IOTL the L. M. Garrison plan was to have a a Regular Army of 140,000 (up from 100,000) and a trained volunteer reserve of the RA of 400,000 (up from 16 in 1914, that's not a typo: 16) while the NG would remain as is at about 112,000. This caused huge debate and rancour in the US and was ultimately shot down and Garrison forced to resign.
Do you think that if there was clear and present danger of direct action against the US that the Garrison plan would be adopted?
I would hope not, see below...
Ok, so after my nap and dinner, I took the time to look this fellow and his plan up, but the numbers I'm seeing are a bit off from the above...
Looks like the Ra was too go from 100k to 140k, check, but questions later.
Reserves were to be 400k to 500k, check, but comments later.
National guard to be 130k, a little different, but ok.
First, I have to ask what effectiveness would be
achieved and maintained by two months of active duty a year, for three years, followed by three years apparently without any refresher training at all? When I served, the NG would have one drill a month, and two weeks a year. This could be somewhat effective,
if and only if the training standards were tough and exacting, and the level of commitment to keeping military skills was top of the line. As it was, this was not the case, and things like basic rifle marksmanship were really nowhere to be seen, so the modern NG would be a disorganized mob with hardly a clue (as opposed to a disorganized mob, with NO clue, for an all civilian force), that being said, with prior military experience, I would allow that getting things sorted out would likely be a faster thing with the NG than an all civilian force, and this would make a difference, but again, just how much of a difference I cannot say.
You like force structures, and looking at historical force levels, and then trying to extrapolate probabilities from there? I seem to recall you mentioning something along these lines back up thread somewhere, if I understood correctly?
I have never heard of this gentleman, nor his plan, before you brought him up. I mention this, as a way of demonstrating my own lack of research/interest in this area of US history up till now, so if you are expecting a good and lively debate along the lines that you seem to be conducting, I'm afraid that I will be a disappointment to you in that regard.
Now, looking at the existing force structure troop level vs. overseas commitments, can you tell me what exactly his plan would have done, with regards to the RA only, in term of troops left within the USA, that could be deployed immediately (within 3 months), and what could be used for serving as a training cadre?
As the site I went to has some discrepancies in numbers with those you posted, I wonder what else is different, so can you shed some light on Garrison's idea for the Reserves, in term of enlistment period, initial training, refresher training, and likely level of military skills achieved and maintained. It doesn't need to be a professorial level thing, just your gut level, honest opinion of what the men of such an organization would be worth, compared to, say, an all civilian force of armed volunteers?
As far as threat levels go, good US-UK relations go a long way to the Americans feeling that they don't need a strong standing army, as any other potential (European) threats would presumably have to go through the British to get to us, and the Japanese have both a large standing army and powerful navy, but would have no neighboring nations to stage their forces out of, and the logistics of a cross pacific campaign would prohibit any direct invasion of CONUS, and the belief would likely have been that if an attack were made elsewhere, the US would respond and drive them back.
Now, in this ATL discussion, we see the USA having it's relations getting worse and worse with the UK (and therefore her allies) and this UK is at war! It's one thing to has worsening relations with a UK that is at peace, and quite another with one that is at war, to say nothing about a WORLD WAR.
All that being said, in OTL the risk of a ground invasion of the US homeland was all but non-existent, and in the ATL, it is a distinct and deadly potential, at least it could be made to appear to be so, in the public's eye, and then...
