In a time of active duty “downsizing,” a comprehensive restructuring of Reserve Component CA will
be necessary. At present, the majority of the force
structure imbalance exists in the Army Reserve. With
active duty CA remaining at zero growth at best, or
even shrinking, the reserve component will need to
train for Phase 0 operations. Army Reserve CA forces
will likely be restructured following the implementation of the 38G Military Government Specialist career
field. Creation of this career field, consisting of civil
sector experts, was intended to correct the imbalance
between CA generalists and functional specialists.
Historically, tactical generalists and functional specialists were placed under the same career field and
this has limited the capabilities of both. The development of the 38G career field creates an opportunity to
restructure and “right-size” the Reserve Component
and this restructuring also provides a venue to transition some CA tactical units to match active duty SOF
CA capabilities and reconfigure others to better support conventional forces.
One area of concern is the Reserve Component’s
ability to recruit and train soldiers to succeed in the
active component pipeline, a key requirement for developing a Phase 0 capability. However, there is already an established process within National Guard
Special Forces that can be adapted to the needs of CA.
Reserve component Special Forces has already gone
through a similar evolution. From the 1960s through
the 1980s, reserve component SF qualification was
achieved through a variety of methods, fro