Due to cross-service personnel streamlining and organizational restructuring projects, the Armed Forces Reserve Command (AFRC) has cut over 20,000 personnel from its payroll and is to suffer a bigger blow in two years -- to be downgraded to the status of a bureau.
By Feb. 1, 2002, the AFRC will be scaled down and renamed the "mobilization bureau," which is to operate under the office of the chief of the general staff.
In the next year, the general headquarters of the tri-services -- the army, air force, and navy -- will also be downgraded to command level.
The planned downgrading of the AFRC as well as the tri-services' general headquarters is part of an on-going across-the-board organizational restructuring in the armed forces.
The restructuring is mandated by the landmark National Defense Law and the Organizational Law for the Ministry of National Defense.
The organizational restructuring is required to be completed within two or three years of the date as the two landmark laws for the military started to be enforced.
The two laws were passed on Jan. 15.
They subsequently took effect on Feb. 1.
Before the organizational restructuring began across the services, the AFRC has already experienced quite a big shock -- a heavy loss of personnel due to the "Chingshih" personnel streamlining project.
The Chingshih project, implemented since July 1, 1997, is scheduled to be completed by July 1, 2001.
Over the past few years, the AFRC has cut approximately 20,400 personnel, including 1,100 officers and 18,453 soldiers, according to information provided by the defense ministry.
All of the 18,453 soldiers formerly with the AFRC have been removed to the newly-established Coast Guard Administration at the beginning of this year as the it went into operation in stages.
The AFRC now maintains only a small force of 5,000, which may make it difficult for the command to maintain its current operations across the country.
The small force is, however, estimated to be sufficient after the downgrading.
The downgraded AFRC will keep only a command center under the office of the chief of the general staff.
All of the AFRC's regional division-level commands will be abolished over the next two years, while its regional regiment-level commands will re-join the army.
The future AFRC -- the mobilization bureau -- will only take care of administrative and planning affairs related to reserves mobilization and equipment commandeering, which leaves the execution of relevant tasks to forces to be re-assigned to the army.
Among the 63 battalions it now keeps for reserve troops to go into service in wartime, the AFRC has already staffed one battalion with enough training officers, who will stay in the unit to train recalled reserve troops on a long-term basis.
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