Reorganizing America S Defense

Forfattere:Edward L. Warner III; Stephen M. Meyer; Michael Hobkirk; Catherine Mcardle Kelleher; Aharon Yariv; Amos Perlmutter; W. Harriet Critchley; Vincent Davis; William J. Lynn; Robert W. Komer; Samuel P. Huntington; James Schlesinger; William Y. Smith; David C. Jones; Edward C. Meyer III; Thor Hanson; Morton H. Halperin; David Halperin; Vincent Puritano; Philip Odeen; Jacques S. Gansler og Robert J. Art.

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 is the most important legislation to affecting U.S. national defense in the last 50 years. This act resulted from frustration in Congress and among certain military officers concerning what they believed to be the poor quality of military advice available to civilian decision-makers. It also derived from the U.S. military's perceived inability to conduct successful joint or multi-service operations. The act, passes after four years of legislative debate, designated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the principal military advisor to the President and sought to foster greater cooperation among the military services. Goldwater-Nichols marks the latest attempt to balance competing tendencies within the Department of Defense, namely centralization versus decentralization and geographic versus functional distributions of power. As a result of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has achieved prominence, but his assignment is somewhat contradictory: the spokesman and thus the advocate for the Commander in Chief, while simultaneously the provider of objective advice to the President. While the act did succeed in strengthening the CINCs' authority and in contributing to the dramatic U.S. achievements in the Gulf War, the air and ground campaigns revealed weaknesses in the CINCs' capability to plan joint operations. In addition, the increased role of the military in ad hoc peacekeeping operations has challenged the U.S. military's current organizational structure for the quick deployment of troops from the various services. Rapid technological advances and post-Cold War strategic uncertainty also complicate the U.S. military's organizational structure.

Under the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, several changes were instituted by Congress in an effort to reform the U.S. military. Title IV, Joint Officer Management, of the Act was aimed at reforming the officer development of the services in an effort to eliminate the parochial service dispositions that had previously plagued U.S. military efforts. Title IV instituted policies to provide officers with joint education and joint experience in an effort to develop officers with a multi-service or joint perspective. In an effort to provide senior officers with joint experience, all officers promoted to the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral (07) must have completed a joint duty assignment prior to promotion. This dissertation looks specifically at the joint duty promotion requirement instituted under Title IV in an effort to analyze the U.S. military's ability to implement a congressional mandate. The implementation of the joint duty assignment as a promotion requirement has been a source of concern for both the services and congressional policymakers.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operation capabilities- on land, sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains. The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations, Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability. The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping's control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military. Xi Jinping's ability to push through reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors. The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.

This second edition of The National Security Enterprise provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other significant institutions that shape the US national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, this book provides analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State Department, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and the other critical entities included in the book. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing coherent policies. This second edition includes four new chapters (Congress, DHS, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers the many changes instituted by the Obama administration, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At the end of the Cold War security concerns are more about regional and civil conflicts than nuclear or Eurasian global wars. Stephen Cimbala argues that deterrence characteristics of the pre-Cold War period will in the 21st century again become normative.