Mr Karath,

I have been discussing with some good friends, and they agree with me that the current size of the military, especially the ground forces, is prohibitively high.

Thus I would like you to give me a report detailing the pros and cons of the following proposal.

'The New Republic Military will put all non-active service officers and enlisted beings on half-pay and half-hours. Civilian work would be found in these hours at the appropriate civilian pay grade if the being is able to prove no work is availible locally'. Naturally this would not apply to much of the navy (as it is on patrol much of the time) but would apply to a lot of the ground forces who are simply sitting in barracks drawing pay.

This is a go-between measure which does not mean I have to cashier a large number of men (which would be unjust as it is politically inexpedient) and allow them to seek other work outside of the military in their spare time. It would also allow soldiers to adjust to civilian life and allow them to gain skills required to integrate back into society.

The military is going to have to adjust to the fact we will not be maintaining a war fleet now we are at peace, and indeed numbers will be slowly wound down in the next decade, through this measure or others.

I intend to eventually cut the fleet back to levels required to police the space lanes, interdict ships, patrol deep space, explore (etc) as well as maintain two mobile rapid response forces in order we are still able to counter two threats simultaniously.

The ground forces will be cut back to the minimum possible level to maintain our garrison commitments and provide a few rapid reaction forces. Large armies will be a thing of the past (as we have no need to stage full scale aggressive wars).

However, I would say in both cases stockpiles and a reasonable part-time reserve will need to be organised so we are able to mobilise a fleet if a large war should occur. Also, with more money becoming availible for local defense forces, we will increasingly be able to rely upon requesting the assistance of local fleets to counter local problems (with Central coordination from the NR Fleet). An excellent example of pro-active local action was the Governments of the Prosperity Alliance effectively ending the tyranny on Acherin. Although in this case no coordination was given by central government and if it had been, I feel it could have been organised better.

Added (27 Oct 2009, 9:47 Am)
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Mr Karath

A reminder, the Chief of State has written you a letter dated 10/21.

No reply has been recieved, this may have been lost in your office but please consider this a request to bring this to your immediate attention.

Jemmo Yiksa
Sous-Undersecretary to the Chief of State