It's the "M" Word—MOBILIZATION

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By Captain J. R. Avella, U.S. Naval Reserve

Not only must U.S. leaders contend with the fear that a country only mobilizes for one reason—war—they also must work through a set of complex and unwieldy procedures that at every step discourage the involuntary recall of reservists. Desert Shield is the only operation that has met all the criteria. Why?

On 22 August 1990, President George Bush author­ized Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to order members of the Selected Reserve to active duty, in

DOD (R. D. WARD)                                                                                                                                                         NAVY ^TIMES <^S ELFERS)

support of U.S. military operations in the Middle East. This marked the first time that this authority was used since its passage by Congress in 1976.¹ Why this time, and not others?"² A close look at this case and other recent ones can reveal indicators upon which to base future rec­ommendations and decisions about the use of involuntary recall authority.

Let us first proceed through a hypothetical request for

use of this authority, as it moves from its originator all the way to the President of the United States for decision.

A request for use of the authority usually comes from one of two sources: either an individual service (initiated by the service secretary) or one of the 11 unified and spec­ified commanders. The Desert Shield request originated from the U.S. Central Command. In responding to a cri­sis, the unified commander first develops an operational plan, based on the commander’s estimate. He then assigns the individual service component commanders to provide the forces needed to carry out the plan.

Should any one service be unable to meet the force re­quirements with existing assets, it has a number of choices. Let us look at four:

• It can attempt to negotiate a different force mix (e.g., instead of two antisubmarine-warfare-capable ships, how about one ship and one maritime patrol squadron?).
• It can ask another theater service components com­mander to make up the shortfall. (Can we transfer assets from the Atlantic to the Pacific Fleet?)
• It can access resources in the reserve component by seeking volunteers.
• It can state that the only way to meet the plan is by involuntarily accessing reserve assets and recommend use of that presidential authority.

Recognizing that the first three options can be exercised within a service or theater—based strictly on decisions made within the military establishment—it is easy to un­derstand why involuntary recall is the least-favored one.

Be that as it may, let us assume that the service has decided to seek use of the authority, and proceed to the next step. Assuming that the Goldwater-Nichols Act is followed to the letter, the unified commander requests that the Secretary of Defense recommend use of the authority to the President. The Secretary of Defense probably would ask his senior military adviser, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review the situation and make a recom­mendation. The Chairman likely would have the Joint Staff review the plans, then call a meeting of the service chiefs to discuss the issue in detail.

At this point in the chronology, it is well to examine each service’s basic view of reserve participation:

• The Marines: The Marine Corps has designed its force so that most contingencies can be handled by the active force. Use of Marine Corps Reserve assets short of mobili­zation is not anticipated. It is safe to assume that the Ma­rines probably would not have asked for such a recall.
• The Air Force: Among its many missions, the Air Force has placed significant percentages of its lift capability in the reserve component. Crisis response requiring signifi­cant lift cannot be handled exclusively by the active com­ponent. To offset, partially, this lack of readily available resources, the Air Force has established an extensive and well-organized volunteer program, which includes the budgeting of extra days of active duty per year per reserv­ist, and delegates control and order-writing to the unit level. If the Air Force had been the component that was short of active-duty resources, the unified commander might never have known because volunteers would al­ready have been solicited (and activated), so no shortfall would have been reported.

► The Navy: With some notable exceptions, the Navy can handle most contingencies without bringing reservists on

active duty. Without rekindling the Earnest Will (the 1987-88 reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers) debate, in the only recent significant case where it came up short, the Navy used its internal options, rather than seeking politi­cal approval for involuntary recall.

► The Army: The Army made conscious decisions during the post-Vietnam War force reductions to place most of its combat support and combat service support capability into the reserve component. That decision means that any sig­nificant military operation will require reserve forces. (The key word is “significant.”) Again, without reopen­ing prior debate, in its most recent action, Operation Just Cause in Panama, the Army sought and activated enough volunteers to meet its needs.

