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Here‘s an interesting article from the New York Times.
Interesting - in some respects, similarities to Canada (whereby the full-time army looks down upon the part-time army).
However, a notable, significant difference can be seen the the proposed expanded role.
Sure would be nice if Canada‘s full-time army felt the same way about the part-time army, eh?
Dileas Gu Brath!
August 4, 2000
Army Weighs an Expanded Role For National Guard Combat Units
From the New York Times, By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 _ The Army is proposing to give the National Guard a greatly increased role in combat, which would mean that tens of thousands of part-time soldiers would almost certainly be mobilized and sent to fight if war broke out on the Korean Peninsula or in the Persian Gulf, senior Pentagon officials say.
The combat divisions of the Guard, which a generation ago was the place to go to avoid fighting in Vietnam, have been assigned no role in the Army‘s war plans since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
But if the Army‘s proposals are approved, six out of the eight divisions -- each with roughly 15,000 soldiers -- would be assigned specific roles in the Defense Department‘s newly revised war plans, the officials said.
The move reflects the Army‘s increasing dependence on the Guard as it has reduced the size of the active force, even while taking on new missions from the Balkans to Africa to Latin America.
Throughout the cold war, the National Guard‘s combat divisions were held in reserve, to be mobilized only if the Soviet Union started World War III by invading Western Europe.
But over the last few years, the Army, like the other armed services, has increasing turned to the National Guard and Reserve to support military operations around the world. In March, troops from the 49th Armored Division of the Texas Guard took over the American peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, the first time since the Korean War that a guard division commanded an overseas operation.
The Army‘s proposal, drafted last week, would represent an even more marked shift in the Guard‘s role that could have profound effects on its budget, equipment and training -- and on the willingness of people to join a service that has traditionally demanded only a weekend a month and two weeks each summer.
"We‘re making a big step toward better use of the National Guard in the nation‘s military strategy, particularly in the war plans area," said Maj. Gen. Michael W. Davidson, the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for guard affairs.
The war plans -- or "op plans," as they are known -- are highly classified documents prepared by the nation‘s regional commanders in chief and regularly updated. In the event war breaks out, they detail which forces would be used to fight and where; they also assign roles in other military operations, like peacekeeping missions, or in "backfilling" for other units sent to war.
Under the proposal now being considered, the Army would assign six of the Guard‘s eight combat divisions specific missions in the war plans, two senior officials said.
Four of the divisions would be assigned to participate in the two "major theater wars" -- in the Persian Gulf and in Korea -- that are the bedrock of national military planning. The other two divisions would have missions supporting other operations in the Southern Command, which has responsibility for Central and South America, and in the European Command.
Army officials declined to discuss the Guard‘s specific missions, saying that details of the proposal are still being ironed out and must be approved by the Army‘s civilian and military leaders before being formally presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the regional commanders later this month. The Army has also not yet decided which of the divisions would be assigned to each mission.
If the Joint Chiefs accept the Army‘s proposal, then the Army‘s Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, is expected to unveil the proposal at the annual convention of the National Guard Association of the United States next month.
Individual units, including the Guard‘s 15 combat brigades, have for some years been assigned missions in the war plans and, like the 49th Armored Division, have increasingly participated in Army operations. But the fact that the war plans have not included the eight guard divisions has been perhaps the greatest source of contention between the Army and the National Guard.
Guard commanders have long complained that without specific missions, the divisions have received the lowest priority when it came to dividing up dwindling budgets, leaving them with older equipment and less money for training.
In the early 1990‘s, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, now the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried to make deep cuts in the Guard divisions, arguing that the Army no longer needed so many reserve combat forces that had no real mission. But those efforts where blocked in Congress, where the Guard has had strong support.
The Army National Guard was increased to 10 divisions during the Reagan build-up in the 1980‘s. But after the cold war, it was reduced back to eight while the regular Army was reduced from 18 to 10 today.
The world has changed since then. As the Army has shrunk by 40 percent from its cold-war high of nearly 800,000 troops, its 10 active divisions have become increasingly taxed, officials say, by the pace of operations like those today in the Persian Gulf, the Sinai Peninsula, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Last fall, two of the active divisions -- the 10th Mountain and the 1st Mechanized Infantry -- classified themselves as unready to fulfill their missions in the war plans because so many of their troops were committed to the Balkans. Army officials said it was that predicament that forced them to consider relying on the Guard to fulfill some of the war-time missions and other objectives.
At the same time, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen has made better use of the Guard and reserves a priority, ordering the services to remove "all structural barriers" between active and reserve forces.
The National Guard has made major contributions to the nation‘s wars. Guard divisions fought in both World Wars; the 29th Infantry Division of Virginia was one of two divisions that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Two guard divisions fought in Korea.
Since then, however, the divisions have not been deployed to fight, though some units and individuals served as volunteers in Vietnam.
During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the Pentagon mobilized more than 265,000 reservists, including 85,000 guard members, but most of them served in support roles.
During that war, the Pentagon did activate a combat tank brigade from the Georgia National Guard, but after putting the unit through two months of training, commanders deemed it unprepared for combat and refused to send it to the Gulf -- a decision that causes bitterness even today.
