Readiness: a commander's responsibility - Research Focus

Air Force Journal of Logistics, Summer, 2002 by Douglas A. Furst

The differences between a ready force and an ill-prepared one are the confidence, attitude, decisiveness, and endurance of the people.

Overview

Background

The purpose of the military, when not engaged in contingency operations, is to prepare for its wartime mission. This article focuses on a commander's role in facilitating the process of ensuring deployable squadron members are in a state of readiness. "As a commander or supervisor, you assume full responsibility for the accomplishment of your unit's mission." (1) Considerable research and analysis has been dedicated to the materiel and equipment aspects of readiness; this article emphasizes measures to prepare troops to achieve a mission-capable, readiness posture. The conclusion is a set of readiness-enabling factors and supporting comments to serve as a guide for commanders of mobility squadrons as they assume command and start defining priorities.

Air Force basic doctrine begins with this fundamental truth: "The overriding objective of any military force is to be prepared to conduct combat operations in support of national political objectives-to conduct the nation's wars." (2) The men and women who work for the military services direct their efforts, resources, and energies to accomplish this by training, organizing, and equipping forces to produce mission capabilities. These capabilities include the equipment, information, skills, supplies, strategies, tactics, plans, agreements, and knowledge that contribute to a squadron's designed operating capability (DOG). (3) This process of merging military technologies, resources, and troops into an able national instrument of power is the process of developing readiness. From a major command (MAJCOM) perspective, the Air Mobility Command emphasizes the readiness aspect of its mission as:

Today, more than ever, our nation needs rapid, flexible, and responsive air mobility. America's Global Reach promotes stability in regions by keeping America's capability and character highly visible. Joint military exercises display military capabilities and bolster U.S. ties with allies.

Humanitarian missions strengthen relations with recipient nations and show the watching world America's compassion. Projecting influence can be an effective deterrent to regional conflicts. Should deterrence fail, Global Reach allows for the rapid and decisive deployment of combat power. (4)

Figure 1 outlines the preparation process for executing America's military instrument of power.

This conceptual process traces the purpose of military preparedness as defined in the Promotion Fitness Examination under the general functions of the military departments. (5) Comparing the activities necessary to prepare forces for an appropriate state of readiness with what is actually done on a day-to-day basis, squadrons very easily can lose their readiness focus, if improperly led, by pursuing nonmission-essential objectives. Troops at the squadron level perform activities that support the priorities and focus of their commander. In oaths of office, officers swear to perform the duties they are about to enter, (6) and enlisted members swear to obey the orders of the officers appointed over them. (7) General W. L. Creech, former Tactical Air Command commander, said, "Leaders lead by example and set the tone." (8) Following this logic, if the commander fails to ensure the unit stands ready with adequate mobility and field survival skills, training, and experience, the troops deployed from that unit will risk facing contingency challenges without the adequate confidence, knowledge, and capability to succeed.

Commanders need a plan, a tactical set of readiness indicators pointed toward achieving an overall strategic state of readiness. This concept is the foundation for the strategic planning process: analyzing the mission, envisioning the future, assessing capabilities, performing a gap analysis, developing strategic goals, and formulating a plan. This article provides a series of readiness concepts developed by consolidating mobility-readiness-enabling factors. These readiness enablers provide new commanders an expert perspective for preparing an organization for contingency operations. They will help commanders with the first strategic planning step--analyzing the mission and assessing capabilities. (9)

Some officers learn to command effectively from extensive personal experience and deploying to challenging contingency operations while others build a good perspective from close mentoring. This article combines the benefits of both experience-building paths by pulling the expertise from many senior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCO) who have been there, done that. It will help squadron commanders at the wing level determine the most important decisions in establishing the correct readiness focus.

A readiness posture determines how well an organization responds to a phone call at 1730 Friday afternoon from a MAJCOM execution cell requesting a 22-man package to deploy on verbal orders, within a few hours, to operate infield conditions in a cold and wet climate, at a classified location with a mode rate threat for an undetermined duration. Does your squadron adequately prepare your troops for this challenge?