Focus Area

Lt Col Paul D. Berg, USAF, Chief, Professional Journals

Integrating Operations

Joint Air and Space Power

THE YEAR 2006 marks the 20th anniversary of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, a milestone in the evolution of the US military. Intended to improve Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps joint operations, the act engendered organizational and cultural changes, the former including the shifting of authority from heads of the military services to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and establishing the Unified Combatant Command structure we see today. The cultural changes proved subtler, focusing on broadening the perspectives of military personnel. Joint doctrine has helped link these two types of changes, but the process remains incomplete.

According to Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001 (as amended through 14 April 2006), the word joint “connotes activities, operations, organizations, etc., in which elements of two or more Military Departments participate.” Although not officially defined, jointness expresses the quality of being joint. A hard-to-achieve virtue, jointness is a centripetal force that opposes the centrifugal tendency of the military services to think and act divergently. Each service conceptualizes military problems in different ways and proposes solutions based on its area of expertise. The resulting diversity of thought offers either advantages or disadvantages, depending on how leaders translate it into action. National leaders want alternatives when they make military choices, but blending different services’ ideas into coherent strategies is challenging. The Goldwater-Nichols Act sought to integrate service perspectives synergistically after a number of operations fell short of this ideal. Potential degrees of jointness array themselves across a spectrum, ranging from working at cross purposes (which produces interservice rivalry), through deconflicting separate actions or performing limited interservice coordination, to achieving the close partnership of true jointness (which requires years of patient training and effort).

Common sense suggests that services should seek unity of effort in the pursuit of shared goals because blending different military assets and techniques can produce synergistic effects; however, organizational factors obstruct interservice cooperation. Having services specialize in different mediums or styles of warfare makes good sense because each branch excels in its respective medium, but that virtuosity can foster a counterproductive urge to operate independently. These large organizations follow their own internal procedures and seek to maximize their available resources. Competition for shares of the defense budget poses a particularly serious challenge to jointness. Consolidating the services into a single organization might lessen the severity of the contest but would do so at the cost of losing valuable and unique perspectives. Clearly, jointness involves a delicate balance of complex organizational forces.

The promulgation of joint doctrine not only has promoted jointness but also has invigorated service doctrine. The first joint-doctrine manuals exhibited a strong Army tone, probably because Army doctrine was more developed than that of the other services. Air Force capabilities affect practically all forms of joint warfare, so our service devoted considerable effort to articulating its views of joint matters. Doing so required the Air Force to codify its own doctrinal ideas more systematically than ever before. Our doctrine documents have proliferated and now evolve constantly to reflect fast-changing technologies and operational concepts. Hence, the publication of joint doctrine following the Goldwater-Nichols Act coincided with a renaissance of Air Force doctrine.

Future jointness will require more than adjustments in organization, culture, and doctrine. Because warfare constantly changes, professional debate of joint issues will remain essential. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, Air and Space Power Journal, the professional journal of the Air Force, dedicates this issue to advancing the professional dialogue about joint military operations.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University

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