Cluster Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress

"Cluster munitions are air-dropped or ground-launched weapons that release a number of smaller submunitions intended to kill enemy personnel or destroy vehicles. Cluster munitions were developed in World War II and are part of many nations’ weapons stockpiles. Cluster munitions have been used frequently in combat, including the early phases of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cluster munitions have been criticized internationally for causing a significant number of civilian deaths, and efforts have been undertaken to ban and regulate their use. The Department of Defense (DOD) continues to view cluster munitions as a military necessity but in 2008 instituted a policy to reduce the failure rate of cluster munitions (a major contributor to civilian casualties) to 1% or less after 2018.

In November 2017, DOD issued a new DOD policy that essentially reversed the 2008 policy. Under the new policy, combatant commanders can use cluster munitions that do not meet the 1% or less unexploded submunitions standard in extreme situations to meet immediate warfighting demands. In addition, the new policy does not establish a deadline to replace cluster munitions exceeding the 1% rate and states that DOD “will retain cluster munitions currently in active inventories until the capabilities they provide are replaced with enhanced and more reliable munitions.”

In February 2022, Russia allegedly used cluster munitions during its invasion of Ukraine. Although the allegations have apparently not been officially verified, a reported pending International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of war crimes in the Ukraine might provide insights.

Potential issues for Congress include potential policy impacts of allegations of Russian cluster munitions use in Ukraine, cluster munitions in an era of precision weapons, other weapons in lieu of cluster munitions, and the potential impact of DOD’s 2017 revised cluster munitions policy..."
Cluster munitions 

Unrest at the Capitol: Potential Violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice

"After the unrest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, sources reported that current and former military service members were among the participants in the unrest. These reports prompted several Members of Congress to ask the Department of Defense to investigate service members’ participation and take disciplinary action. The military is investigating whether any active-duty service members participated in the unrest, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a memorandum condemning the “violent riot” and actions “that were inconsistent with the rule of law.”

This Legal Sidebar examines potential violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), codified in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, those service members may have committed. The Sidebar begins by discussing which current and former service members are subject to the UCMJ. It then examines offenses under the UCMJ that current or former service members may have committed on January 6, 2021, including potential sentences for each offense. It concludes with several considerations for Congress.

For information on federal criminal laws that may be relevant to the unrest at the Capitol, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10564, Federal Criminal Law: January 6, 2021, Unrest at the Capitol, by Michael A. Foster and Peter G. Berris. For general information on the military justice system and courts-martial, see CRS Report R46503, Military Courts-Martial Under the Military Justice Act of 2016, by Jennifer K. Elsea and Jonathan M. Gaffney..."
Capitol unrest 

The Fundamentals of Military Readiness

"Each year the Department of Defense (DOD) requests and Congress authorizes and appropriates billions of dollars in Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funding to support what the DOD calls readiness. Additionally, other types of defense appropriations may be used to contribute to producing, sustaining, or otherwise enabling readiness. DOD defines readiness as “the ability of military forces to fight and meet the demands of assigned missions.” What precisely this means is a matter of ongoing discourse among congressional leaders and defense officials alike.

Despite disagreement over specific definitions of readiness, DOD retains statutory authorities and responsibilities to produce and sustain ready military forces, and Congress has the constitutional authority to resource and regulate military forces for the nation. For these reasons, many government officials and members of the defense community agree that the focus of readiness is to generate “ready” military forces. The process of generating these forces is complex, and differs across a range of various circumstances (e.g., branch of armed service, military occupation, status of a service member [commissioned officer, warrant officer, or enlisted], and duty type/component [i.e., active or reserve]). Nonetheless, the military’s overall “readiness production process” can be broadly described in terms of producing and sustaining ready military units over time, with the principal focus within these units being the “war fighter” (i.e., the service member). 

This report applies the analogy of a production line to explain the process. The readiness production process includes three fundamental parts:

 Building initial readiness. This includes providing initial training and testing along with proper resourcing, so that war fighters can progress to advanced training.

 Increasing readiness. This includes providing advanced individual and unit training, testing, and proper resourcing, so that war fighters are qualified and resourced to deploy with their operational units.

 Sustaining readiness. This includes the continual training and resourcing of units, prior to and following deployments, in order to ensure units remain ready for future assigned missions.

