One proposal would place retired senior officers in staff colleges, preserving their experience while educating the officers who might build future wartime headquarters. It offers a reserve of command knowledge that could be recalled when the services expand. Its weakness is financial: retaining those officers on adequate pay undermines the economy measure that removed them, while filling colleges only with officers already due to retire yields less additional depth. Mobilization also depends on senior noncommissioned officers and other experienced personnel who provide the institutional glue beneath formal command posts.
Notable Point · 22:11-23:35
Can staff colleges preserve mobilization experience?
Using retired senior officers as staff-college instructors could retain mobilization knowledge, but it clashes with the budget savings that caused their retirement.