The IRR: Emptying the Cupboard

The U.S. Department of Defense is now activating the Army's Individual Ready Reserve for combat duty. Given the inherent problems associated with such a move, it is clear that U.S. war planners were caught in a trap: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "revolution in warfare" has not evolved as expected.

On July 6, 5,600 members of the U.S. Army's Individual Ready Reserve will start to receive notices that they are being recalled to active duty. Members of the IRR are generally soldiers who have completed their primary active-duty assignments. They are not part of the regular Reserves or the National Guard, but are simply kept on a list as available for recall. In general, this has been simply a formality. IRR members have been called up on only two occasions: Once was in 1968, following the Tet Offensive; the other was in 1991, in the context of Operation Desert Storm. There have already been some smaller call-ups of essential specialties, but this is the first large-scale mobilization. The Army has indicated that there likely will be more.

First, the reactivated reservists will have been out of the Army for several years. They might not be in appropriate mental or physical condition for a tour in a combat zone -- where, according to the Army, most are going to be sent. Since the current plan is to keep them on active duty for no more than a year, there is little time for an extensive conditioning program if the troops are to spend much time in-theater. These are not the forces commanders want to lead if they have a choice.

Second, although this call-up might fix the Army's quantitative problem in the short run, it can wreak havoc in the long run. The volunteer army depends, obviously, on the willingness of people to join. That rests on a large number of variables, one of which is the idea that the volunteer can control his term of service, building it into his or her long-term plans. It has always been understood, in the fine print, that calling up the IRR was possible, and soldiers who are being recalled cannot complain that they did not know -- they can complain only that they did not expect it to happen. However, people who have already served and completed their tours -- and are busy with careers, children and mortgages -- are now going to be sent into combat zones. Their younger siblings, cousins and friends are going to be watching the chaos in their lives and could well decide that, while they would be prepared to serve a given term and even have that term extended during war, giving the Army control over their lives -- and those of their families -- for years afterward is simply not worth it.

The Army, the Defense Department and the Office of the President are all acutely aware of this problem. Nevertheless, they have chosen to go this route. Given the inherent defects of the choice and its obvious potential cost, they did not make this move frivolously; this was something that was absolutely necessary. That said, the question now is this: How did the U.S. Army get into the position of having to make this choice?

The call-up of the IRR in 1968 came in the midst of a crisis surrounding Vietnam. The United States had miscalculated troop requirements and found itself short of critical specialties that it could not make up from the pool of available conscripts. No one planned for the circumstances that presented themselves in 1968 -- or for those that prompted Desert Storm either. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait left little time to redesign the Army's force structure, and by 1991 it was dealing with a surprise. The IRR has been utilized twice, both times in the face of the unexpected. Sometimes it was mismanagement, sometimes reality, but always it was an attempt to cope with the unexpected -- and unwanted -- event. The 2004 call-up obviously fits into this category. The issue is what was unanticipated, and why it was not expected.

The Sept. 11 attacks certainly were unanticipated. This cannot be disputed, although whether they should have been is going to be an interminable debate. However, this large-scale activation of the IRR is taking place not six months after Sept. 11, but almost three years later. That indicates a much broader and deeper surprise than the attacks themselves.

The first surprise had to do with the nature of warfare. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was an advocate of what has been called "the revolution in warfare." This concept is the belief that as technology of all sorts comes online, the need for massed armies will decline. Few would debate that a revolution in warfare is under way. The issue is whether it has matured to a sufficient degree that policymakers can depend on it, or whether it still has several generations to go.

Throughout his tenure, Rumsfeld has been highly critical of the Army. He felt that it was too heavy, in the sense of relying on armor and artillery -- supply hogs that take a long time to get to the theater of operations. Rumsfeld's view of the war against al Qaeda was that it would require very small, very fast and very lethal forces to execute. Rumsfeld was right, but he failed to factor in two things.

The first was that while the deployment of small, fast, lethal forces potentially could take out al Qaeda units and could be used to destabilize nation-states, those units could not be used to take control of those nations. There is a huge difference between shattering a government and governing a country. Indeed, there is little value in destabilizing a nation unless it can be pacified; otherwise, destabilization opens the door to al Qaeda, rather than shutting down the network. Therefore, insufficient thought was given to the problem of pacification -- not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan. Denying terrain to al Qaeda means being present on the ground in sufficient numbers to make a difference. Rumsfeld constantly tried to find a way to transfer responsibility for the ground to an indigenous government -- failing to recognize that the high-tech destruction of the state creates a vacuum that either is filled with U.S. forces or left in chaos.