Related to the readiness production process are the assessment and reporting of military readiness. This report includes an overview of selected readiness systems, assessments, and sample metrics used to inform military and congressional leaders. These include

 the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS);

 the Chairman’s Readiness System (CRS);

 the Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress (QRRC);

 Mission Capable (MC) rates; and 

 Aircraft Availability (AA) rates..."
Military readiness 

Legal Authority to Repurpose Funds for Border Barrier Construction

"President Trump has prioritized the construction of border barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Over the course of negotiations for FY2019 appropriations, the Administration asked Congress to appropriate $5.7 billion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for that purpose. When Congress appropriated $1.375 billion to DHS for border fencing, the President announced that his Administration would fund the construction of border barriers by repurposing funds appropriated to the Department of Defense (DOD) and transferring funds from the Department of the Treasury. The Administration asserted that these funding transfers were authorized by a combination of the following federal laws:

 National Emergencies Act (NEA). The NEA establishes a framework for the President to declare national emergencies. The NEA does not itself appropriate or authorize the transfer of funds, but the declaration of a national emergency triggers other statutory provisions that allow certain executive departments to repurpose existing appropriations.

 10 U.S.C. § 2808. Section 2808 becomes available upon the President’s declaration of a national emergency under the NEA. This provision authorizes the Secretary of Defense to use unobligated military construction funds for the construction of otherwise unauthorized military construction projects.  Sections 8005 and 9002 of the 2019 DOD Appropriations Act. Sections 8005 and 9002 of the 2019 DOD Appropriations Act authorize the transfer of up to $6 billion appropriated in that act for “military functions” arising from “unforeseen military requirements.” Funds may be transferred under these authorities only for “unforeseen military requirements” where the item for which funds will be transferred “has [not] been denied by the Congress.”

  10 U.S.C. § 284. The 2019 DOD Appropriations Act also appropriated funds to a Drug Interdiction Account. Pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 284, money in this fund may be spent by DOD in support of other agencies’ counterdrug activities, including by constructing “roads and fencing . . . to block drug smuggling corridors across international borders of the United States.” The Trump Administration proposed to use Sections 8005 and 9002 of the 2019 DOD Appropriations Act to transfer additional funds into the Drug Interdiction Account, which would then be used to construct border barriers.

 31 U.S.C. § 9705. This provision establishes a Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF) in the Department of the Treasury and authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to make payments from unobligated sums in the TFF to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for various law enforcement purposes..."
Border barrier construction

U.S. War Costs, Casualties, and Personnel Levels Since 9/11

"Seventeen years have passed since the U.S. initiated major military operations following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In the intervening period, operations first classified as Global War on Terror (GWOT) and later Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) have varied in scope. Though primarily focused on locations in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have also included territories throughout Central and Southeastern Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This In Focus summarizes major expenditures on U.S. war operations, reconstruction assistance, troop levels and casualties, and ongoing issues for Congress. This analysis narrowly defines war/non-war costs as OCOdesignated appropriated funds associated with overseas operations as designated in DOD’s official “Cost of War (CoW)” report. Other observers may define war operations or costs more broadly (see “Issues for Congress” section).

Department of Defense War Costs
Congress has appropriated a total of $1.55 trillion in discretionary amounts to the Department of Defense (DOD) for war funding since 9/11, according to DOD reporting. (See following section for OCO non-war expenditures.) Obligations of those amounts peaked during two surges of U.S. military activity; first in Iraq in FY2008 ($140 billion), and then in Afghanistan in FY2011 ($97 billion)..."
War costs

Can the Department of Defense Build the Border Wall?

"According to multiple reports, President Trump may be contemplating declaring a national emergency in order to fund the construction of a physical barrier along the southern border with Mexico. The funding for such construction has been the focal point of the partial government shutdown that began on December 22, as Congress has thus far refused the President’s demand for $5.7 billion in funding for the construction of physical barriers by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (the lead agency responsible for deterring illegal border crossings). A number of media outlets have reported that the President is considering whether to resolve this impasse by directing the Department of Defense (DOD) to construct border fencing with its existing appropriations. Certain federal statutes potentially provide the DOD with limited authority to construct physical barriers along the border. However, the President may seek to avail himself of broader authorities by declaring a “national emergency” under the National Emergencies Act (NEA). Such a declaration could enable the President to invoke certain emergency military construction authorities established by the Military Construction Codification Act (MCCA). Whether these authorities—individually or in combination—extend to the construction of a border wall would present a reviewing court with several questions of first impression.

