General and Flag Officer Authorizations for the Active and Reserve Components: A Comparative and Historical Analysis

This report is a contribution to the ongoing debate about whether the authorizations in Title 10 of the U.S. Code for general and flag officers (G/FOs) specify appropriate numbers and pay grades. Congress has not revised G/FO authorizations since 1996. The report addresses, in particular, the issues of whether the numbers and/or pay grades of G/FOs in the reserve component (RC) are commensurate with the increasing reliance upon the reserve forces in military operations, and whether G/FO strength in the RC is equitable compared to G/FO strength in the active component (AC). The report sheds light on these questions by examining current Title 10 authorizations and their near-term background and by providing a longer-term historical account of the fluctuations in G/FO levels in the AC over the entire post-World War II period. The report proposes that the salient concerns when G/FO levels are considered for the AC and the RC, respectively, have always differed. In the AC, the preoccupation tends to be with the size of the G/FO corps. Appropriate size is viewed as a function in part of the overall size of the force, and is often measured as a troop-to-officer ratio or proportion. In the RC, the preoccupation is with the degrees of institutional power that the RC's top officers can wield within the Pentagon and other decision-making venues. This preoccupation with greater institutional power or "voice" has mainly translated over the years into campaigns to increase the authorizations and opportunities for reserve G/FOs to serve above the two-star level, rather than campaigns to increase the overall size of the reserve G/FO corps. This different preoccupation, with G/FO pay grades rather than numbers in turn has meant that discussions about reserve G/FO strength are carried on without any systematic or longitudinal reference to troop-to-officer ratios or other such measures of proportional officer strength. Such measures of proportional numerical strength would be less meaningful in connection with the RC, because the claims that greater reserve G/FO strength are warranted do not rest on how large the reserve force is, but on how intensively it is used. Moreover, measures of proportional numerical strength would be, in any case, very challenging to use with reference to the RC, because of the plethora of categories of reservists, the shifts of duty status that reservists experience, and other factors.

Author: Federal Research Division Library of Con

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: Nov 25, 2014

Number of Pages: 64 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 150338361X

ISBN-13: 9781503383616