Retrofit the Guard to a Support Role

Which provides the best use of our defense dollars, the active Army or the National Guard?

Monday’s proposal by the congressionally mandated National Defense Panel, to further reduce the National Guard and restructure it to address the growing threats posed by chemical and biological weapons, will intensify a growing debate between the active Army and the Guard that has been raging for most of the past year.

In May, the Quadrennial Defense Review took much the same position. While the active Army was directed to reduce its strength by 15,000 troops, it retained its basic 10-division force structure. The Guard, on the other hand, was ordered to give up some of its eight combat divisions and drop 37,000 soldiers from its rolls.

Army officials argue that such reductions to the Guard are warranted for numerous reasons. Since the end of the Cold War, active troop strength reductions are nearly twice those of the Guard; eight active divisions have been inactivated compared with two for the Guard; and the Guard’s numbers and share of the Army budget are at historic highs.

The basic issue, however, goes much further. It is over which component, the active or the reserve, is the most cost-effective in the current strategic environment. The active Army argues that the current and expected strategic environment puts a premium on speed, and despite its greater costs only the active force can respond quickly enough to counter expected threats before the costs of reversing aggression become unacceptably high. The Guard argues that it is much less costly than the active force, and if the Air Force can halt a future attack in either the Middle East or Korea, buying enough time for mobilization and training, reserve units can arrive on the scene in time to ensure the final victory.

This reflects a major difference of opinion between the Army and the Air Force on the nature of future conflict and the effectiveness of air power. Although both played an unquestionably vital role in defeating Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, the two services have engaged in a debate ever since over which played the more decisive part.

And there is the question of whether the sparsely populated, tactically permissive Iraqi desert gave high technology American systems advantages that may be less evident elsewhere. Most theaters of operation, such as Korea and Bosnia, have complex and restrictive terrain liberally dotted with hills, forests, farms, villages and major urban centers. This gives an attacking force the ability to hug the ground and move into populated areas and makes it difficult to use many of the precision weapons that proved so effective in the Gulf. Even if the initial attack by conventional forces is blunted, the ability of an opponent like North Korea, which has large infantry and commando units, to infiltrate and seize key objectives, destroy critical facilities and disrupt reinforcement efforts is substantial.

Preventing an opponent from quickly switching from conventional to unconventional tactics, as the Vietnamese did so successfully during that long conflict, requires rapid response. Clearly, air power must be brought to bear quickly, using large quantities of both precision and unguided weapons to halt an invasion. Having such a capability places a premium on systems that can deploy on short notice from the United States and be based outside the theater, beyond the reach of ballistic missiles. Ground forces also must be rapidly deployable to reverse the effects of the attack before the enemy has time to adjust his tactics and consolidate his gains. There is likely to be little time for a leisurely and lengthy reinforcement from the United States. Rapid deployment of readily available combat power favors active rather than reserve combat forces.

This is not to argue that there is no role for the Guard. Clearly, there is. The Guard provides the majority of the Army’s combat support structure in small units where individual skills are as important as unit skills and have a closer connection to civilian occupations than those found in combat forces. Throughout the post-Cold War period, the Guard has performed exceptionally well in providing vital support units from the Gulf to Bosnia and Haiti. This is an essential capability that only the Guard has. And the Guard has a very important state role when called out by governors in response to civil emergencies or natural disasters. As the National Defense Panel suggests, building on these functions and capabilities makes the most sense in the current strategic and budgetary environments.

American armed forces have undergone a substantial reshaping to meet current strategic needs and budgetary realities. It has not been easy and it is far from complete. Both the Air Force and the Army will have to become tactically meaner, operationally leaner and strategically quicker. The National Guard has a long and distinguished history of service to the country. But the era of lengthy conflicts and the mobilization of large combat formations has passed. Today’s need is for a Guard consisting of smaller, immediately available units supporting increasingly technical forces in war and state and local authorities in peace. No institution can endure if it resists change when change is needed. The National Guard, like the active Army, needs to change because the country cannot afford forces that are either operationally redundant or strategically irrelevant.