Military Personnel: A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Address
Long-term Guard and Reserve Force Availability (02-FEB-05,
GAO-05-285T).
The Department of Defense (DOD) has six reserve components: the
Army Reserve, the Army National Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the
Air National Guard, the Naval Reserve, and the Marine Corps
Reserve. DOD's use of Reserve and National Guard forces increased
dramatically following the events of September 11, 2001, and on
January 19, 2005, more than 192,000 National Guard and Reserve
component members were mobilized. About 85 percent of these
personnel were members of the Army National Guard or the Army
Reserve. Furthermore, the availability of reserve component
forces will continue to play an important role in the success of
DOD's future missions, and DOD has projected that over the next 3
to 5 years, it will continuously have more than 100,000 reserve
component members mobilized. Since September, 2001, GAO has
issued a number of reports that have dealt with issues related to
the increased use of Reserve and National Guard forces. For this
hearing, GAO was asked to provide the results of its work on the
extent to which DOD has the strategic framework and policies
necessary to maximize reserve component force availability for a
long-term Global War on Terrorism.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-05-285T
ACCNO: A16738
TITLE: Military Personnel: A Strategic Approach Is Needed to
Address Long-term Guard and Reserve Force Availability
DATE: 02/02/2005
SUBJECT: Armed forces reserves
Combat readiness
Counterterrorism
Defense capabilities
Defense contingency planning
Military reserve personnel
Mobilization
National Guard
National preparedness
Personnel management
Strategic planning
Terrorism
Global War on Terrorism
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GAO-05-285T
United States Government Accountability Office
GAO Testimony
Before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, Committee on Armed
Services, House of Representatives
Not to Be Released
Before 2:30 p.m. EST MILITARY PERSONNEL
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Address Long-term Guard and Reserve Force
Availability
Statement for the Record by Derek B. Stewart, Director Defense Capabilities and
Management
GAO-05-285T
[IMG]
February 2, 2005
MILITARY PERSONNEL
A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Address Long-term Guard and Reserve Force
Availability
What GAO Found
DOD does not have a strategic framework with human capital goals
concerning the availability of its reserve component forces. The manner in
which DOD implements its mobilization authorities affects the number of
reserve component members available. The partial mobilization authority
limits involuntary mobilizations to not more than 1 million reserve
component members at any one time, for not more than 24 consecutive
months, during a time of national emergency. Under DOD's current
implementation of the authority, members can be involuntarily mobilized
more than once, but involuntary mobilizations are limited to a cumulative
total of 24 months. Given this implementation, DOD could eventually run
out of forces. During GAO's 2004 review, DOD was facing shortages of some
reserve component personnel, and officials considered changing their
implementation of the partial mobilization authority to expand the pool of
available personnel. Under the proposed implementation, DOD could have
mobilized personnel for less than 24 consecutive months, sent them home
for a period, and remobilized them, repeating this cycle indefinitely and
providing an essentially unlimited flow of forces. After GAO's review was
done, DOD said it would retain its current implementation that limits
mobilizations to a cumulative total of 24 months. However, DOD did not
clarify how it planned to meet its longer-term requirements for the Global
War on Terrorism as additional forces reach the 24-month mobilization
point. By June 2004, 30,000 reserve component members had already been
mobilized for 24 months.
DOD's policies also affect the availability of reserve component members.
Many of the policies that affect reserve component availability were
focused on the services' short-term requirements or the needs of
individual service members rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. For example, DOD implemented stop-loss policies, which are
short-term measures that increase force availability by retaining active
or reserve component members on active duty beyond the end of their
obligated service. Because DOD's various policies were not developed
within the context of an overall strategic framework, they underwent
numerous changes as DOD strove to meet current requirements, and they did
not work together to meet the department's long-term Global War on
Terrorism requirements. These policy changes created uncertainties for
reserve component members concerning the likelihood of their mobilization,
the length of service commitments and overseas rotations, and the types of
missions they will have to perform. The uncertainties may affect future
retention and recruiting efforts, and indications show that some parts of
the force may already be stressed. GAO recommended that DOD develop a
strategic framework with human capital goals and then link its policies
within the context of the strategic framework. DOD generally agreed with
the recommendations.
United States Government Accountability Office
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this statement for your hearing
on the adequacy of Army forces.
The Department of Defense (DOD) cannot meet its global commitments without
sizable participation from among its current 1.2 million National Guard
and Reserve members. Since September 11, 2001, more than 363,000 of these
reserve component1 members have been involuntarily called to active duty.
