Non-combat Medical Care for Deployed Military Personnel
Matthew Goldberg and Julie Pechacek, May 2019.
IDA has devoted considerable research to issues surrounding medical care of U.S. military personnel injured in combat. Although also of great importance, delivery of care to the same personnel for dayto-day, non-battle medical issues has garnered less attention. To address this disparity, IDA researchers examined data from U.S. military experiences in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and in Afghanistan and surrounding areas during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). IDA found that disease...
Assessing Future Threats from Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Jason Dechant and G. James Herrera, April 2019.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for protecting and enhancing the resilience of much of the Nation’s critical infrastructure. Although developments are evolving rapidly across all domains, the air domain has become increasingly complex in recent years given the proliferation of the unmanned aircraft system (UAS). In particular, consumer demand and benefits from commercial and private interests for the small UAS (sUAS)—weighing less than 55 pounds (lbs.) ...
Ten Years Later: Can Piecemeal ReformP of the Civilian Employment System Succeed Where the National Security Personnel System Failed?
Peter Levine, March 2019.
The Department of Defense (DoD) system for hiring and retaining civilian employees has long been in need of reform. Hampered by bureaucratic processes and inflexible regulation, the system suffers from rigid job classifications, lack of ability to quickly hire new talent, supervisors without the authority to manage their own workforce, and compensation that is neither linked to performance nor responsive to market forces. In addition, retaining top performers, dealing with poor performers, and ...
Panel Explores Challenges of Deterring Limited Nuclear War
John Warden and William Chambers, November 2018.
On October 15, 2018, IDA hosted a panel discussion on the challenge the United States faces in formulating a strategy that accounts for the potential for limited nuclear war. The discussion focused on Limited Nuclear War: The 21st Century Challenge for the United States, a July 2018 monograph published by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research. John Harvey, Jr., IDA’s Director of Strategy, Forces and Resources Division, opened the event, followed...
Forecast Uncertainty in Critical Material Stockpile Needs
James Thomason, Justin Lloyd, Wallica Ao, Amrit Romana, Eleanor Schwartz, April 2018.
This issue of IDA Research Insights highlights IDA contributions to the Department of Defense (DoD) biennial report to Congress on recommended stockpiles of strategic and critical material (e.g., rare earth elements, metals, and carbon fibers). The United States relies heavily on imports of many of these materials from Asian, South American, African, and European countries. The IDA-developed Risk Assessment and Mitigation Framework for Strategic Materials (RAMF-SM) suite of models was used to...
FOCIS Helps Nations Improve Management of Their Defense Sectors
Aaron Taliaferro, Wade Hinkle, and Thomas Wallace, April 2018.
In 2006, IDA researchers developed a relational database called the Force Oriented Cost Information System (FOCIS). FOCIS is part of a long-term IDA project to develop analytic techniques that help defense sector leaders understand how capabilities and costs interact with one another. Using FOCIS, IDA project teams have helped decision makers in many foreign defense institutions formulate affordable multi-year defense plans.
2017 Welch Award Winner: Strategic Material Shortfall Risk Mitigation Optimization Model
James Thomason, D. Sean Barnett, James Bell, Jerome Bracken, and Eleanor Schwartz, n.d.
The model solves a mathematical programming problem to identify an optimal set of strategies for mitigating the shortfalls, within cost and risk constraints set by the user....
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