Essay Example on AoA Analysis for Military Acquisitions: DoD and OMB Working Together

Introduction

The (AoA) analysis of alternatives in the U.S as required by the military acquisition policy is under the care of the (DoD) United States Department of Defense and the (OMB) Office of Budget and Management (Molstad 179). The two offices ensure that three feasible alternatives are used to while making expensive investment choices. The work of the AoA is to benchmark and establish the metrics for performances, risk, and cost schedules based on the needs of the military but achieved from the joint capabilities integration development method (Molstad 184). However, the AoA does not employ a single acquisition source for the exploration of various alternatives to allow the agencies to have a reason for funding good projects, uncertainty, and risk in a permissible manner.

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The system also highlights critical technology elements that are associated with the proposed solution but identified through the capability documents such as the integration risk, technology maturity, and manufacturing feasibility through demonstration needs and technology maturation. The beginning of the AoA is through the modification and establishment of the critical performance parameter metric for every alternative formed. Such metrics also assist in comparing the effectiveness of the operation, the life cycle costs, and the suitability of the other options that satisfy the need of the military system in the U.S (Molstad 190). The essay will elaborate more on the U.S military policy and the implementation of three alternatives to alter the system.

The U.S Policy Alternatives and Analysis

The need for a well-established crafted U.S strategy for the defense system has always been great immediately since the Cold War ended. Today American uses the revisionist powers in three nations (China in Asia, Russia in Europe and Iran in the Middle East). North Korea, however, is the only nation that threatens the two allies in the U.S. In whichever way, each power is undermined because it seeks to alter the U.S rules under the international system to prolong the economic prosperity and era of stability (White 8). They challenge the U.S face exceeds the violent extremist organization that existed in the policy in the past 15 years.

The U.S strategy and policy of necessity should account for various factors of incorporate the competing elements. The country must also include the defined interest, regional security, and geographical realities that overarch the grand strategy, war plans, and alliance structure on the existing doctrine. Similar to how the approach must account for the challenges of the interest in America is how the policymakers should be aware of the strategic acquisition, personal systems, and planning to shape the outputs of defense strategy and policy.

As at now, there is an increasing deficit between the resources allocated, the strategic aspirations, and how they are obtained. The future requirements that change today's force planning are developed under a realistic view of challenges that are faced by the existing fiscal constraints (White 12). Even though the defense resources are higher than in the preceding periods, there is the real capability because of the rising unsustainable trends and personal costs in the acquisition plans.

Moreover, the budget allocated for the U.S defense supports the overhead in terms of infrastructure, bases, and staff. The result is that the taxpayers in the U.S spend a lot of money as compared to the Ronald Reagan era, which had a 30 percent decrease through the force structure (Fernandez 185). However, many elements have the capability as compared to the previous formations and platforms because of large quantities. Also, the relative power has an advantage that America is enjoying has steady declining and defense people that undergirds the military superiority in the U.S.

An effective strategy is implemented when the results align with the policy goals and are ready to obtain realistic objectives. Such strategic coherence is achieved by balancing between the means, ways, and ends in a critical and considered strategy (Fernandez 190). Similar to this, the resource constraints which are limited have constant reality when planning for the new force due to the downsizing periods. Such a conundrum is driven through the ways to innovate the U.S defense strategy.

Force Design and Strategy

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the defense policy began adapting the force and strategy planning mechanism to define the size of force required and implement the strategy that determines the effects that best fit the evolving security environment (Jegen 106). Both the shape and size of the Army are essential outputs in the defense policy. Usually, force planners talk about the capabilities (the type of force like space power, air, sea, and land) and how they can bear the capacity of each. Such access is risky because it involves the policymakers and force design to use various force strategy to construct the center of the scale and number of conflicts. They also estimate and assume concerning the length like the wars and how simultaneous they occurred.

Since reduced forces constrain America, it will be difficult for it to use the historical role to stabilize the global system, the economic order, and the rules-based international because of the benefits of the world. Given that the 20th century increased both in lethality and frequency as compared to the last three decades, it is evident that the potential that existed in America is expanding for more interminable duration conflicts (Jegen 118). The force design and policy, in this case, should notice and strive to bring a solution to the demand signal.

