In fiscal year 2008, the Army Reserve and Army National Guard had about 197,000 and 360,400 soldiers, respectively, comprising 51 percent of the total Army, which also includes the active component. The Army organizes, trains, and equips its reserve components to perform assigned missions. The Army Reserve is a federal force that is organized and trained primarily to supply specialized combat support and combat service support skills to combat forces. The Army National Guard is composed of both combat forces and units that supply support skills, but in contrast to the Army Reserve, the Army National Guard has dual federal and state missions. When not called to active duty for a federal mission, Army National Guard units remain under the command and control of the governors, typically training for their federal mission or conducting state missions. In addition, National Guard forces can be mobilized under Title 32 of the United States Code for certain federally funded, domestic missions conducted under the command of the governors such as providing security at the nation’s airports in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks and assisting the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Both reserve components are composed primarily of citizen soldiers who balance the demands of civilian careers with part-time military service. Reserve forces may be involuntarily called to active duty under three mobilization authorities. As shown in table 1, the President may involuntarily mobilize forces under two authorities with size and time limitations. Full mobilization, which would authorize the mobilization of forces for as long as they are needed, requires a declaration by Congress. In September 2001, following President Bush’s declaration of a national emergency resulting from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, DOD issued mobilization guidance that, among other things, allowed the services to mobilize reservists for up to 24 cumulative months under the President’s partial mobilization authority. In January 2007, the Secretary of Defense issued updated guidance on the utilization of the force that, among other things, limits involuntary reserve component mobilizations to no more than 1 year at a time. During the Cold War, the Army’s reserve components principally operated as a force in reserve, or strategic reserve, that would supplement active forces in the event of extended conflict. Members of the reserves generally served 39 days a year—1 weekend a month and an additional 2 weeks of duty. In addition, the reserve components have a small number of full-time personnel, Active Guard and Reserve personnel and military technicians, that perform the necessary day-to-day tasks such as maintaining unit equipment and planning training events that reserve units need to accomplish in order to maintain readiness for their mission and be able to deploy. The Army’s resourcing strategy for a strategic reserve provided reserve units with varying levels of resources according to the priority assigned to their federal warfighting missions. Most reserve component units were provided with between 65 and 74 percent of their required personnel and 65 to 79 percent of their required equipment. This approach assumed that most reserve component forces would have a lengthy mobilization period with enough time to fully man, equip, and train their units after they were mobilized to attain the high level of operational readiness necessary for deployment. Since September 11, 2001, however, the demand for Army forces and capabilities has been high, especially to support ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing that its forces were being stressed by the demands of lengthy and repeated deployments, the Army has adopted a new force-generation model intended to improve units’ readiness over time as they move through phased training to prepare to be ready for a potential deployment. This contrasts with the previous approach in which, as a strategic reserve, units’ personnel and equipment levels were maintained below warfighting readiness levels until they were mobilized. Under the Army’s new model, the early phases of the cycle will entail formation and staffing of the unit and beginning individual and collective training, while later phases will concentrate on larger unit training. Figure 1 illustrates the planned movement of units through the reset, train/ready, and available phases of the Army force-generation model. Under the Army’s force-generation model as designed, reserve component units would be available for deployment for 1 year with 5 years between deployments. After returning home from a deployment, units remain in the reset phase for a fixed 1-year period and focus on restoring personnel and equipment readiness so that they can resume training for future missions. Following the reset phase, units enter the train/ready phases in which they progressively increase their training proficiency by completing individual and collective training tasks. As designed in the force-generation model, reserve component units remain in the train/ready phases for 4 years, although the amount of time is not fixed and may be reduced to meet operational demands. Upon completion of the train/ready phases, units enter the available year in which they can be mobilized to meet specific mission requirements. Under current DOD policy, involuntary reserve component mobilizations are limited to no more than 1 year in length. The force-generation process requires increasing resources for units to use in training to gain higher levels of proficiency