The Total Army Analysis process has evolved from one that determined the requirements for and allocated authorized personnel to units involved in war-fighting to one that does this for the entire Army. Although Total Army Analysis 2005 included some analysis of requirements for the “institutional Army,” the current version is the Army’s first attempt to identify requirements for the total Army. This analysis includes units required to fight two major-theater wars, forces needed to meet treaty requirements, and the institutional forces needed to augment and support these operations. The Army’s expanded analysis is an acknowledgment that its entire force structure supports its war-fighting element in one way or another. To quantify and communicate these requirements, Total Army Analysis 2007 determined the forces it needs by summing its requirements in five categories: War-fighting — This category includes combat and support forces that would deploy to fight two nearly simultaneous major theater wars. The Army starts with the combat forces specified in the Department of Defense (DOD) guidance and then determines the support forces needed to support its combat troops through quantitative analysis using computer modeling. For the first time, the Army also determined the requirements for a post-hostilities phase of the war in addition to the actual conflict stage. Subject matter experts were used to determine these post-hostilities requirements by analyzing the forces needed to perform an agreed-upon list of mission tasks. Small Scale Contingencies —This category includes those forces needed to meet certain treaty commitments since these missions would need to continue even in wartime. The Army assumes that all other forces engaged in contingencies would be re-deployed to war-fighting if a conflict arose and therefore does not calculate additional requirements for such contingencies as part of its Total Army Analysis. Strategic Reserve, Domestic Support, and Homeland Defense Operations —These are the forces needed to augment the major theater war requirements, conduct post-hostility operations, perform jobs left vacant by deploying forces, provide national missile defense, respond to incidents involving weapons of mass destruction, protect critical infrastructure, and provide military assistance to civilian authorities. Base Generating Force —This category includes those U.S.-based institutional force positions whose personnel provide for, access, organize, train, equip, maintain, project, redeploy, and restore Army forces. Military, civilian, and contractor personnel fill these positions. Base Engagement Force —This category includes those positions needed to meet the continuous/long-term forward presence that shapes the theater in support of U.S. interests. It includes all overseas institutional force positions currently filled by military, civilian, and contractor personnel. Once the Army sums up its force structure requirements from these five categories, it then compares its currently authorized force with these requirements to identify shortfalls. The Army then prepares a plan for reallocating forces to fill some unmet requirements in a manner that is expected to reduce war-fighting risk. This plan may include converting some types of forces into other types where critical shortfalls are projected. These reallocations and conversions will be made from fiscal year 2002 through fiscal 2007. Table 1 shows the results of Total Army Analysis 2007, including the distribution of the Army’s requirements among the five categories, the Army’s allocation of forces to meet these requirements, and the specific shortfalls that were identified. The Army has made significant progress toward making the Total Army Analysis a more credible and comprehensive process for determining requirements and identifying shortfalls in planned force structure. In the most recent analysis, the Army made the scenarios in its models for war-fighting forces more realistic, revised some assumptions to reflect more current data, and integrated the latest Army plans and innovations for reorganizing forces and modernizing logistics. To make the analysis more comprehensive, the Army calculated requirements for the entire Army to include civilian personnel and contractors—not just the military personnel associated with war-fighting. However, the Army is still refining the process and will need to address certain shortcomings before it has a sound process in place for determining all requirements. Over time, the Army has enhanced its analysis to provide a sounder basis for its war-fighting requirements. It has done this by incrementally incorporating more realistic and stringent assumptions and planning factors. During the most recent analysis, the Army included several changes that made Total Army Analysis 2007 more realistic and complete, some of which are related to our past recommendations. The major changes are as follows: In our review of Total Army Analysis 2005, we recommended that the Army develop more realistic scenarios to use in assessing its ability to win the two major-theater wars and in calculating the required force structure. Total Army Analysis 2007 uses more realistic scenarios, taking into account, for example, the effects of the enemy’s use of chemical and biological weapons, including those delivered by theater ballistic missiles. As a result, the Army identified the need for about 5,000 more medical personnel to treat casualties caused by chemical and biological weapons. In addition, the analysis allowed the Army to gauge the impact of