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Before unification it was no uncotnmon thing for a President to consult with the professional heads of his services, particularly in war, as the upper photograph, opposite, suggests. Nowadays, even in war, such consultation is rare, as the lower photograph suggests.
The upper view shows President Roosevelt on board the cruiser USS Quincy, at Malta, in 1945, conversing with General of the Army George C. Marshall, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. Taken in the Oval Office of the White House 30 years later the lower photograph shows President Ford with some of his advisors on hearing the news that the crew of the SS Mayaguez was safe. With the President are his national security advisor, Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.); Lieutenant Colonel William McFarland, USMC, an assistant to Scowcroft; Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, White House chief of staff; and Dr. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State. Wherever the Joint Chiefs were, they weren’t in the company of the President.
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jf\. generation has passed since President Harry Truman sigr>ed the National Security Act (NSA) of 1947 which, among other things,1 created a single National Defense Establishment and placed within it three separate military departments and f°uf armed services.
Now it is appropriate to reflect upon the origins of unification, to analyze the organizational developments of the past thirty-od years, and to speculate on the future course of unification.
The Origins and Purposes of Unification2
of
It is difficult to cite an exact date for the beginning of the drive for unification of the armed services. Some date the origins to the
Spanish-American War when great dissatisfaction arose because
the failure of the Army and Navy to cooperate fully during the Cuban campaign. Indeed this dissatisfaction did lead to the creation in 1903 of a structure designed to secure cooperation an coordination in all policies involving joint action by the Army an Navy, the Joint Army-Navy Board.3 Others trace the origins o unification to the post-World War I movements for comprehensive administrative reform and economy in government. Based on the premise that departmental jurisdiction and administrative funC' tions should coincide if missions were to be carried out effectively and efficiently, several bills were introduced to create a single Department of National Defense.4 Others feel that the idea of unified' tion did not really originate until World War II. .
In the early days of that war, this nation established unity 0 command in the operational theaters and set up a U.S. Joint Chief5 of Staff as the American counterpart to the British Chiefs on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The success of these joint arrangements during World War II made it inevitable that some form of unified tion would command strong support in the postwar period.
Proponents of the concept of unification based their arguments on two premises. First, coordination between the services in modern warfare was necessary and this could be achieved best through unification. In their view the ad hoc arrangements of World War ^ should be given permanence through legislation. Second, unified' tion would bring more economy and efficiency into the military establishment and would simplify the problem of control. It worn
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The Navy, opposed to unification in Washington, favored unity of command in the field. Curiously, the Army Air Force, enthusiastic for unification in Washington, felt otherwise about unity of command in the field. One result was that during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, shown here with V.S. ships under air attack, a number of Army Air Force troop carriers were shot down when, unannounced, they overflew the ships at night.
mean that all of the units which contributed to the function of national defense would be in one department under the control of a single cabinet officer who could ensure that there were neither duplications nor blanks in our force posture. Before World War II, our military apparatus consumed so few resources that not many people were concerned about efficiency and control. Until 1939 the combined budgets of the Army and Navy were less than $ 1 billion and efforts to unify the defense establishment were met with no enthusiasm in Congress. Indeed, before 194 1 only one unification bill ever reached the floor of either house. During the war, President Roosevelt provided direction, coordination, and control to our huge military machine, but he did it only by devoting almost all of his time to the war.5 Although a President could hardly be expected to do less in a total war situation, similar singlemindedness on the part of the Chief Executive would not be anticipated in a less serious situation. Therefore, a President would need a single cabinet level officer to do it for him.
The Services and Unification
Opinion among the services on unification was divided. Army and Air Force officers generally supported it, while Navy and Marine Corps officers were opposed. However, even within the services there were some differences of opinion. The great majority of officers in each of the services held positions on the subject similar to those of their chiefs, which are described below.
The Army
The Army’s Chief of Staff, General of the Army George C. Marshall, began the chain of events that led to passage of the National Security Act. On 3 November 1943, General Marshall submitted to the JCS for consideration a War Department plan for forming a single Department of War in the postwar period. Despite the fact that the JCS could not come to any agreement on the Marshall proposal, it generated sufficient interest within the Government for each House of Congress to hold hearings on the subject. Within a year, two other Army generals, Joseph
McNarney and J. Lawton Collins, submitted unification plans to the House and Senate respectively.
The Marshall, Collins, and McNarney plans6 envisioned a single Department of War headed by 3 Secretary of the Armed Forces. Within the Department there would be four components: ground, naval, air, and supply. The powers of the secretary would be carefully prescribed. He would be the principal adviser to the President and Congress on political and administrative matters relating to national defense. Within the department he would supervise procurement, recruitment, and public and congressional relations. He would have no control over any aspect of the budgetary process. The job of recommending budgetary needs to the President and allocating funds among the services would fall to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of a chief of staff t0 the President and the heads of ground, naval, and air services.7 The JCS system envisioned by Marshall and the others was modeled on the Army staff system. Ic was to be hierarchical in nature, and ultimate authority over, and control of, JCS deliberations would rest with the chief of staff to the President. In short, what Army officers sought was an armed forces general staff.
Army officers generally supported this concept of unification for three reasons. First, this arrangement would make it less likely that U. S. ground forces would be cut back to the same level of inadequacy as they had been in the years between World Wars I and II. General Marshall was determined that the Army would never again go through that “long period of agony.”8 By allowing the JCS to present their views on budgetary matters directly to the President, the military forces would not be subject to the whims of civilian secretaries and the false economies of members of the Bureau of the Budget, as they were in the inter-war years. Moreover, within a unified department with a single budget, the Army felt that the ground forces would fare better vis-a-vis the Navy than they would in separate departments- Army leaders thought that the two-budget system discriminated against the unglamorous but highly important ground forces. They remembered that during the 1930s the U. S. Navy stood among the three strongest in the world, while among ground forces the U. S. Army ranked seventeenth, and that, as late as 1939, this comparatively well equipped Navy received more money for a single battleship than the Army did for its entire procurement program.