On January 19, 2005, more than 192,000 National Guard and Reserve
component members remained mobilized, about 85 percent of them from the
Army National Guard or the Army Reserve.
Reserve component members have been deployed around the world; some help
to maintain peace and security at home, while others serve on the front
lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. Since the pace of reserve
operations is expected to remain high due to the Global War on Terrorism
stretching indefinitely into the future, it is critical that the services
maximize the availability of their reserve component forces. Recruiting
and retention success are important factors in maintaining the
availability of the force, and DOD has recognized that predictability is
one of the keys to the retention of a quality force.
Since September 2001, GAO has issued a number of reports that have dealt
with issues related to the increased use of Reserve and National Guard
forces. This testimony is drawn largely from our September 2004 report
dealing with mobilization and demobilization issues,2 and it also draws on
our August 2003 report on mobilization issues,3 and our November 2004
report on the National Guard.4 For this hearing, GAO was asked to provide
1 DOD's reserve components include the collective forces of the Army
National Guard and the Air National Guard, as well as the forces from the
Army Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, and the Air
Force Reserve. The Coast Guard Reserve also assists DOD in meeting its
commitments. However, we do not cover the Coast Guard Reserve here because
it accounts for about 1 percent of the total reserve force and comes under
the day-to-day control of the Department of Homeland Security rather than
DOD.
2 GAO, Military Personnel: DOD Needs to Address Long-term Reserve Force
Availability and Related Mobilization and Demobilization Issues,
GAO-04-1031 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2004).
3 GAO, Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of
Mobilizations for Reserve Forces, GAO-03-921 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 21,
2003).
the results of its work on the extent to which DOD has the strategic
framework and policies necessary to maximize reserve component force
availability for a long-term Global War on Terrorism.
In addressing our objective for this body of work, we reviewed policies
from the services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in
light of the various mobilization authorities that are available to DOD
and planned deployment rotations. We also visited sites where the services
conduct mobilization and demobilization processing and interviewed
responsible officials at those sites. Although we visited sites for all
the services, we focused our review primarily on the Army's mobilization
and demobilization processes, since more personnel from the Army have been
and are expected to be mobilized than from all the other services
combined. We analyzed personnel data obtained during the site visits and
held meetings with military and civilian officials from OSD, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the service headquarters, reserve component headquarters,
and support agencies. Based on our review of the databases we used, we
determined that the DOD-provided data were reliable for the purposes of
our work. We conducted our reviews in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. Let me now turn to the specific issues
associated with reserve component force availability.
Summary �
DOD does not have the strategic framework and associated policies
necessary to maximize reserve component force availability for a long-term
Global War on Terrorism. The manner in which DOD implements its
mobilization authorities affects the number of reserve component members
available. The partial mobilization authority limits involuntary
mobilizations to not more than 1 million reserve component members at any
one time, for not more than 24 consecutive months, during a time of
national emergency. Under DOD's current implementation of the authority,
reserve component members can be involuntarily mobilized more than once,
but involuntary mobilizations are limited to a cumulative total of 24
months. Given this implementation that restricts the time personnel can be
mobilized, DOD could eventually run out of forces. During our 2004 review
of mobilization and demobilization issues, DOD was facing critical
shortages of some reserve component personnel, and officials considered
changing their implementation of the partial mobilization authority to
expand the pool of available personnel. Under
4 GAO, Reserve Forces: Actions Needed to Better Prepare the National Guard
for Future Overseas and Domestic Missions, GAO-05-21 (Washington, D.C.:
Nov. 10, 2004).
the proposed implementation, DOD could have mobilized its reserve
component personnel for less than 24 consecutive months, sent them home
for an unspecified period, and then remobilized them, repeating this cycle
indefinitely and providing an essentially unlimited flow of forces. After
our review was completed, DOD said it would continue its implementation of
the partial mobilization authority that limits mobilizations to a
cumulative total of 24 months. However, DOD did not clarify how it planned
to meet its longer-term requirements for the Global War on Terrorism as
successive groups of reserve component personnel reach the 24-month
mobilization point. By June 2004, 30,000 reserve component members had
already been mobilized for 24 months.
DOD's policies also affect the availability of reserve component members.
