The United States is in the process of implementing the largest drawdown of its military forces since the end of the Vietnam conflict. Both the Congress and the Department of Defense (DOD) have established various targets and objectives to guide that drawdown in a balanced manner, in keeping with the nature of the military personnel system. The military personnel system is highly structured, with specific legal and regulatory requirements governing career advancement and service continuation. Within the parameters of those regulatory requirements, there exists a number of decision points where force shaping, design, and reduction actions can be taken by the services. Given the magnitude of downsizing underway, the Congress has provided expanded force shaping authorities and tools to DOD to facilitate downsizing, minimize involuntary separations, and preserve a balanced remaining force. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991 (P.L. 101-510) authorized end-strength levels totaling 1.613 million active duty military personnel as of September 30, 1995. This end strength represents an overall reduction of 561,217 positions, or nearly 26 percent, from the post-Vietnam peak strength of 2.174 million positions at the end of fiscal year 1987. Likewise, the administration, in annual budget submissions during recent years, has submitted out-year reduction targets. The January 1993 budget submission by the previous administration projected continuing force reductions through fiscal year 1999 at which time the services end-strength would be 1.568 million positions. The current administration has accelerated some previously planned personnel reductions but for now has projected future reductions only through fiscal year 1994; its goal for the end of fiscal year 1994 is 1.621 million positions, within 8,000 positions of the levels that the Congress had specified for the end of the following year, fiscal year 1995. Even so, DOD officials have indicated that further reductions will be made as the result of a recently completed “Bottom-up Review” of DOD needs and programs for fiscal years 1995-99; however, new reduction targets by fiscal year were not available as of early September 1993. “the conferees expect the Secretary of Defense to exercise prudent judgment in approving accession levels and force profiles by grade and years of service to guide the personnel strength reduction process in the military services as forces draw down over the next five years.” The conferees also stated their expectation that the military services would maintain the same relationship between officer and enlisted strengths as existed at the end of fiscal year 1990 in making active duty end-strength reductions in the future. DOD has also articulated policy objectives to reduce the military forces, maintain a high state of readiness, treat people fairly—both those who stay and those who leave—and ensure that careful consideration is given to how today’s decisions will affect tomorrow’s force. Some objectives reaffirmed congressional guidance, while others were added such as • protecting careerists near retirement, that is, protecting all qualified service members with 15 years of service or more until they are eligible for retirement; • establishing officer and enlisted accessions at levels necessary to sustain • using the drawdown as an opportunity, wherever possible, to balance officer and enlisted skills; and • establishing policies and procedures that are consistent with legislative guidelines for officer promotion opportunity and timing and, at the same time, controlling senior enlisted grade (top 5 grades) growth and maintaining promotion rates. The services are unique in terms of how they recruit and retain personnel, as well as in how they manage military careers. Within each service, the military personnel system is a centrally managed, “closed” system, meaning that persons recruited with no prior military service are generally brought in at entry level positions and progress through the ranks, contrasted with an “open” system such as the private sector, where new hires can be brought into an organization at various levels depending on the persons’ qualifications and experiences. The military essentially “grows its personnel from within.” Further, the military personnel system, which is predicated on maintaining a relatively young and vigorous work force, operates under an “up-or-out” policy in which members who fail to receive promotions within specific time frames are limited to how long they can remain in the service. Many persons join the military for the education and training benefits, particularly in the enlisted ranks, expecting to remain in the service for only a few years. Others decide to make the military a career; for those individuals, service continuation involves a periodic renewal or extension of their contracted service time. Accordingly, the military services lose significant numbers of personnel through a variety of loss programs each year, and therefore, must recruit enough new members to replace losses and ensure that the services will have enough well trained personnel to meet and sustain future years’ seniority, grade, and experience requirements. DOD data indicate that it has not been unusual for the services to replace more than 15 percent of their active duty personnel each year, even when the authorized end-strength levels are at a relatively “steady state,” neither increasing or decreasing significantly. The services essentially have two personnel systems for active duty military personnel, one for officers and one for enlisted personnel. The officer community is basically governed by the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), while enlisted personnel management is governed by specific DOD regulations. DOPMA was enacted in 1980, establishing key parameters to managing the officer force with the intent of maintaining a continuous flow of officers through the military personnel system over a 20- to 30-year career path, based on normal attrition from voluntary resignations and retirements. The DOPMA legislation outlines standards and procedures relating to the appointment, promotion, separation and retirement of officers in the armed forces. For example, it stipulates how long officers of various ranks may remain on active duty beyond normal retirement eligibility at 20 years. It also prescribes the number of officers each service is authorized in each of the senior ranks from the 0-4 to the 0-6 pay grades, a number that will vary depending on officer end strengths authorized by the Congress. Central to DOPMA is the up-or-out promotion system in which officers generally advance in groups or cohorts originally determined by the year of their commissioning and compete for promotion against other members of the group at set years or zones of consideration for each paygrade. For example, an officer commissioned in 1983 would normally be considered for promotion to paygrade 0-4 in 1993, at the year 10 mark along with other officers in that year group or cohort. Under the DOPMA system, a select group of the 0-3 officers from a particular cohort can be considered for promotion “below the zone,” that is at year 9 (or earlier in selected instances) along with members from that year’s cohort of officers. However, most of the 1983 commissioned officers would have their greatest potential for promotion “in the zone” at year 10. Failing to be selected for promotion at year 10, the officers in this cohort could have an additional opportunity to be considered for promotion in the following year (or later in selected instances) “above the zone,” along with that year’s cohort. Failure to be selected for promotion then would mean these officers could be involuntarily separated. Thus, it is essential that the force at large be managed in such a manner that personnel are able to compete for, attain, and complete key assignments at the right points in their career progression. DOD Directive 1304.20, dated December 19, 1984, and DOD Instruction 1300.14, dated January 29, 1985, provide guidance and outline the basic parameters to enlisted force management. The directive sets constraints on the pay grade mix and career content (personnel with more than 4 to 6 years of service) of the enlisted force and establishes broad goals for elements such as recruitment, career progression and timing of promotions, service continuation, and military occupation specialty balance. The instruction requests the services to undertake specific enlisted force planning to incorporate long-range personnel goals. These plans provide the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) with the means to monitor the services’ progress toward meeting the objectives of the enlisted personnel management system. Promotions for enlisted personnel at various pay grades are affected by time in grade or service requirements that vary by service, and may involve the use of selection boards. Promotions may also be affected by such things as tests, schools attended, evaluations (ratings), and awards. Theoretically, the services could simply increase or decrease recruiting, modifying it to take into consideration normal attrition and retirement levels, in order to increase or decrease authorized end-strength levels. However, given the structure and the nature of military career management programs, such actions, according to DOD officials, could create imbalances in the force in terms of age, skill levels, and right numbers of personnel by specialty area. Thus, constant management of the force at various career points is required to avoid these problems and stay within force management regulations. As previously discussed, the services must replace many personnel each year, even where no changes in authorized end strength are planned. Many personnel losses are voluntary and attributable to completion of initial periods of obligation, and decisions by service members over whether to continue and make the military a career choice. At the other end of the personnel pipeline, many voluntary losses each year are due to retirement decisions. Involuntary reductions can occur anywhere along this personnel pipeline due to misconduct. (App. II shows the services’ loss rates by specific categories for fiscal year 1992.) Unique to the military personnel system is a variety of military personnel requirements and actions, in addition to regular accessions and losses, that may be used to help shape the force, ensure balanced manning by rank and specialties, and preserve needed career advancement opportunities.