By Marina Malenic
The National Guard’s transformation to meet the needs of modern-day irregular warfare will be particularly difficult for its air component, the chief of the National Guard Bureau said yesterday.
“The Air Force is transforming itself, and the era of fighter aviation is dramatically changing,” said Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau. “I think we’re transforming ourselves into a force that doesn’t need, necessarily, manned aircraft to do what we did from WWII on.”
Instead, McKinley said, the service will rely more heavily on advanced technology like remotely piloted drones, satellite datalinks and computer networks.
The general was speaking at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
McKinley said that both the Air and Army National Guard are changing their equipment and force structure to stay relevant in today’s wars–a goal that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made paramount for the entire military.
“We are transitioning to a new place,” he said. “But it’s going to be painful for many of our units that are going from a long history–six or more decades–of flying fighters to what’s next.”
He added that the Army Guard is adapting very well.
“I couldn’t have predicted 15 years ago that we would have used more that 80 percent of our Army Guard in full rotation fighting over a period of almost nine years,” he said.
Contrasting today’s Army Guard units with the difficulty of training formations for operations in the Balkans in the 1990s, McKinley said the Guard has become more efficient and effective.
“Now, we can take of formation of 2,000 people and within 90 days have them ready to deploy to Afghanistan,” he said.
“We have to be a more agile and quick response force,” he added. “The old rules of the 20th century are just not relevant.”
Further, with an overall force of 358,000, the Guard leadership believes “we can sustain this indefinitely,” according to McKinley.
Still, work remains. McKinley said he would like the Army Guard to move from a ratio of one year deployed and three years at home to 1-to-5 instead. He also called into question the size of the force.
“The U.S. was confronted with two land wars and used the Army National Guard as a shock absorber, because the regular Army wasn’t big enough,” he added. “And it still may not be big enough.”
McKinley also told reporters that the National Guard is ready to deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border if the White House decides it is needed.
Between 2006 and 2008, thousands of Guard troops were sent to reinforce Border Patrol agents in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas for two years as that force was doubled under Operation Jump Start. If the Guard is ordered out again, McKinley said this time the mission would be to assist in preventing drug-related violence from coming into the United States from Mexico.
Members of Congress from both parties recently have asked for deployment of Guard personnel to the border in the wake of burgeoning violence. McKinley said cabinet officials have met to discuss the issue, but a decision has not yet been made by the Obama administration.
McKinley pointed out that governors can activate Guard units but would have to pay for the expense. Given current fiscal constraints, he added, such a scenario remains unlikely.