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U.S. Ground Forces


The Civilians

The U.S. military is composed of both the men and women in uniform, and those civilians who work in the field as well as in the Pentagon. The Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces is the President of the United States. The U.S. system of checks and balances gives the U.S. Congress power over the military via the "power of the purse".

The U.S. Military central organization is the U.S. Department of Defense.

There are three main departments within the Department of Defense, which is a cabinet level Departments within the U.S. Government, overseen by the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF). The three departments consist of the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force. There are four distinct armed services which fall under the control and authority of the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Army (USA), the U.S. Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Navy (USN), and the U.S. Marines.

Many times the armed services are thought to be only four in number, however, the U.S. Coast Guard (U.S.C.G.)., is an armed service despite its being part of the Department of Transportation instead of the Department of Defense.

Another fact sometimes ignored is that there are six uniformed services, as the U.S. Health Service is a uniformed service under the direction of the Department of Health. This is extremely important because the U.S. Health Service's men and women are under military discipline and must conform not only to the Military Code of Conduct, but also are responsible to the Commander and Chief, the President of the United States (POTUS).

Also important in any discussion of the U.S. Military, is the activities of the U.S. President's cabinet, specifically the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State. The State Department of the federal government is the diplomatic corps for the U.S.. At times the State Department and the Defense Department seem to be at odds with each other, at other times they seem to be in perfect accord. This is due to their different tasking. The Defense Department carries out U.S. Policy when force is necessary or needs to be threatened. The State Department, however, is tasked with mitigating and negotiation, if not preventing, the necessity of using force by successfully conducting diplomacy. The State Department, when found to be in accordance with the Defense Department, can be quite effective when taking advantage of the Defense Department's position and its orders from the President in terms of using violence as a means to move antagonists to the bargaining table. However, this is not always successful.

Major Services

Administratively, the fighting services (for our purposes we will assume the fighting services are the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines -- no slight is intended on the Coast Guard, Secret Service, FBI, CIA or any other organization) are organized in departments which fall under the control of "The Secretary" for each service, i.e. the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Navy, etc. They, in turn report to the Secretary of Defense. As the person at the top of the Department of Defense (DoD) structure, the Secretary of Defense is a key cabinet member to the President of the United States.

Each department provides the administrative and policy implementation for the Secretary. In this role, civilian and uniformed members interface between the uniformed officers leading the nation's military and the executive level of the government.

Note that the U.S. Marine Corps is a fourth fighting service whose direction comes from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who in turn reports to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy.

The Under-Secretaries

Under each Secretary of a particular service Department (i.e. Department of the Air Force), are a number of Under-Secretaries who deal with specific areas of that service's department. The Chiefs of Staff are all of four star general rank (Full Admiral for Navy), the highest rank in the U.S. military in peacetime.

So the chain of command for the U.S. Air Force (for instance) would be POTUS (the President of the United States), the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), the Secretary of the Air Force (SECAF), the Under Secretary of the Air Force (USECAF), and the combat commander of either a unified or specific command.

Note that under this arrangment, the Chiefs of staff are an advisory group to the U.S. President and do not lie in the chain of combat command of the military.

Joint Chiefs

The "military cabinet" acts as the President's military advisors, and is made up of one chief (typically a former high ranking unified or specific command commander) for each of the major services, i.e., the Chief of Naval Operations for the Navy, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the Chief of Staff of the Army. Together with the Commandant of the Marine Corps these individuals together form the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS ) and perform an advisory role reporting to the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Chiefs are appointed to four year terms by the President with approval of Congress.

Without Presidential or Secretary of Defense authorization, these officers cannot cause any action to take place, that is, they actually never control any troops. The actual function of the Joint Chiefs is to set policy for the services, recommend military policy to the President, and plan for future resource needs of the force commanders.

Reporting to each Chief of Staff are the Vice-Chiefs of Staff and their separate staff entities organized administratively into the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (OJCS).

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

A fairly recent addition to this DOD structure is the four star general known as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (CJCS). The Chairmen is recommended to the President by the Joint Chiefs, and then if the President and Congress approves, is appointed. The Chairman serves for a maximum (except in wartime) of two two-year terms and may be replaced at any time, as he serves at the pleasure of the President.

