The BRAC 2005 Commission Report contains 198 recommendations approved by the BRAC Commission for closing or realigning DOD installations. The text of each recommendation contains several sections with important contextual information: Cost and Savings Information Secretary of Defense Recommendation Secretary of Defense Justification By law, DOD must implement the actions recommended by the Commission unless the President terminates the process, or Congress enacts a resolution of disapproval. BRAC 2005 differed from prior rounds in three significant ways—the circumstances under which it took place, its scale, and its scope. Unlike prior BRAC rounds, which were implemented during times of declining defense budgets and in which the focus was on eliminating excess capacity and realizing cost savings, BRAC 2005 was conducted in a global security environment characterized by increasing defense budgets and increasing military end strengths after the events of September 11, 2001 and was conducted concurrently with overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, DOD was engaged in an initiative to relocate thousands of personnel from overseas to the continental United States. The scale of BRAC 2005 was much larger than the scales of the prior four rounds. BRAC 2005 generated more than twice the number of BRAC actions as all prior BRAC rounds combined. Table 2 compares the number of individual actions embedded in the BRAC 2005 recommendations with the number of individual actions needed to implement the recommendations in the prior rounds and shows that the number of individual BRAC actions was larger in BRAC 2005 (813) than in the four prior BRAC rounds combined (387). The scope of BRAC 2005 was broader than the scope of prior BRAC rounds. In addition to the traditional emphasis on eliminating unneeded infrastructure to achieve savings, DOD’s goals for the 2005 BRAC round included transforming the military by correlating base infrastructure to the force structure and enhancing joint capabilities by improving joint utilization to meet current and future threats. As shown in table 2, the 2005 BRAC round had the second lowest number of major closures, the largest number of major realignments, and the largest number of minor closures and realignments. Part of this transformation effort included a focus on providing opportunities to increase jointness, though many of the BRAC recommendations focused on consolidations and reorganizations within the military departments rather than across departments. However, the six recommendations we reviewed, as well as other recommendations, including creating joint bases, focused on jointness across multiple services. DOD implemented the BRAC 2005 recommendations we reviewed by requiring military services to relocate selected training functions; however we found that, although DOD’s justifications for collocating each of the six training functions that we reviewed mentioned jointness or inter-service training as a potential benefit, two of the six training functions took advantage of the opportunity provided by BRAC to consolidate training to increase jointness. Specifically, we found that DOD implemented all six recommendations by relocating the select training functions—as recommended by the BRAC Commission—but that opportunities for joint training were realized in only two locations. Figure 1 shows the relocations associated with each recommendation. Based on our meetings with officials, we found that officials implementing two of the six training functions created by those recommendations—the Joint Center of Excellence for Culinary Training and the 7th Special Forces Group—had found ways to take advantage of being located together to consolidate training and train jointly. For example, officials at the Joint Center of Excellence for Culinary Training stated that while the Air Force conducts its culinary training separately, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps have successfully consolidated two of the three phases of their training and use a joint curriculum to train students. These officials stated that they were successful at consolidating the culinary training curricula for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps because the leadership involved with implementing this recommendation was supportive of finding a way to train jointly even if that meant changing their curricula. Additionally, Army and Air Force Special Operations Forces officials stated that the relocation of the 7th Special Forces Group to Eglin Air Force Base allowed for increased joint training operations with the Air Force Special Operations Forces located at Hurlburt Field, near Eglin Air Force Base. These officials stated that they were successful at consolidating training and increasing jointness because they were already conducting joint training prior to the BRAC 2005 round and that since their move, being in closer proximity has made it even easier to train jointly. The implementation of the remaining four BRAC recommendations that we reviewed relocated—moved separate functions to one location—but did not consolidate training functions. According to officials at the locations that did not consolidate training, they do not regularly coordinate or share information on their training goals and curricula, despite the fact that part of the Secretary of Defense’s justification for the moves in the BRAC 2005 process was that they would bring a “train as we fight: jointly” perspective to the learning process or would otherwise allow for joint training. Service officials told us that after these recommendations were proposed by DOD and approved by the BRAC Commission, they compared each of their original curricula but did not identify many areas of overlap. Training