Planning Reserve Mobilization: Inferences from Operation Desert Shield

Abstract : This report describes RAND observations of the initial call-up of Army reserve units for Operation Desert Shield (ODS), the U.S. force buildup during the Persian Gulf war. It identifies problems and issues raised by ODS that could effect the Army's use of reserve forces in future contingencies and summarizes research issues that deserve further analysis as the Army is reconfigured for the post-Cold War environment. Operation Desert Shield (ODS) occasioned the first call-up of U.S. reserve forces in more than twenty years. Soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the United States deployed Army active component (AC) units and began to call Army reserve components (RC) units to duty. During the initial phase of ODS (August through October 1990), the Army called more than 22,000 RC personnel, representing 221 units that were either deployed overseas or used to fill Continental United States (CONUS) requirements to include critical slots vacated by deploying AC units. The types of RC units mobilized were those devoted to support functions needed early in the deployment, such as military police, chemical, transportation, linguistic, medical, ordnance, and quartermaster units. In some cases the appropriate unit types existed only in the RC.