Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-364- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
adequate emphasis.” 339 Before the Clinton administration took power, reconstitution was
already deemphasized by defense planners even though it was an explicit part of the
National Military Strategy of the United States. 340 The change in administration would
further reduce the emphasis on reconstitution and cadre forces.
9.9.2—Bottom-Up Review
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he promised to cut defense spending by
about $10 billion more per year than the previous administration. 341 Upon assuming office,
Secretary of Defense Les Aspin initiated a comprehensive review of the nation’s defense
strategy and force structure. 342 In October of 1993, the DoD published the results of this
review in the Report of the Bottom Up Review (BUR). 343 This report does not refer to either
cadre or reconstitution. The report rejects the need for a reconstitution strategy because “the
Cold War is behind us. The Soviet Union is no longer the threat that drove our defense
decision-making for four and a half decades- that determine our strategy and tactics, our
doctrine, the size and shape of our forces, the design of our weapons, and the size of our
defense budgets-is gone.” 344 With no threat of a Soviet resurgence, the justification for cadre
units was gone. Force planning shifted almost exclusively to finding the right mix of AC and
RC forces that would be ready to deploy to two nearly simultaneous Major Regional
Contingencies (MRCs). 345 This has remained the focus of force planners until the early 21 st
____________
339 Peterson and Patrick (1992), p. 58
340 Powell (1992b), p. 7
341 Larson et al (2001), p. 44
342 Troxell (1997), p. 13
343 Aspin (1993)
344 Aspin (1993), p. 1
345 Not everyone agreed with this focus. In a most extreme example, Hart (1998) argues that the end of the
Cold War allows the military to return to a force of citizen soldiers like that which existed before the NDA of
1920.