在佛罗里达州，目前约有3000名国民警卫队队员被派往海外，这一数字占全州国民警卫队总人数的近30%。另有800名队员奉联邦政府命令协助美国移民和海关执法局工作，还有“相当多”的队员被派往华盛顿特区协助当地执法工作。
In Florida, about 3,000 of the state’s National Guard troops — nearly 30% — are currently deployed overseas. Another 800 are on federal orders supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and “quite a few” are deployed to Washington, D.C., to support local law enforcement.
据佛罗里达州国民警卫队副司令罗伯特·卡拉瑟斯少将介绍，这些部署人数已经超过了该州国民警卫队实际承载能力的三倍。即便近年来为应对飓风及其他州级需求而组建了由平民志愿者组成的佛罗里达州防卫队，情况依然如此。
It all makes up more than three times the Guard’s true capacity, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Carruthers, assistant adjutant general of the Florida Guard. And that’s even after the activation in recent years of the Florida State Guard, a volunteer civilian military force, to support hurricane response and other state needs.
在周二举行的美国陆军协会年会上，其他多位国民警卫队领导人也表达了同样的观点：当前的任务需求已超出可承受范围，必须予以控制。
In a panel at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting on Tuesday, the message of other Guard leaders was clear: The demands are unsustainable — and they need to stop.
“自新冠疫情以来，州长似乎越来越依赖国民警卫队，也愈发意识到他们的价值，”卡拉瑟斯说道。他所说的州长应该是指自2019年起任职的罗恩·德桑蒂斯。
“The governor’s become quite addicted to the Guard and how useful they are since COVID,” Carruthers said, referring, presumably, to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been in office since 2019.
他指出，由于经费并未随着部队及其装备的频繁部署而相应增加，装备完好率与训练质量都受到了影响。
The effects are felt in equipment readiness and training, he said, particularly as funding has not followed the deployment of units and their gear.
“这种影响会像连锁反应一样波及整个部队，”卡拉瑟斯解释道，“以佛罗里达州为例，我们首先会失去哪些力量呢？是那些在飓风救灾中发挥关键作用的运输部队，还是航空部队呢？因此，我们也需要提前做好相关规划。”据卡拉瑟斯介绍，佛罗里达州国民警卫队曾下令暂停装备维护工作，以评估那些长期闲置在车辆库中的步兵旅作战装备的状况。结果显示，短短六周内，装备完好率便从90%骤降至27%。
“You’re going to have this cascading effect of breaking units downstream,” Carruthers said. “In the case of Florida, what are we going to lose first? Are we going to lose our transportation companies, which are critically important in hurricane [relief], or are we going to lose our aviation first? So it’s also important for us to plan for that aspect.”The Florida Guard, Carruthers said, had ordered a “maintenance stand-down” to assess the status of infantry brigade combat team equipment sitting unused in motor pools. As a result of the assessment, he said, equipment readiness rates dropped from 90% to 27% within six weeks.
“这里的温度应该低于‘作战有效温度’标准（即低于某个特定温度阈值）大约5度吧？”他说，“这就是我们目前的状况——因为相关设备长期处于闲置状态，而我们没有足够的资金来持续维护这些设备。”驻纽约的第42步兵师的指挥官杰克·詹姆斯少将提出了一种解决方案，以应对州长们的要求：设立一个“协调机构”和一个“资源分配监管机制”，来筛选和优先处理各项资源调配申请。
“It’s somewhere five degrees below combat-ineffective, right?” he said. “So that’s just the state of where we are, because the equipment sits … we are not funded to maintain it all the time.”Maj. Gen. Jack James, commanding general of the New York-based 42nd Infantry Division, proposed a solution to push back on governors’ demands: a “broker” and a “traffic cop” to filter activation and employment requests and prioritize them.
“你们应该了解这些州长们面临的困境吧？同样，作战指挥官们也面临着类似的挑战——无论是美国中央司令部、美国太平洋司令部的指挥官，还是我们的陆军部队，都面临着类似的问题，”詹姆斯说道。“这种矛盾和冲突是不可避免的，因此我们需要一个协调机制来处理这些冲突；我们还需要一个‘资源分配监管机制’，以确保资源能够被迅速、及时地分配到最需要的地方，从而为国家服务。”
“You hear what these guys are up against with their governors, right? And then what the warfighting commanders are up against with our, whether it’s the [U.S. Central Command] commander, [U.S. Pacific Command] commander, our Army components, right?”James said. “There’s inherent friction right there, so we need a brokering function. We need a traffic cop function. We need the arbiter of how those resource allocations are going to be made in a quick, timely manner, so we can get after it for the country.”
卡鲁瑟斯承认，在国民警卫队努力根据自身实际能力来管理各方期望和要求的过程中，必然会面临“政治压力”和各种后果。
Carruthers acknowledged there would be “political pressure” and fallout as the Guard works to manage expectations and requirements in line with its actual capacity.
“可能有些负责国土防御的官员认为他们可以随意调配这些国民警卫队成员；而所有州长们则认为这些警卫队成员都属于他们自己的管辖范围，因为他们并没有真正参与到战争计划中，”他说，“但在动员时期，显然不是解决这些问题的时候。因此，我们现在就需要着手解决这个问题——尝试让州长们和地方领导层了解这些计划的具体内容。”在COVID-19疫情期间，2020年美国国内及海外共动员了约11.8万名国民警卫队成员参与军事行动。
“There are probably homeland defense people who think they’re getting these dudes and dudettes, and all of the governors think they have all of their Guard because they’re not really led in war plans,” he said. “And the time of mobilization is not the time to adjudicate that. So that’s something we got to work now to include … trying to get our governor and our state leadership in on these plans at a classified level, so they understand.”Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw a historic mobilization of some 118,000 Guard troops at home and overseas.
唐纳德·特朗普总统2025年第二个任期的开始，引发了新一轮的国内军事部署行动：这些部署既旨在平息民主党控制地区的动荡、支持移民与海关执法局（ICE）的执法行动，也有助于减少华盛顿特区的犯罪率。仅华盛顿特区的部署费用预计到2029年1月就将再耗费美国14亿美元。
And the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in 2025 kicked off a new wave of domestic deployments, both to quell unrest and support ICE enforcement actions in Democratic-controlled cities and to contribute to crime reduction in Washington, D.C. The D.C. deployments alone are expected to cost the country another $1.4 billion through January 2029.
虽然国民警卫队在国内事务中扮演的日益重要角色早已引起了一些人的担忧，但陆军国民警卫队司令乔纳森·斯塔布斯中将表示，当前的局面迫使政府必须在未来一年内采取行动，甚至可能引发冲突。
While the increased role of National Guard troops in domestic affairs has been a point of concern for some time, Army National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs said the current situation would force action, and even confrontation, within the next year.
“在这种情况下，希望是行不通的；我们必须找到解决问题的办法，”斯塔布斯说。
“Hope is not a method in this case; there is no fail. We’ve got to figure this thing out,” Stubbs said.
“这需要各军种参谋长与州长们进行深入的沟通。我们需要向各州的指挥官和负责人解释军事动员的可能性，以及这种动员对他们指挥国民警卫队成员的影响。当冲突持续、扩大或结束时，他们将如何应对这些情况——这些都是在未来必须考虑的问题。”
“It’s going to require hard conversations between adjutants general and governors. There’s going to be a level of dialog, of informing and educating our state commanders and chiefs in terms of the prospect of … mobilization and what it could mean for their access to the respective National Guard service members when conflict comes,“ he continued. ”And then when conflict persists, as it expands and retracts, and at some point in time, what they’re going to have left inside the state.”