June 28, 2013
Right-Sizing the Force: Lessons for the Current Drawdown of American Military Personnel
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and current RAND Corporation Senior Fellow Bernard Rostker argues in the new CNAS working paper Right-Sizing the Force: Lessons from the Current Drawdown of American Military Personnel that the U.S. military is poised to commit two mistakes as it enters this era of drawdown. The first is that overreliance on reserve forces will leave the military unable to meet the mobilization goals it sets for itself. The second is that force reductions could upset the balance between junior and senior service members and upset the deliberate pace at which officers advance through the ranks.
-
Bernard Rostker