Army Force Structure

Need to Determine Changed Threat's Impact on Reserve Training Divisions Gao ID: NSIAD-92-182 June 22, 1992

The Army plans to reduce the number of reserve training divisions from 12 to nine and may be able to make even further cuts because of the diminished Soviet and Warsaw Pact threats. According to the Defense Department, the likeliest threat to U.S. national security interests today would be a regional conflict requiring a call-up of reserves under partial mobilization. Activation of reserve training divisions would be unlikely under this scenario. The Army is, however, considering anew role for such divisions that could justify retaining some of them. During Operation Desert Storm, about 5,000 reserve training division personnel--the equivalent of less than two divisions--were called on to provide refresher training to Individual Ready Reserve personnel. Army policy had previously assigned such refresher training to active Army units. The Army plans to analyze its mobilization training needs but has not yet decided whether to assign permanently the refresher training to the reserve training divisions.

GAO found that: (1) the Army is planning to reduce the number of reserve training divisions from 12 to 9 due to changing and diminishing security needs; (2) during Operation Desert Storm, the Army activated about 5,000 reserve training division personnel to train Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) personnel; and (3) the Army is reassessing the refresher training mission.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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