Military Planning At The Seat Of Government

One of the most persistent issues of | modern times is the controversy over defense organization at the seat of government.

In essence the issue is a clear-cut one and centers on the question of whether or not our nation should discard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the top military planning agency and replace it with the Prussian-German type single chief of staff and supreme general staff system.

Congress, in writing the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, established the JCS under law as the top military planning agency of government. In that same law Congress specifically prohibited the adoption of the supreme general staff system. Despite that determination, the advocates of the supreme high command system have continued to criticize the JCS concept and to seek to replace it with a form of supreme general staff under a single chief of staff.

Advocates of a single chief of staff over the Armed Forces of the United States base their proposition upon the argument that since troops in actual combat require a single commander it logically follows that there should be a single military commander in Washington over all our nation’s armed forces.

This proposition is simple, appealing, and superficially logical. But on analysis, its appeal dwindles and its inherent illogic is disclosed. The attractive simplicity of the argument, like any over-simplified thesis, is deceptive. It deceives because it offers what so many seek—an easy, simple solution to a very complicated problem.

Mr. Ferdinand Eberstadt, who served as Chairman of the Hoover Commission Task Force on National Security and who is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on defense organization, has pointedly warned of the dangers in accepting the single chief of staff concept in the hope of achieving greater strength, harmony, and efficiency. Pointing out that such hoped-for results were not only illusory but that a single chief of staff system would actually weaken our defense posture, Mr. Eberstadt stated:

“The arrangement suggested [single chief of staff] might, it is true, result in an apparently more harmonious military establishment, but it might also result in a weaker one. Whenever there are strong differences of opinion or difficult problems, there is a human tendency to seek the one-man solution. Our generation has had painful opportunities to observe the dangers of this course.”

Accordingly, field or theater commanders do not have the responsibility for determining our nation’s basic strategy; they merely implement it. This points up the very fundamental difference between planning at the national and lower levels—planning at the seat of government originates the national strategy. Subordinate theater commanders carryout such strategy as it applies to their respective commands.

Determination of the basic national strategy involves the application of the national war potential. What a nation should do— and can do—is not only a military decision; it is a political, industrial, agricultural and economic one as well.

Such decisions involve the composition of military forces, the allocation of material and manpower to those forces, the manner in which those forces are to be employed on a global basis, and the planned coordination of such effort with allied military forces.

These are all matters of such breadth and size as to be fundamentally different from planning of theater or combat unit commanders. No theater or unit commander— not even the top generals in Europe or the senior admirals in the Pacific in World War II—dealt with problems of such strategic magnitude and economic implications as those which confronted the JCS in Washington in World War II.

At the national level, political, industrial, economic, and agricultural factors must be integrated with the purely military features of the plan. At lower levels, the commanders do not directly concern themselves with the integration of the nation’s industrial potential into their specific combat plans. Rather, they work with the results of the industrial support which is the material allocated to their commands in accordance with the basic strategic plan formulated at the national level.

Obviously, the decisions as to national strategy, involving composition of forces and industrial-economic requirements, set in motion a vast and ponderous military effort, an effort so great that it cannot be quickly or easily changed. For instance, the commitment of all available amphibious forces to a certain objective in the Far East would not permit withdrawal or diversion to a Mediterranean objective except over a considerable period of time and at the cost of changing the whole war plan of both theaters. A war plan that involves a major effort in Southeast Asia would require different equipment, hence a different industrial support program, from that for a desert operation in North Africa or the Middle East.

This is one reason why basic strategy decisions as to the conduct of global war must be correct decisions to start with. The course of global strategy and a supporting industrial program cannot be changed except at great risk and cost to the national war effort. For that reason, correctness—not speed—of decision at the national level is of paramount importance. Speed of arriving at the decision is of secondary or even less importance.

Such examples serve to illustrate the unique problems of military direction at the seat of government. Almost as important is the difference in magnitude of the problems faced at the national level. It is manifest that the scope of global war is greater than that of any of the combat theaters or individual commands.

The inescapable and overriding fact is that national strategy must be correct, for an error in strategy at the national level can seldom be rectified.

