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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1993 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1992

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, DC.

RESERVE AND NATIONAL GUARD PROGRAMS

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in room 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator John Glenn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Committee members present: Senators Glenn, Nunn, Exon, Levin, and McCain.

Committee staff members present: Arnold L. Punaro, staff director; and Lucia M. Chavez, research assistant.

Professional staff members present: Creighton Greene, David S. Lyles, and Frederick F.Y. Pang.

Minority staff members present: George K. Johnson, Jr., and George W. Lauffer, professional staff members.

Staff assistant present: Debra A. Rice.

Committee members' assistants present: Andrew W. Johnson, as sistant to Senator Exon; David A. Lewis, assistant to Senator Levin; William J. Lynn, assistant to Senator Kennedy, Philip P. Upschulte, assistant to Senator Glenn; Leon S. Fuerth, assistant to Senator Gore; Anthony H. Cordesman, assistant to Senator McCain; and Thomas L. Lankford, assistant to Senator Smith

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN GLENN, CHAIRMAN Senator GLENN. The hearing will be in order.

The Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel meets this more ing to continue its review of manpower and personnel plane and programs associated with the Amended Defense Autoren quest for Fiscal Year 1993. This is truly an information Santa this morning. It is not something we go into with some press ceived idea of our exact numbers we want and we are having a hearing to back it up. We are truly looking for information VEE us guidance in this area that we have sought for some

Today's hearing will focus on the Defense Department posi strength plans for the National Guard and Reserve STETS and how DOD intends to execute these plans

Congress.

The subcommittee will also receive testimony on the effectiveness of the integration and management of the National Guard and Reserve components in DOD's Base Force Plan and on DOD's compensation and benefits program for National Guardsmen and Reservists. There is no doubt we need to make cuts, but we need to make cuts that make sense. At today's hearing, I will be asking our witnesses to prove to this subcommittee that its cuts do make sense in terms of both fairness and combat readiness.

As part of its plan to build down military forces, the Defense Department proposed substantial reductions in the National Guard and Reserve components last year. From a strength level of 1,188,600 authorized for fiscal year 1991, the Department wanted to cut 105,100 for fiscal year 1992 and another 79,800 in fiscal year 1993, for an aggregate reduction of 184,900, or nearly 16 percent over the 2-year period. By way of comparison, the Department of Defense recommended and the Congress approved a reduction in the active component of nearly 10 percent over the same 2-year period.

Because the Defense Department could not analytically justify the much steeper ramp of Guard and Reserve cuts it proposed, the Congress approved only a 6 percent reduction for the Guard and Reserve over the 2-year period rather than the 16 percent proposed by DOD. So, the fact is that the Congress did cut Guard and Reserve strength, and I believe it did so prudently, a fact sometimes ignored in the current debate on the future size of the Guard and Reserve.

I think it would be helpful as a backdrop to today's hearing to review why the Congress slowed the aggressive pace of the Guard and Reserve reductions proposed by DOD. It was not all just parochialism. Quite frankly, despite the urging of the Congress, DOD has not produced analytically compelling justification for the Guard and Reserve cuts it wants.

For example, in anticipation of a substantial restructuring of the Active and Reserve components, the Congress required the Department of Defense in the Fiscal Year 1990 Defense Authorization Act to prepare and submit to the Congress a Total Force Policy Study by December 31, 1990. Now, in mandating this study, the Congress indicated that it expected to carefully review the force structure and force mix proposals in the study in making future judgments on the roles and size of our Guard and Reserve forces.

Our subcommittee reviewed the Total Force Policy Study submitted by DOD in response to the mandate of the Congress in a hearing on June 5 of last year. It is a matter of record that the study fell far short of the kind of analysis the Congress requested. What we received was what we viewed as a superficial 71-page report. The first 28 pages contained an executive summary and a summary of the history of the Total Force Policy. That was 40 percent of the report. The remaining portion of the report discussed the process of managing the total force in DOD, and that was 20 pages. It discussed the changing strategic environment on two pages. Finally, it discussed the effect of evolving military strategy on the total force for six pages.

Quite frankly, we ended up getting a study that failed completely to make any analytically supporting case for any of the Guard and

Reserve cuts that DOD wanted. So, we had to deal with the Guard and Reserve force reductions DOD proposed for fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 1993 last year without the benefit of a coherent, analytical study, one that we had expected DOD to provide.

In light of DOD's inability or unwillingness to produce the kind of analysis we requested, it was not a complete shock for us to discover in DOD's reduction proposals that the Navy planned to deactivate two Navy Reserve minesweeping squadrons, an action completely at odds with the damaging and embarrassing problems that mines caused the Navy in the Persian Gulf.

It was not a complete shock for us to discover that although the Marine Corps activated 55 percent of the Marine Corps Reserve for the Persian Gulf conflict, it planned to reduce Marine Corps Reserve strength by 21 percent, including a tank unit that fought with distinction in the Persian Gulf.

And it was not a complete shock for us to discover that there was no coherent audit trail of Army Reserve and Army National Guard units scheduled for deactivation to a total force bed-down of Army units in the Army's base force plan.

So, we stopped the Navy from cutting the two minesweeping squadrons, and we stopped the Marine Corps from pushing the Marine Corps Reserve off the readiness cliff. We stopped the Army from arbitrarily cutting Guard and Reserve units that we could not relate to a rational bed-down plan.

I might add we acted responsibly. We did the right thing. We approved only the cuts that we could make sense out of, and we rejected those that were incomprehensible or potentially detrimental to combat readiness. And I keep repeating that at every hearing. Combat readiness. The only reason we have a military is combat readiness. I expect we will act as responsibly this year.

Now, to help us address DOD Guard and Reserve strength proposals this year, our committee report on the Fiscal Year 19921993 Defense Authorization Act last year directed the Secretary of Defense to "submit a report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives by February 15, 1992, on the units that will be inactivated because of the reduced selected Reserve end strengths for fiscal years 1992 and 1993 and any plans including supporting justification for the realignment of missions from the Reserve components to the Active components."

Two weeks ago on March 26, Secretary Cheney released a list of units in compliance with the first part of the committee's direction. This is the first piece of detailed data we have received on DOD's planned Guard and Reserve cuts, and we appreciate Secretary Cheney's effort in this regard. We will carefully consider this material which we will, without objection, include in the record at this point.

[The information follows:]

DOD PLAN FOR REDUCTIONS IN NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE FORCES

This plan sets forth a listing of unit inactivations and reductions for fiscal years 1992 and 1993. The plan is a carefully developed, prudent approach for reducing National Guard and Reserve forces as active forces are reduced. The end result will be a smaller, but highly capable Total Force of active, Guard, and Reserve units.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Enclosure 1 Summary Data

• Reserve Component End Strength
• Reserve Component Force Structure

Summary of Force Structure Reductions
• Rationale for Force Structure Reductions
• Recap of Force Structure Reductions by State

Enclosure 2 Army National Guard

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