Research for Losses

The Marine Corps's manpower costs—about $9.4 billion—represent 60 percent of its annual budget. Before this study, there was no institutionalized and documented methodology for forecasting losses and no systematic attempt to improve existing techniques. Personnel charged with developing plans to meet Marine Corps endstrength requirements relied on information gleaned during overlap with their predecessors and sometimes developed their own methods, which were susceptible to errors. The study's authors revamped the process to make it more systematic and recommended ways to accurately forecast endstrength losses and gains.