Tensions are high between the active Army and the National Guard as the Army reduces combat operations, faces new challenges and a restrictive budget, but hard data can make the case for decisions, Rep. Tim Walz, (D-Minn.), said at the release of a new report on the future of the National Guard.
“Let’s be driven by the data,” Walz said May 29 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies during the release of the report, Citizen-Soldiers In A Time of Transition: The Future of the U.S. Army National Guard.
Groups and lobbyists visit Walz’s office all the time, with presentations and reams of data on their particular subject, but this year, when Pentagon officers came to talk about structure and decisions, it was “poorly presented…That shocked me,” he said.
“I want the data to drive the decision making,” Walz said, and not allow “emotion, historic turf battles and anecdotes” to drive the discussions and decisions. Walz also is co-chair of the House National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus.
One of the CSIS report’s findings is that there’s no common cost model when considering the active-duty army and the National Guard. Right now it’s like comparing apples to oranges, said Stephanie Sanok Kostro, principal report author, and CSIS acting director, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program. To find out what it actually costs, a common costing model should be developed. “Take it out of the Pentagon, ask CBO (Congressional Budget Office) to take a look at the budget.”
The “elephant in the room” is the high tension between the Active Army and the National Guard, which is one reason Walz supports a commission to examine the issue—with the creation of a National Commission on the Structure of the Army–a key recommendation from the CSIS report.
Such a commission, co-sponsored by Walz, is also part of the pending National Defense Authorization Act, which would drive decisions.
The National Commission the CSIS report recommends would be made up of stakeholders, who are also Army “outsiders,” such as governors, politicians and experts. The commission would take on the strategic areas, Kostro said, such as the Army’s purpose, missions, priorities and requirements.
The report also recommends an internal Army Total Force Task Force, which would consist of Army “insiders,” who would deal with issues such as force integration, deployment and accessibility time frames, and such things as finding ways to compare training days between the Guard and the Active force.
Tensions must be diffused between the Guard and Active components, and Walz said politicians must step up. It should have been the Pentagon politicians out front on the restructuring on Capitol Hill—not Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno. This is particularly true, for example, on the Army aviation restructuring that has caused much of the uproar.
CSIS International Security Program Senior Adviser Kim Wincup moderated a panel after Walz’s speech, pointing out that the people in the thick of the Army-Guard fighting and uncompromising attitudes are the same ones who “figured out to broker a peace between the Sunni and the Shiites in Iraq.”
The “fratricide and open warfare” going on today won’t be solved by what a commission finds, or data, said Nora Bensahel, senior fellow and Co-Director, Responsible Defense Program, Center for a New American Security. “The issue that is just as important is how the Army then tries to heal from this fratricide that’s going on, how the commission can calm it down so (the Army and Guard) can move on.
The next Army chief of staff must make it a high leadership priority to heal the rift, Bensahel said, as current leaders are vested in the debate and not seen as impartial or credible for either side.
Mackenzie Eaglen, resident fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies, American Enterprise Institute, said the politics of the restructuring should have been handled better. Army Secretary John McHugh, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama—they should have taken the lead and been out talking to the politicians about changes, not Odierno.
“All stakeholders have to be involved,” Eaglen said. There has to be the notion that change is coming so either come into the conversation or have change imposed on you.
Solutions can’t help only certain stakeholders.
Walz and panelists would like to see the new report be the first of several more to come to frame the discussion and aid decision makers.