The Pentagon is dusting off a decades-old playbook to prepare for potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, and this time, Congress wants receipts.
According to Military Times, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2025, revives the spirit of a once-forgotten 1978 exercise to evaluate how quickly U.S. Reserve forces can deploy in a high-stakes crisis—particularly one brewing near Taiwan or the South China Sea.
The original "Nifty Nugget" drill, buried in Cold War history, was a massive 21-day test of America’s ability to get troops to a European battlefield. The problem was that half a million of them showed up too late. Hypothetically, 400,000 never came back.
Learning From A Messy Past
Back then, the Department of Defense identified numerous planning gaps: poor coordination, slow logistics, and an overloaded communication system. But the silver lining? It forced a reckoning that eventually led to the creation of the U.S. Transportation Command in 1987.
In that same spirit of hard lessons and readiness over optics, the updated version mandated in the 2026 NDAA takes aim at the Indo-Pacific theater, reflecting Washington’s growing concern over an increasingly assertive China. This time, the exercise won’t just test speed—it will scrutinize the interoperability of U.S. Reserve forces with regional allies like Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Mobilization on paper is easy; building seamless cooperation across borders, languages, and systems? Not so much.
Focus On Human Readiness, Not Just Hardware
The law directs the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with top military brass, to launch a comprehensive study analyzing the U.S. capacity to swiftly mobilize and support Reserve components in a high-intensity conflict scenario. Lift, logistics, sustainment—no stone left unturned.
One of the more refreshing changes: the inclusion of a civilian skills inventory. This will document things like language fluency, cyber capabilities, education levels, and leadership experience within the Reserve Force. In other words, we’re finally tracking the human capital—not just steel and silicon.
Katherine Kuzminski, who authored a 2024 report for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), warned that manpower issues often get shortchanged in military war games. “Every open source war game...was looking at, you know, what are the impacts on ships and tanks and equipment?” she noted. “But there was nothing along the lines of, what are the manpower requirements for an actual no-kidding conflict in the Indo-Pacific.”
Facing Reality, Not Narratives
The CNAS report laid out some grim math: under ideal conditions, it’d take seven months to activate 100,000 conscripts. Under normal bureaucratic drag? Try for more than three years. America may be mighty, but paperwork still pulls rank.
The 2026 NDAA says the new study must dig into these hard realities: reservist availability within the first 30, 60, and 90 days of a Pacific conflict, and what it takes to keep the home front supported while combat units are forward deployed. Kuzminski testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that such sobering drills are essential. “When Nifty Nugget was run back in 1978, the headline from it was, it was a total failure. But as an exercise, it was not a failure,” she explained. “The point of the exercise is to expose where all the gaps and problems would be.”
Planning For The Uncomfortable Questions
The new mandate—unlike so many ivory-tower theories—directs hard accountability. By law, top brass must deliver a final report within two years that includes data-driven recommendations and best practices.
And this time around, there’s no hiding from the harder questions. Casualty projections, manpower shortfalls, cyber vulnerabilities, even the influence of modern tech and social media on troop compliance—all up for review. Better now than during a crisis. “That leads to another really unsavory thing you have to think about, which is, what would the casualty rates be,” Kuzminski warned. Grim? Yes. But necessary? Absolutely.
No Optics. No Excuses.
Let’s be clear: this is not the Pentagon’s version of theater. This is grown-up policymaking, driven by hard facts, not buzzwords. No DEI consultants needed—just well-trained, well-prepared troops who can actually show up on time.
In fact, the whole point of this exercise is to find failure before it finds us. Kuzminski was blunt: “I think there are a lot of gaps, and seams that will be uncovered in a 2025 scenario, just like we had in 1978...That coverage of the gaps and seams being identified can’t be framed as like the military is failing. No — that’s why we’re running this exercise.” The name "Nifty Nugget" might sound dated, but the stakes are as serious as ever. In today’s world, soft power only matters if it’s backed by steel—and more importantly, by people ready to carry it.
