Learning from the Air Force: Why The Army Needs a Congressional Commission
Over recent months, tensions between the active U.S. Army and the U.S. Army National Guard have escalated dramatically. Instead of working as a team to manage the deep cuts to Army force structure and end strength, the two sides have withdrawn to their corners, donned their boxing gloves, and sparred bloodily about topics ranging from restructuring aviation assets to the degree of interchangeability between active and reserve forces. These battles are so contentious, and mutual distrust so high, that Congress is debating the creation of an independent commission to examine the future roles of active and reserve components of the Army. Although Washington commissions rarely solve tough problems, in this case a commission is essential to establish ground truth and serve as a catalyst to help restore trust among the Army’s components.
The Army is not unique in battling with the National Guard and reserve components. A few years ago, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) similarly clashed with its reserve components. Partly as result, Congress established the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force. The commission analyzed the pros and cons of the most divisive issues driving this internecine air war and ultimately provided useful recommendations. Its lasting impact, though, may have been from its indirect role as a catalyst. The new Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Mark Welsh, took office while Congress was considering legislation to create the commission. In this setting, Welsh came into office determined to better integrate all components of the Air Force and mend their rifts.
Four months after taking office, General Welsh (together with Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley) established an organization devoted to ensuring the voices of all components would reach the ears of senior Air Force leaders. The Total Force Task Force included three two-star USAF generals, one each representing the active-duty Air Force, the Air Force Reserve, and the Air National Guard. Its stated mission included recommending ways to improve balance and integration among these communities. But it also had a more implicit, yet far more important purpose: to convey to all members of the force that the opinions and outlooks of all USAF components would be heard and respected. Under Welsh’s leadership, the Air Force slowly rebuilt its three warring components into a single family – one with different ideas, cultures, and outlooks, but ultimately aimed at the same objective. The Air Force commission helped animate and speed this transformation.
Welsh continues to use a version of his Total Force Task Force today to consult and coordinate with a standing panel of three generals (now at the one-star level) from each of the communities. Leveraging the work of the Air Force commission, Welsh has continued his personal commitment to teamwork and comity between USAF components. He has largely restored trust and loyalty among the Air Force’s three communities to an extent that seemed unimaginable during their public feuds a few years ago. After hearing Welsh speak to the annual conference of the National Guard Association of the United States this past August, one participant noted that all the Adjutants General – the 54 joint leaders of the Army and Air National Guard in each of the U.S. states and territories – “would do anything for Mark Welsh.”
All of the services are facing contentious debates between their active and reserve components. As budgets decline, all actors are scrambling for dollars to preserve their equities. In such an intensely competitive environment, objectivity is often the first casualty. A Congressional commission could help the Army and its three warring components untangle the emotions, clearly outline the issues, and provide a measure of objective analysis and common metrics by which to analyze the challenges at hand.
Sadly, it seems extremely unlikely that any of these outcomes will be achieved without external intervention. The time is right for Congress to establish an external commission to examine these seemingly intractable issues. Such a commission can provide the Army a fresh look at options, unencumbered by service parochialism. It can give top cover to the Army’s leadership, enabling all components to collaborate on finding solutions. Moreover, with the new Army Chief of Staff set to take over the service by September 2015, the initial work by such a commission can help lay the groundwork for the next Army Chief to restore trust and build a more effective relationship between the active and reserve components.
The close relationship among the Army’s active, Guard and reserve components that had characterized the last thirteen years of war is now deeply frayed. Budget pressures and a shrinking force have deeply eroded years of hard-won mutual trust and confidence between them. A Congressional commission may be the only way to provide unbiased analysis and recommendations to the Army’s leadership that will start to heal the painful rifts between the components that are so evident today. Rebuilding that trust may be the next chief’s most important contribution to maximizing the capabilities and effectiveness of the nation’s land forces.
LTG David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) and Dr. Nora Bensahel are Senior Fellows and the Co-Directors of the Responsible Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Photo credit: 316th ESC
Jon Czarnecki 
Dennis McCarthy 
Shane Crofts 
Whenever there is political tension between the AC and the RC in the Army, there also invariably are calls for a commission to resolve the tension. During my active duty career in the Army, commissions were set up, either by the Executive or by the Congress, no less than three times. Each one came to the same conclusion: both sides need to learn to play nice in the resource sandbox. The only substantive commission really wasn’t a commission at all, but a mutually agreed upon negotiation between the AC and the RC that resulted in an enduring force structure revision, the Offsite Agreement of 1993. The force structure and resource profiles today are strong echoes of that agreement, several conflicts occurring since notwithstanding.
What everyone with interests in this tension between the Army AC and RC needs to understand is this: the tension is a conscious, enduring, structural result of our Founding Fathers, and is captured in both the discussions on the Constitution (consult Madison’s work here) and the Constitution itself. The Constitution calls for a organized militia (RC) that is trained to a standard prescribed by the Congress, and commanded by the President. Thru precedent, that standard and command, coupled with another Congressional power, to raise and support Armies, led to the AC providing the training and equipping standards for the RC. This reflected a real concern of the Founding Fathers about standing armies (AC) – that they had a tendency to overthrow civilian governments. The alternative to standing armies was the organized militia (RC). But the delegates to the Constitutional Convention well knew the very mixed record of the militia in the then recent Revolution. So, they applied their principles of separate institutions sharing powers to the Army. Thus, the structural source of today’s tension.
There is no need for anymore commissions, just for astute leadership to once again reach a kind of new Offsite Agreement that will have the ability to reconcile the tensions and providing a path into a resource-scarce future.
The comments on the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force, and its impact as a “catalyst” for progress within the Air Force is interesting and, from a strictly personal perspective, welcome. But whether there is correlation to the Army demands further scrutiny.
The Air Force Commission’s conclusions and recommendations were unanimous, and I contend that unanimity was not the result of timidity. Eight strong-minded commissioners, drawn from a variety of service backgrounds and experiences, did not start in the same place on many of the toughest issues, but found common ground by allowing their conclusions to be driven by what they heard from a wide variety of witnesses inside and outside the Air Force, rather than by pre-conceived notions or component allegiances.
If a similar commission were to be tasked to study and make recommendations for the Army, it would need commissioners of broad experience and open minds, willing to take on their work as independent agents rather than as representatives or delegates from the various components or their supporters.
LtGen Dennis McCarthy USMC (Ret)
Former Chairman, NCSAF
This issue has become so contentious, just like after every war and build-up; the question seems to become, if the Army is downsizing, why shouldn’t the Guard share some of that pain? But the reality is, the Guard didn’t really grow after 9/11, and it has much more of a domestic mission than the active army, or army reserve, so shrinking it post-war is short-sighted, and ineffective. If the army were capable of making fact-based decisions, keeping in mind the tremendous contributions of the reserve component to the war of the last 13 years, maybe a commission wouldn’t be necessary. But coments from the CSA like “do you want a team that rains every day, or once a month?” aren’t helping create the trust and cooperation necessary to make that happen. An army commission would at least give all the players a voice, and maybe all could come to a reasonable conclusion. But until then it will be a turf war, and resource grabbing, with the ultimate losers being US taxpayers, who deserve the best, most efficient and economical national defense we can give them.
LTC Shane C. Crofts, Wyoming Army National Guard