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Provisional units have high demands for certain equipment

• Provisional units place strain on the Marine Corps for some types of equipment (e.g., communications and electronics).
• Demand for some items is high relative to the approved acquisition objective for the force sourcing the provisional unit.

Marine Corps policies on provisional units need more clarity

• Policies lack clear, consistent guidance on provisional unit equipping, especially what is required for the sustainment of these units.
• There is a disconnect between how accountability is supposed to work according to policy and how it works in practice.

Information technology (IT) systems are not responsive to provisional unit needs

• Enterprise IT systems to track authorized allowances and on-hand equipment quantities generally work only for standard units.
• Most provisional units default to using spreadsheets, which do not enable visibility, tracking, and analysis.

Accurate utilization rates are lacking to inform equipping decisions

• It takes subjective judgment to estimate how to equip provisional units taking on novel missions.
• As the Marine Corps employs more provisional units, it becomes harder to refine estimates of equipment need without usage data.

Managing risk is a challenge when trading off support for provisional units and other Global Force Management commitments

• The Marine Corps has prioritized preserving readiness for major combat operations rather than risk it on support for provisional units, which includes restricting provisional units' access to war reserve materiel.
• While reserving war reserve material is important for maintaining readiness for major combat, this practice may put provisional units currently deployed at risk.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has implemented proactive measures to respond to global events and crises that have outsized strategic and geopolitical impacts. One such measure is deploying task-organized units, also referred to as provisional units, to respond to an increase in combatant commander demands for forces. Like regular units, these provisional units are manned, trained, and equipped to conduct a myriad of missions across the range of military operations. However, their temporary nature and provisional missions are at odds with the way that the Marine Corps normally deploys units. Furthermore, there is little infrastructure and a lack of specific policy to validate and manage resources being used by these units.

In documenting the extent of the equipping issues that provisional units face, the authors found that equipping challenges stem from a large number of small problems that collectively cause negative impacts. Since no single course of action can significantly improve provisional unit equipping, the problem demands a multipronged, hybrid approach that capitalizes on the strengths of several different equipping strategies. The authors' recommendations to mitigate provisional equipment challenges are informed by three imperatives: balance provisional unit equipping with overall readiness; minimize disruption to current Marine Corps practices; and accommodate provisional unit equipping needs while keeping policies and practices flexible enough to accommodate future needs.

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