All Rise for Chairman Powell
Mini Teaser: Operation Desert Storm presents us with the opportunity to observe America's military establishment in serious action.
Operation Desert Storm presents us with the opportunity to observe America's military establishment in serious action. And what we see is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin L. Powell, playing a very public role as military strategist, presidential confidante, and administration spokesman. Not since Vietnam has a military matter so occupied the nation, and not since World War II has the counsel of a sole military man figured so prominently in the making of national policy. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--not the secretaries of state or defense--has been the most important strategist and adviser to the president as Operation Desert Shield has been transformed into Operation Desert Storm.
Yet the chairman's new power and access both precede and transcend the war in the Gulf. As a result of a quiet revolution in the way the American military establishment is organized and operates, the chairman and the military culture of "jointness" are now in ascendance. Although the rise of the chairman in the bureaucratic arena of Washington has been helped by international events, strong personal ties, and good professional preparation, it owes just as much to an obscure military reform act. The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 stands as one of the most important, yet unheralded, military reforms in U.S. history.
Previous defense reforms sought primarily to centralize civilian authority in the Pentagon. The National Security Act of 1947, for example, mandated the creation of the civilian office of the secretary of defense. Goldwater-Nichols reversed this trend. By centralizing authority in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Goldwater-Nichols has increased the prestige of the military and dramatically raised its profile. Even more important, the key provisions of the act created a single, dominant military voice and perspective. The entire new military command structure rests on the good judgement of one uniformed man: the chairman. Goldwater-Nichols has boldly enhanced the position of chairman in supreme military councils, making him, in the words of one account, "the most powerful peacetime military officer in American history."(1) And this power has only grown during the early stages of the war in the Gulf.
Force and Fiasco
Before 1986, the Joint Chiefs of Staff--the collegium of chiefs of staff of the Army and Air Force, the chief of naval operations, the commandant of the Marine Corps, and the chairman--were collectively charged with three crucial tasks: advising the president, commanding U.S. forces in the field, and conducting military planning. This, in theory, was the most powerful military forum in the government, where a single, coherent position could be reached by the senior servicemen after secret sessions in "the Tank" (the JCS staff and briefing room in the Pentagon). In practice, however, the process was often much less decisive and the product much less useful; indeed, at times both were dangerously lacking. Not only were the Joint Chiefs mandated to exercise their power by committee decision, but they also had to act by consensus, with all the chiefs in unanimous agreement.
The result was often the worst kind of military decision and advice. Dean Acheson once referred to formal JCS products as "oracular utterances," explaining that "since [the JCS] is a committee and its views are the result of formal papers prepared for it, it quite literally is like my favorite old lady who could not say what she thought until she heard what she said."(2) The conflicting interests and service rivalries made consensus-building inside the Tank difficult, and the result was that the JCS too often dispensed corporate advice that was broad and more or less useless to policy-makers. Important matters were invariably sent upward for decision by the secretary of defense.
Although there were clear deficiencies in military advice and strategic planning, the most appalling shortcomings of the old system lay elsewhere. Simply put, the Joint Chiefs were seriously handicapped when they had to plan military operations. The JCS was usefully configured only for planning huge, multi-service campaigns. If smaller operations were needed, tensions developed and troubles arose. As William J. Lynn and Barry R. Posen wrote in a review of JCS performance before the 1986 reform: "This multiplication of command, coordination, and logistical problems has contributed substantially to poor military performance."(3) These dangerous tendencies were on display in a series of subpar and small scale military misadventures. The failed 1980 Iranian hostage rescue operation, the invasion of Grenada, and the bombing of the Marine contingent at the Beirut airport all illustrated the problems of waging limited military operations under the old JCS system.
Such flaws were particularly--and painfully--apparent in the doomed staging of Desert One in Iran. There was no single commander of the overall rescue mission but an Army commander for the ground portion of the mission, a Marine in charge of helicopter operations, and an Air Force commander also on the ground in Iran. Service personnel were required to perform unfamiliar missions (for example, Marine pilots flew long helicopter missions they were not trained for). Undoubtedly the most flagrant faults of all were at the top of the U.S. military command. Under the old JCS system, the chairman did not have a deputy and decisions became virtually impossible when he was away from the Pentagon. During a crucial period before the Iranian rescue attempt, there were seven different acting chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, each of whom had to be briefed and brought up to speed before he could make a decision. This confusion of command, combined with the service scramble for participation, were at the heart of the flaming disaster in the Iranian desert.
