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In recent years, the Army has been willing to accept risk in installation facility sustainment to maintain warfighting readiness. However, underfunding of facility sustainment can result in higher life-cycle costs because it increases the likelihood that facility components will break down or fail prematurely. To identify strategies for improving the Army's allocation and execution of installation facility sustainment funding, the authors conducted interviews with installation Directorate of Public Works (DPW) staff and subject-matter experts in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Army Corps of Engineers, along with a literature review of facility sustainment practices in the military Services, other public-sector organizations, and the private sector. The authors recommend that the Army allow installations more flexibility on DPW staffing within existing budgets, improve or supplement the real property and facility sustainment functions in the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS), fund the implementation of BUILDER – a DoD-mandated Sustainment Management System (SMS) – and use it to develop longer-range models that show the effects of deferred maintenance on life-cycle costs, and develop a Mission Dependency Index (MDI) to prioritize sustainment projects and create linkages with installation readiness. At the installation level, DPW staff should implement innovative practices that have been successful at other installations; increase efforts to identify alternative sources of funding for sustainment projects, such as tenant mission funding and by leveraging community partnerships; and identify opportunities for active and reserve component units to perform projects as part of their training.

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The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) carries out 11 different statutory missions and must address immediate requirements and future contingencies, both domestically and overseas. Various ongoing changes to, and new developments in, the physical, economic, social, political, and technological domains place additional stresses on service resources, as well as affect the composition of the service itself. Being ready for the spectrum of challenges that the future might bring requires leaders to be mindful of how change will affect USCG in both the near and long terms. Evergreen was established in 2003 to address this overarching goal of readiness, and it includes Project Evergreen, a scenario-based strategic foresight planning process. Evergreen activities seek to identify emerging challenges and future trends that may alter the volume and types of demand for USCG missions, as well as its ability to perform them. These activities are based on a number of plausible future scenarios in which USCG's current plans, policies, and capabilities are stress-tested, and participants must determine the trade-offs that USCG needs to make today to be able to fulfill future demands. Evergreen thereby also supports effective decisionmaking under conditions of uncertainty. Prior to Evergreen V, there was no deliberate effort to publicize or publish Evergreen products. Long-term institutional knowledge about Evergreen has been a historical challenge because active-duty personnel are typically reassigned every one to three years. This report documents Evergreen work and insights into the current and future needs of USCG that have emerged from the program to date.

Military planning --- United States. --- Planning.

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Natural resources influence every aspect of life in Puerto Rico. Natural resources and parks are important to public health and well-being and to the economy. They are so integrated into daily life that their criticality to the functioning of society is not always apparent. Puerto Rico's coastal resources, forests, and species are rich in biodiversity and international significance and generate economic value for tourism, agriculture, education, and the ocean economy. Ecosystem services, such as coastal protection from storms, air and water purification, stormwater control, and soil stabilization, provide substantial benefits to residents and visitors. The hurricanes stressed and destroyed significant areas on land and at sea, many of which were already strained from human interference and weak enforcement of environmental laws. The hurricanes' full effects will not be known for years. Parks experienced substantial damage, large amounts of debris were generated, and landfills and are nearing capacity. This report presents a socioecological system framework for recovery planning, information on observed damage, and 25 courses of action (COAs) for restoring coastal resources, forests, and species; controlling sedimentation and water quality; managing solid waste; renewing parks; and improving the economic opportunities such as alternative tourism. The COAs are grounded in known hurricane-caused damage to natural resources, landfills, and parks; informed by previous plans and natural resource management activities in Puerto Rico; and derived from accepted ecological and best management practices. These COAs focus on restoring sites that have high ecological and economic value and building networks of stakeholder and foundational capacity to create a more resilient Puerto Rico.

National parks and reserves --- Natural resources --- Hurricane damage --- Hurricane Irma, 2017. --- Hurricane Maria, 2017. --- Natural disaster effects --- Puerto Rico.

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Since 2016, Plan Blue wargames have explored scenarios that depict large-scale war fights against state adversaries in order to help U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) leaders better understand the demands of these potential war fights, evaluate the capabilities and limitations of programmed forces to meet those demands, and test new approaches to projecting power. The 2021 iteration of the game (Plan Blue 21) was set in the Arctic, in keeping with the Department of Defense's 2019 Arctic strategy, which calls for enhancing capabilities for operations in the region and strengthening the rules-based order there. The purpose of the game was to increase the DAF's understanding of the capabilities, posture, allied command, control, and communication relationships that may be called for to support future Arctic operations. Focusing on competition with Russia in the year 2030, game play took place in the context of steady-state competition and crisis operations rather than large-scale combat, and it explored the intersection of two key trends: (1) changing environmental conditions and (2) the completion of current Russian investments in new military capabilities and infrastructure in the Arctic. Plan Blue 21 was also specifically designed to test the extent to which capabilities for persistent and visible intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance can provide real-time situational awareness and potentially contribute to “deterrence by detection.” U.S. players in Plan Blue 21 benefitted greatly from the participation of officers from key allied and partner countries that have important interests in and capabilities for operations in the Arctic region.