Second, in a unified department it would be easier Co restrict the Marine Corps to a size and to functions that would not permit the Corps to resemble an army. Many Army officers resented bitterly the expansion of the Marine Corps to its 1944 level of six divisions and 500,000 men. At such a size, it competed directly with the Army for men and equipment which most Army leaders felt they could put to touch better use. Moreover, the majority of Army officers resented serving under the Marines. They conceived the Marines as auxilaries to the fleet and "■'ere aghast when Marine Lieutenant General Holland Smith relieved Army Major General Ralph Stnith of command of the 27th Division during the Battle of Saipan.9 The Army’s solution to this problem was to keep the Marine Corps from reaching a size which would permit it to contribute the major- ‘ty of forces in an operation and thus allow a Marine t0 be placed in charge.
Third, the Army felt that unification would allow the military to purchase the maximum amount of scarify for the least cost. Army officers were con- Vlr>ced that unification would allow the services to Perform the same tasks with 25 percent fewer men. 1° their opinion, billions of dollars could have been saved if World War II had been fought by a single- department.10 Presumably much of these savings w°uld be realized by the creation of the common supply service. Army officers viewed the savings h*°m unification as an additional hedge in their bat- t*e against reducing the size of the ground forces.
The Air Force
The overriding goal of the Army Air Forces was to ke separated from the War Department and to be established as an independent service equal to the Army and the Navy. Since the Army’s unification plans provided for this, they received the enthusiastic support of its Air Forces. In addition many Air Force- officers felt that through unification they might eventually gain control over all land-based military aircraft, including those of the Navy, and control over all aviation-related research and development, procurement, recruitment, and training.
Their ultimate objective was to achieve the status the Royal Air Force held from 1918 to 1937 when it had control of all military aviation, but they perceived it as an impossible goal in the immediate- postwar period. However, Air Force leaders were confident that “strategic” air warfare would be the preeminent mission of the defense establishment and that their service would thus dominate the unified defense structure.11
The Navy
The opposition of the Navy to the unification plans offered by the Army generals was based upon five considerations. First, unification would introduce unpredictability into the Navy’s appropriation process. Under the Army’s proposals, two extra echelons—the secretary of the armed forces and the overall chief of staff—would be placed in the chain of communication between the Navy and the President and Congress. This arrangement could put the future of the Navy into the hands of individuals who might be hostile to seapower. As Admiral King noted “The needs of the Navy should not be subject to review by individuals who do not have informed responsibility in the premises. . . There should be no real impediment to presentation of (the Navy’s) estimated requirements to Congress.”12 Moreover, unification would almost certainly result in the elimination of a separate congressional committee for
Admiral E. J. King, Navy General A. A. Vandegrift, Marines opposed to unification opposed to unification
naval appropriations. This would mean that the Navy would lose its spokesmen within the Congress.
Second, unification might destroy the organizational integrity of the Navy. Naval officers feared that the Army proposals eventually would divest the Fleet of two of its vital parts: the Fleet Marine Force and land-based aviation. The opposition of Navy leaders to losing those parts was more than simply
the normal bureaucratic desire to maintain all one’s organization and functions. They were genuinely convinced that without sizable amphibious forces to seize advanced naval bases from which to operate and to deny them to the enemy, and without land-based aircraft to destroy enemy submarines and conduct reconnaissance, the Fleet could not perform its wartime missions properly. As Admiral King noted in his memoirs, functions should be the basis of organization. In his view, a service should be assigned missions and then be given the bases and weapons to fulfill those tasks in a unified manner, regardless of whether those weapons operated on °f in sea, land, or air. The Army and the Air Force maintained the contrary view that the weapon should be the basis for organization. The Navy’s view was m accord with the practices of business and government, while the Army-Air Force position was that of the German Army and the Royal Air Force.13
Third, naval leaders were opposed to the substitution of a single chief of staff for the World War II JCS system of collective decision-making. They sup' ported unity of command in the field where immediate decisions had to be made. However, the naval hierarchy did not feel that such unity in the field had to be paralleled by a single chief of staff 10
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Washington because time was not as critical at the headquarters level. Nor did they feel that a singlechief was equipped to make better strategic decisions than was the entire JCS.
The opposition of the Navy to the single chief of staff system was heavily influenced by the World War II experience of the JCS. In the view of naval officers, this collective decision-making body had done an excellent job of managing the joint opera- ttons in both Europe and Asia. Moreover, the war in the Pacific was shortened primarily because the Navy had been free to keep insisting within the JCS that a limited offensive in the Pacific would not interfere With victory in Europe. Under the single chief of staff system, the CNO would not have such opportunity.
The Navy conceded that the collective mechanisms IT1|ght sacrifice speed at the Washington level. But they were willing to pay that price because, while a faulty tactical judgment in the field might lose a battle> a hasty and ill-conceived strategic decision could l°se a war. The opposition of naval leaders to the S'ngle chief of staff was not merely theoretical. They feared that an overall chief of staff from the Air Force ,T|ight commit the country exclusively to a strategy °f air bombardment and restrict the Navy to transport duty. In fact, during the unification controversy some Air Force officers were saying publicly that the United States no longer needed a Navy.14
Fourth, the Navy viewed the chief of staff portion of the Army’s unification plan as destructive of civil- lan control. Putting the ultimate authority over the HOilitary budget into the hands of military officers atld prohibiting the secretary from changing it would destroy his control over the department. As Secretary of the Navy Forrestal noted in his criticism of the f-ollins plan “The preparation of the budget ... is t*le most important function of the civilian secretary.” u> Moreover, the single chief of staff system Would give the secretary only one point of view. Without multiple sources of expert information, the secretary would be no more than a figurehead.16
Finally, the Navy feared that in the name of econ- °1T1y, a single department might impose a destructive orthodoxy on the armed services in the field of research and development. Conceivably this could cur- ta*l desirable parallel efforts by the services that in che past had led to important technological breakthroughs, like the radial air cooled engines originally opposed by the Army but developed by the Navy and Used extensively by both services during the war. Similarly, the Navy feared that a single department ^'ght enforce standardization on a number of items that appeared alike but in fact were vastly different.
