Suchergebnisse

A fundamental fact seems relatively clear: Americans do not personally like to fight in wars, especially and most particularly as members of ground forces. Indeed, Americans have greatly and often passionately-sometimes even violently-resisted personal participation in combat and have used various means including political efforts, to avoid circumstances that could require such participation.

The first instance in Western literature of an attempt to devise an ideal way to recruit and structure military forces into the fabric of a society was probably Plato's dialog, The Republic. This same general effort has continued over the intervening two and a half millennia, either aided or handicapped by changing social, political, and economic conditions.

The organizational charts of the executive department do not accurately reflect the patterns of power and influence among the various agencies and subdivisions included in that department.

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 dramatically punctuated almost a century of efforts to make the leadership, management, and use of American armed forces more cohesive and efficient. The primary approach was an increasing centralization of civilian authority, including the creation and further strengthening of the Office of the Secretary of Defense by the National Security Act of 1947 and subsequent amendments. Nonetheless, the armed services remained in a divisive and contentious framework under the intentionally emaciated authority of a weakly centralized collectivity on the uniformed side of the defense establishment. The Goldwater-Nichols Act sought to fix the problem by centralizing the uniformed side of the Pentagon in parallel with the civilian side, running the risk that this could lead to civil-military conflict instead of a smooth partnership between the defense secretary and the sharply enhanced Joint Chiefs of Staff's chairman immediately under him. This article analyzes the main consequences of the Goldwater-Nichols Act over the first four years since it was signed into law.

Analyzes the main consequences of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which centralized civilian authority and strengthened the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), required congressional reports from the DOD.