Will the U. S. industrial infrastructure be able to meet the needs of existing and planned programs of defense in the '80s? Will human resources be available and ready to mobilize? National security rests on answers to such questions. This book grapples with them by assessing alternative mobilization needs in light of historic experience, while taking account of hypothesized future conflicts. The important issues of military recruitment and personnel retention are examined in depth, and discussion throughout is informed by ongoing studies of the access to, and stockpiling of, vitally important energy and nonfuel materials; the assurance of adequate and secure command, control, and communication systems; and development of means for transporting the various types of military capabilities. Principal focus is on the U.S. but issues are explored in a broader global context. The Soviet mobilization base is compared with that of the U.S., and an extended mobilization base-including allies in Western Europe and the western Pacific-is considered, as are the pressing problems of lead time both for the upgrading of the base itself and for the production of new capabilities. In conclusion, a substantive agenda for U.S. policy is given.

Section I. What kind of mobilization for what type of conflict? (Under attack on protracted twilight conflict). Mobilization in a grand-strategy perspective / William P. Wadbrook -- Mobilization for high-level conflict: policy issues / Colin S. Gray ; Section II. Assessment of the United States industrial and manpower infrastructure. Peacetime industrial preparedness for wartime ammunition production (past, present and future) / Harry F. Ennis -- Strategic assessment of national military mobilization in the 1980s: manpower / H. Rowland Ludden -- Military recruitment and personnel retention: agenda for the 1980s / Curtis W. Tarr -- Surge mobilization: ground forces / Norman Friedman -- Civil reserve air fleet / Ralph P. Novak -- RX: the industrial preparedness planning program: bad medicine or poorly administered? / John C. McLaurin ; Section III. The lead-time required for upgrading the mobilization base. Obsolescence, declining productivity, and the American defense mobilization infrastructure / Leon S. Reed -- The mobilization aspect of the Soviet economy as a factor in preparedness for war / Michael Checinski -- Construction support for mobilization: a pacing issue / Edward G. Rapp ; Section IV. Current vulnerabilities and mobilization within the wider free world context. Strategic and critical materials / Alton D. Slay -- Oil and Western security: the mobilization dilemma / David A. Deese -- C3: damaged, intercepted or blocked / Lee M. Paschall ; Section V. Mobilization: assets and liabilities of interdependence. NATO's nonexistent industrial mobilization capability: its impact on America's ailing defense industrial base / Thomas A. Callaghan, Jr. -- The alliance framework: East Asia / Leonard Unger ; Section VI. Priorities for United States mobilization. Mobilization preparedness: lessons from the recent past / William K. Brehm -- Government and industry: some priorities for mobilization / E. F. Andrews -- An agenda for U.S. mobilization policy / Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.