Managing Adverse and Reportable Information Regarding U.S. Military Officers: 2019 Update

Decisions about U.S. military officer appointments, promotions, and retirements weigh both favorable and unfavorable information. For its own decisionmaking, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) relies on the military departments to provide reliable and consistent information about military officers' performance and conduct. Additionally, DoD must include this information with its nominations for personnel actions that require Presidential approval or Senate confirmation. However, it is challenging to standardize the management of information that is complex, unique to each officer, and not always readily available. In this report, the authors describe DoD and Service policies and self-reported processes for tracking and reporting adverse and other potentially unfavorable information about the conduct of military officers. The authors document progress made since 2010, when RAND researchers first evaluated these processes. The authors also outline new or persisting differences in how policies are interpreted or applied; describe processes that differ by Service that might be problematic; and identify opportunities to correct misalignment among Senate, DoD, and Service expectations, policies, and processes.