Such, however, is not the case at operational levels. For example, an error at the combat level, although serious, can, by able leadership, very often be corrected, with the result that such reversal is but a temporary set-back and does not preclude success of the overall national strategy. For instance, the German breakthrough in the Battle of the Bulge was a serious operational reversal. However, the situation was corrected by the combat commander of the forces involved. This illustrates how an error below the national level was rectified in a relatively short time, with the result that success of the overall national war plan was not fundamentally endangered by that temporary local reversal.

Although speed is not a primary requisite of military planning at the seat of government, the JCS has proved itself capable of rapid decision when necessary. In 1945 the JCS altered Pacific strategy by moving up the attack on Leyte to two months ahead of schedule. The decision, according to Admiral King, was made and the directive was in the hands of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz in ninety minutes.

A single commander can, and should, make the decisions at lower levels, particularly in combat. An able man, properly trained, is capable of commanding a specific area or combat force. But one military commander is not capable of directing national overall war planning and commanding all of a nation’s forces in a global war.

The military chief of Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps comes to be head of his own service after about thirty years of training and experience in his service. He cannot be equally expert in the field of the other services. Nor can he, at the same time, be an authoritative expert in fields of agriculture, finance, industry, transportation, and the other factors on which a national war strategy is based.

It was recognition of this fact that led the late James Forrestal to state: “The strategic decisions as to the conduct of global war are beyond the capacity of any one man, even when assisted by a brilliant and competent staff.”

Advocates of a single chief of staff further contend their system would improve the present JCS system by increasing the efficiency of military direction at the seat of government.

A brief review of the history of the single chief of staff system is useful in making an analysis of its applicability to the U. S. security organization.

The single chief of staff concept was a key feature of the Prussian-German system of high command, which system found its immediate genesis in the armies of Frederick the Great.

Frederick the Great was, in practice, his own single chief of staff. He was head of the state and commander of the armed forces. Certain facts with respect to his armed forces are pertinent in evaluation of appropriateness of his command system for U. S. purposes.

a. His “armed forces” were army (ground) forces.

b. He was not confronted with problems of coordinate employment of ground, air, and naval forces.

c. In Prussia, Frederick was an absolute monarch. He was the government. When he assumed field command in warfare, his was the highest command level; there was no coordinating higher command at the seat of government. He was the “Emperor-War Lord.”

d. Supreme command at the national level moved with Frederick.

e. The scope of Frederick’s warfare was small in comparison to the U. S. global war effort of World War II.

f. Frederick the Great, at his greatest victory, Leuthen, in 1757, commanded a Prussian Army of 36,000. This is but slightly more than half the number of troops engaged in the 85 square miles of Iwo Jima in World War II.

There is no question that the single chief of staff system was successful in the Prussian armies of Frederick. But, those who would apply his methods to modern global war should recall that the force with which Frederick won his greatest battle had slightly more than the number of men in two present day divisions.

A single commander still represents the proper, and successful, command method for combat forces in the field. But history, the growth of nations, the development of air and naval weapons, and the march of the Industrial Revolution have vastly enlarged the scope, complexity, and nature of a nation’s war effort from what it was under Frederick in the mid-18th century.

The geographic scope and technology of warfare has increased faster than a single man’s ability to control it. In the days of Frederick and his successful use of the single chief of staff system one man, astride a horse on a slight rise of ground, could personally manage and direct a nation’s armed forces.

While the geographical scope and technological complications of war continued to increase, the single chief of staff—or single commander—system failed to keep pace. The Industrial Revolution—and with it warfare -—was progressing faster than the abilities of one-man management.

Such a situation should have been recognized by any thoughtful military observer of the Napoleonic period. Yet, Napoleon, at the zenith of his military genius, was one of history’s greatest military commanders. However, Napoleon was faced with a problem that did not confront Frederick— the simultaneous strategic employment of land and naval forces.

Napoleon, victorious on land, did not comprehend sea power or naval problems. The result was loss of control of the seas and eventual exhaustion of France. Napoleon failed to recognize that the single chief of staff was a device that Frederick had developed for continental European land warfare, and that it was inadequate to the requirements of even early 19th century conflict involving both land and sea operations.

