From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Our Priority Recommendations for the Department of Defense Description: Every year, GAO sends letters to federal agencies highlighting our recommendations from past reports that we think agency should prioritize because they would have an immediate high impact on the most pressing challenges facing their agencies and programs. For the Department of Defense, our priority recommendations include those that would improve DOD's management and operations, as well as its mission capabilities, like military readiness. We'll find out more from GAO's Elizabeth Field. Related GAO Work: GAO-21-522PR, Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Defense Released: August 2021 [Intro Music] [Elizabeth Field:] Rebuilding readiness and building a more lethal force is central to DOD's ability to succeed at its core mission of protecting our national security. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi, and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office--celebrating 100 years, a fact-based nonpartisan government oversight. I'm Holly Hobbs. [Holly Hobbs:] Every year, GAO sends letters to federal agencies highlighting our recommendations from past reports that we think agency should prioritize because they would have an immediate, high impact on the most pressing challenges they face. Today, we'll talk about our priority recommendations for the Department of Defense with GAO's Elizabeth Field--director in our Defense Capabilities and Management Team. Thank you for joining us, Elizabeth. [Elizabeth Field:] Thanks for having me. [Holly Hobbs:] So, Elizabeth, this year's letter to DOD includes more than 80 priority recommendations on a wide range of issues. 20 of our priority recommendations are about rebuilding military readiness and force structure, which are important for national security. Broadly speaking, what are the challenges DOD faces when it comes to readiness? [Elizabeth Field:] Well, you're absolutely right that rebuilding readiness and building a more lethal force is central to DOD's ability to succeed at its core mission of protecting our national security. And part of why it's so hard for the department to do this is that it faces a number of complex and sometimes even competing challenges. So on the one hand, DOD is hampered by things like aging equipment, frequent deployments and various workforce challenges. But at the same time, we face a host of complex and emerging external threats. Some are more traditional, like the threats we face from near peer competitors like China. But some are far less traditional, like new technologies. And so the military has to find a way to address that first set of internal challenges that I mentioned, at the same time, that it has to find a way to modernize and keep up with the constantly evolving battle space. It's a really tricky challenge. [Holly Hobbs:] And what are a couple of our recommendations? [Elizabeth Field:] Despite the many challenges that I just articulated, we know that there are some common pitfalls that the department constantly faces when it comes to rebuilding readiness. Pitfalls like not having adequate metrics for assessing progress, relying on incomplete data, or failing to put into place or to update essential plan strategies and guidance. And one example of this would be the challenges that the U.S. Navy faces in strengthening the readiness of its surface fleet. We recently found that the Navy has struggled with fatigue among its ship's crews. The vast majority of recently deployed officers get less than the recommended seven or more hours of sleep. And of course, this affects performance the result being that there's a risk to the ship's readiness. So we made several priority recommendations to address this issue. For example, we recommended that the Navy systematically collect fatigue data, evaluate the factors that contributed to this fatigue, and then, of course, take actions to address those factors. [Holly Hobbs:] We also made 12 priority recommendations about cybersecurity. While all federal agencies face cybersecurity threats, DOD has some unique challenges. Can you tell us about those? [Elizabeth Field:] That's right. So as you noted, just like any other federal department or agency, DOD has to secure its networks and information, but it also has to be able to conduct its own cyber operations and counter those of our adversaries. And many of our recommendations that are related to DOD cybersecurity have to do with making sure that the department actually implements the strategies that it has put into place. The department has done a great job of writing complex strategies, but it just hasn't been as good at ensuring that it actually implements them. [Holly Hobbs:] And we've done a lot of work on DOD's costliest weapons programs, which we found were more expensive or took longer to developed then planned. What are some of our priority recommendations here? [Elizabeth Field:] Well, you captured the problems that we see in DOD's major acquisition programs really well, I think that covered the waterfront. But just to give you one example of these types of problems, I'm going to talk a little bit about our work related to the Missile Defense Agency or MDA. So MDA has spent tens of billions of dollars to provide protection from enemy ballistic missiles. Its work entails things like developing battle management systems, sensors that identify incoming threats and, of course, missiles to intercept them. But we have found that MDA doesn't include all of the costs like operation and support cost when it calculates the baseline costs for its programs. That means, of course, that the lifecycle costs for some of these missile defense programs could be significantly understated. So our priority recommendations in this space relate to ensuring that the Missile Defense Agency includes all lifecycle costs in its resource baseline cost estimates. Now, this recommendation or set of recommendations has been on the priority recommendation letter for a few years now, and the department has made some progress. For example, they told us that they are now using joint cost estimates with the military services to capture each program's operations and sustainment costs. However, as recently as May of this year, we found that only five of 14 missile defense programs actually did that. So clearly, there's still more room to implement this recommendation fully. [Holly Hobbs:] We also looked at diversity, equity and inclusion within DOD. And our letter includes two priority recommendations on this. [Elizabeth Field:] Yeah, that's right. This is a new area that we added to the priority recommendations later this year. And part of why we did that is because DOD officials, including the secretary of defense, have made it clear that ensuring equal opportunity and acceptance of individual differences among all of its members has become a top priority. And this is perhaps not surprising. Just as we as a country find ourselves at a pivotal moment, grappling with really tough issues related to things like race and gender and socioeconomic status, so, too, is the Department of Defense. And we have identified areas through our work where the department could strengthen its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. For example, we have found based on our analysis of available data and I should note controlling for attributes such as rank and education, that Black, Hispanic and male service members have been more likely than White or female members to be the subject of investigations. They were also more likely to be tried in general and special courts martial and all of the military services. So we recommended that the military services conduct an evaluation to identify the root causes of these disparities and, of course, take steps to address them. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] So it sounds like the Department of Defense faces a number of critical mission and management challenges, but that we've identified actions DOD should prioritize, that would have an immediate positive effect on these issues. Elizabeth, why is it important that we send DOD this letter each year with our priority recommendations? And how is this year's letter different? [Elizabeth Field:] There are about a thousand open recommendations to DOD right now, and that's not surprising, I should note, given the size and complexity of the agency and its budget. But the secretary and the deputy secretary need to know where to focus. We know from our work that sustained and senior leadership attention is critical to ensuring success. So this letter is essentially a roadmap for them to tackle the department's biggest problems and through our recommendations, hopefully lead to significant improvements in the department's operations. In terms of what is different in this year's letter, I should also note that this letter has removed 21 recommendations from last year's letter, because the department, I'm happy to report, implemented them. So recommendations relating to things like F-35 sustainment and Navy shipbuilding operations and contracted services. So we know that with leadership attention, the department can make meaningful progress. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Elizabeth Field:] I think a lot of people believe that DOD is so large and complex and frankly antiquated and stovepipes that major and systemic improvements aren't really possible. And this letter tries to cut through that noise and identify some concrete, feasible ways to make lasting improvements in the department's operations. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Elizabeth Field talking about GAO's priority recommendations for the Department of Defense. Thank you for your time, Elizabeth. [Elizabeth Field:] Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple podcast, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify and more. And make sure you leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.