Rumsfeld focused on the first phase of the war: regime change. This phase was certainly amenable to the kind of war he favored. But the second phase -- regime construction -- is not at all influenced by the revolution in warfare. It requires a large security force -- and even that might not be enough. Rumsfeld's hostility toward the Army's cumbersome, traditional ways of doing things caused him to make a massive miscalculation: Rather than building up Army ground forces in 2002 and 2003, he restricted the growth of the Army, thereby leaving it short of troops for the prolonged second phase of the war.

Rumsfeld's second surprise was a persistent underestimation of the enemy. In particular, he seemed to genuinely believe that with the occupation of Baghdad, all organized resistance would cease. The idea that there would be people in Iraq who, out of support for the Baathist regime or simple patriotism, would resist the American occupation in an extended and effective way seems never to have been factored into plans. Indeed, when Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was very much concerned about extended resistance, argued before the war that in excess of 200,000 troops would be needed in Iraq for an extended period, Rumsfeld attacked him as being alarmist. Rumsfeld failed to plan for occupying a country of 25 million people or policing a city of 5 million people -- both in the face of resistance, albeit relatively light resistance.

Occupying a country or a city takes manpower. That is a requirement -- though not necessarily the only one -- for success. Rumsfeld's view of warfare did not take into account the complexities of occupation. The tension between Rumsfeld and the Army created a situation in which dramatically pyramiding responsibilities for the Army were not met with equivalent increases in manpower.

This is the first global war the United States has waged in which neither the command structure of the armed forces nor the force structure evolved dramatically in the opening years. The fact that there has not been a doubling or tripling in size of the U.S. Army is startling. In spite of the fact that it is involved in a variety of combat operations in remote areas of the world -- and that the enemy can choose to open new theaters of operation that are unexpected (such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan) -- the armed forces have not grown substantially in three years.

Rumsfeld apparently thought the war would be easier than it has been, and he believed that technology would be more effective than it possibly could be. The need to occupy, pacify and govern hostile nations was not built into the war plan -- nor is it there now. The fact is that the call-ups from the IRR are Band-Aids on a fundamental issue: The United States is involved in a land war in Asia again, and it is trying to fight that war with a military -- especially an Army -- that was designed for peacetime in the 1990s. It cannot possibly stretch.

The central conceptual problem in Vietnam was that the United States did not want to spend its resources on doing the things that might give it an opportunity to win the war. Having insufficient resources, the United States simply decided that they were sufficient.

In Vietnam, the military had recourse to a draft. It did not work very well. Not only did it create deep social tension between those who served and those who did not, but also a two-year term was not sufficient to master most of the specialties of warfare -- including rifleman skills. Between two years of service and a one-year tour in Vietnam, the military lost its people just when they were learning to do their jobs. The draft -- particularly as it was structured during the Vietnam era -- was the failure point, not the solution.

Two-year conscription is simply too short a period of time to master the specialties the military needs now. Today's military does not consist of cannon fodder, but of highly trained specialists who need two years to begin becoming proficient at their jobs. Moreover, another draft in which half the eligible candidates were exempt would rip the United States apart. Universal conscription creates too large a manpower pool. It creates more problems than it solves. What it needs is an expansion of the volunteer force.

For that, very large sums of money are needed, making it attractive to choose the military as a profession. The problem is that the United States is out of time. The time for this expansion should have been early 2002, when it became clear that al Qaeda would not be easily defeated and that other military campaigns would be coming. Had the Bush administration asked Congress for sufficient money to expand the volunteer Army, large numbers of well-trained troops would be coming out of the chute just about now.

No such request was made. Rumsfeld ignored Army requests for increased manpower, focusing instead on surgical tools for regime change. The force structure did not undergo a quantum expansion. As a result, when the worst-case rather than the best-case scenario came to pass in Iraq -- guerrilla war -- the United States was unprepared for it. It had to reach into the IRR for a few thousand men. The military is, in effect, cannibalizing itself, using up its reserves. Since this war is not likely to end soon, and the IRR is not a bottomless well, it is clear that something will have to be done.

