not be treated simply as alternatives to their Service "equivalent" schools. These are Joint schools; they are costly, and they have little justification if not so used. This is not to say that some graduates should not be assigned to Service staff positions, only that a plan should be developed that explicitly responds to the needs of the Joint community. (pages E-2 through E-5)

• Option 2H -establish a General Staff in place of the current Joint Staff

Section 143(d) of title 10, United States Code, provides in part:

The Joint Staff shall not operate or be organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive authority.

A longstanding American aversion to the concept of a General Staff led to the enactment of the above prohibition as part of the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958. While American hostility to the General Staff concept pre-dated World War II, it intensified considerably during the war and the immediate postwar period. It should be noted, however, that the U.S. Army employed a General Staff concept beginning in 1903. The Army's General Staff was authorized by the Congress in the General Staff Act of 1903.

Despite this hostility, a number of former DoD officials have recently spoken out either in favor of a General Staff or in efforts to clarify misconceptions about this staff concept. Among them are two former Secretaries of Defense, Dr. Harold Brown and Dr. James R. Schlesinger. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Secretary Schlesinger sought to counter the American antipathy to the General Staff concept:

...At the close of World War II, we sought, above all, to avoid the creation of a dominating general staff-reflecting a fear of the German General Staff, that revealed both a misreading of history and a susceptibility to our own wartime propaganda. Whatever the paramount position of Ludendorff in Imperial Germany during World War I, the German General Staff in World War II had little power to control or influence Hitler's regime. Moreover, the issue was quite separate from that of unification, for the German General Staff controlled only Germany's ground forces. In any event those concerns, whether real or invented, bear little relevance to the conditions of today and bear all the earmarks of another era. (Part 5, pages 186 and 187)

Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, USA (Retired) defines a General Staff as follows in his book, A Genius for War:

A General Staff is a highly trained, carefully selected group of military generalists whose function in peace or war is to assist the nation's military leadership or a general commanding a field force of combined arms elements in planning, controlling, directing, coordinating, and supervising the activities of all military subordinate elements in the most effective possible, mutually supporting efforts to achieve an assigned goal or objective, or in maximum readiness to under

take such efforts. The leader or leadership makes decisions and gives commands; the General Staff's responsibility is to provide all possible support to assure that the decisions and commands are timely, sound, and effective. (page 48)

This option proposes a General Staff concept with the following elements:

• a General Staff would be created in place of the current Joint Staff and would perform the same duties;

o the General Staff would be drawn from all of the Services with selection to be made at the 0-3 (Captain or Navy Lieutenant) or 0-4 (Major or Lieutenant Commander) level;

。 candidates for the General Staff would be nominated by the Service Chiefs, but would be selected by the JCS Chairman after a rigorous screening process;

。 once selected, an officer would remain a member of the General Staff for the remainder of his or her career;

o the General Staff would be responsible to the JCS Chairman alone;

o the JCS Chairman, under the authority and direction of the Secretary of Defense, would have responsibility for promotions of General Staff officers;

• General Staff officers would rotate between General Staff positions and assignments with field forces of their parent Services to maintain currency;

。 the National Defense University would revise the curricula of its three joint colleges to better meet the educational needs of the General Staff; and

• General Staff officers would be eligible for selection for major joint commands such as commander of a unified or specified command.

Individual supporters of a General Staff system would undoubtedly disagree with some of these elements. Some would go further, advocating a far-reaching overhaul of the military academies and other training programs, as well as earlier selection of General Staff officers. Others might not go as far. The common thread of unity in all General Staff proposals is that an elite group of officers whose career path is divorced from any one Service should be established so that it can execute critical staff functions with greater objectivity and independence.

It would be useful to briefly compare Option 2G (Joint Duty Specialty) and Option 2H (General Staff), both of which involve the creation of a joint duty career path. There are only two fundamental differences: (1) promotion authority over officers in the joint duty career path; and (2) the extent to which the Joint Staff or General Staff would be comprised of joint duty careerists. Option 2G would retain promotion authority in the parent Services while providing the JCS Chairman with some input on promotions. In contrast, Option 2H would place promotion authority in the hands of JCS Chairman.

On the second difference, Option 2G proposes that only 50 percent of Joint Staff officers would be joint duty careerists. Under

Option 2H, all officers serving on the General Staff would be dedicated to joint duty careers.

c. provide for improved personnel management of all military officers serving in joint duty assignments

Two options have been developed in this category. The first deals only with OJCS. It proposes that the distinction between the Joint Staff and other military officers serving in OJCS be eliminated in order to provide for improved personnel management. The second option would authorize the JCS Chairman to develop and administer a personnel management system for all military officers assigned to joint duty.

• Option 21 -remove the distinction between the Joint Staff and other OJCS military officers and eliminate the statutory limitation on the size of the Joint Staff

The distinction between the 400 military officers serving on the Joint Staff and the 350 military officers serving elsewhere in OJCS inhibits effective personnel management. It would be more useful to eliminate this artificial distinction and manage all OJCS military officers under the same policies.

Section 143(a)(1) of title 10, United States Code, specifies:

There is under the Joint Chiefs of Staff a Joint Staff consisting of not more than 400 officers selected by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Joint Staff is a part of the larger office, entitled Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (OJCS), that works for the JCS. There is no statutory restriction on the size of OJCS which had an authorized strength of 1,444 military and civilian personnel at the end of 1983.

