Not such an old problem

Pentagon’s fiscal bath
Assuming the President and Congress don’t come up with a some sort of deal by Dec. 31, 2012, the fiscal crunch facing the government really is going to bite … especially at the Defense Department.
The DOD is going to take, supposedly, about a $1 trillion hit over the next five years, or about $200 billion per year. That is from its regular budget and not including the “war” supplementals that have funded Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. With the U.S. basically out of Iraq and in the process of pulling out of Afghanistan by the end of 2114, then it would seem that there should be a nice little “peace dividend” to be had.
Unfortunately, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta points out, the need for bodies to fill out the necessary ranks is going to bump up against any efforts to continue to modernize the capabilities of the military service, with either the size of the force having to be drastically reduced or modernization and future procurements deferred. Why is this? It is because the cost of maintaining the individual service member is rising and has been since the advent of the all-volunteer force.
It is funny, because I predicted this situation way back in 1971 in a paper I wrote for a political science class on adopting the all-volunteer force (even had a nifty graph that went with it). Be that as it may, the problem is that housing, feeding and providing medical care for volunteers, an increasing number of whom are married and bring with them the obligation to provide dependent care, has eaten a larger and larger component of the military’s budget each year and that is not going to stop unless the situation can be changed.
There is a way to change the calculus, but I doubt the Pentagon or Congress would ever go for it. The Pentagon, for instance, would not like it because it probably would reduce the number of flag officers (generals and admirals) on active duty and that definitely is a non-starter. As for Congress, well, let it suffice to say that it might hamper its irresponsibility.
Anyway, my plan – which actually was printed in the Congressional Record many years ago courtesy of  South Carolina Sen. Fritz Hollings (D) – would replace each reduction in active service members by increasing the number in the reserves by 2 or three times the reduction. This is sort of a return to the pre-World War II model of military force manning that depended far more than today on the Reserves and National Guard (militias).
In addition, the military could – but it is not likely – return to service rank structures that existed before 1970, when pay grade inflation hit to make up for the lack of pay increases as inflation racked the military pay scales. In other words, instead of paying soldiers more at their current rank, they allowed promotions to higher rank to compensate for the low pay. Hence, the job once done by a corporal was now assigned to a sergeant; and what was done by a staff sergeant was done by a sergeant first class; and jobs that were usually done by first lieutenants was now being done by captains, jobs done by majors was now done by lieutenant colonels, etc.
Now, the key is increasing the size of the Reserves – such as the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard. Currently the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard combined have about the same number of members as the active component of the Army. It is a figure that according my research even 40 years ago provides a really inadequate 1:1 ratio. The ratio should be closer to three or four reservists for every active duty service member (and is in most countries).
The best benefit of such an approach, from a budgetary standpoint, is that is costs about 30 to 40 cents to fund a reservist for every $1 it costs to maintain an active component member. So, assuming that you increase the ration to 2:1, you still can cut up to 20 percent of the personnel costs for the active component. That sure would make the progressives happy, but I doubt that many of them would be volunteering to fill the additional ranks of needed in the reserves.
And that is the problem with the reserves: Manning. I only once served in a reserve unit (in the 18 years I served in the Naval Reserve and Army National Guard) that was at full strength (and it didn’t have enough officers and included only 13 people of all ranks). The problem being is that (a) being in the Reserves does impose some sacrifices on what is essentially a civilian lifestyle and (b) as the last 15 years have pointed out, there always is the probability that you might be mobilized for up to two years out of every six. That really puts a damper on motivating people to join up.
But a political upside is that such a ratio would put a damper on the political leadership haring off on military adventures. It is one thing to send in off-the-radar active component people, but when you start calling up people’s neighbors, the political cost starts to climb … which really is a good thing, when you think about it.
Anyway, don’t look for Congress or the Pentagon or even the President to come out and endorse such economizing in the defense budget. It makes too much sense. It is too logical and therefore definitely is not among those things that should be considered.
Besides, it is too restraining on presidential options, and the options the generals and admirals can offer to a president.