The Commission of the National Guard and Reserves was established by Congress in 2005 under the authority of the Ronald Reagan National Defense Authorization Act. Congress chartered the commission to examine the Reserve component of the United States Military and to make recommendations to ensure the National Guard and other Reserve components were organized, trained, and equipped to meet current and future defense requirements. The commission released its final report in 2006 urging Congress to take immediate steps to operationalize the Reserve, stating the Reserve components could no longer be held back as the nation's strategic reserve. That same year, each of the Service posture statements included verbiage proclaiming the necessity for sustaining an Operational Reserve; a new requirement necessitated by a growing dependence on the Reserve to augment the Active component in the post-Cold War strategic environment. History shows that the National Guard and Reserve has routinely served in an operational capacity to both expand capacity and to relieve stress on the Active force. The notion that the Reserve component was held in strategic reserve is inaccurate. When the draft ended, the Department of Defense embarked on a Total Force concept to integrate the capabilities of the Active and Reserve components and adopted the Total Force Policy in 1973. The Services were required to apply the policy to all aspects of planning to include manning, equipping, and budget programming. The Total Force approach was intended to serve as the foundation for achieving a force balance between Active and Reserve components. Through the integrated capabilities of the Total Force, the United States military would meet both operational and strategic force requirements. Current efforts to sustain an Operational Reserve as part of the Operational Force are designed to insure the Services have properly integrated component capabilities, but not a departure from the historical use of the Reserve. The need to balance the force, to define the mission and roles of the Reserve in an evolving strategic environment, and to maintain the confidence that the Reserve is trained, equipped, and ready to meet these challenges are all reoccurring trends. To address these trends, part of the effort must include defining strategic and operational force requirements; however, consistent application of the Total Force Policy will be required to reverse the trends.

"1 May 2013"--Thesis approval page.

Operational and strategic concepts. Introduction -- Historical perspective: Cold War to present -- Korean conflict -- Berlin Crisis and Viet Nam -- Maintaining civil order -- Total force concept -- Abrams doctrine -- Post-Cold War and Desert Storm -- Chapter 1 conclusion / Evolution of the operational force. Introduction -- Bottom up review -- Era of persistent conflict -- DoD Directive 1200.17 -- Army force generation model -- Increased access to reserves -- A declining budget / The way ahead.