General: Army reliance on National Guard won't diminish

Despite efforts to increase the size of the active-duty Army to ease the strains of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army officer predicted Wednesday that the military's heavy reliance on the Army National Guard and Reserve will continue for "another generation."

A larger force will mean significantly more time at home between overseas missions for all active and reserve combat units, but the Army's reserve component will continue to function as an operational force for the foreseeable future, Gen. Charles Campbell, who heads U.S. Army Forces Command, said during a breakfast with reporters.

Although it is growing by 65,000 troops, the active-duty Army still is not large enough to handle what is expected to be an era of persistent conflict without its reserve, Campbell said. "To meet that demand, we are going to have to continue to be reliant on our reserve component," he said. "That's a reality. It's been a reality that's been true now for seven years and it's likely to be true for another generation."

The Army recently deployed five National Guard brigades to Iraq and expects to deploy seven more for overseas missions in the next rotation, said Campbell, whose command is responsible for training, equipping and deploying units mobilized for combat operations. The Army hopes to soon give reservists at least four years at home between deployments -- a schedule that still would allow the Army to deploy five or six National Guard combat brigades each year.

The Army, Campbell said, has a few options to meet operational demands without repeatedly tapping its reserve forces for deployments, but none are affordable nor politically feasible. The active-duty Army would have to expand to 800,000 soldiers -- 253,000 more than its current end-strength goal -- to meet overseas demands on its own.

"I'm not suggesting that a large Army is not desirable," Campbell said. "But I think there is a reality associated with whether or not you can recruit and sustain that large of an Army given today's demographics. And then there's the issue of affordability." The other option, Campbell said, is reinstating the draft -- a tremendously unpopular solution within the Army's own ranks and the general public.

"If you don't reinstate the draft and you don't grow the Army to 800,000, what are your alternatives?" Campbell said. "Well, your alternative [is to] create predictable access to properly ready formations in the Guard and Reserve."

Over the next two years, the Army Guard will receive $17 billion in new gear to replenish stateside equipment coffers that have diminished since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Billions of dollars more are expected to flow to Guard and Reserve units over the next several years, marking an unprecedented investment in these forces. With that investment, Campbell said, comes an expectation that those units will be ready for deployments.

"There has been a historical theme that as the federal government has infused more resources into the citizen soldier formation ... that there is a commensurate expectation of greater access and utilization," Campbell said. "I think that's a fair expectation."