The Marine Corps
Marine officers generally supported the Navy's point of view for many of the same reasons. As might be expected, their overriding goal was the preservation of the role of the Marine Corps in amphibious warfare. Most Marines felt that in a unified department they could not be entirely safe unless this role was spelled out and guaranteed by statute and a floor placed under the Corps. General Vandegrift, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, summarized the position of the Corps when he told Congress: “What 1 would like to do, if possible, is to write into the basic law of the land a protection for the Marine Corps, so that the Marine Corps in the future could put its entire effort on trying to do its job in the defense of its country rather than putting a lot of its effort in the job of fighting for its existence.”17
Unification and Centralization
The 1947 act did not really unify the national military establishment. Like most pieces of legislation in the American political system, the act was a compromise between those who favored a monolithic structure and those who supported a decentralized organization. It created a confederation rather than a unified or even a federal structure. The act did provide for two central or supra-service organs, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). However, it placed so many limitations on the activities of these central organs and reserved so many prerogatives to the separate- services that it was difficult for the Secretary of Defense or the JCS to bring about coordinated action.
The act1* established a national military establishment but did not do away with the executive department status of the military services. General direction of the department was placed under the Secretary of Defense, but internal administration was left to the service secretaries. The Secretary of Defense was given the power to set general policies and to produce a common budget, but his grant of authority was subject to several restrictions. He could not prevent the departmental secretaries or the military chiefs from appealing directly to the President in order to protest those policies or his budget. Moreover, the Secretary was prohibited from appointing more than three civilian assistants and from setting up his own military staff to help him coordinate the activities of the department. This placed him in the position of having to rely on the separate services for staff assistance in helping him to control those services.111
The JCS were similarly hobbled. The act gave them the responsibility for preparing joint strategic and logistic plans, and the authority to assign logistic responsibilities to the services, to establish unified commands, and to formulate training and educational policies for all of the armed forces. However, the Chiefs were not relieved of their service responsibilities. Moreover, even though they were given a joint staff, it was limited in size to only 100 officers. Finally, there was no provision for a chairman who, free from service responsibilities, could coordinate their activities, as Admiral Leahy had done in World War II. Like the Secretary of Defense, the JCS were forced to rely primarily on their own service staffs as they had during and before World War II.
Nevertheless, the 1947 act was a significant breakthrough. It established the principle of unification and shifted the terms of the debate about military organization. Since then unification has not been the issue. Rather, the debate has focused upon how to give the central organs of DOD the ability to control the activities of the department and to produce an efficient and effective defense policy without simultaneously eliminating the separate services.20
In the past 30 years a number of significant changes have taken place in defense organization. The thrust of these changes has been to increase the capabilities and responsibilities primarily of the Secretary of Defense and secondarily of the JCS. The increased powers of these central organs has come primarily at the expense of the services. In addition, the Secretary of Defense has taken over some of the corporate functions of the JCS.
The impetus for increased centralization has come from four sources. First, a number of non-partisan commissions and study groups, which were set up to analyze defense organization and management, have recommended it. These groups have included the first Hoover Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch (1949), the Rockefeller committees (1953 and 1956), the Symington Committee (I960) and the Blue Ribbon Defense or Fitzhugh Panel (1970).
Second, many of the earlier secretaries of defense complained to Congress and the President that they were accountable for the activities of DOD without, in fact, having the capability to control those activities. The most articulate and influential arguments for this position came from secretaries Forres- tal (1947-49), Lovett (1951-53) and McElroy (1957-59).
Third, during the 1950s many efficiency minded Congressmen became alarmed about the high costs which resulted from the Secretary of Defense’s apparent inability to prevent duplication within DOD. For example, by 1959, thirteen different systems for the intercontinental delivery of nuclear weapons were either in the procurement or engineering development stage. Similarly, in spite of congressional warnings, the Secretary of Defense allowed both the Army and the Air Force to develop missiles for continental air defense.
Fourth, Dwight Eisenhower, the Army’s Chief of Staff during the unification controversy and a strong supporter of a unified defense establishment fully under the control of a single secretary and a single chief of staff, became President during the formative years of DOD determined to put these concepts into practice.
Additionally, certain adverse happenings were attributed to the lack of central direction and control within DOD and led to a demand for strengthening that control. For example, the fact that the Soviets launched an ICBM in August 1957 and an orbiting satellite that October ahead of the United States was blamed upon the lack of a unified strategic missile program in DOD. Likewise, the fact that General John Lavelle was able to conduct an unauthorized bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese in 1971 and 1972 was attributed to a lack of suitable staff assistance for the Secretary of Defense in the operational area.
The capability of the Secretary of Defense to exercise central control over the entire department has been strengthened in three distinct ways. First, his delegated powers and areas of responsibility have been increased significantly. The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 21 made him the deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces and gave him the power to establish unified and specified commands and to assign or transfer forces to these commands. This same act also granted him the authority to create single agencies to carry out common defense functions;22 to transfer, reassign, abolish, or consolidate combatant functions among the services;23 to assign and reassign the development and operational use of weapon systems to any agency he wishes; and to control and direct those research and engineering activities which, in his opinion, require centralized management.
Various secretaries have used their powers to create super agencies like the Defense Intelligence Agency, (created in 1961 by Robert McNamara) which are responsible to them for carrying out common defense functions. There are presently 11 of these agencies employing some 50,000 civilians. In addition they have some 20,000 military personnel assigned to them.
Two ballistic missiles, an Air Force Minuteman and a Navy Poseidon, take to the sky. It would not do for the Air Force to have one strategy for the use of weapons like these and for the Navy to have another. Neither, considering the danger which rides with them, would it do for anyone junior to the President of the United States to have control over them.
