Draft plan calls for new 'hybrid' troops who drill, deploy more often
By Andrew Tilghman
The Pentagon is finalizing a controversial plan to reshape and redefine the reserve components across the entire force -- including the creation of a new “hybrid” service member who will commit to serving far more than traditional reservists but not as much as active-duty troops.
An internal report moving up the chain to the desk of Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls for creating a new type of service agreement for reservists who, for example, may want to commit to drilling 90 days a year and mobilizing for one out of every three years, according to officials familiar with the draft report.
Traditional reservists expect to drill about 38 days a year and mobilize one year out of every six.
The draft plan also recommends ramping up the operational roles of the reserve components by deploying them to Europe and South Korea, making them a more integral part of the military’s global posture.
That could help relieve stress on the active-duty force and potentially save money, said Robert Smiley, the Pentagon’s principal director for readiness, training and mobilization for reserve affairs.
The recommendations would apply to all services and reserve components, which could implement them in different ways in the coming years.
The 165-page report reflects a critical turning point for the reserves. Once envisioned as a rarely used strategic backup force, since 2001 the reserves have mobilized routinely and played key roles in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is a big fork in the road for us,” said William Greenberg, chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group. “The reserves have shown over the past 10 years that we are ready, willing, able and accessible to the national defense establishment. We’re not going back to the way it was in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.”
The Comprehensive Review of the Future Role of the Reserve Component, as it is formally known, was required by last year’s Quadrennial Defense Review. The current draft version was approved by Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Dennis McCarthy, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs.
If the report is approved by Gates, it will prompt the Pentagon, individual services and reserve components to begin examining practical policy details such as:
*What precisely will the new service agreement look like?
*What kind of pay and benefits package will this new “hybrid” reservist receive?
*How will these troops be treated by promotion boards?
*How many of these new reservists will the force need?
The reserves will continue to offer the traditional service agreement, and the changes under discussion would not affect today’s reservists who opt to remain in their current status.
In fact, planners expect the majority of reservists will not opt for a change, Smiley said.
But a significant minority may seek a greater commitment. About 25 percent of currently mobilized reservists, roughly 20,000 troops, are volunteers.
“There are people out there who are willing to engage … more often, and we have to leverage that,” Smiley said at a March 22 meeting of the Reserve Forces Policy Board.
Deploying reserve units to Europe and Asia for jobs typically filled by active-duty troops could save money, the report suggests. Since reservists on one-year mobilizations do not bring family members, it could reduce the need for many family-oriented services at installations, such as schools and entertainment facilities.
Combatant commanders have expressed some skepticism about accepting reserve units for roles traditionally manned by active-duty troops.
“Their concern was, ‘If you’re going to send them to me, they’ve got to be ready,’ ” Smiley said.
To address those concerns, the report recommends that reserve units serve in highly predictable overseas assignments — such as Europe and the Far East — that would allow long lead times for training, Smiley said.
David Bockel, executive director of the Washington-based Reserve Officers Association, said he does not envision a big demand for the new arrangement.
“I don’t know who it would appeal to,” Bockel said in an interview. “I can’t see someone who is currently an Army reservist working a full-time job telling their boss, ‘I’m good for two years and then I’m going on active duty.’ We have laws that protect them, but nothing is perfect.”
Bockel suggested the 1994 law that protects the civilian careers of reservists when they are mobilized — the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA — may have to be revised to prevent increased tension with employers. The new concept’s potential success, he said, ultimately will hinge on how individual services implement it. “If this doesn’t fit the model of a particular service, then they are going to push back from it.”
Questions about pay and benefits changes may require approval from Congress. Some of those questions may be addressed in this year’s Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, which is near completion. One of that review’s four main objectives was to study reserve-component compensation.
The report suggests changing the law that allows reservists to be activated only for specific contingency operations. Instead, a new law should allow reservists to be called up for more routine operational needs, the report recommends.
A study commissioned by the Army’s leadership reported last fall that it needed to expand its mobilization authority to allow for reservists to handle routine rotations. The study looked at many ways the Army could institutionalize the reserve component “as part of the Army’s operational force.”
Budget hawks on Capitol Hill could seize on the new draft plan as justification for significant cuts to the active-duty force and its costly pension and benefits programs. Making fundamental changes to the role of the reserves will set the stage for a new and intense debate about force structure in an era of declining budgets.
Today, Smiley said, there is no agreement across the Pentagon about how to gauge personnel costs, making comparisons between active and reserve components bureaucratically impossible. The Army report found that a mobilized reservist costs the same as or slightly less than a regular active-duty soldier.
Cost concerns likely will underpin the debate about the reserves’ future, according to one senior reserve officer familiar with the report.
“When budgets are going down as fast and as far as they are … the knives are going to come out,” the officer said.