Document created: 16 June 04
Air University Review, January-February 1970

The Air Staff

General John C. Meyer

Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

A good staff has the advantage of being more lasting than the genius of a single man.
Jomini, Prècis de l’Art
de la Guerre

The Air Staff is not an impersonal entity. It is people, organized to manage one of the largest activities in this country. Every day individuals and groups within the Air Staff make hundreds of decisions that involve the security of the United States. Every day there are staff actions and decisions that affect the lives and fortunes of each of us. Some of these decisions involve sums of money and other resources that are almost beyond comprehension. Some are concerned with ideas—concepts, doctrine, management philosophy. All the decisions and actions of the Air Staff deal—in a context unique to defense affairs—with the raw materials that make up the Air Force.

These raw materials include, but are not limited to, more than a million military and civilian people, some 14,000 aircraft, over a thousand strategic missiles, nearly 200 bases, an annual budget of around twenty billion dollars, and a half-century of experience in air and aerospace operations.

Acting on this agglomeration of resources is a variety of influences and pressures, both external and internal to the life of the nation. Among them are changing international relationships that affect national policy and strategy, domestic issues—like the war on poverty, public opinion, Congressional interest, and the pervasive influence of science and technology. Sometimes all or most of these forces act in the same direction. More often they do not.

It is the job of the Air Staff, under direction of the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff, to give order, coherence, and purpose to the vast array of people and material that constitutes the Air Force. Their chart is national strategy and defense policy, which the Air Force has a voice in determining. Their charter is the National Defense Act of 1947 and its several amendments. Doctrine, concepts, and established administrative policy contribute to consistency. The group of dedicated senior civil servants on the Secretary’s staff and the Air Staff help provide continuity. Regeneration is ensured by the continuous inflow of experienced military people from the field and their return to the commands at the end of their tours.

Every member of the Air Force—military and civilian—should understand something of the organizational and management philosophy and practices of the Air Staff, which affects our corporate and individual lives through its stewardship of a significant proportion of national resources. We must be aware of both its strengths and its weaknesses if its evolutionary development is to be properly controlled. We should understand how Air Staff decisions are made. We should recognize that the process is one of logical analysis—as devoid as we can make it of emotion, parochialism, and personal bias—and conducted within the context of the total national interest. That understanding is the purpose of the series of articles on the Air Staff that begins in this issue of the Air University Review.

 mission of the Air Staff

The mission of the Air Staff is planning, programming, policy-formulating, and budgeting for the Air Force and assisting the Secretary and Chief of Staff in managing Air Force resources. The Air Staff serves both the Secretary, who also has a small staff assigned to his office, and the Chief. It is essentially a planning staff, since its functions relate to determining the use to which present and future resources will be put. The Staff also has the important function of supervising the implementation of Air Force plans and policies by operating commands and agencies. This has been generally true throughout the life of the Air Force, but since the 1958 Amendment to the National Security Act the work of the Air Staff almost exclusively concerns resource planning and management. That Amendment gave command of operational forces to unified and specified commanders, who report through the Joint Chiefs of Staff Organization to the Secretary of Defense. The three military departments recruit, train, and equip forces for the unified and specified commanders and develop concepts and doctrine for the employment of these forces.

Although the Air Staff has no direct responsibility for the development of defense strategy and policy or for command of fighting forces, it is continuously involved in these areas through its support of the Chief, who is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s and the Secretary, who makes substantial policy inputs to the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Staffs time is heavily committed to his duties as a member of the JCS; hence most elements of the Air Staff are involved to varying degrees in establishing Air Force positions on JCS issues. Since the Chief’s day is largely taken up with JCS matters and relations with the public, the Vice Chief deals principally with internal management of the Air Force, aided by the Assistant Vice Chief.

In carrying out its planning and supervisory functions, the Air Staff interfaces with several other agencies and organizations, principally

—the small staff of the Secretary of the Air Force, which is organized to cover all major functional areas except operations;

—the staffs of the Secretary of Defense and of the Joint Chiefs, from which the Air Force receives, respectively, policy and operational guidance and direction, and to which the Air Force provides a wide range of recommendations and advice;

—the major Air Force commands and operating agencies;

—the other military departments.