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Second, the size of the Office of the Secretary of defense (OSD) has been allowed to increase dramat- 'eally. jn jjeu 0f the three special assistants given to him in 1947, the Secretary of Defense was given a deputy secretary and three assistant secretaries in *949. Four years later the number of assistant sectaries was increased to nine and a general counsel 'Vas provided. The 1958 reorganization act gave the Secretary a director for defense research and engineer- lng (DDR&e). Finally in 1973, Congress authorized rhe creation of a second deputy secretary of defense ^he poSt Was not filled until early 1976). In 1947, °SD numbered less than 50 people. By 1970 it had risen to over 3,500.24
Third, the Secretary of Defense has established and Used decision-making procedures which have enabled him to take control of the resource allocation policies W|thin DOD. The most important of these tools are f>rogram budgeting and systems analysis. Through fhe use of program budget categories, e.g., strategic forces, general purpose forces, and so on, the Secretary has been able to view comprehensively the proems of the individual services which contribute t()ward a specific mission. Similarly, through the use °h systems analysis, he has the capability to make Judgments among the competing programs on a ra- t'°nal basis.
During his period in office (1961-68) Robert h'fcNfamara used these two tools to centralize completely the decision-making process within his office. The services and the JCS were reduced to responding to the initiatives of civilians in OSD.2'1 The four men who served as Secretary of Defense during the Nixon-Ford era decentralized the resource allocation process somewhat. They permitted the JCS and the services to take some initiative in the budgetary process and used the program categories and systems analysis primarily as a check upon the programs of the separate services. However, Harold Brown, who served as DDR&E and Secretary of the Air Force under McNamara, has recentralized resource allocation within OSD. Beginning with the Fiscal Year 1980 budget cycle, the JCS and the services will be severely constrained in their capabilities to develop their own initiatives.2<>
The growth in the prerogatives and capabilities of the Secretary of Defense has come at the expense of both the JCS and the services. Legally the JCS have been removed from the operational realm and have been reduced to the status of a planning agency and an advisory group. Since 1958 they have been in the chain of command only by virtue of a DOD directive.2' Their role in the area is basically to give advice to the President and Secretary of Defense and to transmit the orders of those two officials to the unified commanders. By themselves the JCS cannot even move a ship, nor can the chiefs establish a unified or specified command or transfer or assign forces to them.
Since 1947 the Chiefs have lost and never regained their World War II heights when within themselves they combined command and planning and maintained direct access to and the confidence of the President. All these functions have essentially been taken by the Secretary of Defense.
Nonetheless, the corporate or joint capabilities of the JCS have been strengthened to some extent since 1947.28 In 1949 the position of Chairman, with no service responsibilities, was created and the size of the Joint Staff was increased from 100 to 210 officers. In 1953, control over the Joint Staff was transferred from the JCS as a whole to the Chairman and, in 1958, the size of the Joint Staff was enlarged to 400. Moreover, beginning in the late 1950s, the JCS tacitly were permitted again to establish temporary groups to assist them in dealing with specific areas.
The Chiefs have used this permission to establish groups on Salt and the Law of the Sea.2!’ These groups did not count against the 400-person joint staff limit.'10 Similarly, the Secretary of Defense placed three of the defense super agencies which he established under the control of the JCS, i.e., their tasks are given by and they report through the JCS.31 To emphasize the corporate functions of the ICS, a provision of the 1958 reorganization act allows the service chiefs to delegate the running ot their own services to their vice chiefs.32
But that is about all the chiefs gained. Their prerogatives within the budget process have been taken by OSD.33 Up to I960 the JCS as such had very little impact on the budget because they chose not to. Interservice rivalries were so intense that the Chiefs could not supply realistic guidance for budget formulation nor could they provide a meaningful review of the service requests. Since I960 budget guidance has come from OSD. Under McNamara this guidance took the form of Draft Presidential Memoranda (DPM) or Major Program Memoranda (MPM), which summarized the OSD position as to the major force levels, the rationale for choices among alternatives, and the recommended force levels and funding. Between 1968 and 1977, the secretaries of Defense issued Planning, Programming, Guidance Memoranda (PPGM) which accomplished the same purpose. In February 1978, Secretary Brown issued the first Consolidated Guidance Memorandum (CGM). This new document not only sets out fiscal guidance for DOD but also constrains or fences many functional areas, so that further debate in those areas is essentially foreclosed.
Similarly, since I960 the budget reviews have been done by OSD. The JCS play an important role in the major issues, but usually only on terms dictated by OSD. They usually support the position of the individual services, i.e., they defer to the position of the affected service. If the issue affects more than one service, and it is possible, a compromise is worked out.34 If not, a disagreeing chief will make known on the record his disagreement. Sometimes the disagreements have been longer than the basic documents.
The growth in the power of the Secretary of Defense has reduced the services to training and logistics agencies. In 1949 they lost their executive department status and in 1958 their operations role. The primary function of the services is to recruit, train, and equip individuals so that they can be assigned to and carry out the missions of the unified commands. Once the forces of a service are assigned to a unified command, the services in effect lose control over them. For example, the Sixth Fleet is not under the control of the CNO but rather CinCFur (a° Army officer) who receives his orders from the Secretary of Defense through the JCS. The CNO cannot affect the Fleet’s operational tempo except as a member of the JCS. In reality he is no longer the chief ot naval operations, but the naval chief of staff to the Secretary of Defense.