The adjustable personnel framework provided by OJCS alleviates the management problems caused by the limit of 400 officers on the size of the Joint Staff. Nonetheless, removing the artificial constraint on the Joint Staff would provide the JCS greater flexibility in organizing and tasking the entire staff which works for them. This option proposes that the statutory restrictions on the size of the Joint Staff be eliminated. Removing this limit was one of the provisions of the legislative proposal submitted by DoD. The forwarding letter for this proposal dated April 18, 1983 provides the following rationale:

...In the context of a continuously increasing workload, greater demands for sophisticated military planning, and the organization of our combatant forces into unified and specified commands, arbitrary numerical limitations are no longer appropriate. In the case of the Joint Staff, as well as other assignments to duty, the goal should be the wisest use of military manpower among competing requirements, with due recognition to the increasingly joint utilization of personnel in the combatant commands.

Should this option be enacted, there would be no reason to retain the distinction between the Joint Staff and OJCS. Accordingly, all personnel working for the JCS would comprise the Joint Staff. As such, all provisions enacted as part of the DoD Authorization Act,

1985 referring to the Joint Staff would apply to what has been previously termed the OJCS staff.

• Option 2J -authorize the JCS Chairman to develop and administer a personnel management system for all military officers assigned to joint duty

The problems for military officers caused by joint duty assignments are similar regardless of the specific joint organization in which they serve. Previous discussions of these problems as well as proposed solutions have focused on the Joint Staff which is clearly the most visible of all joint duty assignments. The Joint Staff, however, represents less than 5 percent of all military officers serving in joint duty assignments.

This option proposes that the JCS Chairman be authorized to manage all military officers assigned to joint duty. This would cover the roughly 9,000 officers who are serving in non-Service positions. Most of these assignments are in joint military organizations (OJCS, unified command headquarters, NATO commands). However, positions in various civilian organizations -OSD and the Defense Agencies would also be involved. In this latter case, the JCS Chairman would act as executive agent for the Secretary of Defense.

In administering this personnel management system, the JCS Chairman would have the major influence on (1) selection of officers; (2) promotions and assignments; (3) education and training; (4) tour lengths; and (5) reassignment to joint duty. He would be expected to maintain close liaison with the unified commanders to ensure that their personnel requirements were being met. In addition, it would be logical for the JCS Chairman to play a more forceful role in managing the three joint colleges of the National Defense University.

3. PROBLEM AREA #3-INSUFFICIENT OJCS REVIEW AND OVERSIGHT OF CONTINGENCY PLANS

Many of the options proposed to solve the first two OJCS problem areas may indirectly ameliorate this third problem area. If Service dominance of the JCS system were lessened, important joint tasks, such as review and oversight of contingency plans, may receive more attention. Likewise, improving the quality of the OJCS staff would increase the likelihood that officers with strong joint planning credentials would be assigned to work on contingency plans.

Two specific options for correcting the problem of insufficient OJCS review and oversight of contingency plans have been developed. The first option proposes the annual preparation of a Planning Guidance for Contingency Planning. The second option suggests the development of a continuing exercise program to test the adequacy of major contingency plans.

O Option 3A -require that the Secretary of Defense annually promulgate a Planning Guidance for Contingency Planning This option proposes that the Secretary of Defense annually provide guidance to the JCS and operational commanders to be used as the basis for contingency planning. This guidance should in

clude: (1) crisis situations for which plans must be prepared; (2) domestic and international political constraints; (3) other planning assumptions; (4) broad policy guidance including a clear statement of U.S. interests; and (5) an indication of the range of options that should be developed. This document could be modeled on the Planning Guidance for Contingency Planning issued by Secretary of Defense Harold Brown in 1980.

• Option 3B —develop a continuing exercise program to test the adequacy of major contingency plans

In the Fall of 1978, DoD conducted an exercise of a major war plan for a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict. This exercise, entitled Nifty Nugget, was highly beneficial. The National Security Policy Integration study discusses the benefits of Nifty Nugget:

...The exercise brought to light a number of flaws in the plans and planning process as well as weaknesses in our capability to carry out the plans. The result has been beneficial for both planning and program/budgeting. (page 35)

This option proposes that a continuing series of these major exercises be conducted. The objectives of this option would be to: (1) evaluate the quality of various contingency plans; (2) identify deficiencies in the plans; and (3) increase the level of interest in the contingency planning process.

F. EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

This section evaluates the specific options for reforming the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that were set forth in Section E. No effort will be made here to compare these options with each other or to identify the most promising options for legislative action. Rather, this section seeks to set forth in the most objective way possible the pros and cons of each alternative solution. The options will be identified by the same number and letter combination used in the preceding section.

Prior to evaluating specific options, it may be useful to put the institution of the JCS into context. The report of the Chairman's Special Study Group begins with the following quote from the introduction to Common Sense written by Thomas Paine:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.

As the Chairman's Special Study Group implied, this situation clearly applies to the JCS. As John Kester has noted: "The JCS are a product of history, not of logic." ("The Future of the Joint Chiefs of Staff", page 23) Despite this fact, there has been great reluctance and strong opposition to questioning the logic of the JCS institution.

The performance of the JCS in both war and peace clearly support a careful analysis of the institution. For example, in Organizing for Defense, Paul Hammond, writing in 1961, concludes:

...From the vantage point of a decade and a half after the end of World War II the question can be a considerably more limited one: does its record in that war justify the confidence