I.                      The Structure of Defense Decision Making

1.         There have been different perceptions of the military, ranging from brilliant to idiotic.

2.         One view of the military holds it as a vital function of the federal gov’t, operating under majoritarian politics, while another holds it as a gigantic confused system that exposes innocent men and women to unnecessary hazards to satisfy client politics.

                                                                i.      According to the first view, everyone pays for protection provided for everybody; after World War II, the U.S. grew a large standing army because it recognized world threats.

                                                               ii.      The second view maintains that only the generals, admirals, big corporations, and the members of Congress whose districts get fat defense contracts are the only winners, and that the military-industrial complex, or the supposedly unified political bloc consisting of the Defense Department and industries that build military weapons, had too big of shares.

3.         Citizens regularly desire to control the army (not the other way around), and the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Department of Defense, headed by a secretary of defense who must be a civilian, helped to ensure this want.

                                                                i.      Under the secretary of defense are the secretaries of the army, navy, and air force (also civilians), which basically maintain the “housekeeping” functions of the various armed forces.

                                                               ii.      The four branches of the armed services cannot merge, thus preventing them from coming together and growing too politically powerful, and the result is desired competition.

a.         The navy and air force have argued over building aircraft carriers and fighter jets.

                                                              iii.      Congress didn’t want the armed forces to be unified, but being too autonomous was not good either, so in 1986, it passed the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which increased the powers of the officers but left the 1947 structure pretty much intact, revised, of course.

4.         The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a committee of the uniformed heads of the four military services (army, navy, air force, Marine Corps), a chairman, and a nonvoting vice chairman, and while it has no command authority over troops, it is heavily involved in national defense planning.

                                                                i.      The Joint Staff assists the JCS and plans for various military contingencies, and after 1986, it was more unified and less divided among the four branches.

5.         There are eight Unified Commands and two “specified commands” that control forces in various parts of the world and handle Special Forces (army Rangers or navy Seals), and after 1986, they became more unified and more powerful also.

6.         A civilian secretary in charge of purchasing, auditing, congressional relations, and public affairs, and a senior military officer who oversees discipline and training of forces head each military service.

7.         The president is commander in chief, and the chain of command goes down to the secretary of defense and then other various commands (civilians are in charge to prevent army coups, etc…).

                                                                i.      The quick victory in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War may be a sign that the 1986 reform law was successful and effective.