Moreover, even within their reserved areas of responsibility, the prerogatives of the services can be encroached upon by OSD. For example, the Secretary of Defense can and does prescribe standards for recruits, e.g., the percentage of high school graduates required among recruits. During the 1974-76 period, the DOD Committee on Excellence in Education (The Clements Committee), headed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, established guidelines for admission, curriculum content, and faculty composition at the service academies, the staff colleges, and the senior service colleges.35 Since the early 1970s OSD has established joint training facilities in several different areas. Increasingly, the Secretary of Defense has become involved in the procurement process. 1° 1962 Secretary McNamara forced the Air Force and the Navy to develop a common fighter, the TFX or F-lll, and toward the end of his tenure com pellet the Air Force to purchase Navy-developed planes like the F-4 and A-7. Similarly secretaries Laird and Schlesinger pushed the concept of the low-cost fighter on the Air Force and Navy.36
In many ways the present position of the services or military departments in relationship to OSD >s similar to that of the states in their relationships to the federal government. The services, like the states, have certain areas of responsibility reserved to them- Generally speaking, both entities have a certain amount of discretion in those areas. However, if OSD or the federal government decides to become involved in any of those areas, their grants of authority are so broad that the position of the central agency usually prevails.
Congress and Centralization
Congress has been pulled in two conflicting directions on the issue of continued centralization. On the one hand the legislature wants the Secretary of Defense to run DOD in an efficient and effective way- The legislators realize that if a Secretary is to accomplish this task he must be given broad powers to control the activities of the components of his department. On the other hand, Congress is aware that to the extent that it gives the Secretary these sweep- lng powers, it loses its own ability to influence defense policy.
It is true that Congress has somewhat grudgingly permitted DOD to become a much more centralized institution than it was three decades ago. However, 't is also clear that if it were not for the actions of Congress DOD would be even more centralized than *t actually is. Four trends can be cited to illustrate this point. First, throughout the past 30 years Congress has gradually given more staff and authority to the central organs but only the minimum needed to control the separate departments. The legislature has n°t allowed an increase in the number of assistant secretaries since 1953 or in the size of the joint staff since 1958. Congress has placed restrictions on the power of the Secretary of Defense to transfer roles and missions and has given naval aviation and a separate Marine Corps of three divisions and three air wings tf,e protection of law.
Second, the Congress has refused to approve any schemes that would have the effect of doing away with the separate military departments. In 1958, Congress rebuffed President Eisenhower’s plan to consolidate the administrative and support functions °f the services into unified commands. In I960 and 1970, Congress showed no interest in the recommendations of the Symington Committee and Fitz- hugh panel proposals which would have had the effect of eliminating the existing departmental structure of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and of creat- *ng a single chief of staff. And in 1976, congressional objections killed a proposed DOD reorganization which would have resulted in the creation of five Super assistant secretaries of defense.'57
Third, Congress has attempted to safeguard the Prerogative of the JCS to make the legislature aware °f their differences with the Secretary of Defense. A 1949 amendment establishes the right of the chiefs t0 present their views to Congress after informing the Secretary of Defense. President Eisenhower referred to this as “legalized insubordination”38 and in 1958 asked the Congress to revise this provision of the law. Not only did Congress refuse, but a decade later lengthened the term of service chiefs from two years to four in order to enable them to speak freely before Congress without fearing for their reappointment.39
Finally, through its armed services committee chairmen, Congress keeps a wary eye on any attempts to increase centralization by administrative fiat. For example, in 1963 Representative Carl Vinson (D-Ga) Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, objected to the effort by General Maxwell Taylor, the Chairman of the JCS, to change the title of the Assistant to the Chairman of the JCS to Deputy Chairman.40 A decade later, another armed services committee chairman, F. Edward Hebert (D-La) protested Secretary Schlesinger’s attempt to consolidate all tactical airlift under the Air Force.41 In each of these cases DOD backed down.42
The Officer Corps and Centralization
Generally since the early 1960s the officers have aligned themselves with Congress against increased centralization. However, prior to the McNamara era, the situation was drastically different. As discussed above, before 1947 the services were divided sharply on the issue of unification itself. From then until I960, the officers were strangely apathetic toward increased centralization in OSD. There were two reasons for this.
One was that they were more concerned with such issues as roles and missions and military strategy.43 The other was that they did not seem to think that a Secretary of Defense would use his increased powers to usurp service prerogatives. Admiral Burke’s attitude was typical. When asked if he feared that the 1958 reorganization could be used to destroy the services, the CNO replied that he did not see any danger of it because nobody had the intention of doing that.44
But, when McNamara, aided by the techniques of program budgeting and systems analysis, used the 1958 amendments to take almost complete control of DOD, officers of all the services opposed him. So great was the opposition of the Chiefs to McNamara’s domination of the decision-making process that the Secretary of Defense felt it necessary to replace the entire group during his first years in the Pentagon. The Chairman, General Lemnitzer, was transferred to NATO; Admiral Anderson was made Ambassador to Portugal; General Decker was forcibly retired after only one two-year term; and General LeMay was given an unprecedented short-term reappointment. Their successors eventually attempted to combat McNamara by working out their differences among themselves and presenting a united front to the Secretary.45
Since the McNamara era, the military services have been unified in their opposition to more centralization. In 1970 they testified against the recommendations of the Fitzhugh panel which would have increased the powers of OSD. Moreover, in 1973 when, as a result of the Lavelle affair, Congress authorized the creation of the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense for Operations, it was the strong opposition of the chairman, Admiral Moorer, backed by the service chiefs, which influenced the Secretary of Defense not to fill the position. When Robert Ellsworth was appointed as the second deputy in 19754B he was given control of intelligence rather than operations.
An Assessment
In the beginning of this essay we discussed the bases of support for the concept of unification and the positions of those officers involved in the controversy over the form that unification would take. Let us now compare the reality of DOD in 1978 with the hopes of those who were contesting the issue prior to 1947.
Those outside the military departments who supported unification advocated it primarily because they felt that it would lead to improved efficiency in defense management and better coordination and control in military operations. Generally speaking, their hopes have been fulfilled.
The nation’s military establishment as it exists today is certainly more coordinated and efficient than it was prior to 1947 or would be now without unification. The roles and missions of the services are clearly delineated. Primarily by the use of program budgeting, the Secretary of Defense has been able to avoid unjustifiable duplication and glaring gaps in our force posture.47 The OSD now produces a reasonably economical and well-balanced force. As a result of the creation of the super-agencies nearly all of the functions that can be performed in common are being done so.
