A real simplistic review

Service chiefs, like the Commandant of the Marine Corps, are mostly to man, train, and equip their service so to “chop” effective forces out to combatant commanders who do the fighting, defending, etc. Service chiefs also are on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and thus are principle advisers to the civilian leadership on military matters.

Combatant commanders, like the fellow in Afghanistan, are the gunfighters. They have a different chain of command that ultimately goes to the Secretary of Defense and then the President. They have to ask for and receive effective forces from the service chiefs in the end. They usually do this through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at least these days. Some of this is proforma/traditional, and some is on the fly. Anyway, deployments are normally planned out well in advance for all the obvious reasons.

Now the service chiefs have a full time job. It includes things like doctrine. For example, all four services have an air arm, but just who they work for in a combatant command area is still a matter of friction. It also includes things like budgets, and they are the normal way to work with the people in Congress who control the purse strings.

Now combatant commanders often act and think like pro-consuls of the Roman past, and that causes friction with the State Department, too. And combatant commanders do not work for service chiefs, nor the State Department.

One complicating factor is those who work in the President’s own National Security office. They form another conduit to the President, and hopefully help him coordinate the various Secretaries like Defense and State. Now I think President Eisenhower invented this office, but what it does varies over the decades by whoever happens to serve there. Oliver North is one example.

One other factor to keep in mind is the law. For example, a law going back to the late 1940’s dictates that the Marine Corps shall consist of three divisions and three wings. My opinion is that is part of the response to President Truman and General Omar Bradley trying to reduce the Marine Corps to be the Navy’s policemen. And talk about laws, for example for good pay budgeting reasons the Navy is limited to so many petty officers 1st Class in a fiscal year. So if one petty officer 1st class skill level goes “over” in numbers for any reason, other petty officer 1st class skill levels will necessarily suffer, and on purpose. While this may sound silly, that is in the end because of the law and associated funding. All this is part of what a service chief does, as in typically trying to manage this the best he can.

Now for a voter’s opinion.

First the bad news. Trying to get humans to work together in a joint effort is hard work, still, and probably always. It usually takes some head knocking to make it work OK, which doesn't always happen. Now the good news. The USA is far ahead of the rest of the world in this area. Just look at the poor Iranians who have “two” military type forces, the regular military, and the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). Not only do they compete for their funding, but they most likely have different chains of command, which is both silly, if true, and typically human normal. And the Iranians are just normal. Historically, look at the vaunted Germans in WWII when they had a military and also an SS that got its own funding. If the well is always full, so be it. But if it can go dry, or just down, then that is another thing.

By the way, there will not be a test on all this aforementioned.