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A once enthusiastic supporter of competition among the armed forces, Senator Sam Nunn—seen here attending the launch of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Atlanta (SSN-712)— is, as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, now favoring a monopoly in the interest of eliminating duplication.
A popular truism holds that the military of a society reflects the nature of that society as a whole. To whatever degree that truism is accurate today, the current efforts in Congress to overhaul the services’
roles and missions are out of touch with the way America works. Americans are a competitive people, and that nature is reflected in their armed forces. Congress, on the other hand, would destroy that competition in the name of eliminating waste and making the services more efficient. To determine the likelihood that Congress would lower costs or improve the military’s effectiveness by implementing this plan, we need first to look at the role of competition in U.S. society in general.
From their country’s beginnings, Americans have used a competitive process to sort out the truth in confused, complicated situations. In the U.S. legal system, the conduct of trials is based on the premise that two adversaries—each representing a conflicting point of view—are more likely to establish the truth than is a single, unbiased individual whose allegiance is to a theoretical concept of justice rather than to one of the two parties involved in the trial. The object is to assure that justice is served, and competition has been judged the best way to achieve that aim.
Business in the United States is also based not only on the theoretical superiority of competition in the world of economics, but also on the legal requirement to avoid monopoly. Much has been written about the nature of competition and monopolies and the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of each. In general, economists seem to agree that “Monopolists always charge more than competitive firms would in the same market and they produce less.”1 The issue is a complex one, however, and some economists argue that under certain conditions monopolies perform better than competitive firms because they can eliminate wasteful duplication and take advantage of economies of scale to reduce costs.
Today, popular dissatisfaction with high taxes and poor governmental service has reached the point that even “monopolies” in the public sector are being examined closely with an eye to making them more competitive. Ironically, Congress has chosen this same time to reduce competition within the armed forces in order to make each of them more, rather than less, of a monopoly.
In a speech to the Senate titled “The Department of Defense Must Thoroughly Overhaul the Services’ Roles and Missions,” Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) set the tone for a campaign against what he calls “unnecessary duplication °f effort among the armed forces.”2 Noting, for example, that “we are the only military in the world with four air forces,” the Senator implies that eliminating this type ot redundancy could save billions of dollars every year. He then lists ten broad areas in which he believes there are opportunities to eliminate duplication. Each area is discussed in terms of consolidating current service capabilities, and each section concludes with some variant ot the statement: “The fundamental question is not what is best for the Navy or the Air Force or the Marine Corps. The fundamental question is what is best for America.
No member of the armed forces would disagree that the fundamental question is what is best for America. Theie is room for disagreement over how best to meet the counfry’s military needs, and members of Congress should ask themselves which approach—monopoly or competition is more likely to produce the most effective military for America. To determine whether consolidating service roles is likely to improve effectiveness or cut costs, let s examine two areas in which Senator Nunn sees substantial duplication”: projection of air power and intelligence.
One example that illustrates the difficulty of determining the effectiveness of consolidation is Operation Red Leaf, the transfer of the C-7 Caribou transport aircraft from the Army to the Air Force in Vietnam in 1966. The Purpose of the transfer was to align service capabilities with assigned roles and missions, by eliminating what the Air Force considered to be an unnecessary duplication of the tactical airlift capability of its own C-123s. By all accounts, the actual transfer went smoothly. Whether the change improved service or cut costs is less clear.
The Army’s official history on the subject says tactfully that the Army and Air Force conducted numerous studies to prove or disprove whether service improved under the agreement, but concludes that, ‘'Fundamentally, there Was no real way to compare the Air Force operations versus the Army.”4 Clearly, however, the Air Force regarded the Army’s operation as a “seat of the pants arrangement, and made changes accordingly. Although the Air Force Worked hard to match or exceed Army tonnage figures, the Air Force approach was exceedingly different from the earlier one. Maintenance and support were centralized, manning was increased both in numbers and rank, and regulations on such subjects as mandatory crew rest were added or intensified. Since the two services were prevented from competing with one another, there is no way of knowing which system was better.
