Assessing the Army's active-reserve component force mix2014

New defense strategic guidance and budget reductions as the United States draws down its forces in Afghanistan have led the Army to reassess how it balances the mix of forces between its active component (AC) and its two reserve components (RCs), the Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve. Multiple factors should influence AC-RC force mix decisions, including the capabilities that AC and RC forces provide and their cost. This report describes analyses from an ongoing stream of RAND research on the Army{u2019}s AC-RC force mix. It focus on two critical aspects of capabilities and cost: (1) the time needed to make forces ready to deploy abroad in a crisis and (2) the costs of AC and RC forces to sustain the same level of deployed output for rotational missions. It finds that the...