A military divided into separate branches is better for the Republic than a more consolidated model.

No need to apologize for debating me, that's what we're here for. Until very recently, I had thought that consolidating the branches of the military would have been a good idea, especially considering the inefficiency and sometimes petty inter-branch conflicts and jealousies that we hear about. Anecdotally, I've heard Marines complain of lack of willing air support in Iraq from the Air Force, certain branches having a reputation for being excessively rowdy while off-duty, and other petty rivalries that can escalate needlessly. Constitutionally Last week, however, I had an epiphany: Separation of powers. We usually only think of that in the context of the three official branches of government. However, within each of the branches, there are multiple people who swear to uphold the Constitution. Within the Judicial branch, every federal judge swears to uphold the Constitution. If a lower court fails to do so, an appeal can be made to a higher court and a new judge who has also sworn to do so, and hopefully, it doesn't take very many trials for a judge to finally follow his oath. The Legislature is split into two branches, one to benefit the more populous states, or as we have seen recently, the more rural areas, and the Senate, to benefit the less populous states. " This bicameral system serves to allow the states to check eachother's legislative powers to a degree. " Also, each legislator swears an oath to uphold the Constitution, and serves to check their fellow congressmens' power. Within the Executive branch, the President and Vice President swear to uphold the Constitution, and below them I am not aware of anyone who takes the oath, besides military officers. (1) This provides, in theory, another level of protection for the People in the form of a Corp of independent, educated officers who command armed men who will uphold the Constitution for them if others fail. " What I mean by independent is each officer takes the oath, and should independently uphold the Constitution. In each branch of government, there are redundancies wisely put in place to protect our rights. " But where do the branches of the military come into the debate, if individual officers already provide many levels of redundant protection, and should continue to do so in a unified military? Branch Culture Each branch has it's own culture made up of unique traditions, practices, language, history, and attitudes. " Some of these may be purely nostalgic, obscure, and symbolic, or very practical, and forged through necessity and brutal experience. Some traditions and attitudes military branches have adopted are very detrimental to order, morality, and national image. " ("We work hard, we play hard," acceptance of soldiers soliciting prostitutes, sexual harassment, hazing, etc. )" Sometimes, the atmosphere of reverence toward tradition among a group of men and women conditioned to conform can pressure them to accept very bad behavior because "that's what we do here. " While there are safeguards to stop that kind of thing, like senior officers and Inspector Generals, they are also conditioned to conform and to revere the culture, and being human, may overlook some very bad things. " However, if someone with the same level of authority from a different branch is approached about, or becomes aware of an illegal or otherwise immoral practice, they would be more susceptible to culture shock, and less to pride for their military branch, and more likely to take action to deal with the bad behavior. Slowing down changes There may be a practice that is not only time honored, but good and practical that the culture of one branch reveres, like keeping women out of combat. " If the Marine brass has a high resistance to women getting shot at, but the Army really wants it to happen, the Marines and Army can debate it as co-equal branches and hopefully come to a wise decision, or at least slow down it's implementation. " But with only a single officer corp and culture, a bad policy could be implemented too quickly throughout the entire military. With a single officer corp, the military could more swiftly implement other changes, like mandating a specific religion (or non-religion), or adoption of a piece of critical equipment military-wide that is ill-suited to many missions. " The Army may require a rifle with certain specifications, but soldiers' needs could be more easily overridden by a unified officer corp that is controlled by people who are enamored with a new, unrelated equipment acquisition that would unequally benefit those in the Navy. If the Joint Chiefs had not contained dedicated advocates for each branch in 1947 when the Air Force was born, many critical programs for other branches may have been totally ignored. " Inversely, if the Air Force had not been seperated from the Army, it may have been too tied down focusing on ground support to focus on space programs and other roles novel to the Army in 1947. Rebuttals My opponent is incorrect in saying that the military pay scale is different between the branches. While rank names may be different between branches, the pay grade is always E-1 to E-10, W-1 to W-5, or O-1 to O-10, with occasional authorizations for additional ranks during wartime, and Warrant Officer rank not authorized in all branches. (2,3) All military personnel are paid with the same currency. The military also already has centralized command structures under organizations like CENTCOM, and the Pentagon. 1. . http://www.law.cornell.edu... 2. . http://www.militarypaychart.us... 3. . https://en.wikipedia.org...