Similar problems arise today when trying to evaluate the potential benefits of Senator Nunn’s proposals. He recognizes the need of the Marine Corps to use close air support as a form of artillery, but asks whether that mission couldn't be performed as well by Navy or Air Force fliers. The mission could be performed as well, but only if Navy and Air Force aviators accepted close air support as their primary mission, practiced that role regularly, received training in ground combat, and were an integral part of ground combat units, as are their Marine counterparts. In other words, Navy and Air Force aviators could do a Marine’s job if they became Marines in every sense but service affiliation.
If effectiveness is to remain undiminished, the question then becomes one of cost. Since the Marine Corps typically has provided a disproportionately high percentage of the nation’s tactical air assets compared to its share of the defense budget, it is unlikely that swapping Marine Corps squadrons for those of another service would save money.
The concept of eliminating duplication among the services is particularly appealing with respect to equipment. Unfortunately, the theoretical advantages of centralization are offset in practice by some serious weaknesses.
Pointing to the success of the F-4 Phantom as both a naval and Air Force fighter, Senator Nunn questions the need for the current mix of two multirole fighters: the F-16 for the Air Force, the F/A-18 for the Navy and Marine Corps. In considering the wisdom of adopting a single multirole fighter, several factors must be examined. First, because of the unique requirements of carrier operations, any aircraft adopted would have to be one that could operate from a carrier while also meeting Air Force needs. Operationally this could be done, but because carrier aircraft are generally more expensive than their land- based equivalents, it is unlikely that any savings would be realized. Even if cost were eliminated as a factor, a single aircraft would place all of tactical aviation’s eggs in one potentially flimsy basket.
By the second half of World War II, the U.S. military had settled on four primary single-engine fighters. The Army Air Forces were flying the P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt, and the naval services were using the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair. Had the military been forced to standardize, the choice would have boiled down to one of the naval aircraft. The Air Force would have been deprived of the Mustang, which some consider to have been the best fighter of World War II.
Ironically, the better of the two naval fighters also would have been eliminated. Although the Corsair bested its competitors in mock combat during development trials, it was not originally thought suitable for carrier operations because of several unanticipated problems. Given the propensity of aircraft to develop problems over the course of their operational lives, duplication may be more prudent than wasteful.
On the subject of intelligence, Senator Nunn praises Department of Defense efforts to consolidate organizations, but notes that there are still a substantial number of intelligence organizations with apparently overlapping missions. He goes on to ask if “needless duplication of effort” can be eliminated. The tricky question is not whether duplication can be eliminated, but whether it is, in fact, needless.
Critics of the intelligence process are quick to point out the lack of consensus that frequently occurs within the U.S. intelligence
If the F-4 Phantom could successfully serve the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps in Vietnam, then why does the nation need an Air Force F-16 and a Navy/Marine Corps F/A-18 (right, F-16 foreground), each performing similar roles?
community. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency disagreed for years, for example, over whether the Soviet Tu-22M Backfire was a strategic bomber.5
Given the nature of the intelligence business, disagreements inevitably will occur regarding enemy capabilities
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and intentions. One way of ending disagreement would be to eliminate competing agencies. Presumably, a single agency would produce only one answer to a given question. Competing views can certainly develop within the same organization, but centralized bureaucracies generally suppress dissent. The issue, once again, is what serves the country best, monopoly or competition?
Because of the complex nature of the issues involved and the lack of a quantifiable bottom line in military affairs, the advantages of competition over monopoly are not as apparent as they are in the world of business. Competition, however, does offer three benefits that apply directly to the armed forces. It provides a means of comparison for evaluating performance; it promotes responsiveness; and it spurs innovation.
One of the most difficult questions for military commanders to answer objectively in peacetime is, “How am I doing?” Comparing performances between the services is always a matter of comparing apples to oranges, but, used sensibly, such comparisons can be beneficial nevertheless. For example, opinions differ among experts on the relative merits of wheeled and tracked armored scout and fighting vehicles. The former Soviet Army
The Army chose tracks and the Marine Corps selected wheels for their respective armored scout and fighting vehicles—and the nation benefited by having both during the Gulf War. Here, the Marine Corps light armored vehicle rolls into Kuwait City during Operation Desert Storm.
