Executive Order 13814: Additional Emergency Powers

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13814 is entitled "Amending Executive Order 13223".  It was published on October 20th, 2017 and has 2 sections.

Preamble

This EO has a somewhat lengthy and also notable preamble which provides rationale for delegation of Presidential Authority because of the ongoing immediate threat of attacks on the United States.

Section 1

This section amends Section of EO 13223, which is entitled "Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces To Active Duty and Delegating Certain Authorities to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Transportation".  EO 13223 was issued on September 14th, 2001, that is, 3 days after the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.  This adds that in addition to what has been previously delegated, sections 688 and 690 of title 10 of the United States Code.

Section 2

This section includes the necessary legal fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

So what is going on here is that 688 and 690 USC 10 have provisions that limit the number of retirees that can be called back to active duty unless there is a national emergency.  Essentially, this EO links the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the justification (a declared "national emergency") to be able to pull back retirees to active service.  What this seems to be indicative of is that there is an insufficient number of people who are in the armed forces and that the armed forces are preparing measures to ensure that they can obtain a suitable number of personnel in case of something going wrong in any of the flash points currently in the world such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran.
This does not appear to be good news.