Military Readiness: Actions Needed for DOD to Address Challenges across the Air, Sea, Ground, and Space Domains

What GAO Found

The top priority of the 2022 National Defense Strategy is to defend the U.S. homeland by addressing the growing multi-domain threat posed by China. As the Department of Defense (DOD) addresses this priority, GAO's body of work has shown that U.S. military readiness has been degraded over the last 2 decades due to a variety of challenges, including high operational demands. Implementing GAO's open recommendations will help DOD address these challenges and enhance readiness. The figure below shows selected GAO recommendations that DOD has not yet implemented.

Selected Open GAO Recommendations to Address Persistent Military Readiness Challenges

Why GAO Did This Study

DOD is continuing its work to maintain the U.S. military's advantage across all domains in a new security environment characterized by great-power competition. To meet that goal, DOD's focus is rebuilding and restoring readiness while also modernizing its forces. DOD's readiness rebuilding efforts are occurring in a challenging context that requires the department to make difficult decisions regarding how best to address continuing operational demands while preparing for future challenges.

This statement provides information on readiness challenges across the air, sea, ground, and space domains.

This statement is primarily based on published GAO reports since 2021 that have examined aspects of military readiness, operations, and sustainment in the air, sea, ground, and space domains. This statement also is based on a draft report on space readiness that was provided to DOD in February 2024 for review and comment. To perform all this work, GAO analyzed Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force readiness, maintenance, personnel, and training data and interviewed cognizant officials.