these weapons on the ability of the United States to move personnel and cargo through seaports and airfields. In our reviews of the Army’s 2003 and 2005 analyses, we noted that the Army had not assessed how war-fighting might be affected by DOD guidance to redeploy forces from contingency operations to the war-fight. Thus, it did not know if disengaging units from ongoing contingency operations would present an obstacle to carrying out the National Military Strategy or if its force structure contained the numbers and types of units needed for the contingency operations. We found that the Army addressed both questions in Total Army Analysis 2007. We also recommended in our review of Total Army Analysis 2005 that the Army include in its analysis all phases of the wars. In Total Army Analysis 2007, the Army added a requirement for the post-hostilities phase of the wars. This phase was needed to recognize that, once the war was over, there would be a continuing need for forces to provide security, handle prisoners of war, and exercise control over the local population. In its 2007 analysis, the Army assessed the requirements for this phase and added about 12,000 personnel to its war-fighting requirements. The analysis has also been modified to integrate more current Army plans and initiatives. For example, advances in digital technology under the Army’s Force XXI initiative improved the lethality of Army tank units and allowed the Army to reduce the number of tanks per unit. Fewer crews, along with fewer vehicles to maintain, reduced the number of personnel required for an armored division. Also, the Army is currently pursuing a major initiative to transform the Army into a force that is more strategically responsive to the complete spectrum of operations. Although this transformation is still in its early stages and operational and logistical plans have not been fully developed, the analysis did include the known characteristics of the transformed force. The Army has also incorporated a number of logistics planning factors and improvement initiatives that together have reduced requirements for military support personnel by about 7 percent, or 17,000 personnel. These factors and improvements include the following: Revised medical planning factors specify that 80 percent of patients will be evacuated directly to the United States or other out-of-theater medical facilities, thereby reducing the number of medical personnel required in the theater. The logistics community is fielding digitized control systems, satellite- based movement tracking systems, and improved cargo-handling equipment that Army officials estimate will allow a 15 percent reduction in theater stockage levels and the personnel required to manage them. Improved vehicle engines are expected to reduce fuel consumption in theater by about 25 percent, thus requiring fewer people to transport, dispense, and guard fuel stocks. Total Army Analysis 2007 determined that 725,000 personnel were required to fight the two major theater wars, down from the 747,000 total reported in Total Army Analysis 2005. The 45,000-position shortfall in the war-fighting element of its force structure is also less than the 72,000-position shortfall identified in Total Army Analysis 2005. Army officials believe that this represents a reduction in war-fighting risk. Previous Army planning analyses did not include a requirement specifically to meet the needs of contingency operations because Army officials believed that DOD guidance did not allow the Army to create new units for such purposes. This is because it was presumed that these forces would disengage and redeploy to conflicts if they arose and therefore did not represent additive requirements. During Total Army Analysis 2007, however, the Army determined that two contingency operations would need to continue even if conflicts arose, since they represented U.S. treaty commitments. These commitments are for operations in the Sinai to satisfy agreements under the 1979 Middle East Peace Treaty and for a rapid reaction force in Europe to satisfy Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Treaty. Accordingly, 17,000 personnel needed to satisfy these two treaty obligations were included in the Army’s total requirements. Also included in the Army’s determination of total requirements was a requirement for Strategic Reserve/Domestic Support/Homeland Defense forces, but the Army had not yet developed criteria for determining these requirements. DOD guidance allows force structure for these purposes but does not specify how the size of the force should be determined. Lacking criteria, the Army made the requirements for these missions equal to six National Guard divisions (about 88,000 personnel), which had not been given a specific mission in the war-fighting element. These National Guard forces have historically been treated as a hedge against larger-than-expected major conflicts. However, the appropriate size of the Strategic Reserve, and the National Guard divisions themselves, have been debated by DOD and others. DOD’s 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review and a subsequent congressionally mandated review panel found that the need for a large strategic reserve had declined. The Quadrennial Defense Review identified other missions for the National Guard divisions, such as supporting the mobilization of early deploying units and performing crisis response for floods, hurricanes, or civil disturbances. Later, DOD assigned the Army National Guard a role in responding to attacks using weapons of mass destruction.