Great background, thanks. Hard to tell where Navy Reserve is heading these days.
CNR’s Warfighting Instructions is littered with “operationalizing the Reserve,” “warfighting is our number one and only priority,” “build units of action” that directly contribute to GPC, and “eliminate reserve capacity that adds little or no enabling or direct warfighting contribution,” etc. Meanwhile, recent O5/O6 TAR selection results and other budgetary and force structure decisions (divesting of Reserve hardware units) seem to be heading the opposite direction.
The hardware units are expensive to run and there's no more "hand me down" airframes for economies of scale like during the Cold War. We've SLEPed the wings on Charlie Hornets so many fucking times just to meet GWOT requirements. They keep finding F-16s and F-5s somehow, but even those will have an end when the T-45 replacement comes online. Seems the idea is we augment the AC in stuff like the FRS/Low Intensity Exped gigs during the "big war" so the AC can go forward at the tactical level or we're plugging into Operational Level and higher commands.
I'm not in a flying job anymore, but I like the focus back to the high end fight and away from Sandy-stan places. Breaking the back of the AC to keep presence in the Middle East "just in case Iran does something" isn't sustainable.