This post contained two inquiries, which I will give from memory in summary form (since I'm working on more than one pc and don't always have everything accessible unless I do access the web archive, and some days I just don't want to do any web surfing).
First question, though the title belies it, was about US presidents and APEC meetings. Yes, it is customary for US presidents to attend the annual economic leaders' meeting (but I'm not sure how far back). His excellency William Clinton was the US leader to attend in 2000 and 1999 that is for sure.
The drama for this year was going to be all about the fully developed countries against the developing ones over the elimination of tariffs (with Japan finding cause with the developing ones, because Japan wants to protect its farming sector from full rice liberalization.)
(But note, that doesn't mean Japan doesn't have fairly liberal policies on most other food imports. Just the other day it was discovered that cows here were being fed feed with recycled animal protein --from the UK of course--and this has been linked to the first confirmed case of mad cow disease in the dairy herds).
Second, the person asked about the significance of the reserve call ups. So far the call ups would be to units and key individuals (because of their specialities) in order to support the units deploying or getting ready to deploy. Compared to the call ups during the Persian Gulf War, the numbers are small.
When I moved to Japan, I requested to be put from the army reserve into the inactive reserves. I had served 8 years in the army national guard (including one on active duty in one of the special positions created under Reagan), 1 year in the army reserve, and still had one year on my last enlistment when I received a call up during the Persian Gulf War. No way in hell was I going to give up the best paying job of my life to go type i.d. and meal cards for reservists at that hellhole Ft. Pickett, Virginia. And I also suspected I was contacted because I also held the qualification of 'armor crewman'. I put 'addressee unknown, return to sender' on the notice and the whole damned thing was over before I could buy a postage stamp (like my brother said, hell, Noriega put up a better fight).
The reserves and guard got a lot of emphasis under Reagan, who funnelled billions and billions into the National Guard Bureau (headed by a close friend) and expanded the number of personnel in the reserves on active duty status (this was to supplement the use of full-time 'unit technicians' who wore uniforms but were in civilian slots, but also increased the total number of people on active duty without Congressional approval).
There was a rational idea there: if you could get the reserves and guard up to a higher state of readiness, you could cut the number on active duty. The reserves also serve as a great pool of equipment, since in order to drill, they have to maintain a lot of things like tanks, artillery, etc. Reserve equipment--such as M48 main battle tanks-- was used to bail Israel out when it was on the verge of losing to Egypt.
Most personnel in the reserves are not on active duty. A significant number, have, however prior active duty service. This is especially true of the combat arms, like artillery, infantry, armor. At a minimum all reservists have done some active duty--which would be competing military basic training and special duty training, which are all run by the active armed services.
There are two types of reserves: those who are 'inactive' and do not drill--basically they are just names on a list (see Persian Gulf War anecdote above). Then there are 'active' reserves, those who drill one (LONG) weekend a month and about two weeks out of the year.
There is also an interesting complementary structure which integrates the state militias into a national force. The Army has both the national guard and the Army reserves; the Air Force has a similar parallel structure. The Navy and the Marines have reserves.
There are all sorts of interesting things hiding out in the military reserves. For example, the Air Guard tends to be at a high state of readiness and its pilots are often more combat-ready than the Air Force or Navy. Also, the Army's reserve keeps a huge fleet of ships for transport (which is why you can be a sailor in the army).
>From experience, I expect much of the guard is as bad as what you see in
movies like 'Rambo'. Still, in rural areas where reserve and guard
employment is a significant amount of income, there are units with high
levels of participation and esprit de corps. Such units have made
transitions pretty much from reserve straight to combat. They did so in WW
II, and they did so in the Persian Gulf War.
It was a reserve unit from rural Pennsylvania--not that far from where that plane crashed--that took the most enemy-inflicted casualties when an Iraq Scud landed in the middle of their encampment. Those killed included women, since this was a support unit.
Other interesting things: you could be a prior service marine and serve in the army guard or reserves, but in order to be in the marine reserves you have to undergo marine boot camp (it has a longer dehumanization process--see Full Metal Jacket, the first hour that is, for good cinematic background ).
President Clinton and his administration were pretty friendly to the reserves and guard. I think they saw maintaining the reserves as a good way to keep downsizing the active duty part. Really radical downsizing got way under Bush the elder and his defense secretary Cheney because they found it impossible to keep so many people on active duty and pay for a lot of new hardware at the same time--and the Navy and Air Force always, always go in for very expensive hardware.
Until the recent crisis, Bush the youngin' and cardiac case Cheney, now VP, were talking about the same things. In fact, if true to his campaign promises, Gore would have spent more on the troops and a smaller percentage on the weapons programs. I believe he would have, too.
Dan Quayle and George W Bush are two former members of the national guard who have done very well in life. Bill Clinton also has a national guard connection, since his state hosts a guard air base and personnel training center (which was built up under Reagan, but which Bill liked because it spent a lot of money in his state).
It seems that it was this base that was used a lot to send arms to Central America. One scheme was pretty simple: deploy a guard unit to Honduras for annual training, leave a bunch of equipment behind, and then give it to the Contras. A guard unit I was in did just that, but, ironically, I missed that because I was away at NCO school in Ft. Knox, KY. Clinton, the new Democrat, didn't object to this use of his state's militia, but Gov. Dukakis of Massachussetts did.
Finally, about race and class in the military. My take on it is from direct experience. The US doesn't have a draft, but working class/lower class men (and women) of all races found the income much better than what the economy offered in the 1980s and early 90s. There are higher percentages of minorities, but nothing like the NBA or NFL. Long before the rest of the US did, the military integrated and offered career structures to minorities--and women. That's one reason why Colin Powell got where he is. You might find a lot of ex military who hate US militarism, but not on active duty.
Charles