"The Global Response Force (GRF) is built for rapid response to unforeseen or, more specifically, unplanned operations. Selected Army airborne forces provide a large portion of the GRF and are dependent on joint concepts for deployment and access. This study illustrates a method for determining the best access strategies given constraints in aircraft, intermediate staging bases, operational capabilities, and other factors. The study applies this method to each geographic combatant command and develops specific, tailored strategies for each. The access strategies are built from multiple analytic techniques: historical aircraft data and platform specifications to determine capabilities and limitations of the air fleet; several airfield databases, site reports, and expert judgments to determine probable intermediate staging base locations and their likely capabilities; multiple deployment concepts for access to minimize operational risks; and detailed geographic and operational analysis to determine global coverage and reach. In the end, we were able to deduce a preferred strategy for each of the combatant commands. Global access for the GRF is provided partially through the use of well-established staging bases but will necessarily rely on austere basing and complex deployment concepts for particular locations in multiple combatant commands. The study concludes with several recommendations to close those risks, which span the services, combatant commands, and joint staff"--Back cover.

This report introduces the Aim Point Investment Model, an optimization model for portfolio-level resource allocation across U.S. Army programs and time. The report is intended to provide a technical overview of the model and its capabilities while also detailing the motivation for creating the model and recommendations from related research. The recommendations should be of interest to decisionmakers and those interested in improving decision support tools for asset allocation problems. In brief, the project's objective was to develop a method and tool to support quick-turn exploration of modernization investment portfolios in light of changing budget constraints and operational priorities in order to develop rough-order optimal investment strategies across a preestablished set of investment options and set of budget and requirement assumptions. Given the enormous complexity of the decision space, some sort of automated decision support tool was required. To develop that decision support tool, the authors explored alternative approaches to extracting the information needed about programs' relative utility and any constraints on the Army's ability to procure the capability from existing Army data sources. This report describes one of these approaches, which uses Army prioritization guidance-synthesized from several sources-combined with plausible constraints to produce resource allocation solutions that are consistent with the Army's stated modernization strategy.

This report examines how changing the way in which the Army executes mobilization and contingency planning can affect the ratio of reserve component to active component units deploying in the early weeks of a major crisis.

NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate asked RAND to assess flight research capabilities and needs, and to identify management options that would facilitate increased and improved flight research.