No Way to Get to the War: Mobilization Problems and the Army Reserve
Jules Hurst | October 30, 2020
In late March 2020, the United States Army Reserve mobilized to support the US government’s COVID-19 response. Over twenty-eight hundred Army Reserve soldiers, including twelve hundred healthcare professionals, quickly assembled at their home stations and deployed to crisis spots around the country. By mid-April, fifteen custom-built UAMTFs—urban augmentation medical task forces—prepared to treat patients in New York, Seattle, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Three additional Army Reserve UAMTFs mobilized in July 2020 in response to a second surge of cases across the United States in mid-summer.
This mobilization—and the speed with which it was conducted—has significance well beyond its direct contributions to the pandemic response. It offers an opportunity to examine the Army Reserve’s role in the future global operational environment. Prior to 9/11, it served principally as a strategic reserve—a source of trained personnel that could be called upon in the event of a conflict. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan saw the Army Reserve transition into an operational reserve, with units on scheduled rotations to both countries over the better part of two decades. The era of current great power competition will also require an operational reserve, but with an additional capability: dynamic response to crises. The Army Reserve’s COVID-19 deployments suggest that it has postured itself for this environment, but it is still unclear if it can act as an operational reserve for large-scale combat operations with the United States’ current mobilization and sealift infrastructure.
https://mwi.usma.edu/no-way-to-get-to-the-war-mobilization-problems-and-the-army-reserve/
