Crisis-Response vs. Steady-State the Role of the Reserve Component?

Over the past six decades, the active duty Air Force has significantly changed the way it utilizes Air National Guard (ANG) and Reserve manpower. The continually increasing military operations tempo (OPSTEMPO), combined with a constrained federal budget, has contributed greatly to these changes. The original design for the reserves was a crisis response force for use primarily in times of war or national emergency. The primary concept for the reserve forces was to train and maintain an effective military force of citizen-soldiers with sufficient capabilities for activation to full combat-ready status when needed with little last minute training.1 These citizen-soldiers would gather periodically to conduct military training in order to maintain their combat ready skills. Since the mid-nineties, however, the use of the ANG and Reserve by the active duty Air Force has evolved from primarily crisis-response to utilizing them for steady-state operations. The increased usage of the reserve forces for steady-state operations has had both a positive and negative impact on both the active Air Force and the reserve forces.