In the upcoming troop rotation the United States will send 110K soldiers to replace 123K returning soldiers.

Presently 22% of the forces in Iraq are from the national guard and the reserves.

In the new rotation the percentage will be as high as 40%.

Is this too high of a percentage of citizen soldiers to have as a fighting force or are the reserves AND guard units as effective as our regular forces? Does it matter if the citizen-soldiers are a higher percentage of guard or reservists in answering this question?

U.S. forces prepare for large-scale personnel shift

Our Reservists and National Guard members should be combat-ready - especially with the additional training they are undergoing. There are some very able men and women in the Reserves and the Guard and I certainly hope that none of them are being transferred to Iraq unprepared. That said, it does strike me as being a fairly high percentage. Clearly, full-time soldiers should have at least a bit of an edge.

My greater concern would be with how quickly this rotation is being effected. The cited article says "several months". I would think that many of those who will be arriving in Iraq would feel somehwat more comfortable if there were more personnel there who had had specific experience of this campaign for a longer period of time. Obviously, this would mean longer tours for some of the troops already there - and I'm sure that battle fatigue is taking its toll on them - but having a majority of troops being "fresh" to the whole situation, especially with 40% citizen-soldiers, doesn't strike me as being the ideal arrangement.

I expect that the number of Reservists and Guard members is so high and the rotation so thorough is because the only real alternative would be conscription - and political suicide. I think this is all just further evidence of how ill-thought-out this whole thing was.

The question really shouldn't be one of "citizen soldiers" vs. "professional soldiers", but one of whether our military even HAS the right blend of talents to perform the role into which they've been thrust. We don't train enough of our soldiers for what to do with the population outside of conflict.

When your primary tool is a gun....

Since our guard and reserve are designed exactly for that purpose (to guard and reserve for emergency purposes) they are certainly not as combat-ready as our active duty forces. They do have different roles, as amf mentioned.

Yes, we are relying too heavily on citizen soldiers. Clearly, we are would be in deep doo doo in the event of a true crisis. There is no choice for much of it, because we must finish what we started in Iraq and our future depends a lot on the outcome over there. A stable, humane and relatively western-friendly government in Iraq would be good for us ultimately. So, we need to increase our active duty forces and manpower. New gadgets are sexy, but they probably aren't what we need right now (yes, I'm saying that as the wife of an F22 pilot).

A primary problem is the force structure. The support units in the active duty army are well equipped to handle the actual military operations in support of the units they are assigned to.
But when we become involved in large scale (read nation building) operations, the reserves must be activated because they contain the bulk of the support. The active army only has one Civil Affairs battalion, the rest are reserve. The active army has no Mortuary Affairs units, all in the reserves. And the list goes on.

The standards of training are the same across the board, so if a unit is untrained, it is the fault of the chain of command. Reserve units typically get at least 1-2 months of prep before deploying overseas. This is not to say that they are of the same caliber as active forces, because obviously a full time employee will likely be a tad better than part timers.

The National Guard should not be deployed overseas IMO, it kind of goes against what they're purpose was meant for.