Unite the So-Called Total Force

Although naval reservists serve in harm's way, they have been treated with disdain by the active forces. It is time to fulfill the Navy's vision and consolidate the total force.

Very little has changed since Proceedings published my idealized view of the U.S. Naval Reserve, "Full and Equal Partners," in February 1996. A mix of fact and fiction, the article was penned with the hope that if the Navy's total force was depicted as it ought to be, it might encourage Navy leadership to make it a reality. In the 1990s, Secretaries of Defense Les Aspin, William J. Perry, and William S. Cohen and Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton each repeatedly asserted his commitment to the total force—a fully integrated and optimally balanced active and reserve military—but did little to provide substance to the words. In August 2003, Proceedings published an article that better reflects the current state of affairs, Naval Reserve Captains Stuart J. Cvrk and Richard E. Robey's excellent "It Is Time to Transform the Naval Reserve." The sad truth is this: if the members of the Navy's Selected Reserve (SelRes) better knew how they have been viewed and managed, there would be a wholesale abandonment of the force.

It is time to shed light on the whispered reality of the Navy's so-called total force. Naval reservists again are serving in harm's way around the globe in support of their Navy and their country. In the past decade, the Navy's Office of Reserve Affairs has maintained an aggressive effort to carry out the mandate of Secretaries of Defense Perry and Cohen: "Eliminate all barriers preventing total integration of the reserve and active components." This stance created controversy and was not appreciated by the more resistant elements in the Navy dedicated to maintaining the status quo.

Although long-standing policies fueled by logic and principles of efficiency mandate full integration of the Navy's active and reserve components, and in spite of the assurances and public statements of Navy leadership, the total force remains trifurcated. Three interrelated elements continue to operate against each other and prevent realization of the total force:

* The regular Navy (RegNav)

* The Training and Administration of Reservists community (TARs), an entrenched and politically powerful full-time support force

* The Selected Reserve

This unwieldy structure breeds turbulence and parochialism. Many of those who appear to act contrary to the best interests of total-force policy are encouraged to do so by the structure itself. Stir in a lack of interest or political will by civilian leadership to effect change, and you have a recipe for continuing foment.

Prior to the end of the Cold War, the SelRes was a force in waiting, a moribund mobilization asset waiting for war. High in manpower cost and primarily equipped with discarded or obsolete equipment, the SelRes was all but irrelevant to contemporary requirements. It was no wonder most RegNav folks ridiculed reservists or saw them as unworthy competitors at the great funding trough. The RegNav wanted nothing to do with what it viewed as an expensive and useless asset, so it kept the SelRes at arm's length, treating it with disdain, suspicion and, occasionally, jealousy (most reservists drove nicer cars).

The SelRes has provided the lion's share of lives and blood shed in the defense and service of the United States. This country has never won a war-Vietnam exemplifies this-without SelRes participation. Senior naval leaders have ridiculed and denigrated the very reservists who were eager to serve them, even when the reservists were more qualified than they were. This attitude has been kept behind a screen of laudatory platitudes and "official statements," but the decisions of the RegNav leave no doubt how about how it feels about reservists.

TARs were created by the RegNav during the Cold War to assume responsibility for training and managing the SelRes, a function the RegNav was fully capable of performing but wanted no part of. Given its Cold War mission as a mobilization asset, it is understandable that the RegNav wanted to distance itself from what it viewed as a costly force with no real value. As one senior Navy admiral said, "If they didn't want an 'R' after their USN, they should have stayed in the Navy." Drawn to a family-friendly community and assured of a low probability of deployment and nearly permanent shore duty (except for the tiny Naval Reserve fleet), many were eager to be TARs. Ironically, many in the RegNav view them with less respect than the SelRes. Said another senior RegNav admiral: "At least the selected reservists made up their minds and got real jobs."

TARs are caught in an impossible conflict of interest: responsible for the SelRes, but judged by the RegNav. When TARs are faced with a conflict of loyalties, it is often the SelRes that suffers. Although some brave TARs have recognized the SelRes is their true customer and have stepped up to support it, this does not happen with sufficient frequency to justify the old TAR saw: "If it weren't for us to protect you, the RegNav would eat you alive." TARs who back the SelRes often are condemned by their own community for identifying too much with the SelRes or the RegNav. It is no surprise there is such animosity between the communities.