The Options to the Force Design

Having elaborated on the evolution seen in the history of the U.S force design, then this topic focuses on the future. The solution to this problem here is under the assumption that the resources must be laid out explicitly. Even though there is an evolving strategic environment that poses tension between the revanchist regimes and regional powers, the domestic political forces on the U.S will constrain the allocation of security resources (Margo 314). Since the debt load in America is approaching 100 percent on gross, the national interest on the other had rival the budget of the defense.

The demographics, in this case, continue having the power of exerting upward pressure on domestic spending for medical insurance and social security. The electoral campaign, on the other hand, shows that the U.S taxpayer will sacrifice the entitlement programs to support the protracted policing of the global or world hegemony (Margo 321). The defense policymakers, in this case, should lower their expectations on additional funds because of the inefficiency in the personal, acquisition, and overheard practices to preserve the readiness and force levels first. The next topic will elaborate on the Obama administration and the force levels against the three force design construct and defense strategies.

The Win/Deny (Selective Partnership)

The Obama administration wanted to sustain the leadership role in America by adapting the competition found in Asia by using the partnership capabilities. The defense strategy, in this case, has been very selective because of the resource constraints and regional priorities imposed on the preferences of the DoD and the National security strategy details embraced in 2015 for heavily emphasized partners and local priorities (Flikke 92). The planning, which took eight years to develop, was justified through the combat power after America engaged in the war when the Navy and Air Force capability contributed to the engagement by striking the aggressor state. Such construction aims the ability of the simultaneous wars by providing a limited degree of deterrence to aggressors and reassurance to allies (Flikke 102). However, this does not mean that the U.S defense strategy has a lesser degree because of the forwarded levels and reduced combat power in Europe.

The Win 1+2 (Enduring Engagement)

Another solution offered by Michael O'Hanlon is the revised yardstick for the Pentagon that will be used to size and shape the Army. O'Hanlon, a professor of the Brookings institution, created a framework that deals with one war but fewer than two simultaneous conflicts. The reason behind this was to act as a protracted long counterinsurgency campaign, stabilization of the mission, and the international response where disaster develops. This is why he uses the "1+2" planning paradigm (Salmon 21). The framework emphasizes the land power role by producing sustainable results and obtaining political objectives in significant disasters, failed states, and post-conflict stabilization roles.

The options show how robust the capacity is for the protected and global conflict against violent organizations and operations forces that are persistent in forming the footprints of warfare. Under the unconventional countering modes, the battle plays a principal role in America's special operation forces (Salmon 52). The force design also covers the scenarios by generating dangerous effects. As a result, there is a balance between the non-traditional conflict and traditional military war fight to stabilize the tasks with equipped specific tasks and specialized design forces.

The Forward Cooperative Security

Similar to its name, this procedure functions with the partners and alliances to leverage preventive and cooperative actions to preclude the conflicts before the occurrence. Since it has direct contrast to the option embraced, it emphasizes the deployed naval power to sustain and generate the true partnership (Zhu et al., n.p). The strategy, therefore, commands both the sustained and generated freedom of action for the partners and alliances. Due to the influence, the principles of elements get recommendations through the National Defense Panel.

The Win to MTWs (Decisive Force)

The option mentioned maximizes on the joint forces capacity to sustained, high-intensity combined arms warfare. The option also incorporates assessments required by the U.S military forces by designing the conventional deterrence to maximize reassurance for interstate warfare (Nimmich 134). Such a direction also embraces a traditional and balanced oriented war fight due to the robust capacity. It is, however, versatile that proper training and doctrine are required for full-spectrum operations.

The balanced and capable joined forces represent the usual reassurance and deterrence of the treaty partners. In this case, land power becomes an essential element of the joint force because it is critical to the strategic results of campaigns conducted. The option is also necessary to the U.S to reduce land power because the policy is resourced and designed in fighting the regional contingency, which usually took months to generate sufficient forces. The army divisions, in this case, will need to fight to win the MTWs.

Unlike the three options given above, it is evident that the two MTW forces have sufficient credible power combat to reestablish additive effects outside the American continent. Moreover, the strength of the Army of the two divisions is expensive because of the procurement programs (Nimmich 155). The increase is, however, affordable because attention is given to the defense reforms in overhead reduction, compensation and acquisition to provide the resources needed to sustain the structure and size of the force strategy.

Recommendations and Conclusion

The only way to reflect the principle of awareness and prudence is by evolving the strategic environment through the Win Two Modern strategy. The reason behind this claim is that the system can create competitive capabilities that offset the critical domain lost through the material edge....