Effective Use of Reserve Personnel in the U.S. Military: Lessons from the United Kingdom Reserve Model

The U.S. Army and the British Army are undergoing
similar processes of rebalancing between regular
and reserve personnel. The British armed forces are
currently at a more advanced stage of this change than
the United States, and consequently there are useful
lessons to be drawn from their experience to date. This
is particularly the case in a time of growing defense
austerity; in addition to their smaller scale, the United
Kingdom's (UK) armed forces have great familiarity
with undertaking missions and maintaining close to
full-spectrum capability while subject to severe and
apparently insurmountable resource constraints.
Studying how this is made possible may also provide
valuable pointers for a U.S. defense force in an era of
sequestration and budget cuts.