All operational forces are assigned to one of the five area unified commands, or the three specified commands.48 Operations are not conducted separately by land, sea, and air forces but jointly by an area commander. “Strategic” forces, regardless of service, are under the control of SAC and all targeting is coordinated by the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, headed by the commander of SAC.
Doubtless, those who supported unification in the name of economy would like to see further consolidation within DOD. But, as long as the three military departments are not eliminated, further consolidation can only be marginal, and Congress is no more likely to do away with the military services than eliminate the separate states of the Union.
Comparing the aspirations of the military services in the unification struggle with ,the experience of DOD over the past thirty years is much more complex. Many of the goals of the individual services have been achieved, but not in the manner in which they had hoped. Moreover, when one compares the service positions with the actual events a number ot ironies appear.
The Army partisans who advocated the form of unification proposed by Marshall, Collins, and McNar- ney have attained their primary goal of maintaining a large ground force. The brief demobilization after World War II never approximated that which occurred after World War I. The size of the Army never went below 550,000; and between 1947 and 1950 it averaged 625,000. Moreover, since the Korean War the Army has averaged over one million. However, none of this had anything to do with unimpeded access by the Joint Chiefs to the President. They didn’t have that access. Rather, the international situation dictated that the United States maintain a large standing military force, and not even a “civilian” Secretary of Defense or economizers in the budget bureau could contest that situation. In fact, nearly all of the secretaries of Defense have been outspoken in their support of a large force.49 Two of them, Forrestal and Schlesinger, were fired because of their advocacy. Moreover, even though unification did ensure a balanced force, it has not enabled the Army to be as well funded as its “more glamorous sister services.
A view taken during the Mayaguez incident emphasizes the multi-service nature of this and many other military events: An Air Force helicopter, used to carry Marines, overflies the missile destroyer USS Henry B. Wilson, which is providing gunfire support to troops on the beach. Interservice arrangements in 1975 were vastly superior to those in force at the time of the Sicilian invasion in 1943.
Neither did unification help the Army to achieve its secondary objective of restricting the size and mission of the Marine Corps. Since 1950 the Marines have averaged over 200,000 men, and during the war in Vietnam the strength of the Corps climbed to
over 300,000. Moreover, during our land wars in Asia, the Marines conducted many of the same types of operations as did the Army, and in the northern provinces of South Vietnam, Marine officers commanded Army troops as they did in World War II.50
The Air Force also achieved its primary goal, independence from the Army and equal status with both the Army and Navy. A key provision of the act of 1947 was to provide departmental status to the service. However, the Air Force has not been as successful in achieving its secondary goals. Unification did not eliminate land-based naval aviation. The only area of land-based naval aviation into which the Air Force has made inroads is tactical airlift, and even in that area their success has been mixed.51 Furthermore, unification has not given the Air Force control over aviation-related research and development, procurement, or training. Ironically the Air Force has been forced by OSD to purchase large numbers of two Navy-developed planes, the F-4 and A-7. Moreover, rhe one aircraft that the Air Force developed for both services, the TFX or F-lll, never was purchased by rhe Navy. Finally, the Air Force has not dominated f'OD as it had anticipated. Since the development of Polaris, it has even had to share its “strategic” mission with the Navy, and during the past thirty years rhe chairmanship of the JCS has been held by officers of the Air Force for only twenty-five percent of the time.52
The Navy has been remarkably successful in achieving its goals in spite of the creation of a unified department in 1947 and the increasing centralization S|nce that time. The Navy has maintained its organi- 2ational integrity. There has never been a serious attempt to take away land-based aviation or to reduce the Marines to a naval police force. The Navy has fared reasonably well in the appropriations process, during the 1950s it took a back seat to the Air Force m budgetary allocations but was not in as poor a Position as the Army. Moreover, since the end of American involvement in Vietnam, the Navy has received the largest share of the DOD budget. Thirty years of unification have not dulled the appreciation °f defense officials and Congress for sea power. Navy fears about OSD “imposing a destructive orthodoxy” m the R&D process have proved groundless. Indeed, on the two occasions where OSD has tried to impose an Air Force plane on the Navy, it has been unsuccessful. One occasion was the TFX, the other was the low cost” F-16 fighter. Instead of the F-lll, the Navy bought the F-14; instead of the F-16, the Navy *111 buy the F-18.
From the Navy’s point of view, the history of the Past thirty years has been replete with ironies. James
Forrestal, who, as Secretary of the Navy, coordinated the Navy’s attack on the Army’s unification plans and who was thus primarily responsible for creating a weak Secretary of Defense, laid the groundwork for a strong Secretary of Defense through his complaints to the Congress during his tenure in that office. Civilian control of DOD was maintained because of Navy opposition to the Army’s proposals to take budgetary authority away from the Secretary. But it was the Navy which complained the loudest about the budgetary control imposed by Secretary of Defense McNamara.53 Finally, the Navy overwhelmingly opposed the single chief of staff or general staff system, but it was an admiral, Arthur Radford, who as Chairman nearly succeeded in turning the JCS into a general staff.54
The Marines, like the Air Force, attained their primary goal. Their separate status, their role in amphibious warfare, and their size are guaranteed by law. Indeed they are the only service whose size is so protected. Moreover, for all practical purposes their Commandant is a full-fledged member of the JCS. Finally, they have played a significant role in the Korean and Vietnam wars and in every major crisis of the Cold War.
The Future
The DOD was not created nor has it evolved by any grand design. Its creation and evolution came about as a result of the normal push and pull of bureaucratic politics, coupled with the intervention of certain external events. The cause of unification itself was aided by the death in 1945 of a President who had been an assistant secretary of the Navy and who was at best lukewarm towards unification, and his replacement by a Chief Executive who, as a result of his association with the Army in World War I, was a strong supporter of unification. Indeed the intervention of President Truman into the struggle between the Navy and War departments was decisive.
