Conference repair::reserve_forces

   
    	Jem,
    	    Could you enlighten me as to what change in NATO strategy
    you are talking about. 
    			Waiting with bated breath,
    						  Steve..

    Re .0:
    
    Hi Jem and welcome to the conference!
    
    My very uneducated guess would be that given the changes in Europe
    and the state of the US deficit eventually active duty troops will
    be phased out and even more emphasis will be placed on the reserves
    and NG.
    
    Just an opinion though.....
    
    Mark
    RMC USNR

    Without wishing to appear ignorant, what changes in NATO?
    
    Thanks,
    Dave

    Mark,
    
    Your comments made me think, not for long; do you think there will
    ever be a time when there are more reserve than regulars?
    The regulars would always be needed, of course. 
    
    Dave

There was an article on the front page of the NY Times yesterday reporting
that Bakker had suggested that NATO become strictly a political organization,
without any military body. NATO, BTW, is meeting today, to discuss this and
other issues.

Personally, I feel that any such move is *extremely* premature.

Thanks, Mark , for letting me know about this conference.

Jem

    Last week's ARMY TIMES front page spoke of how the pentagon
    was already (without congressional mandate) planning a reduction
    of approx 5 active divisions. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff knew
    immediately that the current manpower level would not be needed
    if the Iron Curtain fell(went up?). This topic was discussed at
    the quarterly Commander's Conference last week. There will be
    a lot of fall out from the 'outbreak of peace in Europe'. Gorby
    isn't the only one that would like to reduce the defense share
    of the GNP.
    
    Bob Mc

    According to a brief piece on British TV news last night, and a few
    phone calls this is two things:
    
    1) Baker (Bakker?) has told NATO that it must change its emphasis from
    a purely military role to a "more political" one, and the European
    members have conditionally agreed (presumably pending finding out in
    detail what he means). Meanwhile the Soviet foreign minister is to
    address NATO.
    
    2) the US have suggested limiting both US and USSR troops in Europe to
    275,000 men total, with large reductions in conventional equipment.
    
    We'll see (I have already expressed my scepticism on this in the
    Defence Issues conference, perhaps we should limit debate here to the
    impact on reserve forces, which at present would appear to be nil).
    
    /. Ian .\

Re: .7


>    We'll see (I have already expressed my scepticism on this in the
>    Defence Issues conference,

Pointer to this conference?

Jem

	COMET::DEFENSE_ISSUES

/. Ian .\

    Well, maybe not much of an impact in the UK Ian. In the US, it
    could have a major impact on the AR & ARNG. If the US defense
    budget gets reduced, the reserves will be hit hard. If active 
    force levels are reduced, there are a lot of potential reserve
    members in those caught by the reduction. But, most of those would
    be senior folks and they might limit in-service transfers. My
    unit is struggling for equipment under the current budget. An
    active force reduction might free up some of that equipment. But,
    we are already being told that there will be no increase in slots
    at the language school and maybe even a reduction. That would
    limit our already limited manpower pool to previously trained folks
    or folks that have acquired a language in civilian school or have
    learned it through their ethnic background. The latter folks some-
    time have problems getting clearances due to that same background.
    Our mission is a European one, our language skills are focused there.
    There is talk of using MI assets in the 'war on drugs'. Most of
    that is focused towards South America, how do we use European
    language skills for that? The major unit that we would support on
    mobilization is in strength difficulty. If they were deactivated
    due to budgetary reasons, what would happen to my unit? Life in
    the reserves will be very interesting in the next 6 months!

    Bob Mc
    

    re .10
    
    We are now under considerable budgetary pressure. Our higher HQ
    is cutting wherever they can, to try and maintain enough money
    for the Annual Training requirements. My unit is on an Active 
    post, so all our outgoing mail goes through the base Post Office.
    They have given us an set allowance for postage, after which they
    will not send out any more. Very difficult to keep our unit informed
    about changes. All our additional training funds have been withheld,
    meaning that I can't give anyone anything for coming in and helping
    out with training preparation. The funds for buying miscellaneous
    supplies have been held back and our supply of batteries to power
    our portable electronic equipment was exhausted this last weekend.
    We may have to limit ourselves to vehicle powered equipment only
    for the June field exercise and that only if we haven't used up
    our fuel allocation (could be very interesting since we are getting
    two tracked vehicles very soon and they weren't figured into the
    original fuel allocation). We will be facing some serious morale
    problems if we can't provide the specialized training that our
    linguists require.
    
    Bob Mc