Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-357- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
9.8.1—IDA Ready-Standby Organization
One of the first reports to examine cadre-like forces was published by the Institute
for Defense Analyses in November of 1990. 312 This report proposed the Ready-Standby
Organization for army forces. 313 This Ready-Standby organization rotates all active duty
units through Ready (active duty) status and Standby (cadre) status over time. The authors
claimed that by implementing the Ready-Standby Organization in the Army that “the DoD
can preserve the number of fully trained units in its current force despite budget cuts, and
can make those units mobilizable within the longer warning times now expected.” 314 The
Ready-Standby Organization was never tested or implemented but this report was one of the
first to argue that cadre-like forces might be an appropriate way to maintain military
capability at a lower cost given an increase in warning time. The Ready-Standby
Organization was markedly different from previous cadre proposals in that Tillson et al
claimed it had the additional benefit of “improving the readiness of mobilization units
because they would be staffed by a group of soldiers who achieved a high level of cohesion
and efficiency while serving in the ready units.” 315 This makes the Ready-Standby
Organization (or some modified version) worth considering for the cadre augmented force
proposed in this dissertation. 316
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312 Tillson et al (1990)
313 See section 3.3.1 of Paper II for a detailed description of the Ready-Standby Organization.
314 Tillson et al (1990), p. ES-1
315 Tice (1991b), emphasis added.
316 The applicability of the Ready-Standby Organization to the cadre augmented force proposed in this
dissertation is explored in Paper II of this dissertation.