AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare (ILW) has recently released a new publication, "Enabling Reserve Component Readiness to Ensure National Security" (Torchbearer Issue Paper, September 2015).

The paper discusses how the Total Army – active, guard and reserve – and Department of the Army civilians integrate their capabilities in support of the National Military Strategy and achieve military objectives that can be translated into enduring political outcomes.

This Total Army is a global force, fully engaged world-wide in preventing conflict and shaping security environments.

Currently, soldiers serve on six continents while also maintaining defense of the U.S. homeland.

The growing challenges facing today’s Army – the evolving operational environments, changing global commitments, ongoing funding issues and future force reductions – all require the Army to creatively plan and develop new paradigms to sustain high readiness levels in the Total Army.

To maintain this total-force focus, the Army has retained a three-star command devoted to supporting and assisting Army National Guard and Army Reserve commanders to achieve readiness and reduce post-mobilization training time.

First U.S. Army is a multicomponent-sourced command with the critical mission of partnering with all conventional reserve component units throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It provides advice, assistance and training support to reserve component commanders and soldiers to build collective readiness through multi-echelon, integrated training at home station and combat training center venues.

First Army establishes partnerships with reserve component unit leadership to achieve directed readiness requirements.

This enables the Army – via U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) – to provide combatant commanders with trained and ready forces in support of worldwide requirements.

The Army of the 21st century requires agile and flexible forces that are fully integrated in such a way as to leverage and sustain the unique capabilities of both components – active and reserve – in training and in wartime execution.

Trained and ready forces across all components are an imperative in this volatile, unpredictable national security environment.

This and other ILW publications are available online at http://www.ausa.org/ilw and can also be obtained by calling (800) 336-4570, ext. 4630, or by e-mailing a request to ilwpublications@ausa.org.

Richard Lim

AUSA