Many of the policies that affect reserve component availability were
focused on the services' short-term requirements and the needs of
individual members, rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. For example, DOD has sometimes implemented stop-loss
policies, which are short-term measures that increase force availability
by retaining active or reserve component members on active duty beyond the
end of their obligated service. Overall, DOD's policies concerning the use
of its reserve component forces reflect the past use of the reserve
components as a later-deploying reserve force rather than current usage as
a force to support continued overseas deployments. Because DOD's policies
concerning the use of its reserve components were not developed within the
context of an overall strategic framework with human capital goals
concerning the availability of reserve forces, the policies did not work
in conjunction with each other to meet the department's long-term Global
War on Terrorism requirements. As a result, the policies underwent
numerous changes as DOD strove to increase the availability of the reserve
components to meet current requirements. These policy changes created
uncertainties concerning unit cohesion, the likelihood of reserve
component member mobilizations, length of service commitments and overseas
rotations, the types of missions members would be asked to perform, and
the availability of needed equipment. It remains to be seen how these
uncertainties will affect recruiting, retention, and the long-term
availability of the reserve components, but there are already indications
that some portions of the force are being stressed. For example, the Army
National Guard achieved only 87 percent of its recruiting goals in both
fiscal years 2003 and 2004, and in the first quarter of fiscal year 2005
it achieved only 80 percent of its goal.
In our previously published reports, we made several recommendations aimed
at increasing the long-term availability of reserve component forces.
Background
In particular, we recommended that DOD develop a strategic framework that
sets human capital goals concerning the availability of its reserve force
to meet the longer-term requirements of the Global War on Terrorism, and
we recommended that DOD identify policies that should be linked within the
context of the strategic framework. DOD generally agreed with our
recommendations concerning long-term availability of reserve component
forces.
Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel and
equipment, activating or federalizing units and members of the National
Guard and Reserves for active duty, and bringing the armed forces to a
state of readiness for war or other national emergency. It is a complex
undertaking that requires constant and precise coordination between a
number of commands and officials. Mobilization usually begins when the
President invokes a mobilization authority and ends with the voluntary or
involuntary mobilization of an individual Reserve or National Guard
member. Demobilization5 is the process necessary to release from active
duty units and members of the National Guard and Reserve components who
were ordered to active duty under various legislative authorities.
Mobilization and demobilization times can vary from a matter of hours to
months, depending on a number of factors. For example, many air reserve
component units are required to be available to mobilize within 72 hours,
while Army National Guard brigades may require months of training as part
of their mobilizations. Reserve component members' usage of accrued leave
can greatly affect demobilization times. Actual demobilization processing
typically takes a matter of days once the member arrives back in the
United States. However, since members earn 30 days of leave each year,
they could have up to 60 days of leave available to them at the end of a
2-year mobilization.
Reserve Components and DOD has six reserve components: the Army Reserve,
the Army National
Categories Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval
Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve. Reserve forces can be divided into
three major categories: the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the
5 Some of the services use the terms "activation" and "deactivation" to
describe the processes for bringing reserve component members on and off
active duty, and use the terms "mobilization" and "demobilization" to
describe the broader processes that also include equipment and facility
issues. We have used the more common "mobilization" and "demobilization"
terms here even though our primary focus is on personnel issues.
Retired Reserve. The Total Reserve had approximately 1.2 million National
Guard and Reserve members at the end of fiscal year 2004. However, only
the 1.1 million members of the Ready Reserve were subject to involuntary
mobilization under the partial mobilization declared by President Bush on
September 14, 2001. Within the Ready Reserve, there are three
subcategories: the Selected Reserve, the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR),
and the Inactive National Guard. Members of all three subcategories are
subject to mobilization under a partial mobilization.
o At the end of fiscal year 2004, DOD had 859,406 Selected Reserve
members. The Selected Reserve's members included individual mobilization
augmentees-individuals who train regularly, for pay, with active component
units-as well as members who participate in regular training as members of
National Guard or Reserve units.
o At the end of fiscal year 2004, DOD had 284,201IRR members. During a
partial mobilization, these individuals-who were previously trained during
periods of active duty service-can be mobilized to fill requirements. Each
year, the services transfer thousands of personnel who have completed the
active duty or Selected Reserve portions of their military contracts, but
who have not reached the end of their military service obligations, to the
IRR.6 However, IRR members do not participate in any regularly scheduled
training, and they are not paid for their membership in the IRR.7
o At the end of fiscal year 2004, the Inactive National Guard had 1,428
Army National Guard members. This subcategory contains individuals who are
temporarily unable to participate in regular training but who wish to
remain attached to their National Guard unit.
