Must also pile on about the Desert Storm fiasco. The 48th Brigade was ready to go, and was held up at NTC by the HQDA leadership. Even now there is great reluctance to use ARNG BCT's as "COIN" units, and the 5 BCT's we send to OIF/OEF every year are assigned ####ty SECFOR missions that the AC does not want to get involved in...

As far as creating a RC based HIC Corps - it would take about 90-120 days (if resourced properly) to get them up to speed. Remember that the American Army's Reserve Component has far more combat experience that any other Active Army in the world - minus the UK, Canada, Australia and possibly France. You can argue about what kind of experience they've learned, but just being exposed to the elephant counts a great deal against a force that has not seen combat.

I really like the idea of creating a HIC Corps+ based around III Corps and then the 7 ARNG HBCT's. Keep them out of the misama's of Iraq and Afghanistan at all costs - start flowing the resources into the ARNG so they only take 90 days to get out the door (not hard to do, I've built models with my brethren at FORSCOM and 1st Army that shows it can be done). You now have a mailed fist capable of counterattacking any state based enemy such as Iran, NK, etc...