In January, the Senate formally recognized the reality of climate change. This move officially justified the need for our military to be prepared for future service in increasingly unpredictable climatic conditions. For example, a change in the geography of Arctic ice cover has the potential to create junctions where international powers will grapple for newly accessible natural resources. This means, too, that the National Guard will be required to continue successfully operating in the midst of turbulent summer and winter circumstances here at home.
The Guard has already begun preparing for these changing times. Soldiers from the Vermont Army National Guard conducted exercises last year in the Arctic alongside the 35th Canadian Brigade Group. Capt. Nathan Fry from Vermont’s 86th Brigade Combat Team highlighted the need to continue this type of training in his November-December 2014 Military Review (link is external) submission.
Operation Guerrier Nordique, or Northern Warrior, the exercise’s formal title, occurred again early this year, once more utilizing 86th BCT soldiers. The latest northern Canada training rotation was designed to maintain and augment Arctic and sub-Arctic readiness within Canadian and U.S. echelons. Click here to see photos.
At nearly the same time these Guard soldiers were spearheading the military’s efforts to increase capabilities in harsh climates, Arctic readiness was emerging a major topic during an Army budget hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense. During the proceedings committee members were visibly concerned with the Army’s lack of Arctic capability.
These concerns were generally left unresolved as Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, and Army Secretary John M. McHugh, the hearing’s invited witnesses, routinely cited budgetary constraints for preventing them from bolstering the Army’s Arctic force. Curiously, as Odierno and McHugh went on to tell lawmakers that budget shortfalls required a reduction in the National Guard’s overall size and capability; Vermont Guardsmen were in the far north addressing the committee’s worries.
If the powers that be are truly concerned with balancing the budget, it’s interesting that the Guard is yet again on a familiar chopping block. Arguments against maintaining the Guard’s current structure have appeared several times in the past. It now seems almost certain that this dispute is the result of a culture problem, rather than unbiased, financially driven decision making.
History shows that whenever DoD-centric budgetary troubles appear, the Guard is targeted. Dating back to the Gray Board (link is external) of 1947, followed by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s proposals in the early 1960s, and continuing with the overwhelming reductions of the 1990s, the National Guard, a force that mirrors its active counterpart but maintains its readiness with only two paid training days a month, routinely receives an unbalanced amount of cutbacks during times of fiscal uncertainty.
Justifying this phenomenon to taxpayers becomes increasingly difficult when one summarizes an undisputable and overwhelmingly relevant fact: The National Guard maintains high levels of readiness, constantly evolving to respond to emerging global threats, such as the results of climate change, all through intensive training that generally takes place during minimal paid work days. The efficiency of this proven system is self-evident.
Still, there are those who feel inclined to cut the undeniably cost-effective force that is the National Guard. We can only hope that the National Commission on the Future of the Army arrives at a rational conclusion and realizes the Guard’s immense value in this time of fiscal and strategic uncertainty.
– See more at: http://www.ngaus.org/blog/15/04/maintaining-readiness-hostile-climates#sthash.Y1FGEuFi.dpuf
