Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-50- A Budgetary Analysis of Cadre
BCT expansions, the number of AC units available in peacetime in the baseline forces are
48, 51, and 60 while the cadre augmented forces all have 42 AC BCTs available. The
CadreMix baseline force has 48 available BCTs in peacetime while the CadreMix force has
only 35 BCTs. We argued in the previous section that this was still enough to meet the
requirements of two MRCs. 54
During the first eight years of a war, each of the cadre augmented forces has fewer AC
BCTs available in nearly every year compared to the baseline non-cadre forces. These
differences are larger for the larger cadre augmented forces. By year eight, the number of AC
BCTs available is about the same in the baseline and cadre forces. For the six, nine, and 18
expansions, the minimum number of AC BCTs at home in the baseline forces is 29, 31, and
37 BCTs respectively while the minimum number of BCTs at home in the cadre forces is 23,
22, and 19 BCTs respectively. The minimum number of AC BCTs available in the CadreMix
baseline force is 29 BCTs while the CadreMix force has a minimum of 16 BCTs at home. If
we assume that one MRC requires 15 BCTs, 55 each of the cadre augmented forces would
have enough AC BCTs available to fight one MRC while engaged in a long war. The
equivalent non-cadre forces would be capable of fighting nearly two MRCs while engaged in
a long war. Overall, there is an increase in this measure of military risk from moving to a
cadre augmented force. However, this may be acceptable given that the cadre augmented
force is still capable of fighting two wars: a long-war with rotation and a short-war requiring
requirement. See Appendix C for a comparison of risk results under different assumptions about peacetime
deployments.
54 See discussion and references in Section 2.2.
55 Assuming that an MRC requires five divisions [Aspin (1993)] with three BCTs per division.