Air Staff Organization

Since its inception in 1947, the Air Staff has been organized in accordance with four basic principles: simplicity, flexibility, functionality, and decentralization.

The simplicity of the organization is apparent from the accompanying chart. Simplicity facilitates organizational adjustments to meet changing circumstances. Lines of authority and responsibility are clear-cut, as is evident on the chart. These lines do not designate routes of coordination, however. That is an important point to which I will return.

The Air Force by law is authorized five Deputy Chiefs of Staff and a Comptroller who has DC/S status. Under each, functionally related Directorates and “Assistants for-------” are grouped. The principal and permanent staff functions are assigned to the Directors. Other functional areas that need temporary emphasis or are related to all elements of a functional grouping are assigned to “Assistants for.”

The special advisory services needed by the Chief of Staff are provided by Special Staff elements and the Assistant Chiefs of Staff. These offices are adjuncts of the Office of the Chief of Staff and are independent of the basic staff structure. Though directly responsible to the Chief of Staff, they also advise and support all other elements of the Air Staff.

The Special Staff offices have remained relatively constant since 1947, but Assistant Chiefs have been added or abolished as the need for a focal point or added emphasis on particular programs or functions has changed. For example, the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Guided Missiles was disestablished in 1960. A recent addition is the Assistant Chief of Staff, Studies and Analysis. The function of these Special Staff and support offices is self-evident, with the possible exception of the Directorate of the Air Force Board Structure. It is an administrative unit supporting the high-level deliberative and advisory bodies which will be discussed later.

Decentralization within the Air Staff is achieved by delegating authority for decisions to the lowest staff level having both functional responsibility and the information necessary to make the decision. Ordinarily that is at the Director level; at this level staff positions usually are developed. On an Air Force-wide basis, both authority and responsibility are delegated to field commands when appropriate to do so.

pros and cons of a functional staff

If one compares Air Staff organizational charts covering the last twenty-two years, the similarities are more striking than the differences. Functional groupings have changed and expanded to meet existing circumstances of technology and responsibilities. Assistant Chiefs of Staff and “Assistants for” have come and gone, but the principles of functionality and decentralization have remained. Through periods of war and peace, expansion and reduction, decentralization and centralization within the Department of Defense, before and after the 1958 Amendment to the National Security Act, and throughout nearly a quarter-century of continuous technological change, the Air Staff’s functional, decentralized organizational scheme has worked well. Generally it has been economical in its use of personnel, efficient in the management of resources, and foresighted in planning for the future. It has not been perfect, and it is not beyond improvement, but its virtues have outweighed its shortcomings.

The very significant advantages of simplicity, flexibility, responsiveness, and economy of personnel have been achieved at the cost of several potential disadvantages. I stress the word potential because the possibility of these disadvantages was recognized by Air Force planners when the Air Staff was set up. They established hedges against these disadvantages, which have been guarded against ever since. These recognized dangers include—

(1)The potential for inundating the Office of the Chief of Staff. Since authority to act for the Chief of Staff has been delegated to subordinate staff elements, the Chief’s immediate staff of people with substantive decision-making authority is limited to the Vice Chief and Assistant Vice Chief. There is no reviewing agency between the Chief’s office and the staff comparable to that of a general staff secretariat. This potential problem is, in part, kept within manageable proportions simply by recognition of its existence. The officers selected to fill Deputy Chief of Staff and Directorate positions must be knowledgeable, decisive, and willing to accept responsibility for major staff actions.

The potential workload of the Chief’s office is reduced also by the unique responsibilities of the Deputy Chiefs, who do not confine themselves solely to their areas of functional responsibility. In addition to supervisory and decision-making duties, they act as advisers to the Chief, concerning themselves with Air Force-wide systems and resources.

(2)The difficulty of integrating and coordinating a large number of decision-making offices. Coordination is always a problem in any large staff; it could be particularly acute in one organized along functional lines but in which most critical problems affect more than one functional area. If the lines of authority and responsibility shown on the organization chart (the “command” lines) also indicated lines of coordination, staff coordination would be a much more cumbersome, time-consuming process than it is.

