Officials Suggest New Role for More Capable Reserve Force
(June 7, 2011) |
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| WASHINGTON, June 3, 2011 – Capabilities gained from a decade
of combat have transformed military reserve components into
a full-spectrum operational force that should be integrated
into the active fighting force, a defense official said
today.
Paul Patrick, deputy assistant secretary of
defense for reserve affairs for readiness training and
mobilization, briefed an audience here on the Comprehensive
Review of the Future Role of the Reserve Component, approved
by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on April 27.
The
report calls on the Defense Department to institutionalize
experiences and integration that has occurred among the
National Guard and reserves over the last 10 years After
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, Patrick said.
The reserve components study was a product of the
Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, completed last year.
The review called for a comprehensive look at the roles of
the National Guard and reserves, and the balance between
active and reserve forces.
Dennis M. McCarthy,
assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, and
Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, were co-chairs in the review.
“The 21st century will require the United States to maintain
an array of forces that can consistently win across the full
spectrum of military operations on a global scale,” McCarthy
and Cartwright wrote in the study foreword.
“These
forces must be augmented by an accessible and ready pool of
reinforcing and complementary capabilities, some of which
will reside in our reserve components,” they added, noting
that “the policies and practices necessary to use the
National Guard and reserve as the report suggests have not
been fully institutionalized.”
At the briefing,
Robert Smiley, principal deputy for readiness training and
mobilization in the office of the assistant secretary of
defense for reserve affairs, said 24 DOD agencies
participated in the study, which offered seven suggestions
for best use of the part-time military force.
In its
current role -- as units, teams and individuals -- the
reserve component participates in overseas conflicts,
defends the homeland against external attacks and supports
civil authorities in response to attacks or natural
disasters.
In major combat operations it augments and
reinforces the national effort with combat and support
forces, supports combatant commanders worldwide and supports
the efforts of the military services to preserve the
all-volunteer force.
According to the report, several
options exist for rebalancing capabilities in the total
military force.
These include relying on the reserve
component when building force structure to avoid shortfalls
or expand capacity, assigning some recurring operational
missions to reserve component units, and establishing
long-term relationships between specific guard or reserve
units and individual combatant commands.
“If you have
the same people come back to the same well several times, we
think that works out better, and this long-term relationship
we think is a good deal,” Smiley said.
“[Intelligence] people do that now,” he added. “A lot of
[reserve] folks work on intel things, and the intel folks
see the same people over and over again. It's a good idea to
build these relationships.”
Other options include
establishing national or regional reserve units staffed with
people who are willing to serve on active duty more often or
for longer periods than usual based on individual missions,
and using reservists to respond to emerging needs like cyber
defense.
“How do I capture [an] engineer from
Microsoft and say to him, ‘You don't have to join the
military all the time, but we need your expertise for this
requirement?' Smiley asked.
“What can we do in the
reserves?” he continued. “How do we recruit that person, how
do we retain that person, and what's the proper way to
compensate that person?”
The report also suggested
integrating active and reserve forces into blended units,
and assigning some institutional support tasks --
recruiting, organizing, supplying, equipping, training and
others -- to reserve-component units, teams or individuals.
Without employing the Guard and reserves, the report
says, “the United States cannot continue to remain engaged
globally, given DOD's current force structure.” | |
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2011
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