Scrap separate services in the US military?

[wiggin]

The American Interest has an interesting series of articles in their latest issue about the future of each service of the US military (surprisingly, they had a decent section on the Coast Guard as well, which I thought was an important addition). As is doubtlessly obvious given the American Interest's editorial leadership, the pieces are fairly hawkish and call for significant investments into upgrading and maintaining America's armed forces. They make some controversial stands - restarting procurement of the F-22, NGB, and DDG-1000 projects (or at least fast-tracking next generation replacements), recapitalizing the Marine Corps' amphibious assault capability and redesigning the EFV (expensive idea, that), and expanding the size of the navy.

Much of the strategies argue for a two-level military - a smaller, cheap, but well-trained force that can deal with counterinsurgency (and be rapidly expanded as needs arise), coupled with a large conventional military capable of taking on any reasonable combination of big belligerent nations. Thus, their model calls for an expanded SpecOps force in the Army dedicated to counterinsurgency (and leading 'conventional' US troops in a switchover), while the main Army maintains conventional striking power in a flexible stance, and the Marines focus on maintaining amphibious assault capability (but can be seconded to other armed forces). The Air Force would bifurcate into a 'low intensity' and cheaper force of loitering bombers and drones with the other end of the spectrum populated with new and fancy fighters and bombers with a significant technological advantage over rivals. The Navy would include both 'stability operations' and shore-hugging Littoral Class Ships coupled with maintaining or increasing the number of large capital ships. You get the idea.

I think the pieces are more valuable for their insights into what might be wrong with each service then how to fix the problems, but they're all worth a read. What really struck me, though, was the total lack of an overarching strategy (in this series) for the armed forces as a whole - the Marine Corps, for example, was concerned merely with validating its existence as more than an arm of the Army, and the Air Force needed strategic direction in its role in today's battlefield. One segment from the Air Force article was particularly illuminating:

For the Air Force, a sustainable force posture would also mean changing the way joint forces use its resources in combat. Although current doctrine calls for each of the four services’ air forces to be controlled by a single joint Air Combat Commander, this seldom happens in practice since each service wishes to retain as much autonomy as possible. This lack of unity above the battlefield significantly weakens airpower’s contribution to the joint fight. A century of experience with air warfare has shown that airpower is most effective when control is centralized under a single commander. The air assets of the four services working together are vastly more capable than four U.S. air forces acting independently.

They go on to argue that USAF and USN cooperation has improved in recent years, but obviously this is a huge issue.

So, I'm curious - what do you all think about the value of having separate commands for each branch of the US military? On the one hand, it theoretically lets each service specialize in what they do best. On the other hand, it causes political infighting over the fight for resources (in the lack of an overarching military - and not civilian - commander to force a consensus) and can seriously hinder combined arms battle planning and training.

Case in point: currently, the way air power is split up in the US military is nothing short of astounding. Theoretically, the USAF controls the majority of aircraft in a given battlefield. Except: Naval battles are normally carried out by USN aviators flying off of carrier decks. Similarly, long-range strikes against a ground target might be carried out either by USN air wings or by USAF aircraft attacking from a ground base somewhere. Then again, if you're talking about the Marines they believe in having their own prepackaged expeditionary units, complete with some modest fixed-wing air power - though it might be flying off a USAF base or a USN carrier deck. Of course, the Army doesn't want to be left out - while they are prohibited from operating fixed wing aircraft (even for aircraft whose only role is to support ground operations, like the A-10 Warthog), but they have a huge rotary wing fleet that they often use in a ground-attack role for which it is unsuited (e.g. large formations of Apache helicopters attacking a modestly defended target when a single bomber or fighter squadron could have destroyed the target with little risk).

The point is, it's a mess. I read recently that the 1986 bombing of Libya was a huge logistical headache because USAF F-111s flying from bases in the UK were denied access to airspace in several European countries, necessitating detours and midair refuelings - and several aircraft which dropped out of formation due to malfunctions. The actual force which struck Libya was a hodgepodge of USAF and USN assets, and could probably have been carried out by the USN carrier strike group without any help from the USAF - and less headache for everyone.