6 While enlistment contracts can vary, a typical enlistee would incur an
8-year military service obligation, which could consist of a 4-year active
duty obligation followed by a 4-year IRR obligation.
7 IRR members can request to participate in annual training or other
operations, but most do not. Those who are activated are paid for their
service. Also, there are small groups of IRR members who participate in
unpaid training. The members of this last group are often in the IRR only
for short periods while they are waiting to transfer to paid positions in
the Selected Reserve. IRR members can receive retirement credit if they
meet basic eligibility criteria through voluntary training or
mobilizations.
Mobilization Authorities Most reservists who were called to active duty
for other than normal training after September 11, 2001, were mobilized
under one of the three legislative authorities listed in table 1.
Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11, 2001
Number of Ready Reservists that can be Title 10 U.S.C. Type of
mobilization mobilized at any one time Length of mobilization
S: 12304 Involuntary 200,000a Not more than 270 days for any
operational mission
(Presidential
reserve call-up
authority)
S: 12302 1,000,000
(Partial mobilization
authority)
S: 12301 (d) Voluntary Unlimited Unlimited
Source: GAO.
aUnder this authority, DOD can mobilize members of the Selected Reserve
and certain IRR members but is limited to not more than 200,000 members at
any one time, of whom not more than 30,000 may be members of the IRR.
On September 14, 2001, President Bush declared that a national emergency
existed as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
City, New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and he invoked 10
U.S.C. S: 12302, which is commonly referred to as the "partial
mobilization authority." On September 20, 2001, DOD issued mobilization
guidance that, among a host of other things, directed the services as a
matter of policy to specify in initial orders to Ready Reserve members
that the period of active duty service under 10 U.S.C. S: 12302 would not
exceed 12 months. However, the guidance allowed the service secretaries to
extend orders for an additional 12 months or to remobilize reserve
component members under the partial mobilization authority as long as an
individual member's cumulative service did not exceed 24 months under 10
U.S.C. S: 12302. The guidance further specified that "No member of the
Ready Reserve called to involuntary active duty under 10 U.S.C. 12302 in
support of the effective conduct of operations in response to the World
Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, shall serve on active duty in excess of
24 months under that authority, including travel time to return the member
to the residence from which he or she left when called to active duty and
use of accrued leave." The guidance also allowed the services to retain
members on active duty after they had served 24 or fewer months under
10 U.S.C. S: 12302 with the member's consent if additional orders were
authorized under 10 U.S.C. S: 12301(d).8
Mobilization and Demobilization Roles and Responsibilities
Combatant commanders are principally responsible for the preparation and
implementation of operation plans that specify the necessary level of
mobilization of reserve component forces. The military services are the
primary executors of mobilization. At the direction of the Secretary of
Defense, the services prepare detailed mobilization plans to support the
operation plans and provide forces and logistical support to the combatant
commanders.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, who reports to the
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, is to provide
policy, programs, and guidance for the mobilization and demobilization of
the reserve components. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after
coordination with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs,
the secretaries of the military departments, and the commanders of the
Unified Combatant Commands, is to advise the Secretary of Defense on the
need to augment the active forces with members of the reserve components.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also has responsibility for
recommending the period of service for units and members of the reserve
components ordered to active duty. The service secretaries are to prepare
plans for mobilization and demobilization and to periodically review and
test the plans to ensure the services' capabilities to mobilize reserve
forces and to assimilate them effectively into the active forces.
8 According to DOD, this policy guidance is still in effect, and the only
major change to the policy has been to allow the Army to call up reserve
component members for more than 12 months on their initial orders.
However, DOD also noted that there have been multiple other documents
published to augment the policy, provide more information, or implement
legal requirements.
Service Usage of the Figure 1 shows reserve component usage on a per
capita basis since Reserve Component since fiscal year 1989 and
demonstrates the dramatic increase in usage that September 11, 2001
occurred after September 11, 2001. It shows that the ongoing usage-
which includes support for operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and
Iraqi Freedom-exceeds the usage rates during the 1991 Persian Gulf War in
both length and magnitude.9
Figure 1: Average Days of Duty Performed by DOD's Reserve Component
Forces, Fiscal Years 1989-2003
Duty days per capita
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Fiscal year
Source: GAO analysis of OASD/RA data
Note: Duty days in figure 1 include training days as well as support for
operational missions.
