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Participants in exercise Toxic Swell 2024 prepare and train for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear warfare, August 5, 2024, in Oahu, Hawaii (U.S. Air National Guard/Nicholas Perez)

In this era of Great Power competition, the joint force faces strategic rivals that challenge its ability to perform operations across the range of military operations, including countering weapons of mass destruction and defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats. While readiness reporting systems exist to determine preparedness to perform wartime requirements, the Department of Defense (DOD) lacks a CBRN defense readiness reporting program that adequately determines readiness to operate in CBRN environments. The understanding gained from such a reporting system is vital to inform resource prioritization, investment in technologies and training, effective plans development, and opera- tions execution of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Staff, the Joint Staff, combatant commands, and Services.

Standardization

Effective readiness reporting requires standardization. The DOD Readiness Reporting System (DRRS) provides a standardized means to manage and report readiness. While DRRS requires commanders to perform subjective analyses, objective standardized metrics exist, enabling uniform resource and training readiness assessments across DOD. For example, there are several measured areas within DRRS that determine a unit’s overall readiness level, or C-level, which “reflects the status of the selected unit resources measured against the resources required to undertake the wartime missions for which the unit is organized or designed. The C-level also reflects the condition of available equipment, personnel, and unit training status.”² The higher the C-level, the better resourced the unit is to perform the mission for which it is designed. Measured areas that inform a unit’s C-level include:

• evaluating personnel strength, personnel functional competency, and their availability for deployment (P-level)
• accounting for the total number of on-hand assigned assets as compared to the unit’s Modified Table of Organization and Equipment (MTOE) (S-level)
• evaluating the material readiness or serviceability of the unit’s on-hand equipment (R-level)
• determining the unit’s proficiency to perform its wartime or assigned mission-essential tasks (METs) (T-level).³

To determine a unit’s P-level, commanders compare required personnel strength (by military occupation specialty [MOS]), the required number of senior officers, and personnel deployability requirements against the actual number of assigned personnel (by MOS), the number of assigned senior leaders, and the availability of personnel for worldwide deployment. The P-level enables commanders to understand if the command is staffed properly with the correct number of personnel and MOS mix, the appropriate levels of leadership, and the availability of assigned personnel for worldwide deployment.

To determine the T-level, commanders assess how many METs are performed to standard, how many METs are partially performed to standard, and how many METs are not trained to standard. This allows commanders to understand how well-trained the organization is to perform its essential tasks.

To determine the S-level, commanders compare the total numbers of required combat-essential equipment, aircraft, and support equipment against the total numbers on hand. This allows commanders to understand how much mission-required equipment is on hand. To determine R-level, commanders compare the total numbers of on-hand unserviceable combat-essential equipment and support equipment against the total numbers of on-hand serviceable combat-essential equipment and support equipment. This allows commanders to understand how ready on-hand equipment is for use in combat.

The standardized metrics of DRRS enable commanders of various types of units across DOD to subjectively yet uniformly determine a unit’s readiness to perform its operational mission. DRRS is also a medium that allows a tactical unit commander to relay readiness directly to a Service chief by standard terms. It provides the objective terms to assess a unit’s ability to perform specified tasks, under specific conditions, within standards. In turn, DRRS enables the Service chief(s) to communicate force readiness and resourcing deficiencies to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), the Secretary of Defense, Congress, and other agencies that can allocate resources to sustain current force readiness, build future readiness, and achieve national strategies. Most important, DRRS facilitates corporate standardization to assess and enable DOD senior leadership to understand the joint force’s readiness to fight and win our nation’s battles.

Chemical-Biological Defense Readiness Training Reporting Requirement

CJCS Instruction 3401.02B, Force Readiness Reporting, directs that “Commanders will provide a subjective assessment of their unit’s readiness to perform the mission(s) for which a unit was organized or designed under chemical or biological conditions.”⁴ The commander provides the assessment based on reported chemical-biological defense (CBD) equipment readiness and training levels. However, Service chiefs lack the necessary specificity to appropriately assess force CBRN defense readiness across their organizations. Present reporting requirements result in substandard and inconsistent CBRN defense reporting. Often, commanders report a unit’s highest CBRN defense readiness rating of Chemical-Biological Defense Readiness Training (CBDRT)-1 at the conclusion of basic individual CBRN defense training events such as a gas chamber or an hour-long, once-a-year CBRN defense awareness lecture, forsaking life-saving CBRN defense response and recovery tasks that should be included in their readiness assessment, in the context of their mission-essential task list (METL) tasks.⁵ Additionally, there is no standardized means to uniformly report the readiness of CBD equipment. Standard- ized reporting metrics are required to determine a force’s ability to perform operations in CBRN environments.

CBRN Defense Readiness

It is critically important to provide commanders with the metrics to perform a standardized objective analysis, which is the benchmark analytical process to provide commanders the necessary metrics to assess readiness. To this end, to standardize CBRN defense readiness reporting, the Marine Corps reports CBRN defense training accomplishments within the Marine Corps Training Information Management System (MCTIMS). The system provides individual and unit training management for individual Marines and Marine units. It is used to:

• inform occupational and training analyses
• publish Service training policies and directives
• validate and maintain individual/collective training standards for common skills
• ground occupational fields
• provide Service oversight and training support for unit and formal schools training management to ensure that Marines meet the challenges of present and future operational environments.⁶

CBRN training events are “coded” within MCTIMS. Coded events include individual and collective training tasks that are outlined in Marine Corps Order (MCO) 3400.3H, CBRN Defense Training Requirements.⁷ Coded events are tasks that, regardless of an individual’s or unit’s military function, require high levels of readiness to successfully operate in CBRN environments. Coded events include individual and collective CBRN defense training activities across five factors: individual training standards, the individual protective equipment confidence exercise, CBRN monitor teams training, decontamination teams training, and unit METs evaluated in a simulated CBRN environment. Units assess the accomplishment of 17 individual training standards identified in MCO 3400.3H, the individual protective equipment confidence exercise, CBRN monitor teams training, decontamination teams training, and unit METs evaluated during Service-level exercises that include a simulated CBRN environment.

MCTIMS, an authoritative data source, automatically reports training accomplishments in DRRS. Commanders analyze CBRN defense training accomplishments and select the appropriate CBDRT level, as defined by specific criteria.⁸ MCTIMS enables commanders to perform a subjective analysis of their ability to perform operations in CBRN environments based on objectively defined reporting metrics.

The Global Combat Support System–Marine Corps (GCSS-MC), the Service’s authoritative supply and maintenance management program of record, is used to inform unit commanders about the readiness of CBD equipment. Commanders report the readiness of on-hand serialized CBD equipment de- rived from GCSS-MC within the DRRS CBRN defense tab. CBD equipment that is consolidated within the Marine Corps’ consolidated storage program is tracked through the Defense Property Accountability System, and its readiness is reported to Headquarters Marine Corps.⁹ These management systems enable the objective reporting of CBD equipment. Collectively, objectively reported CBRN defense training and equipping information enables commanders to subjectively conclude whether a unit can perform its wartime requirements under CBRN conditions.

Accurate Reporting

After nearly two decades of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, CBRN defense reporting levels have remained elevated. Commanders reasoned that by meeting annual training requirements (the gas chamber and CBRN defense lectures), formations were well prepared to fight and survive in CBRN environments. Their reports followed the CJCSI guidance, which lacks standardization and specificity, and provided a perceivably accurate depiction of force CBRN defense readiness. Since 2017, the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy have highlighted the requirement for the United States to count its readiness against WMD-capable strategic rivals in the Great Power competition.¹⁰ The continuation of subjective CBRN reporting of past decades provides false assumptions about military organizations’ capabilities to conduct distributed multidomain operations and overcome future near-peer CBRN threats. The accurate and standardized reporting of CBRN defense readiness is paramount to building a force capable of operating in and through CBRN environments.

In 2016, then–Commandant of the Marine Corps General Robert B. Neller directed Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) commanders to brief their MEF’s preparedness to operate in CBRN environments at commandant’s quarterly readiness boards. Each MEF used a different standard to assess CBRN defense readiness, and reporting was not consistent across the Service. In 2017, to provide an interim stop-gap solution to assess Service-wide CBRN defense readiness, units were directed to use a standardized metric, the CBRN defense training and readiness calculator.¹¹ When the calculator was implemented, force CBRN defense readiness “fell,” as the Service, for the first time, reported against standardized institutional re- porting metrics that required units to juxtapose unit METL readiness against specified CBRN defense training and resource availability.

