Download or read book Victory On The Potomac written by James R. Locher and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is waged not only on battlefields. In the mid-1980s a high-stakes political struggle to redesign the relationships among the president, secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and warfighting commanders in the field resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Author James R. Locher III played a key role in the congressional effort to repair a dysfunctional military whose interservice squabbling had cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and put the lives of thousands of servicemen and women at risk. Victory on this front helped make possible the military successes the United States has enjoyed since the passage of the bill and to prepare it for the challenges it must still face.Victory on the Potomac provides the first detailed history of how Congress unified the Pentagon and does so with the benefit of an insider's view. In a fast-paced account that reads like a novel, Locher follows the bill through congressional committee to final passage, making clear that the process is neither abstract nor automatic. His vivid descriptions bring to life the amazing cast of this real-life drama, from the straight-shooting chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Barry Goldwater, to the peevishly stubborn secretary of defense, Caspear Weinberger.Locher's analysis of political maneuvering and bureaucratic infighting will fascinate anyone who has an interest in how government works, and his understanding of the stakes in military reorganization will make clear why this legislative victory meant so much to American military capability. James R. Locher III, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School began his career in Washington as an executive trainee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Senate. During the period covered by this book, he was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Since then, he has served as an assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush and the early Clinton administrations. Currently, he works as a consultant and lecturer on defense matters.

Download or read book Reorganizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff written by Gordon Lederman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-11-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Has It Worked the Goldwater Nichols Reorganization ACT Scholar s Choice Edition written by James R. Locher and published by Scholar's Choice. This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book Goldwater Nichols The Need for Debate written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 1 October, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, otherwise known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act It was the culmination of a four-year debate, from the disclosure of significant problems with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) system by then-chairman General David Jones, USAF, to the final conference bill that became law. Throughout the process, the Navy Department (Navy and Marines), under the leadership of Secretary John Lehman, led the effort to defeat the bill. Though the Navy has come onboard with Goldwater-Nichols faster and to a greater extent than any of the other services, many of the arguments articulated by Lehman and his cohorts remain of concern. They have not been satisfactorily answered, and bear detailed analysis and debate. Based on numerous interviews with key officials, this essay reviews the inside politics of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, then summarizes the Navy's arguments against it. A brief assessment is then provided to look at Navy's arguments in light of the effort of the defense organization to implement the main provisions of the act Finally, some concluding remarks outline serious questions about the course we are on in defense organization, and the implications of that course for the country. Constrained in both space and time, the purpose of this paper is limited to an outline of the events, and to the encouragement of a frank, open and rigorous debate on the direction we are headed Complacency is to be avoided; intelligent discourse, sometimes critical, sometimes not, is to be welcomed as a strengthening and constructive element. If that discourse is ever strangled because of dogmatism, rigidity, or centralization, then great concern will be fitting, but, perhaps, also too late.

Download or read book Implementation of the Goldwater Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Investigations and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Goldwater Nichols Act and the Joint Duty Promotion Requirement written by Michael C. Veneri and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Invigorating Defense Governance written by Kathleen H. Hicks and published by CSIS. This book was released on 2008 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Perfect Storm written by Charles Nemfakos and published by Occasional Papers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act ushered in an era of sweeping change in U.S. military acquisition policies and processes. Reform was necessary, but the legislation1s implementation resulted in a host of unintended and undesirable consequences, especially in the Department of the Navy. Drawing on research, interviews, and their own professional experience, the authors examine these negative effects and propose associated recommendations.

Download or read book The Goldwater Nichols Act Ten Years Later written by Barbara Neal and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book War by Land Sea and Air written by David Jablonsky and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-23 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book a retired U.S. Army colonel and military historian takes a fresh look at Dwight D. Eisenhower’s lasting military legacy, in light of his evolving approach to the concept of unified command. Examining Eisenhower’s career from his West Point years to the passage of the 1958 Defense Reorganization Act, David Jablonsky explores Eisenhower’s efforts to implement a unified command in the U.S. military—a concept that eventually led to the current organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and that, almost three decades after Eisenhower’s presidency, played a major role in defense reorganization under the Goldwater-Nichols Act. In the new century, Eisenhower’s approach continues to animate reform discussion at the highest level of government in terms of the interagency process.