Implementation

Servicemen report through their chain of command to the Commander of either a Unified Command or a Specifed Command. These operational commanders do report to the organization of the Joint Chiefs on matters of training, policy, and organization. This allows the major commands of each department (Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines) to help the Chiefs of Staff advise the President as well as help formulate the policies of the Department of Defense. However, in terms of war fighting, the Chief of Staff may be consulted but is not active in the fighting chain of command. Rather the individual combat commanders report to the Secretary of Defense, through the Secretaries for their service branch.  (April 2002, the new Unified Command Plan was announced, the following infomation reflects thoses changes which went into effect on October 2002).

At present thre are 10 unified commands, consisting of

Of the 10 commands above, the first 6 are geographic (JPG, 2.7MB) commmands, and the last 4 are functional commands. The geographical commands are responsible for all aspects of military goals for their region. The geographical regions are:

For instance, TRANSCOM is responsible for heavy lift of forces via air, sea, and land and is headquarted at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

The commander of each of the10  commands are the Commanders (defined by the 1986 Goldwater Nichols Act as "Combatant Commander" and later (2002) clarified by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as simply Commanders.  Previously the title was "Commander in Chief" (CINC) of a specific command, however, Rumsfeld decided to ensure that no confusion would occur between the combatant command officers and the U.S. Commander in Chief, the President of the United States.  Thus CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific) became COCOMPAC (Combatant Commander Pacific Forces).  The combatant commander's authority comes from Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 164, and is not transferable.  Congress has oversight authority over all actions of the combatant commanders through their oversight of activities of Secretary of State.  Typically this oversight is conducted by specialized committees such as HASC -- House Armed Forces Committee.

The Defense Department also controls 14 agencies used for various purposes to support the military mission:

Note:  Midway through 2004, major changes in the intelligence community have been proposed in wake of a number of post 9/11 analysis activities.  One of those changes could be the movement of all DoD controlled intelligence agencies or some portion thereof under a new National Intelligence Director.

The Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency are subject to tasking from the Director of Central Intelligence who is the leader and responsible party for the U.S. Intelligence Community which includes all intelligence assets in the U.S.

We should also point out that the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is reported publicly to be a research and development organization, and was first established to research possible defense systems under the auspices of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Since much of the SDI systems have been shelved due to lack of applicable technology, the BMDO now focuses on current technology development such as the National Missile Defense systems currently under review for continuation as a means to provide limited strategic defense against incoming missiles launched from rogue nations or other low count missile attacks upon strategic targets. The technology may also be applicable to theatre missiles as well, depending on placement of the launch, intercept systems, and the target.

The individual services, either jointly or separately develop weapons systems for their use in their particular environments. Joint development is not only necessary but highly important in order to coordinate defense and attacks. For instance, an Air Force TR-1A (similar to the famous U-2) can download over-the-horizon or tactical battlefield targeting information to Naval bombardment or cruise missile launch capable ships which then can attack those targets.

Development of defensive and offensive systems are proposed, initiated, and carried through by the Department of Defense, however, many of the intelligence agencies also co-sponsor development. For instance, the CIA has, in the past, driven development of reconnaissance aircraft (for instance the U-2 and SR-71) and then later turned them over (typically when their existence has been uncovered) to the U.S. Air Force.

Development has gone through radical changes in the last two decades, with the current system being highly productive and timely using a system which takes off-the-shelf components and uses them directly or modifies them as necessary. The system is also intent upon demonstration of concept as well as rapid deployment. See the ACTD projects for further information.

U.S. Military Roles

The U.S. Military is used in an ever-increasing number of diverse roles, from the more classic force projection of the U.S. Navy to an increasingly heavier role in drug enforcement. It is clear, though, that the U.S. armed forces will always be sized and structured according to the perceived military threat . The following list summarizes a number of the different roles that are conducted by modern U.S. military forces:

Political Positions

Several positions in the uniformed services find the officer in uniform reporting in matrix fashion to one of the Under-Secretaries in DoD. For instance, the Under-Secretary of the Air Force simultaneously holds the title of Director of the National Reconnaissance Office ( NRO ), a key position in the nation's overhead recon mission, and where an Air Force Brigadier General is assigned as the NRO staff director. 1 Note, however, that the NRO has undergone numerous changes since Richelson's research. The addition of a defense organization specifically tasked with the overhead surveillance performed by aerial rather than space vehicles (the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Organization or something similar) would seem to have split up some of the NRO responsibilities (assuming they were involved in TR-1 and/or UAV operations in the past). Since we don't know much about either organization and their relationship to the CIA photo/image operations, we will just have to be satisfied with a loose understanding of how overhead recon plays out politically.

1 The U.S. Intelligence Community , Jeffrey T. Richelson, Ballinger Publishing Company, Copyright 1989, pgs. 26-29.

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