This Sidebar provides an overview of the NEA; the military construction authorities available in the event of a declared emergency that the Administration may rely upon to deploy border fencing; and other  statutory authorities that may provide the DOD with the authority to engage in certain construction operations..."
Border wall

Covert Action and Clandestine Activities of the Intelligence Community: Selected Definitions in Brief

"While not defined by statute, DOD doctrine describes clandestine activities as “operations sponsored or conducted by governmental departments in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment” that may include relatively passive intelligence collection information gathering operations. Unlike covert action, clandestine activities do not require a presidential finding but may require notification of Congress. This definition differentiates clandestine from covert, using clandestine to signify the tactical concealment of the activity. By comparison, covert operations are “planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor.”

Since the 1970s, Congress has established and continued to refine oversight procedures in reaction to instances where it had not been given prior notice of intelligence activities— particularly covert action—that had significant bearing on United States national security. Congress, for example, had no foreknowledge of the CIA’s orchestration of the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran’s only democratically elected government, or of the U-2 surveillance flights over the Soviet Union that ended with the Soviet shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers in 1960. Eventually, media disclosures of the CIA’s domestic surveillance of the anti-Vietnam War movement and awareness of the agency’s covert war in Laos resulted in Congress taking action. In 1974, Congress began its investigation into the scope of past intelligence community activities that provided the basis for statutory provisions for intelligence oversight going forward..."
Covert action and intellgence community

Nuclear Posture Review: 2018

"On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to initiate a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The President made clear that his first priority is to protect the United States, allies, and partners. He also emphasized both the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and the requirement that the United States have modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear capabilities that are safe and secure until such a time as nuclear weapons can prudently be eliminated from the world.

The United States remains committed to its efforts in support of the ultimate global elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It has reduced the nuclear stockpile by over 85 percent since the height of the Cold War and deployed no new nuclear capabilities for over two decades. Nevertheless, global threat conditions have worsened markedly since the most recent 2010 NPR, including increasingly explicit nuclear threats from potential adversaries. The United States now faces a more diverse and advanced nuclear-threat environment than ever before, with considerable dynamism in potential adversaries’ development and deployment programs for nuclear weapons and delivery systems..."
Nuclear Posture Review

Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2017

"In 2016, the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began implementing the sweeping organizational reforms that President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders unveiled in 2015. This reorganization is the latest phase in China’s long-term military modernization program, which China’s leaders have characterized as essential to achieving great power status and what President Xi calls the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation. The leadership portrays a strong military as critical to advancing China’s interests, preventing other countries from taking steps that would damage those interests, and ensuring that China can defend itself and its sovereignty claims..."
China military report

A Shift in the International Security Environment: Potential Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress

"World events have led some observers, starting in late 2013, to conclude that the international security environment has undergone a shift from the familiar post-Cold War era of the past 20 to 25 years, also sometimes known as the unipolar moment (with the United States as the unipolar power), to a new and different situation that features, among other things, renewed great power competition with China and Russia and challenges by these two countries and others to elements of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II.

A previous change in the international security environment—the shift in the late 1980s and early 1990s from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era—prompted a broad reassessment by the Department of Defense (DOD) and Congress of defense funding levels, strategy, and missions that led to numerous changes in DOD plans and programs. Many of these changes were articulated in the 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR), a reassessment of U.S. defense plans and programs whose very name conveyed the fundamental nature of the reexamination that had occurred..."
International security

DOD Security Cooperation: An Overview of Authorities and Issues

"Over the past decade, the increasing scope, pace, and cost of Department of Defense (DOD) security cooperation missions have raised many questions about appropriate DOD and State Department roles and responsibilities in and the utility of such efforts. For some policymakers, DOD’s new and expanded missions enable the United States to meet the challenges of the complex global security environment more effectively. As such, congressional approval of new DOD security cooperation statutes represents a necessary response to perceived shortcomings of the overarching legal regime through which, for more than 50 years, Congress has largely authorized and funded the State Department to lead and DOD to administer security assistance to foreign countries. Other policymakers, however, question whether DOD’s growing emphasis on and authority to conduct security cooperation missions undermines the State Department’s lead role in assisting foreign security forces and “militarizes” U.S. foreign policy..."
DOD and security

Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Iraq and Afghanistan: 2007-2016

"This report provides background information for Congress on the levels of Department of Defense (DOD) troop and contractor personnel deployed in support of prior and ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information on DOD’s use of contractor personnel to support military operations, see CRS Report R43074, Department of Defense’s Use of Contractors to Support Military Operations: Background, Analysis, and Issues for Congress, by Moshe Schwartz.