Let us return to the Chairman’s meeting. At this point, should the Joint Chiefs decide to concur with the unified commander’s recommendation, the decision must come despite their very human reluctance to admit that they can­not do the job with the forces they themselves can put together. Other factors can also play a part. One, for ex­ample, is a suspicion that the political establishment would not approve a recall anyway. In addition, there is a perceived restriction in the law that makes it hard to recall reservists below the unit level if complete units are not required at the time.³

Assume that the Chairman’s meeting has brought unani­mous concurrence with the unified commander’s recom­mendation.⁴ (Unanimous decisions are not required by Goldwater-Nichols, but in practice it is doubtful that any Chairman would risk a less-than-unanimous result on a matter of this severity—since ultimately it could become a matter of public record.) After receiving concurrence from the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense seeks further

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counsel from his own staff and another series of questions and alternatives arises. Since the unified commander usu­ally states the number of reservists he wishes to recall, the list must be evaluated to ensure that all the forces called are truly needed.⁵ In addition, the Department of Defense and International Security Policy and Affairs staffs will be queried about possible reactions from allies and adversar­ies, since the Secretary will probably have to defend his

position in the National Security Council (NSC).

But despite the possibility of a later “thumbs down,” the Defense Secretary signs the recommendation. He then proceeds to the NSC for the final act of this drama. To open the meeting, the Secretary of State tells everyone that even though the law was written as a force-augmentation authority (rather than a mobilization action), the interna­tional community perceives any involuntary recall of even one reservist as the dreaded “M” (mobilization) word/’ Next comes the domestic policy adviser, who tells the President that Congress is concerned about the administra­tion’s handling of the crisis and hopes that the President does not plan to call up reserves “to make up for timidity in dealing with the crisis early on.”

Given the political inputs, what would you, as Presi­dent, require of the situation before you proceeded? Or going back in the course of events, if you were the unified commander—and you knew all the hurdles that had to be cleared—how significant would your requirement have to be, before you would even ask?

From what we have seen so far, it appears that the key to the use (or nonuse) of the involuntary recall authority can be found in four basic factors. Two are essentially military; two are political.

Military Factors: Volunteerism is the option a service normally will prefer, since it can be handled internally and it does not require political approval. Therefore, if volun­teerism can be made to work, it will be used first. Only when the anticipated duration and force requirements ex­ceed the bounds of volunteerism will the use of the recall authority be pursued. Factors that must be considered are the duration of the crisis and the size of forces required. ► Duration: Duration must be considered on two levels.

crew needed for ten weeks probably cannot (and should not) be filled by ten crews for one week each, because unit cohesiveness and training would not exist. For the sake ot argument, assume the ten C-141 flight crews example to be atypical, since only the Air Force deals with it, and the ten-week minesweeper requirement more reflective of the remaining three services’ requirements.

Another factor is that for operations that last less than 30 days, recent history has recorded no dearth of volun­teers.⁷ Right from the start, use of the authority for opera­tions of this duration yields little benefit. Operations antic­ipated to extend beyond 30 days, however, begin to be worth the time and effort needed to recall reservists. The number of volunteers who can readily leave their homes and places of employment for more than 30 days drops drastically.⁸ Such a drop could be offset by calling a small number of needed reservists from a large reserve popula­tion to augment the active forces. Consider an operation such as Just Cause, which required extensive airlift for a very short period. Once the surge was over, relatively few flight crews from a large population in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve could sustain operations using volunteers for an almost limitless amount of time. Again, this is unique to the Air Force and is probably atypical.

From the perspective of duration, let us examine Opera­tion Desert Shield. Few would challenge the assessment that we have been dealing with a megalomaniac. Saddam Hussein carried out an eight-year war against Iran, and in the present case he invaded Kuwait and announced its an­nexation. With more than a million men under arms— 400,000 in Kuwait—he is not inclined to back down eas­ily. Our willingness to support and defend Saudi Arabia means that we are in it for the duration and, as Dick

First, the unified or specified commander (General Schwarzkopf, left, for Desert Shield) requests that the President call reservists. Then the Defense Secretary con­sults with the JCS Chairman. Next, the JCS meets to discuss the issue. Assuming concurrence there, the NSC next considers the request. Finally, political realities dic­tate that the President consult congressional leaders about his decision. Only then can reservists go to Saudi Arabia.