Even under Napoleon’s military genius, the effectiveness of the single chief of staff concept ended at the water’s edge.

Today, with the rapid development of aerial weapons and warfare, it can be truly said that the effectiveness of the single chief of staff concept extends neither beyond the water’s edge nor beyond the mountain’s peak.

The single chief of staff concept is a product of continental land warfare, designed and brought to a 19th century high point of efficiency by military commanders who possessed a land-locked military intellect, fighting land-locked battles.

As to the history of the single chief of staff system, the Prussians used it effectively in the short wars against Denmark and Austria in the latter half of the 19th century. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 was the latest —and last—success of the Prussⁱan single chief of staff system.

All these wars were typical examples of the land warfare of continental Europe. They were, in a sense, the last of Western Europe’s “small wars,” for they were dwarfed by the magnitude of World Wars I and II.

The same kind of Prussian command system that proved so successful in the Franco- Prussian War of 1870 failed in World War I. In that war Germany’s national strategy was handicapped by a failure to understand sea power. Historians recognize that inability to employ properly her powerful surface and submarine fleets were major factors in her defeat.

Furthermore, the inadequacies of the single chief of staff—national general staff— were certainly not limited to a failure to understand sea power. Actually, the incompetence of the German supreme high command system was demonstrated virtually throughout the entire spectrum of the war.

This failure to cope with the complexities and magnitude of a great modern war effort was also illustrated by strategic inflexibility, an “ivory tower” attitude toward actual combat problems, and a desire to control the national economy but an inability to do so. In world War II German strategy, still largely directed according to the Prussian command concept, suffered from a misuse of sea and air power. The manner in which the German supreme command, aided by Hitler, stripped the Navy of its aviation at the critical point in the Battle of the Atlantic was good for the Allies, but it was a crucial error for the Germans.

The supreme command system of the 17th and 18th century continental warfare had proved incapable to the demands of global war in the 20th century.

That Prussian concept of the single chief of staff for all the armed forces fails, too, because the influence of the Industrial Revolution has made the concept obsolete. The whole trend of human endeavor since the advent of the Industrial Revolution has been toward size—larger factories, larger communications systems, larger nations, larger armed forces, and larger wars.

One-man control in almost all fields of endeavor gradually gave way to the demands for effective management as the Industrial Revolution made itself felt. In a real sense, it can be said that the single chief of staff concept became obsolete for essentially the same reason that the craftsman-proprietor system was incapable of directing the huge factories that came into being in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. The ^whole pattern of management was away from one-man direction and toward a form of corporate direction, such as the now prevalent board of directors system.

In the field of political science, too, the Industrial Revolution ended the days of simple government and hastened the end of absolute monarchies based upon one-man control of the nation. The demise of absolute monarchies was not due only to philosophical reasons. It was due, also, to the very practical reason that as government became increasingly complex, no one man possessed the ability to cope with all its increasing complexities. The result was a trend toward ministerial and parliamentary forms of governmental direction, all providing for a broader participation in governmental control.

Just as the Industrial Revolution eclipsed one-man direction in economic and governmental management, it likewise rendered obsolete one-man military direction of a nation’s armed forces.

The U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff system constitutes an historic improvement over the old fashioned single chief of staff concept of Frederick the Great.

As pointed out, alacrity in deciding matters of national security policy is far less important than correctness of decision.

Ferdinand Eberstadt, chairman of the Hoover Commission subcommittee on National Security, summed up the issue by stating:

“The choice in the strategic planning area lies between an organization headed by one man and a joint organization such as our Joint Chiefs of Staff. The first type of organization insures speedy action, but at the cost of a marked increase in the probability of fatal mistakes. A deliberate approach is acceptable in military planning in contrast with execution of plans whose prompt action is the primary requisite.”

