Army National Guard

Validate Requirements for Combat Forces and Size Those Forces Accordingly Gao ID: NSIAD-96-63 March 14, 1996

Although the Army National Guard has come down in size since the end of the Cold War, the Guard's combat strength still exceeds what the Defense Department needs to fight two major regional wars--the basic goal of U.S. military strategy today. GAO recommends that the Army validate the size and the structure of all the Guard's combat forces and develop a plan to bring the size and the structure of these forces in line with validated requirements. Depending on the study's conclusions, the Army should consider converting some Guard combat forces to support roles. To the extent that Guard forces exceed validated requirements, the Army should consider eliminating them.

GAO found that: (1) despite reductions, the Army National Guard's combat units may still be too large for projected war requirements; (2) the Guard's eight remaining combat divisions and three separate combat units are not needed to meet the two-conflict strategy or any probable conflict scenarios; (3) DOD considers the excess Guard forces to be a strategic reserve that could be used as occupational and rotational forces, a deterrent against aggressive regimes, and support for civilian authorities, but it did not present any analytical support for the continued force levels; (4) DOD has not finalized plans for 15 enhanced Guard combat brigades, and fewer than 15 may be needed; (5) state missions often require more support skills and equipment than Guard combat forces, which usually supplement other state resources in emergencies; (6) over the last decade, states have needed only a fraction of the Guard's personnel to meet their emergency requirements; (7) the Army is studying ways that the Guard could meet critical shortages in its support capabilities; and (8) DOD believes that since Guard forces exceed combat needs, reserve components with lower priority tasks should be eliminated or reorganized to meet higher priorities.

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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