This duplication of effort and competition between the services is rampant and can be traced to a bunch of other areas - overlapping logistics systems, administrative stuff (e.g. military police, internal legal wrangling a la JAG/NCIS/etc., procurement systems), IT systems, and combat units (e.g. the Air Force has their own special operations guys, even when there's no real reason for one separate from the Army). Throw in the inevitable inter-service fights for funding, and it's a huge mess.

So - all political realities aside - would it be worthwhile to reshape the military into a single command structure and eliminate some of the redundancy? I'm not advocating a move to the USMC's self-contained combined arms units, since that obviously hampers specialization and tailoring force structures to the specific task at hand. Yet a more unified military would probably yield some significant cost savings and better application of combined arms doctrine.

That being said, I'm skeptical that combining the various branches into one service would actually solve many of the problems listed above. Subordinates to the overarching chief of staff would still compete for resources, even after a reorganization, and it would still lead to chain of command headaches. Combined arms doctrine isn't just related to force structure, but also to training - if the Army guys know how to call in an accurate airstrike, do they really care if it's a USAF or USMC or USN asset that does it? Furthermore, it means that the overarching commander is going to have to be drawn from one type of combat (ground, naval, air) and will probably not have a good understanding of how to command other types - witness the mess when Israel put an air force guy as Chief of Staff, who then proceeded to neglect ground forces training and logistics for years while he focused on air wars. There's an advantage to having something like the Joint Chiefs of Staff - they can offer different perspectives on an equal footing to the Chair, the SecDef, and the President without deferring to a single Chief of Staff. Meanwhile, operational command lies with the individual combatant commands and are ordered by the President and SecDef. Nevertheless, I still think the cost savings from eliminating redundancies would probably make up for other inconveniences - and having a unified operational command would probably streamline a lot of interservice bickering.

What are your thoughts? Obviously this is a thought experiment given that this kind of reorganization is incredibly unlikely from a political perspective. I'm afraid my knowledge of military command structures is limited to the US and Israeli militaries - any other interesting models out there?

[LittleFuzzy]

Your second to last paragraph gets to my concerns. Because war-fighting capability as a whole encompasses drastically different roles and environments, any reduction to a combined arrangement will still include a great deal of specialization which will, over time, lead us right back here. Further, for all the historical inter-service conflict there's been, there hasn't been all that much redundancy between Army and Navy, for the US or for other countries. The problem is an independent air force.

[wiggin]

What about the Marines, though? They overlap with both the Army and Navy! Not to mention all of the land personnel for the Navy (e.g. guards, administration, procurement, logistics, etc.) that don't really need to be duplicated by other combatant commands.

I guess I just feel that if there were a single command structure, a lot of the overhead (e.g. personnel who aren't actually doing fighting) could be streamlined... and a lot of the combatants could be used more effectively.

What about this kind of setup: Say we split the combatants up into roughly three categories - air, land, and sea. These would have separate chains of command but be subordinated to one Chief of Staff to at least eliminate some of the bickering. Eliminate overlapping combatant commands - e.g. all aircraft, fixed wing or rotary (or unmanned) are run by the air command, but they 'contract out' air power to the other services as needed. Then, we combine administration/etc. into separate super-commands that interface with each of the three combatant commands to provide them with needed 'services' - sorta like the way private sector contracting works nowadays. A nice side effect would be interoperability of air/sea/land assets since they have to all interface with the common administrative element - common communications protocols, jargon, IT systems, legal codes, etc.

I envision the role of the Marines then morphing into something similar to the EU or NATO rapid deployment forces - self-contained expeditionary forces with the ability to project modest air/land/sea power quickly to any point on the globe (say getting a few tens of thousands of troops with mechanized, amphibious assault, and air assault brigades anywhere within a month). This would absorb most of the Marines' pre-existing organization and expertise and give them a broader purpose than just amphibious assault.

[LittleFuzzy]

What about the Marines, though? They overlap with both the Army and Navy! Not to mention all of the land personnel for the Navy (e.g. guards, administration, procurement, logistics, etc.) that don't really need to be duplicated by other combatant commands.