The Role of Contractors in Military Operations

Throughout its history, DOD has relied on contractors to support a wide range of military operations. Operations over the past 30 years have highlighted the critical role that contractors play in supporting U.S. troops—both in terms of the number of contractors and the type of work being performed. During recent U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors frequently averaged 50% or more of the total DOD presence in-country..."
Afghanistan troop levels

Replacing Military Personnel in Support Positions With Civilian Employees

"Only military personnel engage in combat operations, according to U.S. government policies. However, either military personnel, civilian employees of the Department of Defense (DoD), or contractors may carry out support functions, such as accounting services. In 2012, about 340,000 active-duty military personnel were assigned to commercial positions that perform support functions. Those functions require skills that could be obtained from the private sector so that, in principle, those same positions could be filled by civilian employees.

To cut costs, DoD could transfer some of those positions to civilian employees and then reduce the number of military personnel accordingly. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that doing so for 80,000 full-time positions could eventually save the federal government $3.1 billion to $5.7 billion per year. (Those savings are measured in terms of annualized costs. That term encompasses all liabilities, current and future, that the federal government incurs by employing a military service member or a civilian today, expressed as annual amounts. All annualized amounts are in real terms, meaning that they have been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation.) Some costs of hiring military personnel are paid from accounts outside DoD’s budget, so the department would not realize all of those savings..."
military personnel

Defense Acquisitions: How and Where DOD Spends Its Contracting Dollars

"The Department of Defense (DOD) has long relied on contractors to provide the U.S. military with a wide range of goods and services, including weapons, food, uniforms, and operational support. Without contractor support, the United States would be currently unable to arm and field an effective fighting force. Understanding costs and trends associated with contractor support could provide Congress more information upon which to make budget decisions and weigh the relative costs and benefits of different military operations—including contingency operations and maintaining bases around the world..."
Military spending

Defense Surplus Equipment Disposal: Background Information

"The Department of Defense (DOD) through a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) component

called DLA Disposition Services [formerly the Defense Utilization and Marketing Service (DRMS)] has a policy for disposing of government equipment and supplies considered surplus or deemed unnecessary, or excess to the agency’s

currently designated mission. DLA Disposition Services is responsible for property reuse (including resale), precious metal recovery, recycling, hazardous property disposal, and the demilitarization of military equipment. The effort to dispose of surplus military equipment dates back to the end of World War II when the federal government sought to reduce a massive inventory of surplus military equipment by making such equipment available to civilians..."

Defense surplus disposal

Carrying of Firearms and the Use of Force by DoD Personnel Engaged in Security, Law and Order, or Counterintelligence Activities

Find text of directive (DoD Directive 5210.56, April 1, 2011) on the use of Firearms by U.S. Department of Defense personnel.
Carrying firearm by DoD Personnel

CRS Report for Congress Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom

"This report presents statistics regarding U.S. military casualties in the active Operation Enduring

Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan), as well as operations that have ended: Operation New Dawn (OND,

Iraq) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF, Iraq). This report includes statistics on post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), amputations, evacuations, and the

demographics of casualties. Some of these statistics are publicly available at the Department of

Defense’s (DOD’s) website, whereas others have been obtained through contact with experts at

DOD.."
Military casualty statistics

Western Hemisphere Defense Policy Statment

"DoD will support robust inter-American defense cooperation. Whenever possible, DoD will develop innovative, low-cost and small-footprint approaches to achieve our shared security objectives, relying on training, advisory capabilities, exercises, and rotational presence. This policy statement provides the framework on which we seek to build partnerships to enhance bilateral, sub-regional, and hemispheric capacity to meet the challenges of the 21st century.."

Western Hemisphere Defense Policy Statement

Long-Term Implications of the 2013 Future Years Defense Program

"In most years, the Department of Defense (DoD) provides a five-year plan, called the Future Years Defense
Program (FYDP), associated with the budget that it submits to the Congress. Because decisions made in the near term can have consequences for the defense budget well beyond that period, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) regularly examines DoD’s FYDP and projects its budgetary impact over several decades. For this analysis, CBO used the FYDP provided to the Congress in March 2012, which covers fiscal years 2013 to 2017; CBO’s projections span the years 2013 to 2030..."

Population Representation in the Military Services

Find the latest statistics by gender and race on military personnel from the U.S.
Department of Defense.