A Preliminary Assessment of the Regionally Aligned Forces Concept's Implications for Army Personnel Management

Under the Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) concept, all units not assigned to the global response force are to be assigned, allocated, or otherwise aligned with a geographic combatant command and to adapt their training and other preparations to the particular requirements of the region with which they are aligned. RAND Arroyo Center employed a three-pronged approach to explore how the U.S. Army might need to adapt its personnel management policies and practices to support RAF. First, researchers estimated the potential scope and scale of the requirement for regional expertise. Next, they modeled the Army's ability to produce soldiers with the required expertise under its current assignment policies and practices. Finally, they identified low-cost, low-regret modifications to the goals, objectives, criteria, and methods of the personnel management system that would help to match soldiers with the desired level of expertise with the positions requiring it and develop soldiers with such expertise to provide a continuing source of able occupants for these positions.