Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Yep, absolutely nothing like the SDF here in Australia...
ALL military forces are federal. Any other armed force (beyond the state and federal police) are considered private armies and therefore illegal.
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In theory, here in the US, the National Guard portion of the reserves is under the control of their home state governor unless federalized, that being a central part of our sort of sloppy, loop-holey federal system here in the US. The idea that a state governor really owns his state's National Guard is really a polite fiction, though -- the federal government foots something like 95% of the bill for equipping and maintaining the Nat'l Guard and what a governor can or can't do with "his" forces is very limited outside of using them for humanitarian missions internal to the US.
So the reality maybe isn't that different from Australia, really.
The SDF's are an attempt to get around the strings that come with all that federal money, but no state if willing to fund them enough to make them even a modestly credible light infantry force (I'm certain that the police force of any moderately sized American city deploys more combat power than any SDF, for instance). Even in those states where SDFs are allowed arms, they're probably better considered a reserve/adjunct to the state police than a military force. (I think -- as noted above, my personal experience with these groups is limited.)