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exercised the luxury of fielding both. Today’s fiscal climate makes such a luxury unlikely in the U.S. Army. Be' cause the U.S. Army has chosen tracked vehicles and the U.S. Marine Corps wheeled ones, U.S. joint commanders have a flexibility they would not otherwise have, and both services have a valuable tool for evaluating the effectiveness of their choice.
In addition to providing a means of evaluating effectiveness, competition holds the promise of other sig- , tiificant benefits. In Reinventing Government—a Work mentioned frequently by President Bill Clinton and his staff during the I campaign—the authors contrast the approaches of what they call traditional and entrepreneurial leaders.
Speaking of traditional i leaders, they note, “When fiscal crises erupt, they consolidate agencies and centralize control.”6 That traditional prescription sounds remarkably like the °ne Congress has in mind for the U.S. military.
Entrepreneurial leaders,
°n the other hand, decentralize because decentral- Jzed organizations are more effective, more innovative, and more flexible in their ability to respond to rapidly changing situations. It Is worthwhile examining these assertions to see if they square with military experience.
Military history provides many examples of commanders who used competition to enhance performance in combat. One classic case occurred during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. General George Patton’s 7th Army had been assigned the mission of following General Bernard Montgomery’s 8th Army across the center of the island from the landing beaches in the south to the Port of Messina, opposite the toe of the Italian Peninsula. Angered at having been assigned a secondary role and fearful that Montgomery’s rate of advance would allow the Germans to escape across the Straits of Messina—which they, in fact, did—Patton initiated a race to close the German escape
route.
Using a coast road that Allied planners had considered nnsuitable to support a force as large as an army, Patton increased pressure on the Germans and, in the process, Pressed Montgomery to speed up his drive. In an effort to beat the Americans to Messina, Montgomery sent a force
by landing craft and an armored drive to reach the city ahead of his competitors. Patton’s advanced units already had reached the goal, however. On discovering this, the commander of the first British unit to arrive at Messina searched out Patton and shook his hand saying, “It was a jolly good race. I congratulate you.”7
It is not necessary to go back to World War II to find examples of competition in combat. The operations in
Grenada and Panama both illustrate Army and Marine Corps units striving to outperform the other. Another instructive example comes from air operations in the recent Persian Gulf War. Prior to the war, the U.S. Navy had never operated carriers in the Persian Gulf. The Navy’s inflexible position at the time was that the Gulf was too dangerous an environment in which to risk a carrier. Yet, by the time Desert Storm ended, four carriers were operating in this hazardous sea.
What changed? Not the confined nature of the Gulf and the presence of hazards to navigation. Not the threat, which had increased. What had changed was the competition. The U.S. Air Force was on the ground in Saudi Arabia. If the Navy had forfeited a significant role in the air war by withholding the carriers, naval aviation would have faced insurmountable obstacles in the budget battles that were known to be coming. Commenting on the Navy’s change of heart, one admiral wrote with classic understatement, “We came a long way from the past . . . i.e., ‘No, we won’t operate a carrier in the Gulf. . .
Having made this major improvement in responsiveness, the Navy is now in danger of being rewarded by having some of its forces taken away under the concept of centralization. Instead of viewing the Navy’s change as evidence of unnecessary duplication within the services, Congress should regard the incident as proof of the role competition plays in improving combat effectiveness. Congress should simply say, “Jolly good race. We congratulate both of you,” and get on with determining the proper size of the overall, competitive, multiservice military establishment.
In addition to increasing effectiveness, competition also spurs innovation. Noting that “Competition is the permanent force for innovation that government normally lacks,” the authors of Reinventing Government use the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command to show that the situation is not hopeless.9 The book describes General W. L. Creech’s reorganization of the command and the startling results that followed. When General Creech assumed command of the Tactical Air Command, the operation was highly centralized in accordance with the philosophy of “one size fits all.” Aircraft were grouped in units of the same type under the theory that economies of scale would result in more cost-effective training and maintenance.
Convinced that the system was not working, General Creech reorganized his command into composite wings; decentralized maintenance by moving mechanics from large central pools back to individual squadrons; and actively encouraged competition between units. The general’s innovative approach paid off, and, in his words, “Pretty soon one squadron was working overtime to beat the other two squadrons in a wing, on everything from pilot performance to quality of maintenance.”
