaps and determining the relative importance of these needed capabilities. Such criteria and measures have generally been lacking in the JCIDS process.

Adjustments have also been made to try to streamline the JCIDS process to reduce the time it typically takes to validate capability proposals. One recent change to the process means a sponsor does not have to submit a CPD if the program is on track and there are no changes since the CDD was validated. In addition, the Joint Staff has been tracking the amount of time it takes to get through the various review and comment phases of JCIDS and implemented measures to speed up the adjudication of reviewers’ comments on capability proposals. As a result, there has been some improvement in reducing the time it takes to validate capability proposals. For example, we found that capability proposals (ICDs and CDDs) took about 9.5 months to be validated during 2003 to 2005 compared to about 8 months during 2006 to 2008. The Joint Staff has also recognized that the definitions used to determine what capability proposals must be brought to the JROC for approval is too broad and some proposals could be delegated to other authorities for validation. The definitions are being modified in part to focus JROC oversight on proposals that may truly warrant JROC involvement. Furthermore, the JROC is considering delegating authority for some JROC-interest capability proposals to lower levels, such as the Joint Capabilities Board and the FCBs.

Conclusions

By establishing JCIDS, DOD has, to some extent, recognized the need to better ensure that joint warfighting needs can be addressed within fiscal resource constraints. However, the process has not proven to be an effective approach to increase the level of joint participation or to prioritize the capability needs of the services, COCOMs, and other DOD components. While DOD has begun initiatives to improve JCIDS, the department continues to lack an analytic approach and an appropriate alignment of resources to balance competing capability needs. Consequently, DOD continues to start more weapons programs than current and likely future financial resources can support and miss opportunities to improve joint warfighting capabilities. Until JCIDS evolves from a service-centric process to a process that balances service and joint near-, mid-, and long-term capability needs, DOD will continue to contend with managing a portfolio that does not match available resources and risk failing to provide joint capabilities needed by the warfighter.

Recommendations for Executive Action

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop an analytic approach within JCIDS to better prioritize and balance the capability needs of the military services, COCOMs, and other defense components. The Joint Staff should consider whether current efforts—particularly, the capabilities prioritization project—should be adopted as a framework for this approach. The approach should also establish appropriate criteria and measures for identifying capability gaps and determining the relative importance of near-, mid-, and long-term capability needs. Ultimately, the approach should provide a means to review and validate proposals more efficiently and ensure that the most important capability needs of the department are being addressed.

We also recommend that the Secretary of Defense determine and allocate appropriate resources for joint capabilities development planning. In so doing, the Secretary should consider whether the responsibility and capacity of the COCOMs and FCBs to conduct joint capabilities development planning should be increased, whether one or more of the functional COCOMs should be given the responsibility and capacity to conduct joint capabilities development planning, and whether resources currently residing within the military services for capabilities development planning should be shifted to the COCOMs and FCBs.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with our first recommendation and concurred with the second recommendation. DOD’s partial concurrence with our first recommendation—that an analytic approach be developed within JCIDS to better prioritize and balance the capability needs of the military services, COCOMs, and defense components—is based on the premise that prioritization occurs through several existing processes in the department, and that JCIDS is not intended to be the primary means of prioritizing. DOD’s concurrence with our second recommendation—to determine and allocate appropriate resources for joint capabilities development planning—is based on its position that resources are adequate and have been allocated appropriately. The department’s response to both of our recommendations leads us to conclude that it does not see a need to improve its ability to prioritize and balance joint capability needs.

In commenting on our first recommendation, DOD pointed out that identifying, prioritizing, and balancing joint capability needs occurs through multiple processes both within and outside of JCIDS, such as COCOM integrated priority lists and JUONs, as well as through the department’s budgeting and acquisition systems. We acknowledge that these DOD processes play a role in delivering capabilities to the warfighter; however, as we note in our report, these processes do not appear to be well integrated with JCIDS. Regardless, DOD established JCIDS as the principal process to support senior decision makers in identifying, assessing, and prioritizing joint warfighting needs. The process was intended to move the department away from a service-centric, stovepiped approach to a joint approach that helps ensure that COCOMs are provided the capabilities needed to carry out military operations. However, many of the COCOMs do not believe that their needs are sufficiently addressed through JCIDS and there is no evidence that the process has achieved its intended goals. In fact, capability proposals submitted through JCIDS are not prioritized and largely continue to reflect insular interests. Unless an analytic approach to prioritize and balance the capability needs of the services, COCOMs, and other defense components is established, DOD will continue losing opportunities to strengthen joint warfighting capabilities and constrain its portfolio of weapon system programs. Given that JCIDS was established for this purpose, it seems logical to build such an approach within JCIDS.

In concurring with our second recommendation, DOD asserts that the resources currently allocated for joint capabilities development planning are appropriate. However, while the FCBs may be sufficiently resourced to review capability proposals submitted by sponsors into JCIDS, they lack the resources and capacity to play a leading role in defining and prioritizing joint capability needs for their functional capability areas. In addition, while the JCIDS process provides opportunities for their participation, the COCOMs lack the resources and analytic capacity to conduct their own capability assessments or review proposals submitted by other sponsors. Several other recent studies similarly indicated that the COCOMs are underrepresented in the department’s efforts to determine joint capabilities. We continue to believe that a better alignment of resources for conducting joint capabilities planning—among the services, FCBs, and COCOMs—would help the department to more effectively prioritize and balance competing capability needs.