Download or read book The Grand Strategy that Won the Cold War written by Douglas E. Streusand and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates that under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and through the mechanism of his National Security Council staff, the United States developed and executed a comprehensive grand strategy, involving the coordinated use of the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power, and that grand strategy led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In doing so, it refutes three orthodoxies: that Reagan and his administration deserve little credit for the end of the Cold War, with most of credit going to Mikhail Gorbachev; that Reagan’s management of the National Security Council staff was singularly inept; and that the United States is incapable of generating and implementing a grand strategy that employs all the instruments of national power and coordinates the work of all executive agencies. The Reagan years were hardly a time of interagency concord, but the National Security Council staff managed the successful implementation of its program nonetheless.

Download or read book Why Goldwater Nichols Didn t Go Far Enough written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act strengthened the role of the Chairman with one hand and weakened it with the other by failing to provide adequate resources in four crucial areas. CJCS is charged with developing joint doctrine but is so understaffed and underfunded that doctrinal development must be passed to the services, which seem unable to handle it. Further, the Chairman must assess service capabilities, yet a more rigorous evaluation is needed. Joint training also poses a dilemma: the services train forces for joint operations, but no one has responsibility for training CINCs and their staffs to use those forces. Finally, the Joint Staff evaluates preparedness (readiness) under a uniform system that is not up to the job. Among the answers to such problems are inviting retired CINCs to rate active ones, enhancing exercise evaluations, enacting legislation to bolster the doctrine process, and lifting the manpower cap on the Joint Staff.

Download or read book Adaptation under Fire written by Lt. General David Barno and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every military must prepare for future wars despite not really knowing the shape such wars will ultimately take. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates once noted: "We have a perfect record in predicting the next war. We have never once gotten it right." In the face of such great uncertainty, militaries must be able to adapt rapidly in order to win. Adaptation under Fire identifies the characteristics that make militaries more adaptable, illustrated through historical examples and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Authors David Barno and Nora Bensahel argue that militaries facing unknown future conflicts must nevertheless make choices about the type of doctrine that their units will use, the weapons and equipment they will purchase, and the kind of leaders they will select and develop to guide the force to victory. Yet after a war begins, many of these choices will prove flawed in the unpredictable crucible of the battlefield. For a U.S. military facing diverse global threats, its ability to adapt quickly and effectively to those unforeseen circumstances may spell the difference between victory and defeat. Barno and Bensahel start by providing a framework for understanding adaptation and include historical cases of success and failure. Next, they examine U.S. military adaptation during the nation's recent wars, and explain why certain forms of adaptation have proven problematic. In the final section, Barno and Bensahel conclude that the U.S. military must become much more adaptable in order to address the fast-changing security challenges of the future, and they offer recommendations on how to do so before it is too late.

Download or read book Goldwater Nichols Act written by Kenneth M. Crowe and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thirteen years have passed since the passage and implementation of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (hereby referred to as GNA). Numerous military professionals, politicians and authors congratulate the Department of Defense on the successes of the GNA. Without question, the GNA has met the intent of defining the role and the powers of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commanders of the combatant commands (the CINCs). The GNA has strengthened the role of civilian authority in the Department of the Defense and improved military advice to the Commander-in-Chief, the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense. Will the GNA continue to be effective as we move into the 21st century, in the execution of Joint Vision 2010, the creation of future joint visions and a world much different than it was when GNA was enacted? Are there changes to the GNA that would assist our senior civilian and military leadership in shaping and employing future military forces and other instruments of national power? Are there changes required outside GNA? This paper explores some noted successes of GNA, suggests potential reform within the current boundaries of GNA, examines issues to readdress in GNA and suggests additional legislation outside the bounds of GNA. These suggestions would assist DoD in meeting the challenges posed in the execution of national strategy."--Abstract

Download or read book The Goldwater Nichols Act written by Henry T. Buckley and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Improving Military Coordination written by Thomas L. McNaugher and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Implementation of the Goldwater Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Investigations and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: