Pentagon leaders frequently say, “People are our greatest resource.” They are certainly the largest resource — the Defense Department employs 2.87 million people and spends nearly $140 billion per year on military personnel. Overall pay and benefits for both military and civilian employees of the department cost $273 billion, 42 percent of the Fiscal Year 2018 budget.
Yet the department is dealing with a Good Will Hunting scenario: It underutilizes its talent. The Pentagon has the luxury of being able to operate ineffectively so long as jobs are filled and tasks are completed. The demand to maintain traditional operational consistency creates an environment with no margin for risk — but which in fact creates the greatest strategic risk of all.
It is important to ensure that quotas for pilots, submariners, infantrymen, and other more traditional warfighting occupations are filled, in order to support the incessant mission directives each ship and aircraft receives. To improve job placement across the department, artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled systems can identify traits that best correlate with operational success and guide service members with…