This revelation probably comes as no surprise to naval aviators because the Navy and the Marine Corps have used the Air Force’s “new” system for a long time. In fact, when the Air Force chief of staff was making the case for a change to composite wings, he acknowledged the carrier air wing as the model of this organization.10
The U.S. Navy was not the sole inspiration for the Air Force’s change of organization, but a competing approach to similar problems was certainly an influence. To illustrate the disparity between the theoretical advantages of centralization and monopoly and the limitations of such systems in practice, General Creech uses Aeroflot as an example. Given that airline’s reputation as one of the worst in the world, the general says, “I often ask people how they would like it if there were only one airline in this country.”" For exactly the same reasons, I would ask why we would want to have only one Air Force.
The benefits of varying approaches to similar problems are not limited to the worlds of aviation. All of the services have benefited from this dynamic over the years. During World War II, the Marine Corps saw the need to break its rifle squads into even smaller tactical units called fire teams. The Army retained the squad as the smallest unit for years, but now also divides it into fire teams. The Marine Corps, on the other hand, resisted the idea of command screening boards long after they were standard practice in the other services.
In dealing with the issue of interservice competition, the naval services must walk a narrow line. This is particularly true with respect to the overall size of the military establishment. U.S. forces are undergoing a drastic reduction in size. Determining the final goal of the reduction is clearly a role assigned to Congress by the Constitution. Equally clearly, Congress deserves the best professional advice on the subject from military leaders. If Congress perceives that the services are resisting congressional aims simply to preserve traditional service roles and prerogatives, however, the results will be disastrous for the armed forces. Senator Nunn is absolutely right in stating that the issue is what is best for the nation, not the individual services.
The secret to success in this effort will lie in convincing Congress that, whatever it decides concerning the final size of the U.S. military, the resulting force should include a healthy, competitive overlap of missions between the services. Before the naval services can convincingly sell this approach, they must believe it and practice what they preach. For example, the Navy and Marine Corps can’t truly advocate competition while balking at the Air Force’s arming bombers with antiship missiles or the Army’s training pilots to fly helicopters off amphibious ships. Congress, on the other hand, could help by treating such competition as healthy rivalry between teams in the same league rather than a zero-sum game in which the losers may find themselves out of business.
In an atmosphere of healthy competition, the naval services would be freer to promote their unique capabilities without appearing to violate the spirit of doctrinaire jointness that often prevails today. Obviously, the services must be able to operate effectively together under joint command. The recent Persian Gulf War proved this can be done. At the same time, the Navy-Marine Corps team is joint in every respect except the technical one that requires a joint force to have components from more than one military department. In many circumstances, a Navy- Marine Corps task force could accomplish a mission more effectively and more efficiently than a specially created joint organization with similar capabilities. Naval forces offer the nation’s leaders a remarkable range of military options in times of crisis. This range of possibilities rests, in turn, on a system that permits the duplication of capabilities within the services.
Senator Nunn has correctly articulated the question: “What is best for America?” Economic theory, military history, and human nature all point to the answer: Competition!
'Maurice Levy, Economics Deciphered: A Layman’s Survival Guide (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 212.
•Senator Nunn of Georgia speaking to the Senate on the subject “The Defense Department Must Thoroughly Overhaul the Services’ Roles and Missions,” Congressional Record, 2 July 1992, S9559.
’Ibid., S9562.
4John J. Tolson, Airmobility 1961-1971 (Washington, DC: Department of the Army* 1973), p. 107.
’Steven Zaloga, “The Tu-22M ‘Backfire’ Bomber-Part 2,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 4 (August 1992), p. 345.
hDavid Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (Reading, MA: Addison Publishing Co., 1992), p. 251.
’Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), p. 323.
^Stanley R. Arthur, “Desert Storm at Sea,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1991, p. 83.
9Osbome and Gaebler, p. 92.
'"Merrill A. McPeak, “For the Composite Wing,” Airpower Journal, Fall 1990, p. 9.
"Osborne and Gaebler, p. 79.
Colonel Gatchel’s 30-year career in the Marine Corps included a variety of command, staff, and school assignments worldwide. At the time of his retirement, he was chairman of the Operations Department at the Naval War College. A frequent contributor to professional journals, he is currently writing a book on amphibious warfare.