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Old 02-18-2018, 01:44 AM
Ancestor Ancestor is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Midwest USA
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"Stateside, I regard it as highly possible, that the President would order the activation of the Army Reserve, starting with the training divisions, bringing these units up to speed on the latest equipment and procedures. Within 2-3 months, the President will ask Congress to approve the restarting of the draft.

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

Thoughts?"

I think you've got the jist of it! I don't see a big move towards national mobilization until 1996 (almost like what occurred in the US between 1939 and 1940). I still see a movement to "stay out of the war" competing with an opportunity to stick it to the commies in both Congress and public opinion. As things start to ramp up and the nation realizes the danger inherent in the situation (May-June 1990, maybe?), you start to see many of the things that you've ably described above.

With respect to the NG, I think you'd start to see the same debate that occurred IRL in late 2005-early 2006 after Katrina, that is, the Guard's warfighting mission as a reserve of the Active Army versus the state mission for Homeland Response. Only this time on steroids, given that the threat to the homeland aren't just natural but potentially nuclear weapons! I think you'd see not only increased training and resourcing but also some type of agreement between the Governors' allied with the Guard's powerful congressional lobby and DoD to arrive at some sort of gentlemen's baseline for the percentage of Guard resources (men and materiel) that would remain CONUS at the Governor's disposal. From my experience IRL in the late "oughts" that baseline was 50%. However, I see it being weighed more heavily toward the Warfighting mission in the T2K universe (maybe 75-80% OCONUS and 20-25% CONUS) but with some additional emergency response/state civil defense bones being tossed towards the Governors in the form of federal dollars to fund, equip, and train State Guards as well as resourcing state emergency management agencies with civil defense materiel (MRE, water, tentage, medical supplies, etc.).

Still, I see enough political pressure to keep at least a portion of Guard capabilities available for state use. The active duty's resulting gap between requirements and capabilities must be filled somehow, hence, you have call-ups to form the cadre of USAR training divisions and an expansion of the training infrastructure so that it can handle inductees once the draft starts.

I agree that the Selective Service machine would slowly grind into action. I also see a sort of societal pressure giving rise a national conversation about conscription. I don't want to get into a generational debate but I can see both sides of US political aisle as well as the late Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation and especially the Boomer Generation American public getting behind a draft for various reasons so long as Gen X are the ones doing the fighting.

"Those damn slackers need to put down their Nirvana (or, more appropriately, Dain Dangerous) records, stop smoking pot, quit whining, and get a job!"
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