Resource Analysis in Military Long-Range Planning

Military planning in the Department of Defense is now administered through the program budget procedure. This arrays the national security objectives in terms of major missions -- strategic retaliatory, continental defense, airlift and sealift and the like -- and the major strategic retaliation. In this process a wide range of alternative equipments are considered as well as varying possibilities for deploying or operating them. Each possibility is translated in terms of not only military effectiveness but also the cost of obtaining and operating that capability. In the past, there was a tendency to state military needs in terms of requirements only, that is, without reference to their costs. But military effectiveness or worth of any given weapon system must be considered in relation to its cost, that is, cost effectiveness relationships must be established and analyzed to provide the decision-makers with the appropriate illumination of the problems at each level of the program budget. Cost analysis provides the resource translations of effectiveness estimates developed by systems designers who have made the calculations of the equipment and operating concepts required to perform a specific mission. (Author)