The Department of Defense lacks a strategic framework
with human capital goals to ensure the future availability
of National Guard and Reserve component forces, the
Government Accountability Office has said.
It said DoD could run out of troops given the way it
currently mobilizes them. Its partial mobilization
authority limits involuntary mobilizations to not more
than 1 million reserve component members at a time, for
not more than 24 consecutive months, during a time of
national emergency.
Currently, members can be involuntarily mobilized more
than once, but involuntary mobilizations are limited to
a cumulative total of 24 months.
In its 2004 review, GAO said Defense faced shortages of
reserve personnel. At the time officials considered
eliminating the limit on how many times reservists can
be mobilized, but decided to keep the 24-month limit in
place, though it has in recent months introduced
stop-loss policies.
“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,”
according to GAO-05-285T.
It said that because DoD policies were developed outside
“the context of an overall strategic framework” they have
failed “to meet the department’s long-term Global War on
Terrorism requirements.”
The lack of predictability makes it harder to recruit and
retain and GAO said part of the force — DoD estimates it
will maintain 100,000 mobilized reserve component members
over the next two years — are “already stressed.”