The time for this expansion should have been early 2002, when it became clear that al Qaeda would not be easily defeated and that other military campaigns would be coming. Had the Bush administration asked Congress for sufficient money to expand the volunteer Army, large numbers of well-trained troops would be coming out of the chute just about now.

I can tell you I got it straight from a colonel way up in the recruitment hierarchy that by the middle of 2003 Army recruitment was going full blast, with annual doubling of budgets in some areas. The gist of it is that recruitment gets every resource they can productively use, and then is asked if they want more.

Even back then, they knew Iraq is not the end of the war.

The army brass keep saying publicly that they are meeting their recruitment needs. But the fact that they are drafting ex-soldiers demonstrates that they are undermanned and know it. The fact that they are pulling marines from Korea is another indicator. The fact that they have guard and reserve troops in front line duty is another indicator. The fact that they are stop-lossing soldiers and not allowing them to get out when their enlistment is up is another. The fact that soldiers are doing more than a year in theater, and soldiers who have done their year are returning for another deployment is another.

It becomes apparent that either we are severely undermanned, or holding a significant reserve for something else. Its possible, I would like to think so, but I haven't seen any evidence of this other parallel force ready to pounce on Iran or North Korea. I see one force that is strapped just to handle one low-grade conflict. This might be the tip-off to our enemies that we can't handle more than one low-grade conflict at a time.

They have to admit the obvious and expand the force. The only way to do that without a draft (that would destroy the force) is to raise the pay and benefits. And, as the article indicates, don't monkey with a soldier's enlistment.

I am an over the hill Vietnam veteran, and am in complete agreement with the article's thesis. I am not in good enough physical condition to be in combat, but I personally could do SOMETHING USEFUL in a combat zone. If I could be accepted for duty in Iraq or Afganistan, it would give one of the IRR members a chance to get on with their lives. They deserve a chance to resume being civilians.

What civilians and politicans fail to comprehend is: if service personnel have been in the armed services for a number of years (typically three or more) then they are the "last in line" to be hired, and "first to be fired or laid off" in a weak economy.

Surely the military could come up with a big dollar sign-up bonus for new recruits or a similar financial incentive program for able bodied civilians who could do something useful in Iraq.

There was a recent news report of an estimate of 17% of soldiers in Iraq with stress related problems. You can't expect "normal" soldiers to be in constant combat 365 days without getting PTSD. This is a terrible problem for our returning veterans, and we hear reports that the VA budget is underfunded even now.

Tapping the IRR pool is an indication that we are running out of warm bodies who are needed to replace the troops who are being extended involuntarily beyond a "reasonable" one year tour of duty in a combat zone. This is a major problem, and if Kerry wins in November, he will have to deal with it also. Better for Bush to address this problem before it gets even worse in the coming months.

In my unstudied, uninformed opinion the US is trying to have both guns and butter. To the best of my knowledge it has never worked in the past.

This current administration may have to bite the bullet and pay our professional service personnel an attractive salary commensurate with their performance.

The US formally (declaration of war?) have to admit that we are in a long term struggle with a highly determined enemy whose defeat will require our blood and our treasure.

"...and that the enemy can choose to open new theaters of operation that are unexpected (such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan)..."

Questions the Bush Administration needs to consider... What if the next assasination attempt on Musharraf succeeds and there is a fundamentalist coup? A coup in Saudi Arabia? North Korea moves south? China invades Taiwan? A domestic terrorist act requiring us to secure an attacked area, or better secure the borders, or detain enemy nationals?

Do we have the troops, supplies, and transport?

Questions the Bush Administration needs to consider... What if the next assasination attempt on Musharraf succeeds and there is a fundamentalist coup? A coup in Saudi Arabia? North Korea moves south? China invades Taiwan?

The first two are real issues; the second two are not.

If the DPRK heads south, the problem will be "how do we keep the ROKs from storming up to the Yalu and scaring the crap outta the ChiComs?"

If the ChiComs try to invade Taiwan, hwow are they going to do it? Get Louis Farrakhan to organize the Million man Swim? (How long can even hardened ChiCom troops endure Farrakhan's numerological rantings about the significance of the number 19?)

