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The Militia You’ve Never Heard Of

mariomike

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Spring 2016

Underutilized state guards can help with homeland defense.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/militia-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard-14339.html
The New York Guard is an example of a state defense force: a military organization authorized by federal law but created, controlled, and funded by each state. State defense forces, or “SDFs,” assist with defense and disaster-recovery missions, but, unlike the National Guard, they cannot be deployed outside their home states. SDF units typically fall under the control of the state adjutant general—the same official who commands the National Guard when it is in state service. As the Heritage Foundation put it in 2012, SDFs are “today’s modern state militias.”

A similar discussion here back in 2008, "The Canadian Home Guard? Possibility?".
 
The state militias fall under the command of each state Governor.
 
The State of Oregon axed the State Defense Force last year because they had no actual mission. Ostensibly, they were supposed to provide LNOs at incident command posts to interface with the Oregon Military Department in big emergencies. The idea was that when an incident commander needed National Guard assets, they would request it through the LNO, who would then call the Joint Operations Center in Salem to get rolling on the request. But the actual National Guard also sent LNOs to ICPs, effectively leaving the State Defense Force people standing around with nothing to do.

It became more of a paper chase with the ORSDF toward the end, and doing distance courses in the Incident Command System, getting HAM licenses, stuff like that. When the Oregon Army National Guard was deep in the ARFORGEN cycle, it slightly made sense to have a State Defense Force, but once the deployment train slowed down, the ORSDF became redundant.
 
mariomike said:
Spring 2016

Underutilized state guards can help with homeland defense.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/militia-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard-14339.html
The New York Guard is an example of a state defense force: a military organization authorized by federal law but created, controlled, and funded by each state. State defense forces, or “SDFs,” assist with defense and disaster-recovery missions, but, unlike the National Guard, they cannot be deployed outside their home states. SDF units typically fall under the control of the state adjutant general—the same official who commands the National Guard when it is in state service. As the Heritage Foundation put it in 2012, SDFs are “today’s modern state militias.”

A similar discussion here back in 2008, "The Canadian Home Guard? Possibility?".

The mind boggles at what sort of "Provincial defense force" today's Ontario or Alberta would come up with. Probably try to put the "Warrior" into Social Justice Warrior rather than field any sort of effective force.

And when you look at the multitude of organizations that already exist, as well as the organizations which exist to coordinate the existing organizations, inserting another pice into the spaghetti like org chart isn't going to add much besides even more high priced headquarters to the mix.

Giving currently existing tools like the Reserve adequate resources (like logistics trucks and radios) and you will massively increase the existing capabilities to respond to most domestic situations.
 
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