The Washington Post Reports on the ongoing debate between active duty Air Force Leadership and Guard and Reserve Leaders over how much of the impending budget cuts the latter should shoulder:
Although the dispute is rooted in money, it involves fundamental debates about states’ rights and the future of the modern military. In private conversations, officials on both sides cast the fight in existential, zero-sum terms. Active officers want to preserve today’s professional, volunteer force, built from the ashes of Vietnam, a force in which many officers and enlisted personnel spend two decades or more continuously in uniform, often acquiring specialized skills and deployment experience. National Guard officials want to protect the role of state-based militias, whose “citizen soldiers” provide a critical link to American society and act as a hedge against wars of choice.
“This debate is all about the question of what kind of military we Americans want,” said retired Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, a former chief of the National Guard Bureau. “Are they an expeditionary, foreign-legion force, or are they the defenders of our nation — the people we use to protect our nation’s vital interests?”...
Unlike active troops, who are clustered in and around a few dozen large military installations, Guard members are spread across the nation. Including them in military operations, he said, helps to build and sustain popular support.
Activating them is more difficult than issuing orders to active personnel — businesses and families get disrupted — but such a cost, Blum said, is a worthy check on those seeking to wage war. “It makes our political leaders ensure that what they’re asking these people to do is worth it,” he said. “It makes the decision to send them much harder — and it should be.”
Read the full article
here.
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