Content Manager posted on January 31, 2008 22:01
The Commission on the Guard and Reserve Final Report Calls for Major Restructuring of Laws and Policies Governing the National Guard and Reserves
The final report of the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves was released to news organizations on Thursday, January 31, 2008. “At the core of these changes is the explicit recognition of the evolution of the reserve components from a purely strategic force, with lengthy mobilization times designed to meet Cold War threats from a large nations-states, to an operational force. Simultaneously, this force must retain required strategic elements and capabilities.”
The Naval Reserve Association led the effort to establish this commission in the hopes of producing more reasonable considerations for a Naval Reserve transformation. Since 2003, the transformation of the Naval Reserve has been mainly in response to budgetary pressures. We believed then and now that the Naval Reserve transformation and ‘integration’ efforts for the Navy Reserve were ill-timed and ill-conceived due to budgetary pressure. Leadership preferences and cultural differences have integrated the Navy Reserve in a way that we believe allows for no real strategic reserve that will ensure that an operational reserve force is maintained. It is our hope that the policies, changes and views of the Commission will be taken into consideration for future changes, since the operational reserve is not yet defined.
The Commission reports that they see “no reasonable alternative to the nation’s continuing increased reliance on its reserve components” as an operational force for missions at home and abroad. The reserve components are under significant stress from ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Commission believes that Congress and the Department of Defense must make major changes in laws, rules, regulations, personnel, and funding systems in order to sustain an operational reserve—an essential contributor to the health of the nation’s all-volunteer military force—in the years to come.
View the reports here:
Executive Summary (1.5 MB) http://www.cngr.gov/Final%20Report/CNGRFinalReportExecutiveSummary.pdf
Full Report (15+ MB)
http://www.cngr.gov/Final%20Report/CNGR%20Final%20Report.pdf