The U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 was another fiasco of uncoordinated brute force. To subdue a small group of renegade Grenadian revolutionaries and Cuban construction engineers, the JCS sent several thousand Army and Marine troops onto the island. This required dividing the tiny island into two theaters of operations, with the result that, because of equipment incompatibility, the Marine and Army commanders for the respective halves of the island were unable to communicate.
The bombing of the Marine peacekeeping force at Beirut airport in 1983 that left 241 servicemen dead was probably made easier by the many layers of command that separated on-site officers and Washington. The Marine contingent was in theory commanded by an Army general in Italy through a number of admirals in Italy and deployed in the Mediterranean. As a result, the Marines did not receive timely advice about their changing and dangerous environment while they were camped in the middle of downtown Beirut.
The Purple Revolution
These military failures and shortcomings spurred sustained debate about military reform in the mid-1980s. A number of private studies and official hearings explored possible changes in the defense structure. The congressional Armed Services Committees addressed the issue in depth and the Reagan White House moved to establish a powerful bipartisan commission under former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard to investigate the problem. Even the serving chairman of the JCS at the time, General David Jones, went public with a recommendation for significant reforms throughout the entire military arena.
Though there was powerful opposition among all the service communities, particularly in the Navy and the Defense Department, to the whole concept of reform, most of the recommendations emerging from the various committees and reports called for strengthening the chairman. Critics responded that there was a working system of "military checks and balances," and that making the chairman first among equals would upset this delicate equilibrium and undermine consensus building among the separate services. Officials at DOD argued, often passionately, that creating a powerful chairman would undermine civilian control at the Pentagon and weaken the secretary of defense. Caspar Weinberger testified against the proposed reforms. Nevertheless, following years of bitter skirmishing, the House and Senate scheduled a final round of hearings in 1986. After five months of testimony and staff research and with the joint sponsorship of Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Bill Nichols, they produced the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.
The act effected a "purple revolution" at the pinnacle of American military power.(4) The JCS and the office of the chairman were fundamentally transformed. By strengthening the autonomy of the chairman, the Goldwater-Nichols Act sought to improve strategic planning, the conduct of U.S. military operations, and decisions about force posture and procurement. The legislation designates the chairman as "the principal military advisor to the president, the National Security Council, and the secretary of defense," with the other service chiefs relegated to roles "as advisors." Although the chairman could now act alone, the act included provisions requiring that contrary views from the chiefs be passed along to civilian authorities accompanied by the chairman's recommendation. The law also gave the chairman a deputy, outranking the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In addition, Goldwater-Nichols called for: strengthening the JCS and putting its officers (who represent the services) directly under the chairman; adding muscle to the power of theater commanders, or CinCs, and creating a direct line of command from these field commanders to the chairman; and an overhaul by the chairman of the military education system with a mandate to create more "jointness" in the ranks. Finally, and most controversially, Goldwater-Nichols provided the chairman with the power to completely redraft and redesign the global roles and missions of U.S. armed forces. This amounted to giving the chairman, at least in theory, the authority and mandate to reshape the responsibilities of U.S. forces as he saw fit.
Two Dynamic Men
The first thing done differently in the Tank after Goldwater-Nichols was that all the other chiefs rose from their seats when the chairman entered the room; previously the chairman and chiefs had either entered a room together or the other chiefs had remained seated when the chairman arrived. The innovation was symbolic of the fundamental changes taking place behind the tight security of the "Joint" corridors of the Pentagon. Before Goldwater-Nichols, the chairman commanded nothing, not even his junior aide-de-camp. Since the reform, the military chain of command has run from the secretary of defense through the chairman and then out to the commanders in the field, completely eliminating the other chiefs in the chain. Moreover, if the chairman feels the chain of command to the field is not working to his liking, he has the authority to change it. As one experienced Pentagon observer noted, "Having the authority to advise and act on things like the chain of command, well now that is real power."
Since 1986, there have been two pioneering and dynamic men in the position of chairman of the JCS: Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., and now General Colin L. Powell. The enhanced role of the chairman in the post-Goldwater-Nichols era has been explained by some primarily in terms of the powerful personalities of these two men. But their greater influence in Washington and the world owes more to institutional changes than to character, though those changes certainly give greater scope to decisive men. The changes prescribed by the 1986 reform act have led to the chairman's central role in drafting a range of military plans, policies, and operations. That higher profile has been apparent in numerous military matters that predate the Gulf War: for example, in the 1987 tanker escort operation in the troubled waters of the Persian Gulf; in the decision to invade Panama; in key conventional arms control initiatives in Europe; in developing new avenues of "military diplomacy" with the Soviet high command; in shaping operational military plans and procurement decisions. Now with the overseeing of Operation Desert Shield/Storm--the largest military campaign since the invasion of Normandy--the chairman is a national presence.
General Powell is emerging as the most important operational military strategist since the Vietnam War. He has made his mark in the Bush administration as an articulate advocate of the use of U.S. forces in a range of contingencies. As the Economist has noted, "Less than a year into his job, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs' Colin Powell has deployed American troops six times--twice in Panama, once each in the Philippines, Liberia, El Salvador and now Saudi Arabia."(5) On the subject of the scale of force, the Washington Post observes, "The doctrine of invincible military force has been the main military principle underlying Operation Desert Shield. Powell is the new doctrine's intellectual godfather and Cheney its political champion, but President Bush has become their most ardent convert." Powell has been known to remark that he wants the signpost "Superpower Lives Here" to hang in front of the proverbial American house. By no coincidence, President Bush singled out only General Powell among his inner circle of advisers for praise in his initial briefing about the Gulf Crisis to a joint session of Congress.
Crowe and Powell have each helped define and shape the new powers of the chairman. Crowe is perhaps most clearly identified with opening new avenues of communication between the American and Soviet military establishments. He fought many bureaucratic battles with civilian administration officials who unsuccessfully resisted such moves. He is also remembered for building the institution and personnel of the JCS. Admiral Crowe's tenure as chairman straddled the Goldwater-Nichols Act, and his last term was something of a laboratory for military reform. Although Crowe helped revolutionize the JCS, he was in some ways still linked to an earlier period; General Powell arrived as chairman unencumbered by the past and with a mandate to take the office to a new and higher level.
Beyond the obvious differences between the two men--one is an Army officer from the Bronx and the other a naval officer from the prairies of Oklahoma--there are suggestive similarities. Both have had extensive Washington experience in key Pentagon assignments--a fact that figures prominently in accounts of their performance by both supporters and detractors. Before serving with distinction as President Reagan's last national security adviser, General Powell spent almost half his time in uniform in numerous Washington posts. Similarly, combat assignments in Vietnam significantly shaped the political and military perspectives of both men. What they judge to be the lessons of Vietnam are a critical feature in their respective thinking and public utterances.
Perhaps surprisingly, Crowe and Powell took very different positions on how to proceed in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, the national debate about war versus continued sanctions was largely defined by the testimony and statements of the two chairmen, one serving on active duty and the other retired. Admiral Crowe testified before Congress in November and urged the Bush administration to postpone military action against Iraq and give economic sanctions a chance to succeed. Crowe opined that "if in fact the sanctions will work in 12 to 18 months instead of six months, the trade-off of avoiding war with its attendant sacrifices and uncertainties would, in my view, be worth it." He counseled caution and patience in the Gulf, stating that it would be a tragedy if a "tin-pot tyrant and dictator" were able to out-wait the world's most powerful democracy. If force ultimately were to be necessary, Crowe also strongly favored a powerful air campaign before ground troops were committed to combat on Iraqi or Kuwaiti territory. The admiral has also voiced concern over the American disenchantment with prolonged conflicts arising from public fears about the possibility of "another Vietnam."
On the other side of the issue, General Powell has struck many as considerably more hawkish. His support for a policy of overwhelming force is a direct consequence of his experience of the indecisive and incremental military operations of Vietnam. In December, Powell gave congressional testimony in favor of having the capability in theater for a massive combined military campaign to liberate Kuwait and defeat Iraq. This would provide commanders with options, such as waging a concerted air attack, an armored tank and infantry strike up through the desert outposts in Kuwait and southern Iraq, naval bombardment from ship to shore, and a possible amphibious landing. He thus articulated a major role for each of the services in case of war with Iraq. Before the onset of hostilities, Powell weighed in heavily for a massive and devastating use of force, and subsequently for no "pause" in operations which might provide Saddam Hussein with an opening to regroup his forces.
Nearly all the senior military elite in the armed services today were initiated during tours of duty in Vietnam, and Crowe and Powell are no exception. What they believe to be the enduring "lessons" for the military in the Vietnam War remain in their collective consciousness. Many share the idea that there should be no commitment of U.S. forces without strong public support and that we should bring to bear overwhelming force in the event of war. Most also share a deep dislike of the press, and most important, a profound distrust of politicians who make the decisions about when, where, and how to wield force. As the senior representative of the military and a close adviser to the president, the chairman is now placed in the delicate position of straddling two bureaucratic worlds: the uniformed and the civilian.
