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.

Failure to understand history

Reference/background story

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/07/02/review-change-guard-reserve-pay.html?ESRC=army.nl

I dearly love the Pentagon. (oops, sarcasm there). I dearly love Congress. (oops, sarcasm there)

You know why? Because they are peopled with individuals who really have no sense of history and rarely seem to understand how or why some things came to be.

For example: The Guard and the Reserve actually have different mandates. One solely is to support the active component (The Regulars) and the other serves that role but also serves as the military force for the states and territories and that is not a federal role.

Now, some of us have served back in the day when a Unit Training Assembly (UTA) was held every week. It was a four hour block of training, usually in the evening, that a reserve member was required to attend. The reserve members were paid the equivalent of one day’s pay for someone on Active Duty (The Regulars) for their efforts. Back in those days, you were talking about $3 or $4 per meeting for a low ranking service member (today it can be $15 or $20 for the same service member).

Then in the 1970s, it was decided that in most instances it would be better to consolidate training in two days per month than have them four times a month. Still, it would count each four hours as one day of training as it had before. More efficient use of time, but if you just counted days, you would be halving the pay of Reserve force members, so they decided to play the fiction that each four hours was the equivalent of eight hour days in the civilian world.

But then, if a unit left its Reserve Center or Armory to do any field training, all of a sudden instead of being gone for 16 hours of training, they would be participating in more like 36 to 54 hours of training (depending on if it was a MUTA-4 or MUTA-5) for exactly the same pay.

In addition, officers and senior non-commissioned officers often were required to meet in between the usual monthly session for more than a few hours, to plan and prepare for the monthly unit training assembly (the MUTA). This was sometimes, but not always, counted as an additional Training Assembly (ATA), since it often was like four hours on some weeknight. Officers and NCOs often would also have to participate in CPX (command post exercise) and TWOT (Training Without Troops) exercises. These usually would get the officer or NCO one or two ATAs depending on the length of an exercise but would be counted as one per 24 hour day (at least in my experience).

Now, in order to balance the budget (tee-hee), a Pentagon whiz kid says, gee it ain’t fair that inactive duty troops get credit for two days of pay, when they only are working one day. Their brethren called up to federal service only get one day, so maybe we should change the system.

Well, considering that the active duty soldier also usually qualifies for the Basic Allowance for Quarters and the Basic Allowance for Subsistence (which people on Reserve inactive duty status don’t), plus allowances for uniforms and hazardous duty pay, and other benefits, it seems that given that they are probably underpaid for hazarding their bodies 24/7/52/365, I am not sure the inactive duty individual is overpaid.

But leave it to some active component or active Guard and Reserve (AGR) person not to understand the history behind the way things are the way they are. It is too deep for them.

It is like the guys who dreamed up the consolidating Active Duty, Guard and Reserve units under the same job rating scheme … but somehow forgetting that Guard members belong to the governor of the state (unless on federal duty) and Reserve and Active Duty folks belong always belong to the president. Slight problem there, as to who signs off on whose evaluation when you go up the rating chain.

Separation of powers can be a real bitch sometimes and make things more complicated than if the world was simple place and there was just one government.