As a 1976 government (GAO) report says, "The National Defense Reserve Fleet provides supplemental merchant shipping capacity that the United States relies upon during a military or commercial shipping crisis." At this point the fleet had already divided into the Ready Reserve Force (96 ships that could actually be called upon) and the Rusty Reserve Force, 116 ships that were basically falling apart. The 1990s reasoning (after the end of history) was that, "It is difficult to envision a scenario in which the non-RRF ships would be needed... the probability of a global war, which could include large losses of merchant ships, is probably lower now than it has been since the Reserve Fleet was formed in 1946."