Analysis

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Guess being an individually recalled Reservist in August 1950 does not count. (Korean War era)

In 1948 an 18 year old could enlist for one year of active duty and then would have a 6 year in-active reserve requirement.

I enlisted USAF October 2, 1948 for one year. On October 1, 1949 I was released from active duty and transfered to the in-active reserve effective October 2, 1949.

I received my recall telegram on August 6, 1950 with 10 calendar days to report to active duty for one year unless sooner released from active duty.

I was assigned to Eglin AFB, Florida for this recall.

...Anyone else on FR remember those years?

Buddy B
Retired-USAF <> E-7

The time for this expansion should have been early 2002, when it became clear that al Qaeda would not be easily defeated and that other military campaigns would be coming.

Moosaki! The time to have corrrected this problem was when Clintoon was laying waste to our military! Give X-42 a M4 and put him on patrol in Falluja...

On point, of course, because no one in his right mind would trust him behind their back with a loaded weapon...

Excuse me, but as a former IRR reservist called to active duty in Desert Storm, let me point out that your are mischaracterizing this action as "drafting ex-soldiers". Some IRR's are in the reserves and have elected this status in lieu of the active guard and reserve. Others in IRR status have a continuing service obligation which is understood.

The brigade that is being redeployed from the 2d Infantry Division, Korea is not a marine unit, unless you have another marine unit specifically in mind.

There is a division that has not been active in Iraq which has a defined war mission outide of the middle east, so yes there has been a reserve oriented toward other threats.

I agree that our forces should be larger but you make the situation seem dire. When the dramatic personnel reductions occurred under Clinton, these were called the 'peace dividend'. The forces that we had in the early to mid 80's were sustainable. We should keep everybody's focus on the poor decision making to reduce the forces then. 'Peace dividend' my butt.

This is a very good appreciation of an under-reported phenomenon.

The larger, more important question (assuming we don't surrender) is, what strategic interventions are needed to gain victory in this war?

The answer to THAT question will provide the correct force structure.

The Administration's greatest failing is that they have failed to engage the question, "How do we win?", or if you prefer, "What constitutes victory?"

To me, victory requires the conquest and 50-year occupation of Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

I have said many times that if Bush asked for a 100-division Army on 9/16/01, he would have gotten it. I think a debate about how to get 5000 more soldiers is sterile when we need ten million.

By how much would you increase the force, and what would you do with the larger force?

Actually, you allude to the answer in your previous post #17. The size of the force depends on what we plan to do with it. The problem is, of course, we don't know what we are going to do until we are required to do it. We may not really want to occupy the major countries of the middle east, I'm sure we don't, but if victory requires that we do it, if staving off attacks on our mainland requires that we do it, we had better have a force that can do it.

At one time, the measure was 2-1/2 wars, meaning a force sufficient to take on the Soviets, the Chinese, and another regional power, at the same time. Whether or not we could really have done it, that was the standard. Then we slipped to 2 wars, then 1-1/2. Now we are engaged in what could only be described as a regional war with a regional power, and we are strapped. Half the force is reserve or guard.

I keep hoping that Rummy is holding back a sizeable force in case Pakistan starts to implode, and we have to go in by force and take control of the nukes. I keep hoping that he has a force in reserve to take on the Iranians should they get uppity, or should the NK decide to cross the line heading south. We have managed to keep control of Iraq with the force we have, but only just. Had Iran and the Baath managed to ignite a general rebellion, we would have been hard-pressed to control it with the force we have.

Another issue you correctly allude to is occupation. Nuclear weaponry can make up for a lack of conventional forces, if you are prepared to use it, in case of open warfare. An example might be an invasion by the NK. But nukes are useless if you are maintaining an occupation (and obviously useless anyway if your aren't prepared to use them). Granted, a smart occupation means, like Iraq, you train the indigenous forces and let them occupy themselves. But you have to be able to sustain yourself credibly while you construct that indigenous force.

If we are stretched thin because Rum is holding back a large reserve for contingencies, then I withdraw my remarks. But I don't see it. I see a force that is half reserve being denied their discharges, and being recycled back to the war zone for seconds. That, to me, is a force that is too small.

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