Within the next few weeks, the Senate Armed Services Committee will vote on a bill to reorganize America`s defenses. The senators` aim: to overcome what Chairman Barry Goldwater bluntly terms ”the military services`
inability, or unwillingness, to work together.”
This is an old fight. At least since 1898, when the commanding U.S. Army general refused to let the commanding U.S. Navy admiral sign the Spanish surrender agreement at Santiago de Cuba–where were the Navy guns when my troops were besieging the city?–”interservice” rivalry has been a favorite target of defense reformers. And in recent years much of their energy has been directed toward reforming the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The JCS is made up of the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff, the chief of naval operations, the commandant of the Marine Corps and a chairman from any one of these services. As heads of their respective services, the joint chiefs are responsible for training and equipping the troops assigned to the unified theater commanders. As members of the corporate JCS, they are responsible for devising strategic plans and, above all, for offering military advice to the president and the secretary for defense.
Critics complain that because they wear two hats–as service heads and as members of the JCS–the joint chiefs are unable to sacrifice the parochial interests of their services to the national interest. When called upon to give advice as a corporate body, they simply bargain until they reach the highest- common-denominator consensus–usually that each service needs more of everything.
The legislation before the Senate Armed Services Committee is intended to break this supposed service stranglehold over military advice by concentrating more power in the hands of the chairman, the one JCS member who bears no direct service responsibilities. The Senate bill would make the chairman, rather than the corporate JCS, principal military adviser to the secretary of defense, and would give him control over the joint staff. With these new powers the bill instructs him to promote ”jointness,” a word that usually means a more efficient division of responsibilities and resources among the services.
The legislation has great political appeal in this year of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. A forceful chairman, freed from the burden of gaining his fellow chiefs` agreement and girded for the slaughter of service sacred cows, would soon find himself lionized in Washington. And if the nation`s senior military leader promised a cheaper, stronger defense if we adopted some new strategy or mix of programs, well, our political leaders would likely prove more than willing to follow his lead.
There are just two problems with this proposal. First, this powerful new chairman might lead us in the wrong direction. Second, he is not supposed to be leading us at all.
In December, 1916, a divided and near-desperate British cabinet decided to give extraordinary power over war plans to the chief of the Imperial General Staff, Army Gen. Sir William Robertson. Empowered to speak and act for the entire military, Robertson clung to the bloody strategy of trench warfare on the Western Front and refused to allow any diversion of resources to alternative plans. It took the new prime minister, David Lloyd George, more than a year to persuade his cabinet to regain control over military policy and open campaigns on other fronts. This experience with a single powerful military adviser led Britain, as well as the United States, to adopt the joint chiefs approach in World War II.
Is it really another Robertson that we need–or another Lloyd George? In our democracy, the military advises. Civilians decide. Their decisions are of course much easier if they receive one crisp, clear military option. Indeed, under such pleasant circumstances decisions can often be avoided altogether. Their decisions become more difficult, but also better informed, when they are confronted with a diversity of military viewpoints. What our civilian leaders need is not less, but more, interservice rivalry.
It is curious that Senate reformers combine such a deep distrust of service prejudices with such a touching faith in the ability of at least one individual–the chairman–to rise above his own. But why should a general who has worn, say, the uniform of the Army for 30 years acquire a clear appreciation for the claims of the Navy as soon as he is elevated to the chairmanship?
These competing prejudices, or traditions, or lessons from years of service–and they are all of these–give our fighting forces not just unity and esprit, but also the incentive to win a larger share of resources by proving to civilian leaders that they do an important job, and do it well.
Consider one of the classic exhibits in the case against interservice rivalry. When the Air Force was first created it struck a bargain with the Army. The Air Force would provide close air support for Army infantry, while the Army, in turn, agreed not to acquire fixed-wing aircraft. But when the Army saw the Air Force pour resources into more glamorous bombers and fighters, it retaliated by developing sophisticated combat helicopters. Whatever the motive, the result was a weapon of great value to our nation`s defenses.
Sometimes, too, the innate conservatism of one service is best challenged by another. In World War I, the British Army, still wedded to the horse cavalry, rejected the newfangled tank. The idea survived because the Navy, prodded by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, formed the Landships Committee to explore the new technology. Today, soldiers are still climbing down the hatch into their tanks in the best Navy tradition.
Competition among ideas, like competition among products, offers consumers the opportunity to choose. But it is up to the consumers, in this case our political leaders, to seize that opportunity by actively seeking out different viewpoints. The Senate bill, by putting power into the hands of a single JCS chairman, sends a strong signal to the military that our political leaders only want to hear one voice.
Instead, our leaders should become more vigorous in exploring defense options. They should overcome the stultifying consensus among the joint chiefs, not by asking the chairman to do it for them, but by insisting that they be informed of major disagreements among the services before they are resolved at the greatest level of generality.
And yes, our political leaders should encourage the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to present an independent view. This requires no legislation: The chairman is already perfectly free to offer his own opinion, and most recent chairmen have availed themselves of this freedom. But our leaders should also encourage his fellow chiefs to speak up when they disagree. Perhaps the best encouragement to plain-speaking would be an indication that disagreement among the chiefs is not used as an excuse for political inaction. The joint chiefs will not soon forget how their public disagreement over the best way to base the MX missile nearly killed the MX altogether.
In short, let the services compete in explaining why each can get us the most defense for the fewest resources. Then let–make?–the men and women we have elected to govern us decide.