The election to the White House in 1952 of a former Army Chief of Staff accelerated the trend toward centralization. Events like the launching of Sputnik in 1958 and the unauthorized bombing of North Vietnam by General Lavelle in 1972 strengthened the , hand of those attempting to increase the power of OSD.
The future course of unification is likely to depend upon similar circumstances. The services and the Congress will oppose further centralization while future secretaries of Defense will likely seek to increase their powers. A President with a concern for reorganization or efficiency in organization could tip the scales in favor of more unification.55 A strong Secretary of Defense like McNamara could trigger a reaction against it. A period of tight budgets could lead to more consolidation and more sharing of roles and missions. Two such events have occurred recently. Budgetary pressures have created an incentive for the Navy to give the Air Force a role in sea control56 and the Army to give the Marines a part in the defense of Western Europe.57
As in the past thirty years, arguments for more centralization or unification will usually turn on the matter of efficiency. However, it is important to note that efficiency is only one of a number of important values. For example, it is less than efficient to permit Congress to grill DOD witnesses for over 3,000 hours each year and to spend an average of twelve months authorizing and appropriating funds for DOD. However, the value of popular control is well served by such practices. Similarly, since no one can predict accurately the future threats to the security of this nation, allowing some inefficiency through the existence of four separate services within three military departments may be an acceptable price to pay for providing for various contingencies. The existence of the separate services is also a hedge against militarism and a positive force for civilian control of the military. Even powerful civilian leaders find it difficult to overrule unanimous military opinions. Without the existence of the separate services, mil*' tary opinions would always be unanimous.
In any event, the question of more efficiency through further centralization is a dubious proposition. No one man or group of men can manage DOD. It is simply too vast. Further centralization might bring some short time efficiencies, but the long term results would most likely be disastrous. Certain programs are best conceived and managed by the people who will use them. Secretary McNamara could claim that having the Navy and Air Force build a common fighter would save money, but a plane that did not meet the needs of the user service was not a bargain, no matter how cheap.
Over the past three decades DOD has achieved a reasonable balance between centralization and separatism. More than marginal changes to the present system would ignore the experience of the past thirty years.
‘The NS A also established the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Resources Board.
2The best source on this subject is Demetrios Caraley, The Politics of Military Unification, New York, Columbia University Press, 1966. See also Paul Hammond, Organizing For Defense, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1961; Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State, Cambridge, The Belknap Press, 1957; and John Ries, The Management of Defense, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.
3The Board was a committee of service representatives. It was not a strategic planning agency and had neither corporate power nor decision authority. President Wilson did not use it during World War I because of disagreements he had had with it prior to the war. Many see this structure as a forerunner of the JCS.
4Only one bill actually came to a vote, the so-called Economy Bill of 1932. The unification provision was deleted on the floor of the House. 5(Fleet Admiral) William D. Leahy, / Was There, New York, McGraw- Hill, 1950, gives an excellent account of Roosevelt’s activities during the war.
6The three plans were all War Department positions on unification. Marshall submitted the War Department position to the JCS in November 1943, McNarney presented the War Department position to the House Select Committee on Post-War Military Policy in April 1944, and Collins supplied the Department position to the Senate Military Affairs Committee in October 1944. The Marshall and McNarney plans were exactly the same. The Collins plan differed from the other two in providing for an undersecretary and three assistant secretaries of the Armed Forces. There was no provision for such assistants in the other two plans. Caraley, pp. 23-56, and Hammond, pp. 187-226, discuss these proposals in detail.
7The JCS would also be responsible for such things as strategy, deploy' ments, and operations as they had been during World War II. The head of the supply service would not have been a member of the Chiefs.
8Department of Armed Forces, Development of Military Security, Hearings on S.84 and S. 1482 before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 79^ Cong., 1st session (1945) p. 49 (Hereafter called the 1945 Hearings)- 9According to General Holland M. Smith, Army Lieutenant General Robert Richardson personally berated him for removing Major General Smith. Holland Smith and Percy Finch, Coral and Brass, New York, Scribner, 1948, p. 177.
101945 Hearings, pp. 363, 371, 373.
“See for example the conclusions of General Henry H. Arnold, Com* manding General of the Army Air Forces during World War II, in l“s final report to the Secretary of War released on 12 November 1945121945 Hearings, p. 124.
13Ernest King and Walter Whitehall, Fleet Admiral King, New York, Harper, 1952, p. 465.
14See for example the speech of General Carl Spaatz, Chief of Army A‘f Forces, to the Aviation Writers Association in March 1946.
151945 Hearings, p. 586.
,6From 1900 through 1945 the Navy had consistently rejected any plan that would have made the bureaus subordinate to the CNO. This opp°s1' tion to a Navy General Staff came from the civilian secretaries and the admirals in charge of the bureaus. Support for the idea came primarily from the line officer community. Legislative and executive proposals ro create a Navy chief of staff surfaced in 1900, 1909, 1915, 1920, 193^* 1940 and 1943-
llNational Security Act, Hearings before the House Committee on Expem ditures in the Executive Departments on H.R. 2319, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947) p. 253-
lflU.S. Statutes at Large, LX 1, 253, Sec 2 11.
Initially, James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense, was not concerned about the small number of assistants. He envisioned using the services to help him run the Department of Defense in the same way that
1 e cNO and the bureau chiefs had assisted him in running the Navy. However, Forrestal did not receive the same cooperation from the service chiefs that he did from the bureau chiefs. Therefore, in his first report to
Congress, he recommended an increase in the size of his office.
2 >Th •
ne existence of the four separate services has always been taken as ^•ven. There has never been a serious proposal to eliminate them by adopting something like the Canadian Armed Forces model.
Hammond pp. 288-391 and Ries pp. 125-212 outline the evolution of defense organization on the post-1947 period.
The Secretary of Defense used this authority to create such bodies as che- Defense Communications Agency (I960), Defense Intelligence Agency (1961), and Defense Supply Agency (1961).
24 nis prerogative is subject to congressional veto.