The deliberative process followed by our JCS system is manifestly superior to one- man direction. Under the JCS, each member, an expert in a major aspect of warfare, contributes to the solution of the problem at hand. No one person functioning as a single chief of staff could know as much about the problems and capabilities of the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, or the Marine Corps as the heads of respective services. The corporate mind of the JCS will always possess greater knowledge of war than could the mind of any single chief of staff.

The corporate nature of our JCS was proved responsive to our peculiar national security requirements in World War II and wholly consistent with the historical trend away from the single chief of staff concept. Viewed in its proper historical perspective the JCS system is a progressive, modern, military planning system for our armed forces.

The ability of a single chief of staff to “terminate discussion” is at best a dubious argument. A single chief of staff would have been able, in the 1930’s, to terminate discussion as to whether the Army’s liquid-cooled aircraft engine or the Navy’s air-cooled engine was superior. Such a decision could have ended competitive inter-service research and development. Concentration on one type of engine would have saved money. But, if a single chief of staff had decided against the Navy’s air-cooled engine, he could well have lengthened World War II. By that one decision he certainly would have “terminated discussion,” and possibly even our existence as a free nation.

Also, if the U. S. armed forces had been subject to a single chief of staff in the years prior to World War II, it is highly probable that we would have entered the war without an amphibious doctrine which proved so essential to Allied victory. It is a matter of historical record that only the Navy and Marine Corps saw the need for, and developed, amphibious methods.

It takes little imagination to visualize how proposals for spending money and effort to perfect amphibious warfare would have fared under a non-naval philosophy of war.

But, because there was no single chief of staff with the power and inclination to choke off post World War I amphibious developments, the Navy and Marine Corps did develop an amphibious doctrine, as well as close support and carrier aviation. All such lines of military development would have been casualties under an extreme land-power or strategic-air-minded single chief of staff.

It is not alone a matter of sea power being dominated by a single chief of staff having land or air power views. It would be equally wrong for a naval-minded chief of staff to decide what was right for land or air power.

Again Mr. Eberstadt succinctly analyzes the issue, stating:

“However, in the requirement for unanimity there also lies the fundamental strength of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Free expression of opinion is had at the highest level and all sides of a problem can be thoroughly examined. This avoids the danger of serious mistakes inherent in any setup where final military control is lodged in the hands of one man. Any professional military man chosen for such a position would necessarily come from one of the services and would remain subject to the influences of this early training. This has been the result in other countries whenever overall military control has been exercised by one man.”

The advantages of coordinate planning of the JCS system as compared to the quick decisions of a single chief of staff were readily recognized by the Hoover Task Force:

“There has been much loose criticism of the war effort of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as constituting ‘command by committee’; yet there can be no doubt whatsoever that in the broad field of grand strategy a meeting of several minds is far safer—and in the end more sound—than the dictates of one. The responsibilities for strategic planning and the conduct of war are soundly on the shoulders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who, in turn, are under the authority, and subject to the control of, the President and the Secretary of Defense. There should be no change in this concept.”

Those who would control or supplant the JCS with a single chief of staff also contend that a single commander would eliminate “bickering” in the JCS. This is not a pertinent argument, for there is no evidence that there is bickering in the JCS.^* That there was none during World War II is apparent from the statement of Admiral King: “There was never any quibbling that I know of; certainly not at the level of the JCS.”

Neither does the contention that the JCS can’t reach decisions by unanimity hold up under factual analysis. The late James Forrestal blasted the myth of JCS indecisiveness by stating that he doubted “if there were more than two or three issues (in World War II) on which agreement could not be reached,” and which had to go to the President for resolution. Mr. Forrestal amplified his views in support of the JCS unanimity procedure by observing:

“I know that mistakes of judgment are far less likely to occur if the proponent of any plan or idea has to justify his case before a group of intelligent partners.”

A prime advantage of the JCS system over the single chief of staff is that the JCS system combines authority with responsibility. This is achieved through the dual status of the chiefs of their respective services also being the members of the JCS. By such an organizational device those who make the plans (the JCS) are the ones who will, as uniformed chiefs of services, be responsible for executing those plans.

In 1946 the British government conducted an intensive study of defense organization'. That study consisted, principally, of an analysis and comparison of the German single chief of staff system and the British system which is essentially similar to our JCS concept. That study was published as a government “White Paper.”

The White Paper pointedly rejected the supreme high command concept, stating, in part:

“The German system failed because the Planning Staffs of the O.K.W. (The Supreme Command) were not drawn from the headquarters of the three services. The plans they produced had later to be handed to those Headquarters for execution and were often found to be unrealistic. The cleavage between planning and execution set up dangerous antagonisms, and entirely nullified any theoretical advantages of the German system.

“It has always been a cardinal principle of the British organization that, alike in the Chiefs of Staff Committee and in the Joint Staffs, it should be the men responsible in the Service Departments for carrying out the approved policy who are brought together in the central machine to formulate it.”

When all other arguments fail to justify adoption of a single chief of staff over all our armed forces, the advocates of such a proposal resort to the broad, but undocumented, contention that one-man military control will “result in greater military efficiency.” Every argument in support of such a prophecy is based upon the theory of centralization of power.

Such arguments for abandonment of our corporate, deliberative JCS check-and-balance system of national military direction and substitution of one-man military control are not applicable only to defense matters. The very same arguments would “justify” the elimination of Congress and the Supreme Court in order to achieve more direct and rapid governmental processes under direction of the executive branch of our government.

To recapitulate:

One-man control, while appropriate to theaters and localized combat commands, is not a suitable method for direction of armed forces at the seat of government because—

a. The problems of military direction at the national level are not the same as those of combat command. Formulation of military decisions at the seat of government involve economic and political considerations which do not confront lower levels of command.

b. Basic strategic decisions originate at the national level. Subordinate commanders implement and act in accordance with the basic strategical decisions.

c. Errors in combat decisions can frequently be corrected; errors in basic national military strategy are irretrievable, usually fatal.

d. The problems of overall direction of a nation’s armed forces are beyond the capacity of any one man.

e. The single chief of staff concept is inadequate to the requirement of land, sea, and air war on a global scale.

f. Such one-man military command of national military forces is the reversal of managerial progress during the last century. Centralized, detailed one-man direction of a vast enterprise has given way before the superiority of the corporate system. The JCS is a military application of such a managerial device. Adoption of the single chief of staff concept would be a retrogression rather than an improvement.

g. The JCS system assures full development of land, sea and air warfare doctrines and material, because no one service can dominate another. All are partners in national security. The single chief of staff permits one-man and one-service control of the armed forces and leads to stifling of progress and service initiative.

h. A single chief of staff system separates authority from responsibility; the JCS system combines them.

i. The single chief of staff concept helped lose large scale wars; the JCS system helped win them.

These are the military reasons—apart from the equally important political reasons —why Mr. Forrestal, in denouncing the single chief of staff concept said:

“The conception of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has proved successful. It has been one of the great developments of the war. . . .”

For much the same reasons Mr. Eberstadt stated:

“Our Joint Chiefs of Staff in the last war may not have been perfect—the system has some deficiencies—but it was just about as perfect as any institution in human affairs is likely to be.”

The argument for imposing a single chief of staff over the U. S. armed forces neglects also to consider the basic concepts of our constitutional government, for the only national commander of our armed forces authorized by the Constitution of the United States is a civilian Commander-in-Chief—the President.

A military Commander-in-Chief would not only be repugnant to the letter and spirit of our national constitution but would be contrary to the traditional American concept of civilian control of the military. In the rare instances when the military chiefs of services who comprise the JCS cannot agree on national military policy, it is only right and proper that a civilian President acting directly or through his agent, the Secretary of Defense, should make the final decision on major issues upon which may hang the future of our country.

The Hoover Commission Task Force wisely summed up the matter by stating:

“If a ‘split decision’ occurs, it would, normally imply that the issue is beyond solution by the resources of military technology and experience, and is, therefore, within the competence of civilian judgment and authority.

“Much has been written and said about the incapacity of civilians to deal with military matters. Military science, it is said, can be the province only of the military. That may be true on the battlefield; it is not true in the realm of grand strategy. Modern war cannot be left solely to the generals.”