The passage of Goldwater-Nichols and the Packard Commission recommendations back in 1986 was a historic accomplishment that helped build the best military in the world. But there were a few defects that have needed correction for a long time.
The Senate Armed Services Committee recently launched a much-needed change — returning the service chiefs to the acquisition chain of command. This was a serious flaw in the original legislation.
The primary focus of Goldwater-Nichols was to balance the forces of "supply" and "demand" inside the Defense Department. The demand side — the operational forces in the field — was inadequately represented in senior decision-making circles. Back then the service chiefs were responsible for both supply and demand, and the regional combatant commanders were weak actors.
The great accomplishment of Goldwater-Nichols was to strengthen the demand signal through a focus on joint operations, strengthening the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the regional combatant commanders. The military department service chiefs were still responsible for supply: recruiting, training, basing and managing the forces.
The Packard Commission recommendations were appended to Goldwater-Nichols at the last minute. Those recommendations were designed to make the Defense Department a better buyer of weapons and services. The central focus of the Packard Commission was to elevate the role of acquisition, making the undersecretary for acquisition and technology the third most powerful person in the department. The service chiefs were taken out of the chain of command for acquisition. This was a serious mistake.
No one assumes that the service chiefs are not responsible for weapon systems; they play a central role in establishing military requirements and resourcing decisions. Moreover, every time a program gets in trouble, it is the service chief who is called up for a grilling before Congress.
Yet the service chief is not in the acquisition chain of command. We get in trouble in the Defense Department when authority and accountability are fractured. Giving the service chiefs responsibility for requirements and budgets but not acquisition makes no sense. The Senate Armed Services Committee finally proposed a long-overdue change.
There is a greater good at stake, however. Secretary Ash Carter has tasked Deputy Secretary Robert Work to develop a major new effort called "the third offset." This is a reference to technological innovation that changes the foundation of warfare, offsetting the momentum and mass of opponents.
The second offset occurred in the early 1980s, led by what was then the third most powerful position in the department, the director of defense research and engineering. We still have a senior official charged with research and development, but that position has been hugely diminished.
Back at the time of the second offset, the DDRE was the chief "marksman" for the department, designing revolutionary programs that fundamentally transformed warfare. The giants, like Harold Brown and Bill Perry, pushed for microprocessors on missiles for pinpoint accuracy, flying radar command centers to guide forces, stealth technology, etc. They were marksmen because they had a vision for a target and could focus all their energies to hit it.
The Packard Commission diminished the role of the marksman, and instead substituted an organization designed for "gunsmithing." The massive OSD acquisition bureaucracy is focused on a forest of bureaucratic details and steps, none of which has really improved the acquisition process by lowering cost, improving quality or shortening acquisition cycles. And we lost the chief marksman role.
In today's system, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics and his or her staff is consumed by a massive machine generating small but urgent activities every day.
Returning the service chiefs to the chain of command will not only correct a serious defect in Goldwater-Nichols, but substantially boost the prospects for Carter's "third offset" strategy, permitting Undersecretary Frank Kendall to focus on what is truly important, while the service chiefs assume their responsibility for acquisition performance.
There will be naysayers who will bring up the old argument that we will lose jointness. The record has been sad. There are no "joint" battle tanks, aircraft carriers, long-range bombers or long-range tankers. We have at least nine different versions of battlefield camouflage uniforms after 25 years of "jointness."
The joint strike fighter is really three separate aircraft inside a frightfully expensive program. Communication and IT systems are still a patchwork of service-specific systems.
Accountability is the key. Fractured accountability is the problem. But more important, it is a boost to the much-needed third offset strategy. It is time for the Defense Department to embrace this reform, not fight it.