Having expertise doesn’t always mean the system knows what to do with it

Guest:	Dr. Miriam Matthews and Cristina Garafola
Title:	Rand Corporation
Summary:	The Air Force has spent years building China‑related expertise. But researchers find the personnel system doesn’t always reward or retain that specialization. That leaves a gap between what strategy calls for and how careers actually play out.

The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton provides expert insights on current events in the federal community. Read more interviews to keep up with daily news and analysis that affect the federal workforce. Reach out to Terry and the Federal Drive producers with feedback and story ideas at FederalDrive@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Dr. Matthews, I’d like to start with you. This report talks about how the Air Force is adjusting to the China threat. For years now, national strategy documents have been very clear about China in our strategic thinking. Why has the gap been so hard for the Air Force to close?

Miriam Matthews It’s been hard because it’s not a single program fix. So it cuts across this China expertise challenge across education, training, assignments, promotions, language programs, regional experience and so forth. So all those different systems don’t always work together and move together. And there’s no single indicator that the Air Force can use to be able to identify relevant expertise. So who is a China expert in the U.S. Air Force? There are lots of different ways to think about that. So even just that one question, it becomes a challenge. Basically, it’s just many different systems meant for many different purposes.

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Terry Gerton Did there used to be pathways to develop this kind of deep regional expertise, and they’re just not used anymore?

Miriam Matthews Previously there have been different programs that have been forced to try and train people and get them spun up on regional expertise. As part of our report, we looked into how expertise was developed both for the Cold War and for expertise in the Middle East to try to learn some of the strengths of different past programs and also what the various limitations were. So there have been different programs and the kind of short story toward all of that is that they all had limitations. They were all dealing with these various systems and it becomes hard to mainstream and come up with a coherent system and picture for developing expertise.

Terry Gerton The report, I think, actually goes a little bit farther, Dr. Matthews, and says that specialization has actually become a career risk in the Air Force. Explain how they need this specialization, but it’s actually not a career benefit.

Miriam Matthews Well, that was one of the clearest themes that we found, both across what we saw in terms of our interviews, the data and looking into past cases. So the Air Force has said that it needs to develop regional knowledge, but historically people who specialize in something, they face different trade-offs in the traditional career progression. So during the Cold War and the Global War on Terror, regional expertise was often perceived as a risk, as a career risk, because it could pull individuals, like it could pool officers away from the assignments and milestones that promotion systems usually tend to reward. So if they’re a pilot, regional expertise may not be the focus for their career progression, and that could cause a risk if they have this regional focus. They have to choose, do they wanna be a specialized fantastic pilot or do they want to be a specialized fantastic regional expert? So we heard similar concerns when we were conducting interviews with various individuals across the Air Force. So there are highly motivated airmen who may want to build China expertise and really want to actively understand China, whether it be language, history, strategy. But if the systems aren’t clearly tracking expertise, they’re not demonstrating value for that for the various career fields, not just, for example, for a foreign area officer kind of thing, and they’re not using that expertise effectively — instead it’s just whatever the immediate need is and that might not be the regional expertise, then they can reasonably worry that that specialization that they want or that they’ve started to develop will hurt rather than help their careers.

Terry Gerton Ms. Garafola, the report makes a deep comparison to how airmen were managed during the Cold War era. What lessons did you learn from that comparison?

Cristina Garafola Absolutely. So we saw a number of strengths during the Cold War, both in the kind of doctrinal focus, so, you know, many of the U.S. Armed forces, including the Air Force, were gaining operational depth and knowledge across their doctrine focused on the Soviet Union. So there were specific operational knowledge built up over time about how the Soviet forces operated. And then that was disseminated through doctrinal publications about how the U.S. armed force should fight. And operationally, we also had multiple familiarization pathways for U.S. and Air Force forces, not only being stationed abroad, but rotating through Europe and getting operational training from veteran personnel on the ground that had years or even decades of experience learning about Soviet forces, Soviet tactics, changes in how the Soviet military might fight. So you had a doctrinal focus that was clear and then you had units that were being exposed to different types of Soviet operations, building that expertise across the force.