The first is the calendar duration of the requirement. The second looks to how the requirement is fulfilled. For ex­ample, there may be a requirement for ten C-141 flight crews for ten weeks. Whether the requirement is fulfilled by ten crews for ten weeks or by 100 crews, each for one week, perhaps matters little. Indeed, if 100 crews were available and willing, volunteers could handle the entire ten-week requirement. On the other hand, a minesweeper

Cheney put it, the duration could be years.

Based on a limited sampling it is easy to postulate that use of this authority requires a military operation that is projected in months—not weeks or days. This also makes political sense. No President will use involuntary recall authority to disrupt the lives of reservists for only a few days or weeks.

• Size of Reserve Forces: While 10 USC 673b permits the President to call as many as 200,000 of the more than one million Selected Reservists in the seven reserve compo­nents, a threshold exists below which use of the authority makes no sense. The hard part is determining just where that threshold is—since it will vary, depending on many factors, few of which may have anything to do with the requirement. In Operation Earnest Will, the domestic po­litical sensitivity of the situation meant that use of the authority to access the Naval Reserve Force minesweeper crews, who numbered less than 200 people, was not worth expending a presidential “silver bullet.’’ In Operation Just Cause, the numbers of reserves required were also small, and when coupled with the need for specialized talents that were not available in integrated units, likelihood of invol­untary recall was equally slim.⁹

On the other hand, the initial six-week callup for Desert Shield involved more than 45,000 people. With a range of hundreds (Earnest Will and Just Cause) to thousands of reservists tapped (Desert Shield), it is hard to fix a thresh­old. Logically, required reserve augmentation could range from thousands to tens of thousands.

Political Factors: The two political factors that would affect a decision about use of the recall authority are the severity of the crisis—domestic and international and the political climate.

• Severity of Crisis: The scope of the military operation is usually indicated by the severity of the crisis.

During Operation Earnest Will, the military mission was twofold: Shipping lanes had to remain open in the Straits of Hormuz to ensure adequate flow of oil to the world’s markets, and the U.S. Navy had to escort tankers bearing the U.S. flag to protect them from Iran and Iraq. The United States took neither side; it offered protection from both belligerents, with the threat from Iran perceived as being greater. There was no opposition force, per se, and neither belligerent sought U.S. involvement.

The mission for Operation Just Cause was threefold: to protect U.S. lives and interests in the Panama Canal Zone, to remove the Noriega government and replace it with the duly elected Endara government, and to apprehend Man­uel Noriega, if possible. The main opposition was the Pan­ama Defense Force, a 10,000-man paramilitary force loyal to Noriega. To accomplish this mission, the United States used a force of approximately 25,000, about half of whom were already in Panama.

Iraq brought on Operation Desert Shield, by seizing Kuwait and threatening Saudi Arabia. If Saddam Hussein had succeeded, he would have exerted control over more than one-half of the world’s known oil reserves. The Saudis requested security assistance for protection against the battle-hardened, million-man Iraqi Army. To provide this assistance, the United States sent Army and Marine Corps divisions (infantry, airborne, and armored), Air Force tactical fighter and ground support wings, and Navy carrier battle groups, amphibious task forces, and a battle­ship surface action group.

The gap between the operational requirements of Ear­nest Will and Just Cause, and those of Desert Shield, is wide. The first two needed forces in the low tens of thou­sands; the latter exceeds 300,000. The first two were pre­dominately single-service operations; the last is a multiser­vice operation. There are still insufficient data to establish a threshold for crisis severity, but we still can identify some minimum operational requirements: extensive par­ticipation from all services and the presence of a real threat to U.S. vital interests. The degree to which our vital inter­ests were involved in either Earnest Will or Just Cause was minor compared to Desert Shield.

► Political Climate: On the domestic side, the three oper­ations brought out a full range of domestic political re­sponse.

Public opinion about Operation Earnest Will was neu­tral and there was well-documented contention between the White House and Capitol Hill over U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, particularly as it related to the War Pow­ers Act.¹⁰ The operation lasted for more than two years and was essentially ended by an Iran-Iraq truce after their eight-year war.

Operation Just Cause elicited positive reaction from both the public and congressional sectors. It lasted only weeks, and quickly faded from public and congressional view.

In its initial stages, Operation Desert Shield also elicited strong support from both the general public (at one point, the President had more than 75% agreement in the polls) and the Congress. Support for the operation already has begun to wane, but there is a perceived domestic justifica­tion in U.S. actions because the gas lines of 1973 and 1979 are still vivid in the public’s memory.

