Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-269- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
From an economic point of view, there are two important characteristics of a force
to consider when making a force structure decision: cost and readiness. As discussed in the
introduction to this dissertation, there is a direct trade-off between these two measures. The
Army has traditionally maintained two types of forces: a full-time active army and a part-time
reserve. Active forces have a higher level of readiness and higher cost than reserve forces.
Once the Army has specified the set of forces from which to choose, it must make
an assumption about the threat scenario. This requires specifying how many and how soon
forces would be needed in a war. 3 If the Army expects to have months of warning before it
would engage an enemy, as it did during the nineteenth century, then it could depend on a
force with a low level of readiness. If the Army expects to engage an enemy with little
warning, as it did during the Cold War, then it would want a force with a larger fraction of
high readiness units. For the same cost, a high readiness force would have fewer units than a
low readiness force. Figure 1.1 depicts the key components of a force structure decision.
Figure 1.1—Force Structure Decision Process
Perceived
Threat
Perceived
Readiness/Cost
AC RC Cadre ?
Force Force Structure
Decision
AC RC Cadre ?
M M M M
If the Army had perfect knowledge of the readiness/cost of all forces and the threat
scenario it will face, force structure decisions would be relatively simple. However, this is
never the case. The number of units needed and warning time that would be available in
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3 See Vick et al (2002) for a discussion of warning time from threats facing the United States.