General Powell, like Admiral Crowe before him, has been criticized (and in some quarters, commended) for being a politician in uniform. Some critics are concerned that without extensive combat experience or sea duty, a chairman will have difficulty gaining the confidence of his fellow senior officers and providing valuable military advice during a crisis. General Marshall's record as a shrewd and successful strategist in World War II who during a long and distinguished career never heard a shot fired in anger would tend to belie this point. Another, more troubling concern of some military officers is the possibility that the chairman will allow undue political considerations to color his military advice to senior civilian leaders. To date, Crowe and Powell have both worked to promote a distinct chairman's perspective of the national interest that is neither a hostage to the president nor a slave to service parochialism.
Apart from their pointed differences over the Gulf, both men have been alike in striking into uncharted political-military waters. As already noted, Admiral Crowe pioneered military-to-military contacts with the Soviet Union, often over the objections of other administration officials. General Powell has played a crucial role in reshaping U.S. military commitments to NATO and in developing fledgling contacts with the reformed national militaries of Eastern Europe. Most important, each has had a direct hand in planning military operations. Admiral Crowe is credited with devising and designing the naval escort mission in the Persian Gulf in 1987. General Powell has been intimately involved in the shaping of campaign plans in both Panama and the Persian Gulf.
The first two chairmen of the JCS since Goldwater-Nichols have redefined the position in ways that will probably be apparent only in retrospect. Indeed, unlike other government reforms, the 1986 act has set in motion new organizational lines of command and communication that are still evolving. The course of that evolution will be determined to a considerable extent by the outcome of the war in the Gulf.
Goldwater-Nichols and the Gulf
The first--and ultimate--test of reform is whether what was legislated has helped national leaders to plan, prepare, and execute military operations better in crisis and war. The Gulf War provides the first real test of the quality of military advice and operations under the system that Goldwater-Nichols established.
The early results are generally positive. First, the delineation and shortening of the chain of command from Washington to the various theaters of operations mandated by Goldwater-Nichols appear to be in place. Indeed, the line of command from the chairman to the theater commander (the CinC) for operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf (General Schwarzkopf) and to respective ground, sea, and air commanders has been short and direct. Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf communicate directly with one another, sometimes on an hourly basis. Orders flow smoothly from the president through the secretary of defense to the chairman and then directly out to the field, bypassing any intermediate layers.
The reform has also dramatically increased the power and authority of the CinC. He is now directly responsible for implementing and directing the campaign plan, with little or no interference from military or civilian superiors in Washington. We see this very clearly in Saudi Arabia, with General Schwarzkopf primarily responsible for running the war effort in the Gulf. (General Thurman was delegated the same authority over operational matters in Panama.) This is quite a change from the practice during the Vietnam War when President Johnson poured over bombing targets in the White House basement.
As a third consequence of Goldwater-Nichols, the Joint Staff, specifically the Operations Directorate working with the chairman and the CinC, was primarily responsible for drafting the order of battle in Desert Storm (as it was in Just Cause). Traditionally, the service staffs were principally involved in crafting operational plans. Now much of that responsibility has shifted under Goldwater-Nichols to the chairman and his staff in the joint arena.
Not all the results of this first major test of the revised command system have been favorable, however. There is the delicate and controversial matter of readiness. In mid-December last year, Lt. General Calvin H. Waller, the deputy U.S. commander in Saudi Arabia, voiced serious public reservations about whether the troops, and specifically the Army, would be ready for operations by the January 15 UN deadline. General Waller's remarks were widely criticized by the civilian leadership and downplayed by General Powell. Still, many in the mid-level military leadership were grateful that a senior officer spoke out about being rushed to war without the proper preparation. Waller's remarks raise the question of whether the administration's timetable for the onset of war was driven more by political considerations than by the best interest of the U.S. military. Indeed, significant numbers of Army personnel and equipment continued to pour into the theater in the weeks following the January 16 decision to strike Iraq.
The logistics and transportation challenges posed by Operation Desert Storm have also exposed some shortcomings in the military delivery system. Fast Navy transport ships are few and have performed poorly. One transport vessel hauling an important cargo of tanks had to be towed back to the U.S. after engine failure. Further, the Army logistics system, which provides food and water for troops and servicing and support for mechanized equipment, is under strain. The chairman and the JCS must in future see that low-profile but essential service missions (logistics and transport) as well as military hardware (Air Force A-10 tank killers, Navy fast delivery ships, and Army transport equipment) receive enough support.
