Foreign language needs have significantly increased throughout DOD and the federal government with the presence of a wider range of security threats, the emergence of new nation states, and the globalization of the U.S. economy. The difficulties in maintaining sufficient foreign language capabilities among federal agencies and departments have been identified as a serious human capital problem for some time. The entire military has faced shortfalls in language capability in recent operations, such as difficulties in finding sufficient numbers of qualified language speakers during peacekeeping operations in the Balkans and combat actions in Afghanistan. In recent reports, we have stated that shortages of staff with foreign language skills have affected agency operations and have hindered U.S. military, law enforcement, intelligence, counterterrorism, and diplomatic efforts. The U.S. Special Operations Command faces similar challenges in managing its SOF language training to maintain sufficient language capability to support its missions. For example, (1) it is common for SOF personnel to have received language training in more than three languages during their career; (2) SOF units often operate in geographic regions where there are numerous languages, (3) high operational demands and force structure limitations often require SOF personnel to operate in areas where their specific foreign language(s) are not spoken, and (4) it is difficult to determine the right languages and personnel mix to address a wide variety of unknown and hard-to-forecast small-scale conflicts. The U.S. Special Operations Command established its SOF Foreign Language Program in 1993 to provide combatant commanders with SOF individuals and units that have the required foreign language proficiency to meet current and future operational requirements. The command designated the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as the proponent in all matters related to training, policies, programs, and procedures for SOF language requirements and capabilities. In 1998, the Army Command established the Special Operations Forces Language Office at Fort Bragg. Currently located in the command’s training directorate, the office is responsible for providing technical oversight and developing, coordinating, and executing foreign-language- training strategies for active-duty, reserve, and National Guard SOF personnel within the three service components: the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command, and the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. The office is also responsible for running the Army’s SOF foreign language program. The Navy and Air Force SOF components are responsible for managing their own language-training programs. The foreign language program provides training for more than 12,000 SOF military personnel (about 28 percent of all 43,671 SOF personnel) who are required to acquire some level of proficiency in one or more foreign languages. Of these, about 90 percent (10,833) are in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command; more than half of them are in Army Reserve or National Guard units. (See table 1.) The remaining 10 percent of SOF personnel with language needs are in the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command (1,128) and U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (155).The training consists of initial acquisition (becoming proficient in a new language), sustainment (maintaining a proficiency), and enhancement (raising a proficiency). It also includes a basic orientation to the customs and cultures of world regions where their languages are used. SOF personnel require foreign language skills in most of the special operations forces’ core tasks, such as unconventional warfare, counterterrorism, counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, civil affairs, psychological operations, information operations, and foreign internal defense. The command, in coordination with the organizations for which it provides forces, determines the languages, levels of proficiencies, and number of language-qualified personnel needed in its units through an assessment of the operational needs of the geographic unified commands.Currently, SOF has requirements in more than 30 foreign languages, such as Chinese Mandarin, Modern Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Persian-Farsi, Russian, and Spanish. In contrast with other intelligence or diplomatic foreign language training, SOF training places greater emphasis on oral communication skills (speaking and listening) than on nonverbal skills (reading and writing) in order to give SOF personnel the ability to communicate during operations in the field. The level of proficiency that needs to be achieved varies by unit and mission and can range from limited skills necessary to understand and utter certain memorized phrases for immediate survival to more intermediate skills (e.g., the ability to deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tenses) necessary to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements. For example, the Army’s Special Forces units (active-duty and National Guard), which account for about half of the Army personnel with a language requirement, generally need only a limited command of the language for immediate survival needs. Personnel who conduct psychological operations, foreign internal defense, and civil affairs missions generally need higher proficiency skills because of their greater contact and interaction with local civilians and military personnel. Although higher proficiency levels are desired, language is only one, and often not the highest, priority of the many skills that SOF personnel must acquire and maintain to effectively conduct their missions. Appendix II provides information on language proficiency levels and requirements. The special operations forces foreign language program is funded directly through the command’s annual budget. Funding for the program amounted to $9.5 million and $10.2 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, respectively, and it is projected to be $11.1 million in fiscal year 2004. The command provides portions of the program’s funding to each service component command to pay for its own respective foreign language training activities and to SOFLO to manage the program. The program’s funding constitutes a very small portion of the command’s annual budget, which is projected to be about $6.7 billion in fiscal year 2004. The command and SOFLO have taken several recent actions to begin addressing a number of long-standing problems in delivering and managing foreign language training to special operations forces. However, these actions are being taken without the benefit of a cohesive management framework, which incorporates strategic planning (a strategy and strategic plan with associated performance plans and reports), that would guide the program, integrate its activities, and monitor its performance. Such an approach would help the program maintain its present momentum, better manage its human capital challenges, and meet the language-training needs of SOF personnel as they take on new roles and responsibilities. The command and SOFLO are taking several actions that begin to strengthen the foreign-language-training program for SOF forces. These actions include consolidating all language training under a single contractor, completing a long overdue assessment of language requirements, improving communication and coordination with all program stakeholders, developing a database to monitor language proficiencies and training, and looking for ways to make use of other foreign-language-training assets. According to a SOFLO official, these actions have been initiated in part by the command’s increased attention since September 11, 2001, to issues involving SOF language capabilities necessary to carry out core missions. For many years, the SOF foreign-language-training program’s service components and their units acquired language training through multiple contractors, encompassing a variety of private companies and universities. According to command officials, this practice led to inconsistencies in the type and quality of training, the response to meeting new or changing language requirements, and the way language training was acquired by individual service components. Various contractors used different instruction methods, and their training materials varied in quality. In September 2002, the command awarded all of its commercial language training to a single contractor, B.I.B. Consultants. Command officials told us that the new 5-year contract provides for greater standardization and a more consistent approach to language training and improves the way language training services are acquired throughout the command. Specifically, the new contract offers a universal, standardized training curriculum, an ability to customize instruction to meet specific needs; a way to attain language proficiencies faster; and a consistent monitoring of instruction and individual performance. The contractor, a business franchise of Berlitz International, plans to use its parent’s worldwide resources to provide SOF personnel with a variety of instruction services (such as classroom instruction, tutoring, and total immersion training in a live or virtual environment). Command officials also believe that the instruction method used by the contractor offers a way for SOF personnel to attain proficiency faster. To fully realize the benefits of the new contract, the command has required each of its service components and their units to use the contract to meet all their language-training needs, except when they take advantage of other government language resources, such as the Defense Language Institute. Some of the B.I.B. contract costs are higher than those in previous contracts because the command awarded the new contract on the basis of “best value” and gave management and technical factors higher consideration than price. A SOFLO official estimated that the annual contract cost is currently about $5.5 million to $6 million. If this figure remains the same each year, the total cost of the 5-year contract is projected to be about $30 million. A SOFLO official said that the total amount could be higher if SOF service components utilize more of the contract’s language services. This could happen as the service components and their units become more familiar with the contract services and as more SOF personnel return from current deployments and are able to access language training. The official also said that some costs are higher than those in prior contracts for such language-training services as total immersion, in which students practice a language while living in another country or in a language-controlled isolated environment. Command officials believe the improved quality and delivery of language training outweigh any increased cost. B.I.B.