The international scene offers a much different perspec­tive. During Earnest Will, the United States was de­nounced repeatedly for interfering in Middle East and Arab politics. In Just Cause, there were accusations that the United States had violated the Rio Treaty and forced itself on Panama—although behind the scenes, most allies were glad that the United States had finally dumped Noriega.

Such has not been the case for Desert Shield. In the multipolar world’s first real crisis, the overwhelming ma­jority of countries deplored Iraq’s annexation and the United Nations Security Council voted to authorize use of military force to carry out sanctions.

Recall the Secretary of State’s remarks at our hypotheti­cal NSC meeting. There, the only fear was that the inter­national community would perceive that the United States was mobilizing its reserves for war. But, of course, the United States wanted Iraq to be fearful. In this, it suc­ceeded—to the extent of precluding an attack on Saudi Arabia. Many doubt the President would have used the authority in the old Cold War environment; changes in the East-West balance of power may have been the prime rea­son for his demonstrating the political will to exercise in­voluntary recall.

Based on recent events, then, four criteria must be met before a President will augment the active force under 10 USC 673b:                                                                                                      .

• A large number of reserve forces required—at least in the thousands
• An anticipated duration of months or longer
• A crisis severe enough to involve all the services and to threaten gravely U.S. interests
• An international and domestic political environment that is sympathetic to involuntary recall of reservists

In applying these tests to Earnest Will, we find that the number of reserve forces required would be small, the crisis not significant enough, and the political environ­ment not supportive of a callup. Applying them to Just Cause yields the same result. Operation Desert Shield is the only contingency that meets all four criteria.

These four rules of thumb can be a valuable part of force planning. In building the total force, the services must be able to predict with some certainty when they can count on the reserve component being subject to involun­tary recall.            _

³DoD guidance, after executing the authority, has clarified this issue. Augmenting and sustaining units were classified as units organized to train as units, but not to serve as units, as the law requires. Individuals can be called from within these units. In the Naval Reserve, only commissioned units fit the law's "serve as units definition and even then, recall below unit level can be accomplished, based in specific skills. For example, a well-drilling detachment can be recalled from an engineer battalion.

⁴U.S. forces were dispatched to the Persian Gulf shortly after Saudi Arabia re­quested security assistance. It was more than two weeks later that the President authorized use of the authority. An unsubstantiated explanation for the delay was that at least one service wanted to exhaust volunteer options before seeking non­voluntary ones.

⁵If combat were expected, it would not be unreasonable to call units whose mission includes graves registration. Imagine the domestic political upheaval caused by calling such units before the first shot is fired.

^bThe Washington Post headline on 23 August stated: "Bush Orders Mobilization of Military Reserves.”

⁷Enactmcnt of the authority permits reserve availability within 24 hours ol callup, but the inherent bureaucratic delay in getting such a decision staffed up to the President makes the use of volunteers faster, certainly for short-duration calls. “For our purposes, we will take the position that units (or individuals) with specific skills should not be rotated because of loss of continuity. As an example, a unified commander may not want to rotate intelligence personnel every 30 days. The breaks in continuity would result in too much lost efficiency.

The Army used approximately 200 volunteer civil-affairs reservists to aid in restor­ing government services in Panama. The total Army Reserve civil-affairs commu­nity numbers about 5,000.

>°lt is well known that the U.S. public supports military operations once they arc undertaken. Sustaining that support over an extended period of time is something else. The U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf came as a result of the Carter Doctrine, which declared events there to be vital to U.S. interests.

'Under Title 10, U.S. Code, section 673b (10 USC 673b), the President may order as many as 200,000 Selected Reserves to active duty in support of an operational mission.

²The use of 10 USC 673b was considered during the Earnest Will and Just Cause operations, in the Persian Gulf and Panama respectively. In neither case was the Secretary of Defense asked to request the President to invoke the authority.

Captain Avella is assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There, he was a member of the crisis management team for Operation Just Cause. He has been recalled to active duty to fulfill similar responsi­bilities for Operation Desert Shield. Previously, he was the commanding officer of Patrol Squadron Sixty-Six.