With the end of the Cold War, the Navy scrambled to reinvent itself. Suddenly, then-Secretary of the Navy John Lehman's pet policy, "The Maritime Strategy," had no relevance. Force drawdowns, which began in the Ronald Reagan administration and continued apace through the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies, forced the Navy to think economically for the first time in decades. No longer were program managers roaming the halls of the Pentagon with hundreds of millions of dollars to give away; people became concerned with hundreds of thousands of dollars. The force drawdown was the scariest of times for TARs and the RegNav, but it was the best thing that ever happened to the SelRes because it offered an opportunity for relevance.

Aided by forward-thinking civilian and military leaders, the SelRes began to come out of the nonmobilization closet, with individuals and units becoming increasingly identified with their RegNav components. Peacetime or "contemporary contributory" support became legitimized. A revolutionary new instruction from the Secretary of the Navy authorized reserve billet justification based exclusively on contemporary requirements rather than on a possible mobilization.

However, this and nearly every attempt to more closely align the Naval Reserve with the RegNav was fought by both RegNav and especially TAR leaders. TARs understood the danger inherent in billets based on actual requirements: it meant TARs would become less relevant as the RegNav assumed more responsibility. For their part, the RegNav was concerned that increased SelRes relevance and participation would lead to further reduction in their end strength.

The TAR community realizes its function is embarrassingly expensive. Duplicating force structure consumes approximately 80 cents of every dollar appropriated for reserve programs, money that could be spent on direly needed contemporary support. Costly regional reserve commands, including a reserve headquarters in New Orleans, continue to perform management and data functions rendered irrelevant by the integration of reserve and active component data processes. Imagine a civilian business tolerating this kind of fiscal imbalance.

TARs are masters of survival and have mastered the art of justifying their existence. They have weathered many storms, including a prior disestablishment and resurrection. That survival priority was never so well demonstrated than during the dramatic reductions in naval forces in the mid-1990s: without reducing their own numbers other than by natural attrition, TARs halved the size of the SelRes force. They have strong allies in both the private and public sectors, essentially control the Naval Reserve Association, and effectively determine the career destinies of thousands of drilling reservists. To achieve a successful SelRes career, it is often more important to please the TARs than the RegNav.

Further, TAR leadership is not above ignoring the policies of the Secretary of the Navy and statutory authority to ensure its survival and power. 10 U.S. Code 265 provides for the recall of selected reservists to extended periods of active duty at key strategic points, such as the Department of Defense, for seasoning and to bring their talents and perspectives to the total force. This rarely is done. The TAR community has appropriated most 10 U.S. Code 265 billets as a means of accommodating manpower fluctuations or to ease a member into retirement. TARs justify this statutory breach by claiming their members are best qualified or that it is necessary for career continuity.

During my tenure as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs from 1993 to 1998, I suggested a compromise: balance the needs of the TAR community to take care of its members and provide equitable relief against the needs of the total force to enjoy the richest force mix. Even though by law the TAR community had no business occupying a single 265 billet, I suggested that, preliminarily, at least 25% of the 265 recalls should be qualified selected reservists. The TAR leaders went ballistic and used every ruse, deception, and tactic at their disposal to thwart the compromise.

With the Bush administration's ongoing review of the National Security Policy and the Department of Defense, there is a real opportunity to make the total force a reality. If there is to be a commitment to the total force, the military will need strong and appropriate civilian leadership to assist it in overcoming its institutional resistance. The solution is fourfold (none of these suggestions is revolutionary and they are precisely what the combatant commanders themselves recommended to the Secretary of the Navy nearly six years ago):

* Completely restructure the entire active-reserve force to achieve complete integration and optimal use: reconstruct the SelRes into a force that meets the needs of the Navy.

* Close the unnecessary reserve headquarters and deploy TARs to their customers: the combatant commanders and the operating Navy.

* Through a process of attrition and no new accessions, eliminate TARs, irrelevant middle managers who have become increasingly unnecessary in a military structure that requires rapid response, and replace them with trained RegNav and SelRes personnel who will perform the current TAR functions.

* Make a RegNav tour with the SelRes a career-enhancing requirement, much as the Marine Corps does. Without this final requirement, only RegNav dead-enders will accept reserve assignments, and the program will remain as it is.

The present structure will not change without the sincere and committed participation of Congress. Members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees must see the problem and actively engage. This is particularly challenging because the National Guard captures the focus of Congress; the Guard is tied to the states and governors and the reserve components lack the political relevance to ensure congressional attention. That must change. The SelRes needs powerful advocates.

Captains Cvrk and Robey proposed some valuable suggestions to energize the debate. Things will not improve until the Navy decides to face itself and, as Admiral Jeremy Boorda used to say, do the right thing by honoring the policies of the Secretary of Defense and the letter of the law, and make the total force a reality by completely integrating the Navy.