Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-146- An Operational Analysis of Cadre
1.1—PEACETIME CONCERNS
There are three main concerns with cadre units in peacetime: structure, organization,
and equipment. All three are design choices that can be made by the DoD. The DoD can
choose how many and which personnel to retain in peacetime (structure), what duties should
be assigned to these personnel (organization), and how much equipment to assign to cadre
units (equipment). In this paper, we examine five alternative cadre structures: retaining all
officers and NCOs, retaining senior officers and NCOs, relying on increased wartime
promotion, relying on activation of IRR personnel, and a combination of increased
promotion and IRR activation. We find that if cadre leaders are retained on active duty
during peacetime that the relative cost of a cadre unit can be much higher than the 20
percent estimate we used in the first paper. In the worst case, a cadre unit retaining all
officers and NCOs costs 56 percent of an AC unit during peacetime. In the best case, a
cadre unit relying on increased wartime promotion and IRR activation costs 18 percent of an
AC unit during peacetime. However, relying upon increased promotions and IRR activations
involve significant risks. Overall, retaining cadre leaders in the AC can lead to costs much
higher than the estimate used in the first paper.
The high cost of a cadre unit that retains all leaders in the AC during peacetime
served as the impetus for us to consider a variety of cadre organizations. We find that
alternatives such as assigning cadre leaders other duties or retaining cadre leaders in reserve
status can significantly reduce the cost of a cadre unit during peacetime. Assigning cadre
leaders other duties, such as training or education, reduces the cost of a cadre unit because
some costs can be assigned to other accounts. Retaining cadre leaders in the reserves reduces
the relative cost because reservists are paid only a fraction of the time. It is reasonable to