I guess I just feel that if there were a single command structure, a lot of the overhead (e.g. personnel who aren't actually doing fighting) could be streamlined... and a lot of the combatants could be used more effectively.

The bulk of those personnel are still going to be there though, just under a unified umbrella. They're still procuring different items, still using facilities, etc. And the logistics is already mostly unified.

Eliminate overlapping combatant commands - e.g. all aircraft, fixed wing or rotary (or unmanned) are run by the air command, but they 'contract out' air power to the other services as needed.

One reason why I singled out the independent air forces is because this doesn't work out all that well. The different branches maintain their own air wings because the "proper" branch has a tendency toward myopia to the disadvantage of combined-arms missions, and that myopia ispresent in most air arms which one can make a comparison with.

[wiggin]

Hmm. I guess it's also a little bit to combine different logistical trains from what is essentially the most fantastically complex organization on the planet.

Gates had a bit in his latest speech talking about 'brass creep' - how the ranks are getting top heavy and jobs are being unnecessarily filled by high ranking officers that lower ranks could easily handle. I guess I kinda feel like eliminating all of the multiple duplicated administrative/command structures would effectively axe some of the most expensive personnel, even if most of the people who do the 'real' work are still there.

I think while your characterization of the USAF is spot-on, you're being too generous to the Navy at the very least. They're pretty fixated on capital ships and conventional warfare, and think that supporting ground operations is definitely a secondary concern for them. More and more, the Navy is worried about anti-access weaponry and is moving the bulk of their forces farther and farther from where the actual fighting is happening. Meanwhile, the like of the Marines (and possibly some Army?) do actual close-in water patrols and coastal security.

*shrugs* I think we agree mostly, though.

[LittleFuzzy]

Hmm. I guess it's also a little bit to combine different logistical trains from what is essentially the most fantastically complex organization on the planet.

Again, the logistics IS mostly unified. The primary interface there is command region, not service.

Gates had a bit in his latest speech talking about 'brass creep' - how the ranks are getting top heavy and jobs are being unnecessarily filled by high ranking officers that lower ranks could easily handle. I guess I kinda feel like eliminating all of the multiple duplicated administrative/command structures would effectively axe some of the most expensive personnel, even if most of the people who do the 'real' work are still there.

I have noticed that problem growing over the last 20 years. It's not so much a problem of organization as how personnel and promotions were handled in the post-Cold War military build-down, the promote or discharge policy mandated by DoD.

[wiggin]

Again, the logistics IS mostly unified. The primary interface there is command region, not service

Okay, I'll be the first to admit I don't fully understand the complexities of how logistics work in the US military. Yet while Military Sealift command does much of the actual hauling, there are distinct administrative apparatuses to carry out logistics: Naval Supply Systems Command for the Navy (there's also two other Naval commands that have roles related to logistics), Air Force Materiel Command for the USAF, and the Army runs US Army Materiel Command.

These are distinct from Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Military Sealift Command and Air Mobility Command, which provide ground, sea, and air transportation under a unified combat command through TRANSCOM. For actually acquiring stuff (outside of what services get themselves from the above commands) they work through the Defense Logistics Agency. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain where DLA ends and TRANSCOM picks up, but I'm sure that's fairly unimportant.

I realize that some of the service-specific commands are dealing with service-specific issues, but they're huge organizations (the USAF one has something like 80k personnel) and I'm sure there's still some duplication with what's carried out by TRANSCOM and DLA - the current arrangement has only been around since the 90s, and they're still ironing out a lot of the details. They've been working on this since the end of WWII.

Certainly, on an anecdotal level there's plenty of evidence for poor logistical coordination between the services when you get to actual combat zones, let alone when trying to streamline a procurements process. The fact of the matter is that it's a incredibly complex system that still has a lot of room for improvement and consolidation.

[earthJoker]

I'm afraid my knowledge of military command structures is limited to the US and Israeli militaries - any other interesting models out there?