Within the Pentagon, there remains lingering doubts about the ability of the Guard divisions to be ready for combat, especially in a major regional war, but with General Shinseki pledging to fully integrate the National Guard into the Army, officials say they are determined to overcome them.
Richard C. Alexander, a retired major general who is executive director of the National Guard Association in Washington, said the Army‘s willingness to include the divisions in the war plans signaled a significant change in its attitude toward the guard forces.
"We‘re satisfied there is a relevancy being established for the Guard -- and relevancy is the key," he said. "Once relevancy is established, we are obligated to do whatever we can to see that it is adequately resourced."
Including the divisions in the war plans will almost certainly require the Army and the Guard to spend more on equipment and training, though officials say it is far too early to estimate what the costs would be. "If we know they‘re going to be missioned, they‘re going to have to have the equipment they need," one Army official said.
Even then, the Army will still have to set priorities.
"This nation as a whole is not going to spend the money to bring every guard division, every reserve unit and every active-duty division up to the pinnacle of readiness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," said P. T. Henry, the Army‘s assistant secretary for reserve affairs.
Another obstacle will be the amount of time it takes to mobilize a guard division, compared with an active division, since most of its soldiers serve only part time and, in many cases, are scattered in units spread over several states.
The war plans today require the Guard‘s combat brigades, with roughly 2,000 soldiers, to be ready to deploy into combat within 90 days of mobilization.
Officials said they are now increasing the readiness standards at the platoon level and working on a plan that would require the guard divisions to be combat ready within 150 days.
That would mean that the divisions would not likely be the first ones deployed to a conflict, though one official noted that the Army had six months after Iraq‘s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to assemble the force that ultimately drove the Iraqis out.
The officials said the Army‘s proposal would also give the guard divisions the role of filling in when an active division is pulled away from an overseas base or from a peacekeeping mission like those in Bosnia or Kosovo.
Perhaps the biggest question will be the effect on recruiting and retention. While many guard commanders have wanted an increased role, the increasing possibility of deploying for war could cause some of those who signed up to rethink their commitment.
Charles L. Cragin, the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, said that the contract with the nation‘s citizen soldiers has evolved as much as the role of the military in general. He derides the widely used phrase "weekend warrior" for reservists because, he said, it simply is no longer relevant.
"The basic premise throughout the cold war was that unless the Russians started pouring through the Fulda Gap," Mr. Cragin said, referring to the hilly area that was once the border of eastern and western Gemernay, "we were not going to call up the reserves. The reserve force was reserved. That equation has changed."
- 30 -
M.A. Bossi, Esquire
Interesting - in some respects, similarities to Canada (whereby the full-time army looks down upon the part-time army).
However, a notable, significant difference can be seen the the proposed expanded role.
Sure would be nice if Canada‘s full-time army felt the same way about the part-time army, eh?
Dileas Gu Brath!
August 4, 2000
Army Weighs an Expanded Role For National Guard Combat Units
From the New York Times, By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 _ The Army is proposing to give the National Guard a greatly increased role in combat, which would mean that tens of thousands of part-time soldiers would almost certainly be mobilized and sent to fight if war broke out on the Korean Peninsula or in the Persian Gulf, senior Pentagon officials say.
The combat divisions of the Guard, which a generation ago was the place to go to avoid fighting in Vietnam, have been assigned no role in the Army‘s war plans since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
But if the Army‘s proposals are approved, six out of the eight divisions -- each with roughly 15,000 soldiers -- would be assigned specific roles in the Defense Department‘s newly revised war plans, the officials said.
The move reflects the Army‘s increasing dependence on the Guard as it has reduced the size of the active force, even while taking on new missions from the Balkans to Africa to Latin America.
Throughout the cold war, the National Guard‘s combat divisions were held in reserve, to be mobilized only if the Soviet Union started World War III by invading Western Europe.
But over the last few years, the Army, like the other armed services, has increasing turned to the National Guard and Reserve to support military operations around the world. In March, troops from the 49th Armored Division of the Texas Guard took over the American peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, the first time since the Korean War that a guard division commanded an overseas operation.
The Army‘s proposal, drafted last week, would represent an even more marked shift in the Guard‘s role that could have profound effects on its budget, equipment and training -- and on the willingness of people to join a service that has traditionally demanded only a weekend a month and two weeks each summer.
"We‘re making a big step toward better use of the National Guard in the nation‘s military strategy, particularly in the war plans area," said Maj. Gen. Michael W. Davidson, the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for guard affairs.
The war plans -- or "op plans," as they are known -- are highly classified documents prepared by the nation‘s regional commanders in chief and regularly updated. In the event war breaks out, they detail which forces would be used to fight and where; they also assign roles in other military operations, like peacekeeping missions, or in "backfilling" for other units sent to war.
Under the proposal now being considered, the Army would assign six of the Guard‘s eight combat divisions specific missions in the war plans, two senior officials said.
Four of the divisions would be assigned to participate in the two "major theater wars" -- in the Persian Gulf and in Korea -- that are the bedrock of national military planning. The other two divisions would have missions supporting other operations in the Southern Command, which has responsibility for Central and South America, and in the European Command.
Army officials declined to discuss the Guard‘s specific missions, saying that details of the proposal are still being ironed out and must be approved by the Army‘s civilian and military leaders before being formally presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the regional commanders later this month. The Army has also not yet decided which of the divisions would be assigned to each mission.
If the Joint Chiefs accept the Army‘s proposal, then the Army‘s Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, is expected to unveil the proposal at the annual convention of the National Guard Association of the United States next month.
Individual units, including the Guard‘s 15 combat brigades, have for some years been assigned missions in the war plans and, like the 49th Armored Division, have increasingly participated in Army operations. But the fact that the war plans have not included the eight guard divisions has been perhaps the greatest source of contention between the Army and the National Guard.
Guard commanders have long complained that without specific missions, the divisions have received the lowest priority when it came to dividing up dwindling budgets, leaving them with older equipment and less money for training.
In the early 1990‘s, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, now the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried to make deep cuts in the Guard divisions, arguing that the Army no longer needed so many reserve combat forces that had no real mission. But those efforts where blocked in Congress, where the Guard has had strong support.
The Army National Guard was increased to 10 divisions during the Reagan build-up in the 1980‘s. But after the cold war, it was reduced back to eight while the regular Army was reduced from 18 to 10 today.
The world has changed since then. As the Army has shrunk by 40 percent from its cold-war high of nearly 800,000 troops, its 10 active divisions have become increasingly taxed, officials say, by the pace of operations like those today in the Persian Gulf, the Sinai Peninsula, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Last fall, two of the active divisions -- the 10th Mountain and the 1st Mechanized Infantry -- classified themselves as unready to fulfill their missions in the war plans because so many of their troops were committed to the Balkans. Army officials said it was that predicament that forced them to consider relying on the Guard to fulfill some of the war-time missions and other objectives.
At the same time, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen has made better use of the Guard and reserves a priority, ordering the services to remove "all structural barriers" between active and reserve forces.
The National Guard has made major contributions to the nation‘s wars. Guard divisions fought in both World Wars; the 29th Infantry Division of Virginia was one of two divisions that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Two guard divisions fought in Korea.
Since then, however, the divisions have not been deployed to fight, though some units and individuals served as volunteers in Vietnam.
During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the Pentagon mobilized more than 265,000 reservists, including 85,000 guard members, but most of them served in support roles.
During that war, the Pentagon did activate a combat tank brigade from the Georgia National Guard, but after putting the unit through two months of training, commanders deemed it unprepared for combat and refused to send it to the Gulf -- a decision that causes bitterness even today.
Within the Pentagon, there remains lingering doubts about the ability of the Guard divisions to be ready for combat, especially in a major regional war, but with General Shinseki pledging to fully integrate the National Guard into the Army, officials say they are determined to overcome them.
Richard C. Alexander, a retired major general who is executive director of the National Guard Association in Washington, said the Army‘s willingness to include the divisions in the war plans signaled a significant change in its attitude toward the guard forces.
"We‘re satisfied there is a relevancy being established for the Guard -- and relevancy is the key," he said. "Once relevancy is established, we are obligated to do whatever we can to see that it is adequately resourced."
Including the divisions in the war plans will almost certainly require the Army and the Guard to spend more on equipment and training, though officials say it is far too early to estimate what the costs would be. "If we know they‘re going to be missioned, they‘re going to have to have the equipment they need," one Army official said.
Even then, the Army will still have to set priorities.
"This nation as a whole is not going to spend the money to bring every guard division, every reserve unit and every active-duty division up to the pinnacle of readiness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," said P. T. Henry, the Army‘s assistant secretary for reserve affairs.
Another obstacle will be the amount of time it takes to mobilize a guard division, compared with an active division, since most of its soldiers serve only part time and, in many cases, are scattered in units spread over several states.
The war plans today require the Guard‘s combat brigades, with roughly 2,000 soldiers, to be ready to deploy into combat within 90 days of mobilization.
Officials said they are now increasing the readiness standards at the platoon level and working on a plan that would require the guard divisions to be combat ready within 150 days.
That would mean that the divisions would not likely be the first ones deployed to a conflict, though one official noted that the Army had six months after Iraq‘s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to assemble the force that ultimately drove the Iraqis out.
The officials said the Army‘s proposal would also give the guard divisions the role of filling in when an active division is pulled away from an overseas base or from a peacekeeping mission like those in Bosnia or Kosovo.
Perhaps the biggest question will be the effect on recruiting and retention. While many guard commanders have wanted an increased role, the increasing possibility of deploying for war could cause some of those who signed up to rethink their commitment.
Charles L. Cragin, the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, said that the contract with the nation‘s citizen soldiers has evolved as much as the role of the military in general. He derides the widely used phrase "weekend warrior" for reservists because, he said, it simply is no longer relevant.
"The basic premise throughout the cold war was that unless the Russians started pouring through the Fulda Gap," Mr. Cragin said, referring to the hilly area that was once the border of eastern and western Gemernay, "we were not going to call up the reserves. The reserve force was reserved. That equation has changed."
- 30 -
M.A. Bossi, Esquire