The headquarters cutbacks reduced OSD to 1,617 people by the end of I >176. This number includes all civil servants assigned to OSD. These cuts ere roade by the secretaries of Defense Rumsfeld and Brown as part of a 1)00 program to reduce headquarters staff. The military and civilian staffs of the services were reduced proportionally during the 1970-77 Period. In late 1977 the position of Director, Defense Research and Engineering was upgraded to the undersecretary level.
There is a rich literature on the McNamara period. Alain Enthoven and ^ayne Smith, How Much is Enough?, New York, Harper and Row,
1 ancl James Roherty, Decisions of Robert S. McNamara, Coral Gables,
2fi01 versify of Miami Press, 1970. provide excellent contrasting views.
I or a description of Brown’s new techniques see Bernard Weinraub, ‘cter Controls on Pentagon Budget Ordered by Brown,” New York
Stri
Ti
imes, 29 October 1977, p. 1.
^Dod Directive 5100.1 of 31 December 1958.
^or a complete discussion of the organization and functions of the JCS SCe Lawrence Korb, The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty Five Years, L looming ton, Indiana University Press, 1976, pp. 3-25.
The 1958 Reorganization Act increased the size of the Joint Staff to ^ on condition that the JCS dissestablish these staff groups. However, ^'s arrangement proved impractical. Even the enlarged Joint Staff could n°t cope with the special problems of a temporary nature with which the s had to deal. Therefore, the JCS were given permission to create these groups as the need arose.
Each Service Chief also has a special office on his own staff dedicated to c°ordinating jcs papers and actions and to briefing the Service Chief for h*s tri-weekly jcs meetings.
The Defense Communications, Defense Mapping, and Defense Nuclear Agencies. Until May 1976, the Defense Intelligence Agency was also under the control of jcs. It now reports to OSD vice jcs.
The Service Chiefs have generally delegated only routine matters to r^cir vice chiefs. They have reserved the major policy decisions to themselves.
®3r\ .
tiring World War II, the jcs had complete control over the allocation °l the Defense budget.
•*4p
<>r a complete discussion of the role of the jcs in the Defense Budget Pr°cess see Korb, pp. 94-131.
0r a review of the activities of the Clements Committee, see Donald ^Urnsfcld, Annual Defense Department Report, FY 1977, January 27, ^6, pp. 308-309. It is too soon to assess the overall impact of the ^°rnmittee’s actions on service professionalism. In the Carter administra- t|0n, the role of the Committee has been diminished.
36o .
ecretaries of Defense can provide incentives for the services to procure Attain weapon systems by “Making Them an Offer they Cannot Refuse,” ‘•e-i purchase this system (F-m. F-4. A-7, F-16, F-18) or none at all.
ne reorganization plan was drafted by OSD (m&ra) for the purpose of Cas'ng rhe span of control problem of the Secretary of Defense. Congressmen from the Armed Services Committees viewed it as increasing his power.
3MDwight Eisenhower, Waging Peace, Garden City, Doubleday, 1965, p. 856.
39This provision went into effect on January 1, 1969. The term of the Chairman remains two years.
40John Ries, “Congressman Vinson and the Deputy to the JCS,” Military Affairs, Spring 1966, pp. 16-24. General Goodpaster was then serving as Assistant to the Chairman.
4,Under this arrangement, the Navy and Marines would transfer all their C-130, CT-39, C-9, C-8, C-117, and C-118 aircraft to the Air Force. The Navy would retain only its COD aircraft and the Marines their KC-130 aerial tankers.
42DOD tried to get around Hebert’s objections by establishing the Military Airlift Command as a specified command, but Congress has prevented DOD from transferring Navy assets to this command.
43See Maxwell Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet, New York, Harper, I960; Matthew Ridgway, Soldier, New York, Harper, 1956; and Curtis LeMay, Mission with LeMay, Garden City, Doubleday, 1965.
44Hearings, Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958, Senate Committee on Armed Services, 85th Cong., 2d sess., (1958), pp. 116-117. It is ironic that a military officer should pay more attention to intentions than capabilities.
45Korb, pp. 115-16.
46He was confirmed in December 1975 and took office in January 1976. 47Prior to the introduction of program budgeting DOD had too many programs in strategic missiles and continental air defense and too little capability in airlift and close air support.
4kmac became the third specified command, i.e., a command with a broad continuing mission composed of forces from but one service, in 1977. The others are Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the Aerospace Defense Command (ADC).
49The only Secretary of Defense who consistently advocated economy over military preparedness was Louis Johnson (1949-50). During his 18 months in office, he reduced defense spending by nearly 20 percent. When the North Korean invasion caught this nation woefully unprepared, Johnson became the scapegoat for this condition and was fired.
According to General Westmoreland, this arrangement was not without its problems. See his A Soldier Reports, Garden City, Doubleday, 1976, p. 343-44.
5,See John Finney, “Pentagon Curbs Navy Air Service,” New York Times, 13 June 1975 for a discussion of the problems of the Air Force in gaining control of tactical airlift.
>2Prior to the appointment of General George Brown as Chairman in 1974 only one Air Force officer, General Twining (1957-60), had held the position.
s3The most articulate criticism of McNamara came from admirals Anderson and Rickover. See in particular George Anderson, Address to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 4 September 1963, and "Ex- CNO Gives His Views on DOD,” Navy Times, September 18, 1963. 5,Maxwell Taylor compared Radford to a “party whip.” President Eisenhower applauded Radford’s attempt to bring unanimity to the JCS. Unfortunately, Admiral Radford died before completing his own memoirs dealing with this period.
5 >Indeed, the Carter administration is studying the possibility of further consolidation. On 20 September 1977, the President sent a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense directing a study of Defense organization. The study will focus on such areas as: consolidating logistics and support services, removing the jcs from their service responsibilities, and increasing the power of OSD over military operations.
56Robert Ginsburgh, “A New Look at Control of the Sea,” Strategic Review, Winter 1976, pp. 86-89.
57Rumsfeld, p. 138.