Well we have the two branches Heer=Army and Luftwaffe=Air-force and for obvious reasons no navy. Both together are called Armee (army/Armed forces) and are under one commander. In times of peace a 3 star General(Korpskommandant) in war a 4 star General (General) as Commander-in-Chief. For an overview you can check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swiss_Army.png

In the end the branches aren't really independent. But I can't really speak how effective the whole system is, the Swiss Army wasn't really used since 1848.

[agamemnus]

Having two hearts, five kidneys, and three livers is better than one of each... (unless you're human of course, but that is irrelevant...)

[RandBlade]

Air seems to be the biggest problem which is the same in the UK. Would never happen politically but some have called for the abolition of an independent RAF. I think some retraining or reordering wrt air assets is better than a wholescale ripping up of the existing structure.

[Steely Glint]

We proceed to deal in this report with ... the air organization generally and the direction of air operations. For the considerations which will appear in the course of this report, we consider the early settlement of this matter of vital importance to the successful prosecution of the war. The three most important questions which press for an early answer are:

• Shall there be instituted a real air ministry responsible for all air organization and operations?
• Shall there be constituted a unified air service embracing both the present RNAS and RFC? And if this second question is answered in the affirmative, the third question arises:
• How shall the relations of the new air service to the Navy and the Army be determined so that the functions at present discharged for them by the RNAS and RFC respectively shall continue to be efficiently performed by the new air service? ...

Under the present constitution and powers of the air board, the real directors of war policy are the Navy and Army, and to the air board is really allotted the minor role of fulfilling their requirements according to their ideas of war policy. Essentially the air service is as subordinated to military and naval direction and conceptions of policy as the artillery is, and, as long as that state of affairs lasts, it is useless for the air board to embark on a policy of its own, which it could neither originate nor execute under present conditions.

The time is, however, rapidly approaching, when that subordination of the air board and the air service could no longer be justified. Essentially the position of an air service is quite different from that of the artillery arm. ... It [artillery] is a weapon, an instrument ancillary to a service, but could not be an independent service itself. The air service on the contrary can be used as an independent means of air operations. Nobody that witnessed the attack on London on 11th July could have any doubt on that point.

Unlike artillery, an air fleet can conduct extensive operations far from, and independently of, both Army and Navy. As far as can at present be foreseen, there is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future independent war use. And the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centers on a vast scale may become the principal operations of war, to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate. ...

We must not only make unlimited use of mechanical genius and productive capacity of ourselves and our American allies. We must create the new directing organization—the new ministry and air staff which could properly handle this new instrument of offense, and equip it with the best brains at our disposal for the purpose. The task of planning the new air service organization and thinking out and preparing for schemes of aerial operations next summer must tax our experts to the utmost, and no time should be lost in setting the new ministry and staff going. Unless this is done, we shall not only lose the great advantages which the new form of warfare promises, but we shall end in chaos and confusion, as neither the Army nor Navy nor the air board in its present form could possibly cope with the vast developments involved in our new aircraft program.

Hitherto the creation of an air ministry and an air service has been looked upon as an idea to be kept in view but not realized during this war. Events have, however, moved so rapidly ... that the change will brook no further delay and will have to be carried through as soon as all the necessary arrangements for the purpose can be made.

There remains the question of the new air service and the absorption on the RNAS and RFC into it. Should the Navy and the Army retain their own special air service in addition to the air forces which will be controlled by the air ministry? This will make the confusion hopeless and render the solution of the air problem impossible. The maintenance of three air services is out of the question. ...

The proper and, indeed, only possible arrangement is to establish one unified air service, which will absorb both the existing services under arrangements which will fully safeguard the efficiency and secure the closest intimacy between the Army and the Navy and the portions of the air service allotted or seconded to them. ...

It is important for the winning of the war that we should not only secure air predominance, but secure it on a very large scale; and having secured it in this war we should make every effort and sacrifice to maintain it for the future. Air supremacy may in the long run become as important a factor in the defense of the empire as sea supremacy.

