Reorganizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff
eBook - PDF

Reorganizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986

  1. 232 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Reorganizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Reorganizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Gordon Lederman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Praeger
Year
1999
Print ISBN
9780313310850
eBook ISBN
9780313030512

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Foreword by Sam Nunn
  3. Preface
  4. Note on the Terminology and Structure of the U.S. Military
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Chapter 1: Inherent Tensions in American Military Organization
  7. Chapter 2: Defense Reorganization: A Substantive Analysis
  8. Chapter 3: The Great Reorganization Debate
  9. Chapter 4: Passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act
  10. Chapter 5: The U.S. Military After Goldwater-Nichols
  11. Notes
  12. Bibliography
  13. Index