Introduction
With the creation of Army Futures Command and a concerted eort to ad-
vance its six modernization priorities, the Army has made weapons devel-
opment its primary focus in fullling the 2018 National Defense Strategy
(NDS). Supporters point to the capabilities of the near-peer adversaries on
which the NDS focuses—China and Russia—and the Army’s need to rees-
tablish technological overmatch, or superiority, in all domains. Purchasing
new equipment is tangible, is measurable, increases the lethality of each
Soldier and is in the comfort zone of senior Army leaders. Although there
are some specic areas—missile defense, long-range precision res and
network defense—that require rapid updating, the Army remains the most
lethal, best-equipped ghting force in the world. And certainly, over the past
17 years of armed conicts, it is not the Army’s equipment that has failed
to achieve overmatch.
A 2019 study on the Iraq War, published by the Army War College and re-
quested by former Army Chief of Sta (CSA) General Raymond T. Odier-
no, identies leadership failures as one of the main reasons that the Army
lacked enduring success in the region. The study says, “It seems that the
most successful innovators were actually inverting policy rather than oper-
ating within policy, most notably in the case of the brigade and battalion-lev-
el COIN [counterinsurgency] approaches of 2005–2006.” It also highlights
that “this is a fact the Army has not really confronted, and it seems possible
that the Army in the Iraq War actually tended to penalize successful leaders
who challenged their commanders.”
2
The military’s outdated personnel management system could be one rea-
son that the Army holds back its most successful leaders. In 2009, Casey
Military Personnel
Policy: An Untapped
Modernization Opportunity
APRIL 2019
ILW SPOTLIGHT 19-2
PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE OF LAND WARFARE
AT THE ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY
www.ausa.org
by Major Isaac Wisniewski, U.S. Army
Our most valuable asset, our most signicant asymmetric advantage inherent in the
American military and the United States Army: we come from a society of improvisers,
a society of innovators, tinkerers, problem-solvers, techno-savvy at [an] early age, and
independence of action comes [naturally] to all Americans.
General Mark A. Milley
Breaking Defense, 5 October 2016
1
ISSUE
The U.S. Army should fully leverage
recent changes in personnel manage-
ment legislation to develop, promote and
retain ofcers with the skills required to
lead a modernized force that can defeat
near-peer adversaries.
SPOTLIGHT SCOPE
• Describes opportunities provided by
the 2019 National Defense Authoriza-
tion Act (NDAA) to address limitations
of the Defense Ofcer Personnel Man-
agement Act (DOPMA);
• encourages the Army to not be satis-
ed by simply fullling the provisions
of the 2019 NDAA; and
• advocates adapting policies to reect
generational changes in workforce be-
havior or risk skilled-labor imbalances
with the private sector.
INSIGHTS
• Over the past 17 years of armed con-
icts, the U.S. Army’s equipment has
been superior to that of other nations,
but the service seems to have focused
more on equipment modernization
than on modernizing some of its legacy
personnel policies.
• The 2019 NDAA provides the sec-
retary of the Army more freedom to
shape the Army’s personnel practices
than any secretary in the past 40 years.
• The Army should take advantage of
the provisions included in the 2019
NDAA, present evidence to Congress
of its ability to identify, manage and
cultivate its talent and push Congress
to remove the restrictions of DOPMA
in the 2020 NDAA.