prior to mobilization. “The reserve components provide operational capabilities and strategic depth to meet U.S. defense requirements across the full spectrum of conflict. In their operational roles, reserve components participate in a full range of missions according to their Services’ force-generation plans. Units and individuals participate in missions in an established cyclic or periodic manner that provides predictability for the combatant commands, the Services, Service members, their families and employers. In their strategic roles, reserve component units and individuals train or are available for missions in accordance with the national defense strategy. As such, the reserve components provide strategic depth and are available to transition to operational roles as needed.” The Army has made a number of changes to its force structure, as well as to its manning and equipping strategies to better position its reserve components for the operational role. However, given the current high pace of operations, the Army has faced challenges in achieving sustainable mobilization rates for its citizen soldiers and in readying personnel and units before they are mobilized in order to maximize their availability to operational commanders after deployment. The Army has made four force-structure changes to better position its reserve components for the operational role. First, the Army is undertaking a major reorganization—called the modular force initiative—designed to make Army forces more flexible and responsive by reorganizing combat and combat support forces from a division-based force to smaller, more numerous, modular brigade formations with significant support elements. In contrast to the Army’s previous division-based force with many different types of unique forces, the modular forces were designed to be standardized and interoperable so forces could be more easily tailored to meet operational needs. Under the modular reorganization, National Guard and Army Reserve units are to have the same designs, organizational structures, and equipment as their active component counterparts so that they can be operationally employed in the same manner as active component units. The Army reported in its 2009 Campaign Plan that it has converted or begun converting 256 (84 percent) of the 303 planned brigade formations. However, the Army has been focused on equipping and staffing units to support ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the equipment and personnel levels in nondeployed units have been declining. Further, as previously reported, the Army does not have a plan with clear milestones in place to guide efforts to equip and staff units that have been converted to the modular design, and the Army now anticipates that the converted modular units will not be fully staffed and equipped until 2019—more than a decade away. Furthermore, without adequate planning, the Army risks cost growth and further timeline slippage in its efforts to transform to a more modular and capable force. The Army is changing the missions of some Army organizations and retraining soldiers to produce more soldiers and units with high-demand skills. For example, the Army is decreasing its supply of air defense, armor, and field artillery capabilities in order to increase its supply of special operations, civil affairs, and military police capabilities. The Army began these rebalancing efforts in fiscal year 2003 after military operations in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks generated high demand for certain forces. Among those forces in high demand were certain combat support and combat service support forces such as military police and transportation units. These support forces, which are also called enablers, reside heavily in the reserve components. The goals of rebalancing included helping to ease stress on units and individuals with high-demand skills and meeting the Army’s goal of executing the first 30 days of an operation without augmentation from the reserve component. As part of the rebalancing plan, the Army National Guard is converting six brigade combat teams into four maneuver enhancement brigades and two battlefield surveillance brigades that will perform combat support roles. As of February 2009, the Army reported that it had completed rebalancing 70,400 positions, about 50 percent of the approximately 142,300 positions scheduled to be rebalanced by 2015 across the active and reserve components. The Army is also increasing personnel within the reserve components. In January 2007, the Secretary of Defense announced an initiative to expand the total Army by approximately 74,200 soldiers to better meet long-term operational requirements, sustain the all-volunteer force, and build towards a goal of 5 years between mobilizations for the reserve components. This initiative is expected to add 8,200 soldiers to the Army National Guard by 2010; 65,000 soldiers to the active component by fiscal year 2010; and 1,000 soldiers to the Army Reserve by 2013. The Secretary of Defense expects that with a larger force, individuals and units will, over time, deploy less frequently and have longer times at home between deployments. However, we have previously reported that the Army has not developed a comprehensive funding plan for the expansion initiative and that, lacking a complete and accurate plan, Congress and other decision makers may not have the information they need to consider the long-term costs and benefits associated with increasing Army personnel levels or gauge the amount of funding that should be appropriated to implement the initiative.