Through a standardized reporting lexicon, commanders were given a clearer picture of CBRN individual and collective training requirements and their unit’s actual preparedness to perform CBRN defense. By 2018, MEF commanders accurately relayed force CBRN defense preparedness and were able to forecast the training and exercise requirements that were necessary to restore force CBRN defense competencies. While the CBRN defense training and readiness calculator is made obsolete by MCTIMS, an institutional program of record, it provided standardized metrics to enable objective assessments. MCTIMS continues to provide the standardizing lexicon commanders need to report CBRN defense readiness.

Operational Risk

Military organizations are uniquely constructed to provide combatant commanders with specific military capabilities to achieve operational objectives. (A capability is the ability to complete a task or execute a course of action under specified conditions and level of performance. 12 ) Upon formation, every organization is assigned a mission. Like-type organizations are assigned similar missions (for example, upon formation, a light infantry battalion is assigned a mission like other light infantry battalions and not one of an engineer support battalion).

An organization’s capability is characterized by the tasks it performs, the conditions the tasks are performed in, and the standards that are necessary for the organization’s success.¹³ In other word, tasks, or METs, are the activities the unit performs operationally. Conditions include the environment the mission is accomplished in and the personnel types and equipment that are necessary to accomplish the mission. Standards include the expected metrics and levels of performance commanders use to ascertain task success. By characterizing each military unit in this manner, military planners can determine organizational readiness across largely diverse organizations. It provides commanders with the information necessary to ascertain operational risk. In the simplest of terms, DRRS informs the commander about risks to force, informing whether the unit is adequately resourced to perform its METL. It informs the commander about risks to mission as well, informing the commander whether the unit is adequately prepared to achieve its operational objectives.¹⁴ DRRS enables intermediate commands (higher headquarters) to ascertain operational risk, largely by comparing subordinate command readiness against institutionally driven higher headquarters resourcing and training standards. However, where there is lack of specificity and standardization at lower level reporting agencies, such as CBRN defense readiness reporting, higher headquarters are unable to accurately understand subordinate unit readiness and where risks exist.

When considered globally, the lack of institutional standards makes it incredibly difficult to determine DOD’s preparedness to compete against WMD-capable strategic rivals. DOD institutionally grapples with the understanding of how prepared the force is to conduct operations when WMD is employed. Without an institutional CBRN metric that measures the four areas (P, S, R, T), it is difficult to determine if highly resourced forces are also highly trained and ready forces. Commanders at all levels need to understand what CBRN capabilities (manned, equipped, and trained forces) exist, what risk is accepted, and the “get well” plan to restore CBRN defense readiness when risk can no longer be accepted. The unintended consequence of poor standardization is the inherent acceptance of operational risk.

Recommendation

Services require standardized CBRN defense reporting metrics. Establishing such metrics enables a corporate under- standing of joint force preparedness to operate in CBRN environments. Benefits are readily apparent:

• An increased understanding by commanders and planners regarding the CBRN readiness of their forces and a more standardized way to assess readiness and residual risk.
• Better informed training objectives and conditions for all levels of exercises to address residual risks.
• Improved reporting from units and combatant commands on where there are materiel-related readiness issues, providing increased lead time to resolve those issues instead of waiting until a pending crisis.
• Better understanding of current readiness issues and trends for the Service headquarters, so that more informed investments can be made for sustainment, training, and modernization of CBRN capabilities.
• A more standardized basis for assess- ing CBRN readiness and modernization that will enable the Joint Staff to assess risk to mission and force during plans evaluation, track risk reduction measures, and better evaluate combatant command priority lists and issues.
• An understanding of operational risk and a clear means for risk mitigation.

Secretary Rumsfeld’s pragmatic characterization of the readiness status of the present-day force rings true even today. Understanding current CBRN defense readiness today is critical to understanding the force DOD presently has and is necessary to prepare forces to fight tonight. By implementing greater specificity in defense reporting metrics, commanders can better understand today’s CBRN defense readiness, accept or mitigate operational risks, and proactively implement changes to fight tonight or later with the force that is desired. DOD should provide greater specificity in defense reporting requirements so that DRRS reporting commanders can communicate accurate force readiness to operate in a CBRN environment. The understanding gained from such a reporting system is vital to inform the readiness of the joint force to stand in defense of this nation and achieve our national strategies. JFQ