NDM Article - National Guard Modernization Pegged to Emerging Missions

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September 2004

National Guard Modernization Pegged to Emerging Missions

by Stephen Willingham

Significant business opportunities are open to contractors seeking to supply equipment and services to National Guard units in the United States, senior officials said recently. The Guard has a $12 billion budget and is looking to modernize its arsenal. But because its missions are changing at a rapid pace, the Guard wants potential suppliers to help it become better prepared to meet future demands.

Its unusual dual nature as a reserve force for the U.S. armed forces and a modern day state militia means the Guard must be ready to provide assistance in domestic situations such as natural disasters. But it also must be prepared to supply troops for active duty assignments.

Lately, that role has been expanded to encompass overseas peacekeeping operations like those in the Balkans. Future missions will call on the Guard to participate in operations against domestic terrorist attacks that could involve nuclear, chemical or biological assaults. Recently, the Guard has been tapped by local and federal law enforcement for assistance with narcotics interdiction.

During a recent symposium sponsored by the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS) in Washington, D.C., officials told a gathering of defense industry representatives that the Guard's budget of more than $12 billion represents a significant market that should not be underestimated by suppliers.

First organized in 1639, in New England, the Guard today boasts 3,200 units and 88 Air Guard bases nationwide. Together, the Army and Air Guard currently have a presence in 2,700 communities.

To execute growing and changing assignments, it is incumbent upon the Guard to cultivate a closer relationship with industry suppliers, said Army National Guard Director Maj. Gen. Roger C. Schultz. In an interview with National Defense, he pointed out that industry should examine some key questions concerning the Guard: "Where are we today? ... Where are we going? We are asking industry to react to what we are doing."

Since October, when Army Chief Gen. Eric Shinseki unveiled his vision of a lighter, more deployable army, Schultz said he had been asked by more than one company representative whether the Guard planned to participate in this massive reordering. "We have to," he chuckled. "We are part of the Army."

Schultz said he assured his "industry partners" that the Guard would continue to be an important component of Shinseki's plan. A former Iowa deputy adjutant general, Schultz remarked that he viewed change as a positive development. "Change forces certain interest groups to go to their corners," he observed. "Resistance to change is natural. We all desire a certain comfort level that comes from dealing with the familiar."

Cues to Suppliers
Companies seeking to do business with the Guard first needed to have a comprehensive strategy before they can effectively compete in the procurement process, said Jeff Plague, a Washington-based Army legislative specialist for NGAUS.

Plague offered what he considered one of the main ingredients when it came to sending a clear message to Congress. "Everybody needs to be playing off the same sheet of music," he explained. "We have to coordinate our message."

Plague advised industry to start at the state level when seeking to develop a relationship with the Guard. "The better the relationship with the states the better your chances are going to be for getting your products and equipment used," he said.

"Your congressional action contact officer (CACO) will be your best friend," said Plague. He explained that CACOs are the links between individual states' adjutant generals and the upper echelons of the procurement and appropriations track. This relationship serves as a bridge, he said, connecting the states, the NGAUS, the National Guard Bureau (NGB) and Congress.

Recently, he mentioned, this system had worked quite well when it became necessary to alert Guard caucus members on Capitol Hill that the Defense Department planned to reduce overall Guard personnel strength to cut costs. According to Defense Department figures, the Guard takes up about 4 percent of the Pentagon's annual budget.

At press time, sources said that Defense Secretary William S. Cohen had decided against any reductions of Guard troop strength because of the growing reliance of the active service on reserve forces for active duty assignments.

"Operating on your own is not a good idea," warned Bill Goss, NGAUS Air Guard legislative activity coordinator. He said that in the past there had been too much emphasis placed on working with the corporate headquarters of a contractor and not enough attention paid to subcontractors doing business within a state. "We need to know who you are."

A system for establishing and maintaining contact with subcontractor networks has been lacking, Goss said. "It's happening now informally, but we definitely need a structure. [The point is,] we cannot accept resolutions directly from industry." For that reason, he said, a workable system would be even more important in the future with changes that would be coming from Shinseki's reorganization of the Army Guard.

At the 121st NGAUS General Conference, according to information supplied by NGAUS, delegates approved 140 resolutions that relate to day-to-day Guard administration for personnel management, force structure, equipment, training and operations. These resolutions will be debated during defense budget deliberations for fiscal year 2001. The measures, officials said, provide the substance for what the Guard will be in the future and will serve as a roadmap for industry to anticipate what the Guard's requirements will be.

