National Defense > Blog > Posts > Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Have Aggravated Inter-Service Rivalries

4/12/2010

Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Have Aggravated Inter-Service Rivalries
The notoriously counterproductive inter-service rivalries of the 1970s and early ‘80s were supposed to end with the passage of the landmark Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.

But the rifts between the services have not healed.

Goldwater-Nichols consolidated the military chain of command so that, when forces are deployed, they all report to a “joint” commander rather than individual service chiefs.

The law also called for the services to integrate their peacetime activities, such as weapons procurement and doctrine. This level of integration, however, never materialized because each service still retains its individual budgets and authorities to equip and train the force.

A quarter-century after Goldwater-Nichols, the services are becoming “less joint,” laments a senior Air Force official. The predominantly ground-based wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have widened the chasm, particularly between the Army and the Air Force, he says.

“I’m disappointed,” says the official, who was speaking off-the-record at a recent conference in Washington, D.C. “We’ve moved farther away from Goldwater-Nichols during the last eight years.” Command structures in current conflicts often have not lived up to the spirit of Goldwater-Nichols, he says. “How come there is a Multinational Corps Iraq? Why wasn’t there a combined joint task force Iraq? Why organize around a corps?” he asks. “There is a big difference between a corps commander to whom every service reports and having a joint commander.”

In Iraq, particularly, “We’ve moved away from joint,” he says. In Afghanistan, the United States initially had trouble establishing command relationships among the coalition countries as well as the U.S. branches of the military. “Gen. McChrystal moved that forward pretty well,” he says. “At least joint is in the name now.”

The wars also sparked tension over control of unmanned surveillance. Both the Air Force and the Army are now deploying their own UAV fleets because of philosophical differences about how best to operate them. Even though all services buy and deploy UAVs, there are hardly any joint procurement programs.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Ashton Carter says this situation is unlikely to change. “It is a perennial seam in our acquisition system that goes back 30 years to Goldwater-Nichols,” Carter says at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference.

“Goldwater-Nichols decreed that we shall fight jointly. But we still acquire separately,” he says. “Joint acquisition has always been a challenge. It’s a challenge in the wars as well.”

Some policy makers have argued that today’s disjointed procurement system undermines national security. “The services have the expertise that we need to make wise purchasing decisions. But this expertise usually puts the services’ interests ahead of the national interest,” writes Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., in an op-ed published last year by Politico.com. “I would move the services’ acquisition staffs into the office of the secretary so that purchasing decisions can be made jointly,” says Cooper. Congress is constitutionally responsible for providing for the nation’s defense, and acquisition needs our attention. “Twenty-three years after Goldwater-Nichols, we should make joint purchasing a reality.”
Posted at 3:19 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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