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Since 9/11, the US Military has drawn extensively and continuously from its reserve component. This represents a major shift in the purpose of the reserve. Once characterized as the United States' "strategic reserve," the reserve component has recently transformed into an "operational reserve." This abrupt transition has been accompanied by a multitude of problems. The authors trace the difficulties associated with this transition in US Military policy from Vietnam, through 9/11, to the present day. The article concludes by discussing the long-term feasibility of an "operational reserve."
A contentious debate raged inside the halls of the Pentagon during the winter of 2006. The military was running out of National Guardsmen and Reservists to mobilize for the war on terror. At that time, the Department of Defense (DoD) had been following a policy that mobilized Guardsmen and Reservists for a period of only twenty-four cumulative months. However, this policy was hampering the Army's ability to field enough forces to meet all of its world-wide commitments. Then Chief of Staff of the Army, General Peter Schoomaker, testifying before the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, warned: "At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component" (CNGR 2006c). The Army Chief of Staff also said that DoD policy prohibited him from accessing nearly ninety percent of his reserve component (CNGR 2006c).
A change to reserve component mobilization policy had to be implemented soon, or in the ensuing months and years ahead, the Army would be unable to meet its world-wide commitments. "As it currently stands, the Army is incapable of generating and sustaining the required forces to wage the Global War on Terror and fulfill all other operational requirements without its components - active, Guard, and Reserve - surging together," said General Schoomaker (CNGR 2006c).
The change in DoD policy came in January of 2007 when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates abandoned the reserve mobilization policy of his predecessor Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whose policy had been termed the "twenty-four month rule." It allowed for National Guard and Reserve members to be mobilized for twenty-four cumulative months once every five years. Shortly after Secretary Gates announced that the DoD would no longer honor the twenty-four month rule, four...