This potential disadvantage of a functional staff has been reduced in several ways. Action officers at the lower staff levels are authorized direct coordination on a horizontal plane with other interested offices. For example, if the Director of Operational Requirements and Development Plans needs to coordinate an action with the Director of Aerospace Programs, he does not go vertically through the DCS Research and Development, then horizontally to the DCS Programs and Resources, then down the “command” line to the Director of Aerospace Programs. He goes direct to Programs, and both Directors keep their DCS informed.

Staff-wide coordination is expedited also through the Air Force Board Structure. The functions of the Board Structure elements are primarily deliberative, advisory, and coordinative. They bring to bear on important problems the collective judgment and experience of senior Air Force people.

The Air Staff Board is chaired by the Director of Aerospace Programs and reports to the Vice Chief of Staff. Its membership includes the Directors of Budget, Operational Requirements and Development Plans, Personnel Planning, and Plans and the Assistant for Logistic Planning. The Board has several subcommittees (Force Structure and Program Review Committees, for example) and ten specialized panels (Strategic, Electronic Warfare, Tactical, Data Automation, and so on) to assist in pinpointing and presenting problems for Board consideration. Two typical agenda items for the Board are review and recommendations on the Air Force Objective Force and a review of proposals for policy guidance and management control of the Class 5 Modification Program.

The Air Staff Board may make recommendations to the appropriate functional official at Directorate level, it may expedite Director-level coordination, or it may refer an issue to one of the Directors or the Air Force Council for further consideration.

The Air Force Council is chaired by the Vice Chief of Staff. Its members are the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, the Comptroller, the Inspector General, and the five Deputy Chiefs of Staff. The Council reviews and makes recommendations on matters of major interest to the Air Force. Normally its recommendations are to the Chief of Staff. Two recurring issues that come before the Council are the annual Air Force budget submissions and the Objective Force, subsequent to review of these matters by the Air Staff Board.

The Secretary of the Air Force conducts periodic top-level program reviews together with the Assistant Secretaries, the General Counsel, the Chief and Vice Chief of Staff, the Directors of Legislative Liaison and Information, the Comptroller, and the Deputy Chiefs of Staff. This body of senior civilian and military officials formerly was referred to as the Designated Systems Management Group.

The continual interchange of information between staff people in different functional areas, the constant informal and formal contacts between Directors, the dual role of the Deputy Chiefs as supervisors of functional groupings and as across-the-board advisers to the Chief, and the Air Force Board Structure alleviate but do not eliminate another potential shortcoming of a functionally organized staff: the danger of ignoring problems that do not fall into one of the functional areas. In December 1968 the Director of Doctrine, Concepts, and Objectives was given specific responsibility for identifying immediate, incipient, or potential problems that might or might not fall clearly within the area of responsibility of a functional staff element.  Well-defined procedures for ensuring action on these problems were established, under the coordinating authority of the Director of Doctrine, Concepts, and Objectives.

Another often-discussed defect of a functional organization is an alleged tendency to foster advocate-adversary roles in the decision process, both across functional lines and within the vertical structure. This tendency, it seems to me, is more a frailty of human nature than a disadvantage chargeable to organizational arrangement. New members of the Air Staff soon learn that they are not representatives of a command or agency. Rather, their specialized knowledge is to be used first in the national interest, then in the Air Force interest as it promotes national objectives, and only within those broad contexts for the advancement of a command or a function.

Several years ago a Secretary of the Air Staff, Colonel Wayne E. Thurman, wrote to General William F. McKee, then Vice Chief of Staff: “In the final analysis our level of performance is dependent upon the sums of the attitudes of the individuals who make up the Headquarters, and the quality of the leadership they receive. [Nothing] will act as a substitute for a sense of individual responsibility throughout the Air Staff.” That sense of individual responsibility is the greatest asset the Air Staff has.

looking to the future

The principal concerns of those who are responsible for direction of the Air Staff—or any other staff, for that matter—could be summarized as:

—identification of incipient problems before they reach crisis proportions;

—assurance that no aspect of any problem is overlooked in the wide-ranging process of coordination and integration;

—avoidance of excessive organizational layering or procedural practices that slow decision-making unnecessarily;

—compatibility of decisions with policy established by higher echelons of the Defense Department and the Administration;

—efficient implementation of decisions by operating elements of the Air Force.

