The Effective Use of Reserve Personnel In The U.S. Military

The U.S. Army and the British Army are undergoing

similar processes of rebalancing between regular

and reserve personnel. The British armed forces are

currently at a more advanced stage of this change than

the United States, and consequently there are useful

lessons to be drawn from their experience to date. This

is particularly the case in a time of growing defense

austerity; in addition to their smaller scale, the United

Kingdom's (UK) armed forces have great familiarity

with undertaking missions and maintaining close to

full-spectrum capability while subject to severe and

apparently insurmountable resource constraints.

Studying how this is made possible may also provide

valuable pointers for a U.S. defense force in an era of

sequestration and budget cuts.