The JCS Into the Future
It is not enough for a reform like the Goldwater-Nichols Act to enable military authorities to plan and execute operations more effectively. A second and subtler criterion of success has to do with the ways reform effects the delicate balance of civil-military relations in American society. The early results of Goldwater-Nichols suggests some potentially important developments on this latter front.
The present prominence of General Powell and the past performance of Admiral Crowe suggests that the primary purpose of the reform's architects--to strengthen the power of the chairman--has been achieved. Even the drafters of Goldwater-Nichols may not have dreamed that their reform would so quickly catapult the office of the chairman to an entirely new level. In the past, the position of chairman was usually the quiet end to a distinguished military career and a prelude to retirement and a book of memoirs. A president's appointment of chairman must now be seen as one of his most important acts, rivaling his choices for secretaries of state and defense and national security adviser.
Indeed, the qualities and criteria for a successful chairman require him to do far more than merely offer committee-driven military advice. Demands which are as much political as military, coupled with the effects of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms, have ushered in a new breed of military leader at the top of the uniformed services: the soldier-statesman. (It may be significant, in this respect, that Powell went from being national security adviser under Reagan to chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Bush). The position is even being seen now as a possible step to national political office for its occupant. In some ways, the chairman's increased power brings to mind the postwar generation of leaders like Eisenhower and Marshall, men whose government service blurred the distinction between soldier and statesman, officer and civilian. How much of the recent shift in power is due to the Goldwater-Nichols reform and how much to the qualities of General Powell is a matter on which senior officers and informed observers are divided. But even if Powell's prominence is as much a result of his character as of his office, his pioneering performance cannot but help to raise the status of his successors. In all likelihood the next president will rely on his chairman as President Bush relies currently on General Powell.
Critics of Goldwater-Nichols have argued that the new situation renders the secretary of defense "a prisoner in the Pentagon" to the power of the chairman, but it is more accurate to say that there is now a necessary partnership between the two at the top in the Pentagon. Neither can operate effectively without the active support and confidence of the other. In this respect, there has been a fusion, or perhaps a symbiosis, of civil-military authority.
Until now the administration has been fortunate to have had good "legislated partnerships" between Carlucci and Crowe and subsequently between Cheney and Powell. A breakdown in this mutually dependent (or perhaps mutually deterrent) relationship would have profoundly negative consequences for government operations. This factor will need to figure prominently in presidential appointments for both key posts.
An important question remains, however, as to whether the president and his senior civilian advisers hear enough military advice that runs counter to the chairman's counsel. In creating a single, powerful military man, the Goldwater-Nichols architects have risked creating a single, dominant military opinion. The chairman is relied on heavily--indeed, some have argued too heavily--for military advice by both the president and the secretary of defense. As well, the particular military advice being offered--the Powell-driven, post-Vietnam doctrine of overwhelming force, rehearsed in Panama and then practiced fully-formed in the Gulf--has come at a time when military experience and knowledge is an increasingly rare commodity among senior State Department officials and key National Security staffers at the White House. Although there is no reason to doubt JCS representatives when they state emphatically on the record that General Powell conveys all shades of military opinion to civilian authorities, there is still a concern that the current structure creates the preconditions for some future chairman to dominate and shut out his uniformed colleagues.
The rise in the stature and strength of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will have subtler but equally important implications for government and inter-service operations. In the period ahead, there will be a sharp reduction in troop numbers stationed in overseas bases, beyond the already significant withdrawal of U.S. troops and tanks from Europe. Defense budgets will shrink, perhaps precipitously. There remain clear shortcomings in the current system of procurement and strategic planning that will continue to hamper America's capacity to field and project force. Moreover, the past forty-five years have been marked by a stable and single overriding military threat in the form of the Soviet Union.
Between the Soviets' evident collapse and the onset of the Gulf Crisis, there was a brief, probably naive, national hope that the application of force would now become obsolete. With the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the multilateral war that has followed, serious talk of forgoing the use of force has disappeared along with dreams of a "peace dividend." In place of a clear and present danger (the Soviet Union) and a primary prospective theater of operations (Europe), the United States now faces a much messier and more diverse world of indirect threats, complex strategic realities, and uncertain theaters of military operations. The current watchwords in the defense community are "uncertainty" and "flexibility." The new international order--or to be more accurate, reordering--will require giant leaps in military thinking, training, planning, and procurement. Discussions about creating a "strategic reserve" of U.S.-based forces ready for Gulf-like contingencies, already at an advanced stage, are but one manifestation of the change in progress.