While reserve component usage increased significantly after
�September 11, 2001, an equally important shift occurred at the end
of 2002.�Following the events of September 11, 2001, the Air Force
initially used �the partial mobilization authority more than the
other services. However, �service usage shifted in 2002, and by the
end of that year, the Army had �more reserve component members
mobilized than all the other services �combined. Since that time,
usage of the Army's reserve component�members has continued to
dominate DOD's figures. On January 19, 2005, �
9 Noble Eagle is the name for the domestic war on terrorism. Enduring
Freedom is the name for the international war on terrorism, including
operations in Afghanistan. Iraqi Freedom is the name for operations in and
around Iraq.
more than 192,000 National Guard and Reserve members were mobilized. About
85 percent of these mobilized personnel were members of the Army National
Guard or Army Reserve.
Under the current partial mobilization authority, DOD increased not only
the numbers of reserve component members that it mobilized, but also the
length of the members' mobilizations. The average mobilization for
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-1991 was 156 days.
However, on March 31, 2004, the average mobilization for the three ongoing
operations had increased to 342 days, and that figure was expected to
continue to rise.
Availability of Reserve Components Is Greatly Influenced by Mobilization
Authorities and Personnel Policies
DOD does not have the strategic framework and associated policies
necessary to maximize reserve component force availability for a long-term
Global War on Terrorism. The availability of reserve component forces to
meet future requirements is greatly influenced by DOD's implementation of
the partial mobilization authority and by the department's personnel
policies. Furthermore, many of DOD's policies that affect mobilized
reserve component personnel were implemented in a piecemeal manner, and
were focused on the short-term needs of the services and reserve component
members rather than on long-term requirements and predictability. The
availability of reserve component forces will continue to play an
important role in the success of DOD's missions because requirements that
increased significantly after September 11, 2001, are expected to remain
high for the foreseeable future. As a result, there are early indicators
that DOD may have trouble meeting predictable troop deployment and
recruiting goals for some reserve components and occupational specialties.
DOD's Recent Use of Mobilization Authorities
On September 14, 2002, DOD broke with its previous pattern of addressing
mobilization requirements with a presidential reserve call-up before
moving to a partial mobilization. By 2004 DOD was facing reserve component
personnel shortages and considered a change in its implementation of the
partial mobilization authority. The manner in which DOD implements the
mobilization authorities currently available can result in either an
essentially unlimited supply of forces or running out of forces available
for deployment, at least in the short term.
DOD has used two mobilization authorities to gain involuntary access to
its reserve component forces since 1990. In 1990, the President invoked
Title 10 U.S.C. Section 673b, allowing DOD to mobilize Selected Reserve
members for Operation Desert Shield.10 The provision was then commonly
referred to as the Presidential Selected Reserve Call-up authority and is
now called the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority.11 This authority
limits involuntary mobilizations to not more than 200,000 reserve
component members at any one time, for not more than 270 days, for any
operational mission. On January 18, 1991, the President invoked Title 10
U.S.C. Section 673, commonly referred to as the "partial mobilization
authority," thus providing DOD with additional authority to respond to the
continued threat posed by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.12 The partial
mobilization authority limits involuntary mobilizations to not more than 1
million reserve component members at any one time, for not more than 24
consecutive months, during a time of national emergency. During the years
between Operation Desert Shield and September 11, 2001, DOD invoked a
number of separate mission-specific Presidential Reserve Callup
authorities for operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Southwest Asia, and Haiti,
and the department did not seek a partial mobilization authority for any
of these operations.
After the events of September 11, 2001, the President immediately invoked
the partial mobilization authority without a prior Presidential Reserve
Callup.13 Since the partial mobilization for the Global War on Terrorism
went into effect in 2001, DOD has used both the partial mobilization
authority and the Presidential Reserve Call-up authorities to
involuntarily mobilize reserve component members for operations in the
Balkans.
The manner in which DOD implements the partial mobilization authority
affects the number of reserve component forces available for deployment.
When DOD issued its initial guidance concerning the partial mobilization
authority in 2001, it limited mobilization orders to 12 months but allowed
the service secretaries to extend the orders for an additional 12 months
or
10 The provision was renumbered 12304 in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-337,
S:1662(e) (2) (1994).
11 In 1990, the authority permitted the involuntary call-up of only
members of the Selected Reserve. The statute was amended to permit the
call-up of up to 30,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve and is
consequently now referred to as the Presidential Reserve Call-up
authority. Pub. L. No. 105-85 S: 511 (1997).
12 This provision was renumbered 12302 in 1994. Pub. L. No.103-337,
S:1662(e) (2) (1994).
