Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined how Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union organize and train their army reserves to identify features that the U.S. Army might consider as it restructures its forces.
GAO found that: (1) both the United States and case-study countries relied heavily on reserves to meet their military requirements; (2) the case-study countries generally assign both combat and support roles to their reserves but in many cases restrict key leadership roles and missions to their active forces; (3) the case-study countries employ cadre concepts in some cases to provide a means of expanding their military forces; (4) the Soviet Union and Germany used cadre systems to mix the experience of active personnel with less costly reserves and to provide for force generation in wartime; (5) the United States has considered the use of cadre systems to reduce the size of its peacetime army while retaining the capacity to generate additional forces; (6) the Institute for Defense Analysis has developed a force structure model providing a means of force generation that suggests alternatives to cadres may exist; (7) the Army Reserve has initiated an automated position reservation system to improve the match between vacancies and skills; (8) some countries make concerted efforts to assign reservists to positions related to their prior military service to reduce the need for extensive retraining; and (9) some countries varied the amount of reserve training according to the complexity of the mission, recent active duty service, and relevance of reservists' civilian jobs to their military positions.
