• preparation of a separate annex for each POM which clearly identifies the requirements of the operational commanders as submitted, whether they were met in the POM with supporting rationale where such needs were not met; and

• permission for the operational commanders to independently raise issues during the Program Review Process of the Defense Resources Board.

These new procedures appear to be a promising step in providing the unified commanders with increased influence on resource decisions.

b. Inability of the JCS to Make Meaningful Programmatic Inputs The unified commanders view the JCS as their principal contact in the policymaking level of DoD. However, at present, the JCS is an ineffective vehicle for representing the resource allocation needs of the unified commanders. The inability of the JCS to make meaningful programmatic inputs is discussed at length in Chapters 3 (OSD), 4 (OJCS), and 7 (PPBS) of this report.

c. Functional Organization of OSD

Circumventing the JCS through direct appeal to the Secretary of Defense poses substantial risks to unified commanders who are so dependent upon the Services for resources. Moreover, OSD, because of its functional organization, does not have an office that would be a natural ally of a unified commander on the full spectrum of his resource needs. Unified commanders would have to work closely with many functional offices in OSD to gain support for necessary resource allocations. In addition, OSD functional offices may not be attuned to the mission-oriented needs of the unified commanders. d. Inability of Unified Commanders to Reallocate Resources

It is just as difficult for a unified commander to reallocate resources within his command. He cannot "trade off" between Services without going back through the JCS to the Secretary of Defense. While a unified commander might prefer to acquire more ammunition for naval aviation forces and less for his ground forces because of a change in the tactical situation, he is not free to institute such an action within his command. So, most unified commands simply "make do" with the resources provided to them by the Services and plan to fight the next war with the resources that they have been given.

4. ABSENCE OF UNIFICATION BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE UNIFIED COMMANDER AND HIS STAFF

In 1958, President Eisenhower stated the following rationale for unification in the operational commands:

If ever again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with all services, as one single concentrated effort. Peacetime preparatory and organizational activity must conform to this fact. (emphasis added)

Despite this rationale, peacetime preparatory activity and organizational arrangements within the unified commands have failed to conform to this fact.

Appendix A to this chapter presents six historical examples of organizational problems affecting U.S. military operations. The appendix presents two examples the Spanish-American War and Pearl Harbor from the period before the application of the concept of unified command. Four examples from the post-unified command period are presented: the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the capture of the Pueblo, the Iran hostage rescue mission, and the Grenada operation. Across this 85-year period, the deficiencies have remained remarkably consistent: inadequate inter-Service cooperation, lack of unity of command, and lack of unification at levels subordinate to the unified commander. Various points from the historical analyses of Appendix A are referred to in the main text of this chapter. The reader should refer to the appendix for a fuller presentation.

Unification in the unified commands stops at a very high level. Nearly all units below the unified commander are single Service because units of one Service are seldom subordinated to commanders of another Service. Accordingly, when forces from two Services are required to respond to an unanticipated situation, command by mutual cooperation -the basic U.S. military doctrine prior to World War II remains the order of the day. It can be convincingly argued that the concept of unified command, as formulated in the immediate post-war period and as articulated by President Eisenhower in 1958, has not been implemented.

It should be noted that the degree of unification varies among the six unified commands. The existence of sub-unified commands within two of the unified commands has an impact on the relative degree of unification as do certain multinational command arrangements. The Commander in Chief of the European Command noted this fact in his answers to the questions in the Conference Committee Report on the DoD Authorization Act, 1985:

In my view there is sufficient unification of command in USEUCOM, especially as a result of the US/NATO dual command relations necessitated by the CINCEUR relationship to Allied Command Europe.

The absence of unification at levels below the unified commander and his staff is a problem because it substantially impedes efforts to prepare for and conduct effective, joint military operations in times of war. In other words, the absence of unification has resulted in limited mission integration at the operational level of DoD. More specifically, the single-Service status of organizations subordinate to the unified commanders results in the following deficiencies: it does not (1) provide for unity of command during crises; (2) promote joint thinking, planning, and coordination; and (3) facilitate efforts to improve the interoperability of forces from different Services.

Within the operational commands, there have been efforts, in the absence of greater unification, to improve the ability to take unified action during crises. Numerous mechanisms have been created for improving cooperation between forces of different Services. Moreover, there is a greater appreciation of the need for improved interservice cooperation.

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The various operating mechanisms work well in exercises which are planned many months in advance and in resolving issues in which time permits a deliberate decision pattern. These operating mechanisms may even permit the effective execution of major operational plans that have been approved in advance by higher authority. However, these operating mechanisms have failed to be effective in unforeseen crises.

Local forces assigned to a unified commander have never been unified to the extent that they could effectively respond on a joint basis to an unexpected threat. The uncoordinated and slow reactions of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific during the seizure of the Pueblo may be the best example of this organizational failure. The poorly executed, although successful, incursion into Grenada is another example. Even more troubling is the inability of forces from separate Services to take effective unified action even when time permits joint planning and coordination. The disastrous Iranian hostage rescue mission is a key example of such inability.

In sum, the United States does not have major combatant commands that can provide effective unified action across the spectrum of military missions. The absence of unification at subordinate levels of the unified commands is a much more troubling problem now than in the immediate postwar period for two basic reasons. First, during World War II, the military objectives were clear, and the unified commands were oriented to offensive, theater-wide warfighting. Since that time, the strategic environment has become increasingly more complex, as discussed in Section C of this chapter, which has greatly broadened the military missions assigned to unified commanders. Moreover, today, U.S. commanders are defending the status quo. While unified commands may be organized to conduct theater campaigns similar to those of World War II, it is evident that they are not organized to respond to lesser threats like the Pueblo seizure or the Mayaguez incident.