Terry Gerton How does that compare to how this kind of expertise is or isn’t being built today?

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Cristina Garafola Sure, so we see those as strengths of the Cold War system. Some of the weaknesses, unfortunately, do resonate from that period too. So one, as Miriam already talked about, there seemed to be a lack of strategic human capital planning at that time, where again, regional experience was not tied to promotion board metrics. We also see issues within the system today for that, as well as ad hoc practices. So there wasn’t a lot of these programs or knowledge in the classroom, for example, to learn more about the Soviet threat were optional or opting in by the individual service person. We also did a look at the Global War on Terror, where the training and doctrinal publications caught up after many forces were already deployed in the region. So they were learning on the go during their deployments, rather than getting instruction and education prior to being there.

Terry Gerton Dr. Miriam Matthews is a senior behavioral and social scientist. Christina Garafola is a senior policy researcher, both at the Rand Corporation. Dr. Matthews, let me come back to you. Your report notes that even when people acquire China-relevant skills, the system often fails to use them. You mentioned a little bit earlier about identifiers and various systems. What happens to this expertise? Where does it get lost?

Miriam Matthews What happens is that the Air Force loses basically operational value of their investment. So people develop this expertise, whether it be through their own motivation and just getting into degree programs, or taking courses or participating in training simply out of their own motivations, or they might be encouraged to do that earlier in their careers. And then what ends up happening is that the Air Force, by not using them, by not using the skills and the knowledge that they developed, that it risks wasting talent and motivation. So someone might invest years developing language skills and regional knowledge, expertise, better understanding the history and different strategies used in China. But if the Air Force cannot identify China experts within its service and cannot track them and doesn’t know what skills that they have, then it can’t put them in roles where those skills would have the greatest impact, where they would matter the most. And so the overall institution does not get the benefit of this knowledge and this expertise. And then from the individual airman’s perspective, it’s really discouraging. And we heard that again and again. It’s just very discouraging to try so hard and to be so motivated and really want to provide this unique value and then to have that not used. It’s just very demoralizing and demotivating for the individual airman, which has issues with retention, especially when outside of the Air Force that kind of knowledge and skills is highly in demand.

Terry Gerton Ms. Garafolo, let me come back to you. What distinguishes units that can successfully integrate this China expertise from those who treat it as optional?

Cristina Garafola Sure. I can give two types of examples. So one is some units and forces might be operating in a region, whether that’s the Indo-Pacific or others, where the Chinese military is also operating, or they may be operating with allies and partners who are also operating in proximity to the Chinese military. So commanders or units that are able to leverage their China talent may be working together with allies and partners that have shared experiences or common experiences, and they’re able to build trust or capability with another country and learn from their experiences too dealing with China. Another example is technical capabilities. So we know China’s military is modernizing rapidly. And so airmen who have relevant technological expertise on, you know, whether it’s missiles or some new technology that the PLA could be integrating, that’ll help provide the edge and some of their operational employment, right? So those are some areas that commanders can definitely benefit from.

Terry Gerton And Dr. Matthews, the report makes some recommendations. What would be different in the Air Force, say five years from now, if they follow your recommendations?

Miriam Matthews Well, it would be a change in how individuals are tracked so that the Air Force would be better able to change its personnel systems to track the individuals who have expertise and what expertise that is. The second kind of course of action or recommendation that we provided was to better handle training and education. Currently, there are programs all over the place that are potentially educating airmen on China. It’s not always clear who is getting what, and it’s not always clear that those different programs are terribly effective. So those are two of the main things would be that we need to get better at tracking and we need get better at training and development, so how the Air Force determines what needs to be known about China and then how we get to that place. I think those would be the key elements that, if in five years there could be some change in that. But I also caution that just trying to do a quick win is what can be problematic. So, recognizing that some of these changes will take long term, systematic, very thoughtful changes to really be able to change a system that has been working in this fashion, as we learned from this report and from our research where, decades to try and just spin up on regional expertise as fast as possible and worry about the rest of it later. Tracking, promotions, whatnot. So it might not just take five years. It might be a much longer term, more considered effort that has to be incorporated into every stage of the system.

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