These concerns relate to the internal operations of the Air Staff and to its interface with the Secretary’s office, DOD staffs, the Air Force major commands and agencies, and the other military departments. Success depends heavily on having the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time. Central to the efficient operation of the Air Staff is the broad problem of communication. Mechanization enables easy accumulation of large quantities of data. We have to guard constantly against drowning in a sea of data while gasping for information necessary for critical decision-making.

One of the most complex of all Air Force activities, one that involves all the principal concerns of the staff manager, is the acquisition of major weapon systems. The intricate process leading from establishment of a requirement to weapons in inventory involves harmonizing Air Staff actions with the im­plementing actions of major commands, principally the Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics Command. The process is heavily dependent on successful interfaces between the Air Staff and the staffs of the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and often the staffs of other military services. It involves extensive contacts with industry and a flow of information to the Congress and the public.

It became evident some time ago that improvement was needed in the weapon system acquisition process. Responsibility for managerial direction of a new weapon system resided in the Air Staff under a Program Element Monitor (PEM), while implementation of management direction was vested in Air Force Systems Command (AFSC), with a System Program Office (SPO) established for each system. Responsibility for the progress of the weapon system was, or at least appeared to be, diffused. There were too many levels of review between the SPO and the ultimate decision-making authorities, the Air Force Secretary and the Chief of Staff.

A significant step has now been taken by decentralizing to AFSC responsibility for managing the development and production of the F-15. AFSC has full responsibility for managing the F-15 program, with a PEM at AFCS headquarters and the SPO located in AFSC’s Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Progress review has been streamlined to eliminate marginally productive layers of review authority. At the same time, the Air Force Council and appropriate elements of the Air Staff have modified their procedures in order to continue their responsibilities for day-to-day advice to the Chief.

It is expected that this new decentralized management procedure will fix responsibility clearly and visibly, improve coordination, hold the number of developmental changes to an essential minimum, speed up the periodic review process and the flow of information from implementing to decision-making levels, and tighten the supervision of industry performance in both developmental and production phases.

We propose to test this streamlined management procedure on several weapon systems, refining the process as experience is gained. If it proves as successful as its early promise, it could have considerable impact on Air Staff organization and procedures.

Two decades of successful operation have not made organizational structure and procedures of the Air Staff sacrosanct and immutable. Periodically both structure and procedures are reviewed and modified to meet changing internal and external circumstances and to make better use of communications and analytical techniques. We recognize today both organizational and procedural deficiencies that combine to reduce the decision-makers’ capability for efficient, sound, and expeditious action.

An Air Force Management Study Group under chairmanship of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff is now conducting a detailed study of Air Staff functional alignments, procedures, staffing, and relationship with higher, subordinate, and lateral staffs. The weapon system acquisition process is one of their major interests. Their recommendation to the Secretary and the Chief of Staff will not be available before this issue of Air University Review goes to press.

I am confident that the work of the Study Group will bring us closer to our constant goal of total efficiency in the management of Air Force resources for the national interest.

Hq United States Air Force  

Contributor

General John C. Meyer (B.A., Dartmouth College) is Vice Chief of Staff, USAF. He was commissioned from flying training in 1940, and in World War II, while serving as Deputy Commander, 352d Fighter Group, he became the leading U.S. ace in Europe. Subsequent assignments include USAF Liaison Officer to the House of Representatives, later Assistant House Liasion Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force; Commander, 4th Fighter Group; Director, Operations and Training, DCS/O, Hq ADC; student and faculty member, Air War College; Commander, 57th Air Division, and 45th Air Division; Deputy Director, Plans, Hq SAC; Commander, Twelfth Air Force, Waco, Texas; and Deputy Director, Vice Director, and Director for Operations, The Joint Staff, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 1966 until his present assignment, August 1969.