Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-34- A Budgetary Analysis of Cadre
Figure 1.3—Overview of the Long War Assignment Model
1.4.2—Length of Wars
The LWAM requires the user to make an assumption about the length of future
wars. The length/number of wars and time horizon together determine the frequency of
wars. For instance, a war frequency of 33% could be two five-year wars or one ten-year war
over a thirty-year period. In all of the analyses in this paper we assume that there will be one
ten-year war every thirty years. 19 This is long enough that cadre units will be deployed more
than once. If wars are shorter than this, cadre units are of little use because we could fight
these wars by using the AC and RC a little more intensively without placing any long-term
stress on the force.
Only some of the results presented in this paper are sensitive to the length of war.
The risk measures used in this paper are not sensitive to the length of war because a cadre
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19 This is slightly longer than the average length of war derived from the Markov transition matrix provided by
Doyle and Gotz (2007), which was six years. Given the shift towards long duration operations (counterinsurgency,
nation-building, etc.), it is possible that future wars will be longer. The Defense Science Board
(DSB) states that an average stabilization and reconstruction operations “typically last for 5 to 8 years,
significantly longer than typical combat operations.” [DSB (2004)] While smaller operations may last 5 to 8
years, it is likely that larger operations would last slightly longer. Some expect operations in Iraq to last more
than ten years. [Tiron (2008), Tyson (2008)]