NGAUS executive director, retired Army Maj. Gen. Richard C. Alexander, mentioned a crop of new state adjutant generals, "who have not been initiated into the resolution process." It would be critical for industry to get these people involved, he suggested. Alexander indicated that a major part of the budget battle had already been won. "Congress seems to be aware of the readiness issues," Alexander said.

First Responders
In the future, a major concern for the Guard will be its ability to respond swiftly to threats that might arise from a domestic terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In the long term, the Guard is slated to become a player in a national missile defense system (NMD) once it is deployed, officials said. They commented that this role is reminiscent of a time when the Guard staffed Hercules/Nike defensive missile sites in the 1950s and '60s.

The Guard regards itself as a military first responder, officials explained, one that would react along side and in support of civil emergency authorities. Homeland defense is near the top of this year's list of emerging missions, officials said. It will be forwarded to Congress in the hope that lawmakers will provide the necessary resources.

"The problem is we haven't anticipated just who our enemy is yet," said Schultz during the interview.

He explained that dealing with non-traditional threats, versus the familiar lone enemy of the Cold War, means assessing domestic vulnerabilities and anticipating actions by enemies outside the United States.

"There's nothing magical about what we do," said one Guard official. "Our job is to support the first responders [civilian emergency medical teams] ... Ideally, I will work myself out of a job," explained Marine Col. Carlos R. Hollifield, commander of the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF).

"First responders won't be able to afford CBIRF resources," he said. Military first responders would initially establish a "hot zone" coordination center to control "what is going on down range in a contaminated area," Hollifield said.

"I'm not here to support one piece of equipment or one manufacturer over another," said Hollifield. "I just want you to know what kind of stuff we will be using and what we will be needing."

Hollifield said that a CBIRF team would move into an affected area in civilian vehicles. The idea is to blend in as much as possible to avoid triggering a panic. "Can you imagine the kind of response we would get if we showed up in Humvees?" he remarked.

He said that more capability is required to protect against and contain a biological attack. The CBIRF has only been "out of the chute" for about three and a half years, Hollifield said. He gave credit for creating the emergency response unit to Marine Gen. Charles C. Krulak when he served as commandant of the Corps.

Details related to who will command such a team in the event of an incident have not been completely resolved, he added. Those issues currently are being ironed out between the civilian and military authorities.

Hollifield said that National Guard Rapid Assessment Initial Detection (RAID) units should be up and running by March. Detection and monitoring equipment will have to be redesigned to become more portable and less cumbersome to deploy. "We have to move from transportable to portable," he said.

One of the most pressing items that civilian and military first responders need is a unified command suite communications system, officials said at the conference. The teams also would need the capability to communicate with one another in between floors in a large building, perhaps the size of New York City's World Trade Center, which has already been the target of a terrorist attack. The problem, Hollifield said, is ensuring the ability to communicate through many feet of concrete and steel that act as a barrier between the floors of a skyscraper.

Another official said that CBIRF and RAID teams would most likely be transported to "hot spots" in an MV-22 Osprey. The Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft specially designed to get in and out of confined areas based on its ability to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane, once it reaches sufficient altitude.

Officials indulged in some comic relief, telling the audience that the real first responders would most likely be the press, who would already be on the scene when CBIRF and RAID teams arrived.

Constitutional Role
Assisting law enforcement with across-the-border drug interdiction is one of the Guard's smallest programs, but possibly its most controversial.

Officials contended the Guard has a constitutional role to protect and uphold the laws of the nation. They said the Guard is domestically deployed in the "drug war" through legal action initiated by Congress. The Guard thus is employed under a state militia act, by virtue of the fact that it is a state organization under the command of a governor. Consequently, to call upon the services of the Guard, the president does not have to activate Posse Comitatus, the law that allows presidential authority for the use of active-duty military forces within the borders of the United States.

One official confirmed that Guard personnel had been assigned as advisors to the Colombian Military in that country's civil war against internal narco-guerrillas. He noted that, before a Guard unit crosses the border, it must officially be called up for active service. He characterized the drug trade as "the biggest business in the world."

Because the Guard is a community-based organization, it believes it must participate in nationwide efforts to deter the use of drugs among young people. For this reason, officials said that Guard personnel find themselves in a suitable position to act as role models. The Guard supports and is involved in numerous leadership and self-esteem building programs that reach out to youth. These programs, for "at risk" children include the National Guard Bureau ChalleNGe Program and the Youth Conservation Corps. The Guard's Starbase program places special emphasis on and encourages the study of math and science for fourth, fifth and sixth graders.

Officials said that, across the board, funding for youth programs has been tight. There is not enough money to create programs like these for every state, officials noted.