13 DOD has noted that under its analysis of the applicable authorities at
the time, it was not authorized to use Presidential Reserve Call-up
authority in September 2001. DOD also noted that 10 U.S.C 12304(b) has
since been changed to allow for the call-up of Reserve members in response
to "...a terrorist attack or threatened terrorist attack...."
remobilize reserve component members, as long as an individual member's
cumulative service under the partial mobilization authority did not exceed
24 months. Under this cumulative implementation approach, it is possible
for DOD to run out of forces during an extended conflict, such as a
long-term Global War on Terrorism. During our 2003-2004 review of
mobilization and demobilization issues, DOD was already facing some
critical personnel shortages. At that time, to expand its pool of
available personnel, DOD was considering a policy shift that would have
authorized mobilizations under the partial mobilization authority of up to
24 consecutive months with no limit on cumulative months. Under the
considered approach, DOD would have been able to mobilize its forces for
less than 24 months, send them home, and then remobilize them, repeating
this cycle indefinitely and providing essentially an unlimited flow of
forces. After our review was complete, DOD said it would continue its
implementation of the partial mobilization authority that limits
mobilizations to a cumulative total of 24 months. However, DOD did not
clarify how it planned to meet its longer-term requirements for the Global
War on Terrorism as successive groups of reserve component personnel reach
the 24-month mobilization point.
Many Policies �Did Not Address �Long-term Requirements
�or Predictability �
DOD's policies related to reserve component mobilizations were not linked
within the context of a strategic framework to meet the force availability
goals, and many policies have undergone significant changes. Overall, the
policies reflected DOD's past use of the reserve components as a strategic
force, rather than DOD's current use of the reserve component as an
operational force responding to the increased requirements of the Global
War on Terrorism. Faced with some critical personnel shortages, the
policies focused on the short-term needs of the services and reserve
component members, rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. Lacking a strategic framework containing human capital
goals concerning reserve component force availability to guide its
policies, OSD and the services made several changes to their policies to
increase the availability of the reserve component forces. As a result of
these changes, predictability declined for reserve component members.
Specifically, reserve component members have faced uncertainties
concerning the cohesion of their units, the likelihood of their
mobilizations, the length of their service commitments, the length of
their overseas rotations, the types of missions they would be asked to
perform, and the availability of their equipment.
Volunteer and Individual Ready Reserve Policies
The partial mobilization authority allows DOD to involuntarily mobilize
members of the Ready Reserve, including the IRR;14 but after the President
invoked the partial mobilization authority on September 14, 2001, DOD and
service policies encouraged the use of volunteers and generally
discouraged the involuntary mobilization of IRR members. DOD officials
stated that they wanted to focus involuntary mobilizations on the paid,
rather than unpaid, members of the reserve components. However, our prior
reports documented the lack of predictability that resulted from the
volunteer and IRR policies. Our August 2003 mobilization report15 showed
that the policies were disruptive to the integrity of Army units because
there had been a steady flow of personnel among units. Personnel were
transferred from nonmobilizing units to mobilizing units that were short
of personnel, and when the units that had supplied the personnel were
later mobilized, they in turn were short of personnel and had to draw
personnel from still other units. From September 11, 2001 to May 15, 2004,
the Army Reserve mobilized 110,000 reservists, but more than 27,000 of
these reservists were transferred and mobilized with units that they did
not normally train with. In addition, our November 2004 report on the
National Guard16 noted that between September 11, 2001, and July 2004, the
Army National Guard had transferred over 74,000 personnel to deploying
units. The reluctance to use the IRR is reflected in the differences in
usage rates between Selected Reserve and IRR members. About 42 percent of
the personnel who were members of Selected Reserve on November 30, 2004,
had been mobilized since September 2001, compared to about 3 percent of
the IRR members. Within the Army, use of the IRR had been less than 2
percent. Because the IRR makes up about one-quarter of the Ready Reserve,
policies that discourage the use of the IRR will cause members of the
Selected Reserve to share greater exposure to the hazards associated with
national security and military requirements, and could cause DOD's
14 The partial mobilization authority (10 U.S.C. S: 12302) states that "To
achieve fair treatment as between members in the Ready Reserve who are
being considered for recall to duty without their consent, consideration
shall be given to (1) the length and nature of previous service, to assure
such sharing of exposure to hazards as the national security and military
requirements will reasonably allow; (2) family responsibilities; and (3)
employment necessary to maintain the national health, safety, or
interest."
15 GAO-03-921.
16 GAO-05-21.
Stop-Loss Policies