DOD also provided information about recent initiatives that are being implemented to improve the JCIDS, budgeting, and acquisition processes, and to strengthen the involvement of the joint community in determining capability needs. For example, since completing our draft report, the JROC moved to give the COCOMs a greater voice in the JCIDS process by delegating responsibility for validating requirements in the command and control functional area to the Joint Forces Command. While this initiative and others appear promising, as DOD notes, it is too early to determine whether the full benefits of these initiatives will be realized.

In addition, DOD commented that our report did not sufficiently recognize the extent of joint participation that occurs through the JCIDS process. DOD stated that many of the services’ proposals are in direct response to capability gaps identified by the COCOMs and that the JCIDS process is structured to provide the joint community multiple opportunities and time to review proposals and ensure that they correctly state the needs of the joint warfighter. While we agree that some proposals submitted to JCIDS do address joint needs, the services still largely drive the vast majority of capability needs that are pursued in the department. Furthermore, once proposals are submitted to JCIDS, there is little evidence of increased attention to prioritization or jointness that results from the review of these proposals.

DOD’s letter, with its written comments and description of new initiatives, is reprinted in appendix IV.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy; and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. We will provide copies to others on request. This report will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions about this report or need additional information, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or sullivanm@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 were John Oppenheim, Assistant Director; John Krump; Sean Seales; Karen Sloan; and Don Springman.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To determine whether the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System process has achieved its objective to prioritize joint warfighting needs, we analyzed information and capability documents contained in the Joint Staff’s Knowledge Management/Decision Support tool compiled since the inception of JCIDS. First, we determined how many capability documents—initial capabilities documents (ICD) and capability development documents (CDD)—were designated “JROC-interest,” which are defined as all Acquisition Category (ACAT) I programs and other programs whose capabilities have a significant impact on joint warfighting. We identified a total of 203 capability documents—90 ICDs and 113 CDDs. We then analyzed and determined whether the capability documents were sponsored by the joint community, military services, and other Department of Defense (DOD) agencies. In addition, we determined which documents had completed the JCIDS process and been validated, which had completed the process and are inactive, and which are still under review. We also determined the amount of time required for capability documents to complete the JCIDS process and the amount of time other documents have remained in the process. We also reviewed Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) memorandums validating requirements documents to determine if requirements were assigned a priority upon validation. Further, we reviewed budgeted and projected program costs for major defense acquisitions reported by DOD’s Selected Acquisition Report summary tables for the years 2000 to 2007, covering periods before and after the inception of JCIDS.

To identify factors affecting DOD’s ability to effectively implement JCIDS, we analyzed the existing structure of the JCIDS process and evaluated the sufficiency of the Joint military community workforce for preparing and reviewing JCIDS requirements documents. We provided written questionnaires to functional capability boards (FCB) to determine staffing and resource levels. We also evaluated recent DOD initiatives designed to improve the JCIDS process.

In researching both of our primary objectives, we interviewed officials from the Joint Staff; DOD’s FCBs; U.S. Special Operations Command; U.S.

Joint Forces Command; U.S. Pacific Command; U.S. Central Command; Department of the Air Force; Department of the Navy; and Department of the Army. We reviewed statements made by DOD officials in prior congressional testimony. We reviewed prior GAO and other audit reports as well as DOD-sponsored studies related to JCIDS that were conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project, the Defense Science Board, and Booz Allen Hamilton. We reviewed guidance and regulations issued by the Joint Staff, the military services, and DOD, as well as other DOD-produced documentation related to JCIDS.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2007 to August 2008 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.

Appendix II: Functional Capabilities Boards

Nine FCBs have been established by the JROC to evaluate issues impacting their respective functional areas and provide subject matter expertise to the JROC. The assigned functional areas and sponsoring organizations of the FCBs are shown in table 1. FCBs assist the JROC in overseeing capabilities development within JCIDS, to include assessment of ICDs, CDDs, and CPDs. FCBs can only make recommendations, and are not empowered to approve or disapprove of proposals.

Appendix III: Combatant Commands

There are currently 10 unified combatant commands (COCOM) serving as DOD’s operational commanders—6 with geographic responsibilities and 4 with functional responsibilities. The 6 COCOMs with geographic responsibilities are U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Pacific Command, and U.S. Southern Command. Their geographic areas of responsibility are shown in figure 6.

The four functional COCOMs are U.S. Joint Forces Command, which engages in joint training and force provision; U.S. Special Operations Command, which trains, equips, and deploys special operations forces to other COCOMs and leads counterterrorist missions worldwide; U.S. Strategic Command, whose missions include space and information operations, missile defense, global command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, strategic deterrence, and integration and synchronization of DOD’s departmentwide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction; and U.S. Transportation Command, which provides air, land, and sea transportation for DOD.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense