Reinventing the California State Military Reserve
Reinventing the California State Military Reserve
Joseph von Sauers | 2016
Abstract
The California State Military Reserve (CSMR) is the official State Defense Force (SDF) for California. California is one of twenty two states plus Puerto Rico which has an SDF. The SDFs are under the control of state governments, and in California, the governor is the CMSR’s Commander. SDF’s are the modern successors to the militias, those “citizen soldiers” who fought in America’s wars since before the revolutionary war. Similar to other SDFs, the CSMR is not considered to be a part of the U.S. federal armed forces. Hence, while the CSMR is part of the California State Military Department, together with the National Guard, the CSMR is not part of the National Guard and cannot be federalized with it. In contrast to the California National Guard, which has dual State and Federal missions, the CSMR is not expected to be prepared to deploy outside the state as a warfighting force. Therefore, the CSMR mission is twofold. First, it is assigned to support the National Guard in both the Guard’s state and federal missions. Second, it has state specific missions. These missions include State Civil Affairs (including Emergency Management, Civilian-Military Liaison Officer (LNO), and Search and Rescue), State Military Police (SMP) and medical, legal and chaplain support. CSMR soldiers include both those with prior military experience as well as those who have no prior service. While the CSMR has significant potential, it also faces significant challenges. Chief among them is the lack of financial support for CSMR operations, training and pay. There are also issues related to organizational design, structure, mission, leader development, culture, learning, recruitment, regulatory support, strategic planning, and political dimensions which have significantly impacted the CSMR’s ability to be a more fully effective component of the California Military Department. Hence, the focus of this project is to analyze the above issues and associated problems and to propose comprehensive solutions.