function officials stated that they had received minimal guidance related to consolidating training. Therefore, we found, they did not adjust curricula to take advantage of their proximity to consolidate training and possibly be more joint and consolidate space. Training function officials also stated that their four training functions have very different missions, making consolidation of their training more difficult. For example, while both the Navy and the Air Force train their navigators at Pensacola Naval Air Station, they train them to fly in different scenarios (e.g., over land or over sea) and in different airplanes. Although the services may have differences in their training, the 2005 BRAC Commission Report noted that the Secretary of Defense had described the 2005 BRAC round as an opportunity to promote jointness. The BRAC Commission Report stated that while the 2005 BRAC recommendations would “not move the ball across the jointness goal line, Commission decisions would help move the ball down the field” toward more jointness. Table 3 summarizes the status of each of the six BRAC recommendations that we reviewed. We found that four of the six training functions in our review missed the opportunity to consolidate training to increase jointness, because DOD provided minimal guidance to direct those implementing the recommendations. Service officials stated that to direct the implementation of the six recommendations we reviewed, DOD provided them with the language from the BRAC Commission report as well as guidance for developing business plans. Using the guidance provided, each of the military departments’ headquarters developed a business plan. This guidance focused on movement of personnel or construction. In our previous work on consolidation of physical infrastructure and management functions, we identified key practices, including developing an implementation plan for the consolidation. Such a plan should include essential change management practices such as active, engaged leadership of executives at the highest possible levels; a dedicated implementation team that can be held accountable for change; and a strategy measuring progress toward the established goals of the consolidation. None of the guidance given to the military departments provided this type of direction. For example, the language from the BRAC Commission report for each recommendation we selected for review is generally less than one page long and contains high level summary information on costs, the action being recommended, DOD’s justification for the recommendation, community concerns, and the BRAC Commissions findings and recommendations. The business plans developed by the military departments included the text of the BRAC 2005 recommendation, a description of costs and savings for each moving organization, a list of organizations moving, a time table for the movement of organizations, details on any military construction, and environmental information. According to a September 2005 memorandum issued by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and related to planning for BRAC 2005 implementation, the business plans were to serve as a foundation for the complex program management necessary to ensure that the recommendations were implemented efficiently and effectively. Additionally, the memorandum states that the implementation challenges presented by transformational recommendations—particularly recommendations to establish joint operations—underscore the utility and necessity of the plans. However, officials from the Basing Directorate under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, the group that oversaw the implementation of BRAC 2005, stated that while the business plans do not include the BRAC 2005 language containing DOD’s justification related to consolidating training to increase jointness, it is the business manager’s responsibility to implement the recommendation, taking into account the intent of the recommendation as described in the justification language. During our review, however, we found that officials responsible for certifying that these six recommendations had been implemented were not required by OSD to certify whether or not they had taken advantage of the opportunity to increase jointness. Rather, the business plan managers were focused on the completion of the construction of buildings and the movement of personnel. Further, officials at the four training functions that did not consolidate training told us that although they had initially compared each service’s curricula to identify common training, they felt that there was not enough overlap in the training for it to be consolidated. They also stated that they had not received direction from OSD or the military services on how to consolidate curricula in order to foster jointness in the event that course curricula had few similarities, prepared personnel to perform different missions, or used different equipment. Like the BRAC 2005 recommendations that directed the relocation of several training functions in order to promote jointness or consolidate similar training, another BRAC 2005 recommendation directed the consolidation of 26 service-specific stand-alone installations into 12 joint bases to take advantage of opportunities for efficiencies and reduce duplication of similar support services. In order to implement this joint basing recommendation, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued guidance in January 2008 designed to establish a comprehensive framework to consolidate installation-support functions while meeting mission requirements. OSD also created an oversight structure for handling disputes and established a set of common standards for the installation support to be provided by each joint base.