Second, two trends discussed in Section C-effect of improved communications capabilities on command and control centralization and crisis management requirements-have made unification at the subordinate levels of the unified commands of increased importance. The original rationale for unification at lower levels was to enable "a single commander to react tactically to a threat without awaiting guidance or decisions from Washington." (Report of the Secretary of Defense, 1948) The need for and desirability of such a capability have diminished since this rationale was stated in 1948. However, the current arrangement of having effective unification only at the level of the unified commander and his staff poses another serious problem: in today's environment, the unified commander and his staff are often not key players in military operations within their command. Improved communications have permitted and crisis management requirements have often caused the unified commander and his staff to be circumvented in crises. The chain of command has been shortened by having the National Command Authority deal directly with lower level commanders. In these instances, the absence of unification at lower levels can be a major shortcoming. In discussing crisis management requirements in Section C of this chapter, the following major question was posed: has the unified command system, developed primarily in the

late 1940's, adapted effectively to meet today's crisis management requirements? The answer appears to be no.

Despite substantial contrary evidence, many unified commanders believe that there is sufficient unification within their commands. In their answers to the questions posed in the Conference Committee Report on the DoD Authorization Act, 1985, three of the unified commanders (USCINCLANT, USCINCCENT, and USCINCEUR) clearly state that their commands are sufficiently unified. USCINCSOUTH's views on this issue are not precisely stated in his response. While noting some problems with the degree of unification, USCINCPAC states:

From my perspective the crucial question is not whether there is sufficient unification down to subordinate levels, but whether the unified commander has the requisite authority to ensure the readiness of his forces and, in times of crisis (or hostilities), to bring his subordinate commands together without undue disruption to conduct timely, imaginative and efficient operations.

Only USCINCRED fully agreed that there was a problem of insufficient unification:

Routinely, there is no unification below the unified command echelon. USREDCOM's components in "peacetime" are, in effect, independent entities in regard to unified action.... In this circumstance, the degree of operational unification in USREDCOM and between its components is decidedly insufficient. There are two basic causes of the problem of insufficient unification within the unified commands: (1) the refusal of the Services to accept substantial unification within the unified commands, and (2) absence of agreement on appropriate command relationships, especially concerning the principle of unity of command.

a. Refusal of Services to Accept Substantial Unification within the Unified Commands

Despite the fact that the concept of placing the operational forces of two or more Services under a single commander was dictated by the disastrous failure of interservice coordination at Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. military establishment has seldom implemented that concept, even during wartime.

While the unified command concept worked well in the European theater during World War II, the Pacific theater was never unified under a single commander. Even the planned amphibious invasion of Japan could not bring the Army or Navy to accept a unified command arrangement: General MacArthur was to lead the land campaign, Admiral Nimitz was to be responsible for the sea battle, and General Arnold was to be responsible for the 20th Air Force with its very long-range B-29 bombers. In his recent book on the war in the Pacific, Eagle Against the Sun, Ronald H. Spector comments on the failure to unify the theater under a single command

er:

Against all common sense, against the dictates of military doctrine, against the essence of Roosevelt's message to Churchill, the Pacific was divided into two theaters. (page 144)

Even when unified command was established, interservice cooperation was lacking. For example, in 1945, with World War II not yet ended, a JCS Special Committee observed that:

...even in areas where unity of command has been established, complete integration of effort has not yet been achieved because we are still struggling with inconsistencies, lack of understanding, jealousies and duplications which exist in all theaters of operations.

Similarly, in Vietnam, a complex and fragmented structure was created to control U.S. forces in and around Vietnam. The Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV) was a sub-unified commander who commanded forces within South Vietnam, but his authority ended at the borders of South Vietnam. Other forces participating in the conflict reported to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command (CINCPAC), or to the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC). This arrangement hardly provided for unified direction of the conflict. Again, Service considerations played the major role in the formulation of this ineffective command arrangement.

In his book, The 25-Year War, America's Military Role in Vietnam, General Bruce Palmer, Jr., USA (Retired) is highly critical of U.S. command arrangements in Vietnam:

The final major principle I will mention is unity of command (vesting a single commander with the requisite authority to obtain unity of effort toward a common goal). It did not exist with respect to U.S. efforts in Southeast Asia. (page 193)

Calling Vietnam perhaps the worst example of unclear responsibilities, General David C. Jones, USAF (Retired) stated in testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services:

Each service, instead of integrating efforts with the others, considered Vietnam its own war and sought to carve out a large mission for itself. For example, each fought its own air war, agreeing only to limited measures for a coordinated effort. "Body count" and "tons dropped" became the measures of merit. Lack of integration persisted right through the 1975 evacuation of Saigon -when responsibility was split between two separate commands, one on land and one at sea; each of these set a different "H-hour," which caused confusion and delays. (SASC Hearing, December 16, 1982, page 19)

JCS Publication 2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF), is a major obstacle to greater unification of the unified commands. UNAAF places great emphasis on maintaining uni-Service integrity:

Maintenance of Uni-Service Integrity. The command organization should integrate components of two or more Services into efficient teams while, at the same time, preserving to each Service its uni-Service responsibilities. The commander of any force must give due consideration to these responsibilities. Furthermore, organizational integrity of Service components should be maintained insofar as practicable to exploit fully their inherent capabilities. (emphasis added) (page 43)