The organization of the armed services has been a huge pain in the ass for about a century now. The solution of the navy getting everything at sea, the army getting everything on land and the air force getting everything that flies seems to make intuitive sense, but the problem is naval aviation. Namely, people who join the RAF (or USAF) do so because they want to fly planes, not sail on ships. Thus, the fleet air arm is never a popular posting for air force pilots and carrier air wings are not given a priority when the air force controls all the aircraft. So, a navy, with an air arm, and an air force and army? Well, no because the air force tends to think it should control everything that flies and will actively try and stop the navy having an planes (see "one nation, one air force" for the most recent example).

The US was perhaps fortunate that it didn't establish the USAF until after naval aviation was well established in the USN and Marines - that any the general surplus of money the DoD enjoys stops the services trying to cannibalize each other too much, though this hasn't stopped the USAF trying to nix carrier programs in the past.

While, I wouldn't shed any tears of the RAF was merged with the army and navy tomorrow, just out of spite for their habit of attacking other services procurement programs, hobbling British naval strike power with false claims about being able to provide air cover to ships anywhere in the world which turned out to be bullshit in the Falklands, and also for their appalling treatment of Hugh Dowding, I don't actually think it's an optimal organizational solution, because it leaves specialization gaps as others have discussed, and ambiguous areas of responsibility leads to the deeply tedious inter-service rivalry we're seeing at the moment. Instead, my basic preference is to organize armed forces along areas of responsibility instead of specialization. So, basically:

1) The army gets anything responsible for close air support and local air transport.
2) The navy gets anything that flies or flights from a ship.
3) The air force is responsible for air defense, both of the home land and any foreign bases, plus long range strike and air based logistics.

[Lewkowski]

Eh... your messing with tradition. And that is important to a lot of people who were and still are in the military. It *might* be more effective but its gonna piss a lot of people off.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yeeeees, mighty tradition. "Let's not change the status quo for we might upset people! Oh noes!"

[LittleFuzzy]

Eh... your messing with tradition. And that is important to a lot of people who were and still are in the military. It *might* be more effective but its gonna piss a lot of people off.

Luckily, the US military, at least, is big on not letting "traditon" get in the way of superior organization.

[wiggin]

Luckily, the US military, at least, is big on not letting "traditon" get in the way of superior organization.

Actually, LF, that's not quite true. Certainly the US military has in the last 80 years or so shown itself to be remarkably flexible and resilient to change in technology and tactics - in fact, I would hazard a guess that it is one of the common features of any hegemon or near-hegemon in history. Yet it has at times failed to learn important lessons (e.g. lessons of counterinsurgency in Vietnam might have been very useful to incorporate into military thinking before they had to be resurrected for the COIN field manual in 2006). Furthermore, it has sometimes ignored emerging threats in favor of dealing with established, conventional ones - counter-IED initiatives took a long time to get moving in the last decade, and MRAP-type vehicle design needed a serious kick in the pants. For that matter, the aforementioned shitty organization and poor communication between the US Army and USAF has led to some ridiculously poor warfare choices (e.g. overuse of vulnerable attack helicopters in situations when jets are much more suited to a task).

That being said, on slightly longer time scales the US military tends to be very adaptable and is willing to completely change strategy and tactics if the need arises - note how network centric warfare was enthusiastically adopted early on, eventually leading to the family of FCS designs. Yet when it became apparent that the resulting vehicles would be too vulnerable, they took the best ideas and moved them towards real weapons systems and trashed the rest - even if it was an expensive and politically controversial decision.

I'd go even farther and argue that the creation of the USAF was - at the time - a very wise decision instead of keeping them as the USAAC. Given a dedicated budget and focus, the USAF pounced on one of the most important changes in warfare in centuries and was able to turn out top-notch technology and training in a time of rapid change (e.g. shifting to jets, supersonic flight, moving from cannons to missiles, electronic warfare, etc.). If they were relegated to a branch of the Army would their focus and developments have been as fast? Perhaps not.

[LittleFuzzy]

I didn't say it didn't have organizations probllems which it failed to address, I indicated "tradition" is pretty much never what stood in the way, at least during the last 100 years.

[Being]

...but its gonna piss a lot of people off.

What doesn't?

[wiggin]

Yeah, you're right on that one.