The demands to reduce the military and reorient its focus will ultimately involve tremendous inter-service competition for missions. For example, there is already jousting between the Army and Marines about which service should be principally responsible for conducting Third World operations. Each of the services will also have to make difficult choices concerning procurement and cutting forces as defense allocations decline. Some military systems, such as the B-2 bomber, will probably not survive the scrutiny of a post-Cold War reassessment. Other capabilities, such as fast Navy cargo ships, have not been a priority with Navy planners but are clearly required but largely unavailable for Desert Storm. There are clear indications that the service truce that has held for the most part in the 1980s will be severely strained in the 1990s as the service communities struggle to redefine and extend military missions. There is even a possibility that the delicate domestic treaty between the services that established and defined roles and missions--the 1948 Key West Agreement--will be renegotiated. Under the stewardship of Crowe and Powell, the plague of debilitating service rivalry has been reduced and restrained. It remains to be seen whether the chairman can remain "an honest broker in purple uniform," in the words of one senior military officer, remaining above the fray of interservice competition during the coming fiscal cutback.
Changes may also come in the way senior military officers are selected and promoted. In the past, all the services favored the officer who had made his mark in the field or at sea, rather than the one who had labored in "political" jobs in Washington or "purple" jobs with other services in the Pentagon. The sudden dismissal of the chief of the Air Force, General Michael Dugan, after some unfortunate remarks to the press, reinforces a growing perception among the military that political skills beyond those necessary for promotion in the narrow service community are now essential for survival in highly visible assignments. As this perception becomes general it is likely that terms like "diplomats in uniform" and "soldier statesmen" will lose the derisive edge they have often carried in the past. The enhanced authority of the Joint Staff will make service as a "purple suiter" more important as a prerequisite for choice assignments, including the office of chairman itself. Indeed, Admiral Crowe has on occasion said that "it would be a disaster if the president chose someone other than a true `purple suiter' to be chairman." The unintended message that the success of Crowe and Powell sends to war-fighting officers in combat assignments is that Washington experience, "joint" assignments, and higher education are all essential for promotion in today's military. Will this realization start a stampede of the most ambitious officers from the field to Washington, in search of staff jobs with political connections?
Secretary of State James Baker frequently refers to the Gulf War as the first crisis of the post-Cold War world and as a "defining event" for the United States. The crisis is also a "defining event" for the chairman. Even if the war in the Persian Gulf turns out to be an isolated and anomalous case of the massive use of force, the success or failure of the Goldwater-Nichols reform will be judged largely through the prism of U.S. success or failure in the Persian Gulf.
A debacle in the Gulf would not necessarily discredit the new system, if it resulted from bad doctrine or flaws in leadership (although it could be argued that the new concentration of authority in the chairman will tend to magnify the effect of any such failure). At the same time, success in the Gulf War would not put all questions about the Goldwater-Nichols reform to rest. The jury is still out concerning the ultimate effectiveness of the new system. Only the experience of several chairmen, under several administrations, can show whether there is any basis for concerns about the potential for damaging rivalry between the chairman of the JCS and the secretary of defense, or fears that the chairman will use his new power to insulate the president from dissenting military advice. Time will show whether the new system can moderate interservice rivalries in a period of budgetary decline, and whether the increased importance of Joint Staff officers or "purple suiters" will (as some fear) encourage the promotion of politically adroit careerists over first-rate soldiers. Although the results to date of the new military order's baptism by fire in the Persian Gulf have been encouraging, it remains to be seen whether the promise of "the purple revolution" in American military command will be fulfilled.
Kurt M. Campbell is an assistant professor of international relations and public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Previously he served as a special assistant for Soviet and European matters on the Joint Staff.
1. Arthur T. Hadley, "In Command," New York Times Magazine, August 7, 1988, p. 21.
2. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 243.
3. "The Case for JCS Reform," International Security 10, no. 3 (Winter 1985/86): 69-97.
4. Purple is the proverbial color of Joint Staff personnel. In military parlance it connotes "jointness" as distinct from attachment and loyalty to one's original service. The JCS does not actually wear purple uniforms, and the origins of the term are vague.
5. Economist, September 1, 1990, p. 26.
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