Graduated Mobilization Response: Can it Help?
Abstract
A key aspect of defense industrial strategy is mobilization of resources. A coherent mobilization strategy will be of utmost importance in the coming years of declining defense budgets and changing world politics. Official U.S. strategy calls for a graduated mobilization response (GMR) to contingencies. GMR views mobilization not as an on-off switch, as some have viewed it in the past, but a rheostat of progressive options to be taken across all government agencies. This paper discusses the background and rationale for GMR, the present status of the program, problems GMR must overcome, and where the future ought to lead. U.S. mobilization efforts in the past have led to a thicket of overlapping and underlapping policies. GMR can be a way out of this thicket. Operation Desert Shield/Storm gives examples of how GMR can work, although the process was not fully and formally used in the war. The role of FEMA as lead agency for GMR can be strengthened and more work can be done to institutionalize the GMR process of thinking and planning. Doing so can lead to a coordinated, coherent mobilization so vital to a defense industrial policy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADB165929
Entities
People
- Thomas E. Distelhorst
Organizations
- Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy