Reserve Components and the National Will: Clauswitz, Total Force Policy and the Strategic Realities of the 21st Century

摘要

In early 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld questioned the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B. Myers, on military capabilities resident in the Reserve Components (RC). Secretary Rumsfeld's query highlighted a deepening Department of Defense concern regarding the ever expanding role of RC forces in the United States' military strategy for the 21st Century. This paper will review the historical development of America's RC and role of citizen-soldiers as a means of galvanizing the national will in support of military operations. It will also examine the linkage between Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clauswitz's concepts and the formulation of the Abrams Doctrine and Total Force Policy as they apply to the relationship between the national will and military success. Lastly, this narrative will analyze the relevancy that use of the RC equates to national will paradigm in the strategic environment of the 21st Century.