Research Summaries

Back Multidisciplinary Studies Support for the US Marine Forces Reserve

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Hernandez, Alejandro D.S.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary The proposed effort leverages the academic and research expertise, resources, and capabilities that reside at NPS. It makes available the experience and collection of best practices from related work that can be applied to the Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES) mission. Led by the core team of NPS faculty in this proposal, this effort taps into communities of interest for research and education that support the MARFORRES areas of study. A host of systems, experienced faculty, and military professionals, who are the catalysts of all efforts at NPS, are made available to the MARFORRES through this study program. Reserve forces are a key element in national defense. Therefore issues that concern the Reserves are inherently joint and multidisciplinary. Our NPS team offers a partnership that will support and manage a comprehensive effort to help the MARFORRES address both short term and strategic issues. MARFORRES has studied the future political and operational environment and identified the challenges that they must address to be successful. To sustain a reserve force that is postured to provide ready and responsive capabilities and strategic depth to meet total force solutions across the range of military operations, MARFORRES plans to examine a number of areas that include:
- The cost of the reserves,
- The role of the reserves in a "Fight Tonight Force,"
- Support to civil authorities,
- Stability operations,
- Security cooperation,
- Procurement strategies in a Total Force Construct,
- Cost-benefit analysis of entitlements,
- Policy adaptation for Total Force Construct,
- Reserve attrition,
- Total Force overload,
- Professionalization of the reserve officer.
Each of these topic areas holds a number of specific research questions. The MARFORRES staff and resources do not have the bandwidth to address them all. A partnership with NPS faculty, staff, and students provides an opportunity to widen MARFORRES aperture to investigate issues and supplement its overall analysis program. In the initial stage of the NPS-MARFORRES partnership, the NPS team will follow three paths of study that overlap a number of these areas. NPS will deliver one thesis in each of them in the first year of effort.
- Manpower
- Training
- Knowledge Management (KM)
Faculty and students will complete thesis projects that address specific questions in the MARFORRES study portfolio. By incorporating these research efforts in the graduation cycle MARFORRES leverages NPS' greatest asset; motivated, technically educated, and operationally experienced military officers. They are guided by dedicated world class faculty.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal