PIN : 084252–000 

The Army Command Post and 

Defense Reshaping

1987–1997

by

Mark D. Sherry

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sherry, Mark D., 1953–

 The Army command post and defense reshaping 1987–1997 / by Mark D. 

Sherry.

 p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 1. United States. Army—Reorganization—History—20th century. 2. United 

States. Army—History—20th century. I. Title. 

 UA25.S544 2008

 355.6’867097309049—dc22 2007052027

CMH Pub 40–4–1

First Printing
iii

Contents

Page

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

The Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Chapter

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 The Situation Before the Goldwater-Nichols Act . . . . . . . . 2

2. Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

 The Strategic Setting After the Goldwater-Nichols Act . . . 16

 Readiness and Force Modernization Issues . . . . . . . . . . . 20

 Catalysts for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

 Antaeus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

 Contingency Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3. The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

 Quicksilver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

 Vanguard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

 The Base Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4. Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

 The Defense Management Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

 The Gulf War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

 Development of a New Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

 Reconstituting the Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

 Base Realignment and Closure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

 HQDA Redesign, 1992 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

 The 1992 Roles and Missions Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

5. Change from Above . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

 The Bottom-Up Review, 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

 The Commission on Roles and Missions, 1994–1995 . . . . 91
iv

6. The Army Responds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

 New Contingencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

 The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

 Force XXI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

7. The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997 . . . . . . . . . . . 119

 Changing National Military Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

 Army Preparations for the Quadrennial Defense 

 Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

 Joint Staff Quadrennial Defense Review Plans . . . . . . . . . 130

 The Review Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

8. Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

 The National Defense Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

 The Task Force on Defense Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

 Goldwater-Nichols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

 Early Reshaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

 Toward a New Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

 Process and Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

 Toward a New Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Appendixes

A. Project Vanguard’s Major Command Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

B. The Road to the Quadrennial Defense Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Select Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Abbreviations and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Charts

No.

1. Organization of the Department of Defense, July 1984 . . . . . . f. 2

2.	The Marshall-Collins Plan for a Unified Department

of the Armed Forces, 19 October 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3. Organization of the Department of the Army, October 1985 . . f. 5

Chapter Page
v

4.Conceptual Organization of a Reestablished Continental

Army Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

5. Organization of the Department of the Army,

September 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f. 60

6. Organization of the Army Service Forces (ASF),

15 August 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f. 61

7. The Structure of Army Organization in the 1890s . . . . . . . . . . 62

8.	Office of the Secretary of Defense/Joint Chiefs of Staff

Organization for Quadrennial Defense Review,

December 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

9. Army Organization for Quadrennial Defense Review,

March 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f. 126

Table

Proposed Reductions in Force: A Comparison Between Studies . . 85

Illustrations

Army Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham, Jr., and Defense 

Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Army Secretary John O. Marsh, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

General Wickham Passes the Army Flag to Secretary Marsh

During Change-of-Stewardship Ceremonies . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Army Chief of Staff General Carl E. Vuono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Lt. Gen. John W. Foss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . 38

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin L. Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Army Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation Maj. Gen.

William H. Reno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Army Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

Maj. Gen. John R. Greenway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney Hosts an Armed Forces Full 

Honor Arrival Ceremony at the Pentagon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Army Senior Leaders Receive an Update Briefing Overlooking the

Crisis Action Team in the Army Operations Center . . . . . 66

Les Aspin Takes the Oath of Office as Secretary of Defense . . . . . 72

Army Secretary Michael P. W. Stone Swearing in General

Gordon R. Sullivan as Army Chief of Staff . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Under Secretary of the Army John W. Shannon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

General Dennis J. Reimer’s Swearing-in Ceremony as Army

Chief of Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

No. Page
vi

Lt. Gen. John Costello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

General John M. Shalikashvili Being Sworn in as Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Togo D. West, Jr., Being Sworn in as Secretary of the Army . . . . . 101

A Pentagon Press Briefing Being Held on Operation

Restore Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Army Vice Chief of Staff General John H. Tilelli, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen Hosts an Armed Forces Full 

Honor Arrival Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Assistant Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner . . . . . . . . . . 126

John J. Hamre Being Sworn in as Deputy Secretary of Defense . . 161

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: pp. 66 and 93, 

Department of the Army; and pp. 9, 38, 124, 161, Department of Defense. 

All other illustrations from the files of the U.S. Army Military History

Institute.

Page
vii

Foreword

The end of the Cold War initiated major changes in the global security environment that the United States could not ignore. These changes 

affected security requirements, forces, and missions that had guided 

the country since the end of World War II. Another “New Look” was 

needed, one that recognized the uncertainty inherent in the absence of a 

single rival power. Domestic pressures for a “peace dividend” provided 

additional impetus for a comprehensive restructuring of the nation’s 

defenses. Army leaders responded almost immediately, agreeing that a 

more flexible, more technology-capable ground force was needed, one

able to react to a much broader variety of threats and contingencies. But 

deciding how that goal could be best realized would prove illusive.

Dr. Mark Sherry’s The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 

1987–1997, examines this tumultuous period in depth. The author 

relates how the efforts of Army leaders to develop options for change 

were soon overtaken by actions of the Office of the Secretary of Defense

and Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding Army size, structure, and missions. 

Strengthened by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols reorganization act, the 

Joint Chiefs led the way, exerting an unprecedented degree of power in 

reshaping Defense Department policies and postures. Sherry first considers the Army’s studies and recommendations before tackling the higher 

level initiatives that followed, culminating in the Bottom-up Review and 

finally the first Quadrennial Defense Review. These Defense Department

studies quickly overshadowed all Army reshaping efforts and seized 

the initiative for defense transformation. One result was the reduction 

by 1997 of the Army’s active duty strength by over one-third with few 

substantive changes in its missions or structure. Another was the greatly 

reduced size and authority of the Army Staff and Secretariat, undermining their ability to define the size, shape, and nature of the ground forces

that they were expected to provide to the combatant commanders. 

Ten years later, these measures remain controversial. Whether 

the Army’s ground forces are large enough and properly structured to 

address the full range of strategic requirements is still a question mark. 

So, too, is the size and shape of its generating base—its schools, installations, and administrative commands—and the Pentagon-based “Army 

Command Post” that oversees the entire effort. This work is thus not 

intended to end what is likely to be a continuing debate over national 
viii

strategy and how best to implement it, especially from the viewpoint 

of land forces and the senior service. Instead, The Army Command Post 

and Defense Reshaping is meant to clarify that debate and better prepare 

those who are taking part in it and who in the end will determine the 

future of the Army, the soldiers, and their ability to accomplish the tasks 

they are assigned to fulfill.

Washington, D.C. JEFFREY J. CLARKE

20 February 2008 Chief of Military History
ix

Preface

 Like all successful organizations that survive over time, the U.S. 

Army has had to adapt at numerous points in its history to changing 

requirements. The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 

1987–1997, assesses the impact of the most recent period of transformation, which involved organizations, force levels, and commitments. It 

concludes that in many instances, often unwillingly, Army leaders surrendered control over their institution’s destiny to joint decisions made 

by higher echelons in the Defense Department. By the end of the period, 

however, they had begun to participate in a major way in such studies as 

the first Quadrennial Defense Review and were able to directly influence

the outcome of that undertaking.

The impetus for this work came from a 1993 chief of staff requirement 

for a short monograph that examined how Headquarters, Department of 

the Army, served as the Army command post for the Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers. That study became the genesis for this expanded effort 

looking at how Army endeavors over the decade were integrated into the 

larger transformation of the armed forces. By the end of the time span 

covered in the monograph, some might well argue whether the Army’s 

headquarters was still credibly considered its command post or whether 

those functions were now shared with the Office of the Secretary of

Defense, the Joint Staff, and several unified commands, especially the

Joint Forces Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command.

In many respects, the tide of organizational reform launched by the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act is still ongoing. Trends in management manifest 

during the decade following the act’s implementation appear headed 

toward increased “jointness” and “interdependence” of service components. Despite almost universal praise among defense intellectuals of 

the merits of increased unification of the Defense Department, discrete

recommendations for organizational consolidations or modifications,

as well as alterations to existing roles, missions, and functions, remain 

lightning rods for controversy. Hopefully, this study will help illuminate 

the way for those who will address the challenges of revamping the 

nation’s forces in the twenty-first century.

A publication of this nature requires considerable assistance to 

reach fruition. Over the years that this volume has been in preparation, 

I accumulated a considerable number of debts to those who made it 
x

possible. My former branch chief, Lt. Col. Steve E. Dietrich, assigned 

to me the first shorter study and provided unflagging encouragement,

critical appraisal, and support. His successor, Lt. Col. James J. Carafano, 

converted what might have been simply a tour as the U.S. Army Center 

of Military History’s representative to the Army’s Quadrennial Defense 

Review cell into a proposal to expand my earlier work into a fulllength monograph. Similarly, Brig. Gens. Harold W. Nelson and John 

W. Mountcastle approved the project at several points and supported it 

when times got rough. Brig. Gen. John S. Brown read an early version of 

the manuscript and rendered valuable oversight to ensure that it did not 

get completely submerged in the wake of an internal reorganization and 

competing priorities. Jeffrey J. Clarke, in his past role as chief historian, 

carefully reviewed several drafts and contributed a wealth of constructive suggestions accompanied by a continuous and patient dialogue.

Other acknowledgments have to go to the myriad readers who supplied advice and recommendations. Four readers, Col. (Ret.) James L. 

Adams, Col. (Ret.) Jack A. LeCuyer, Lt. Col. Timothy S. Muchmore, 

and Col. Mark J. Redlinger, first looked at the classified draft and offered

invaluable comments. The review panel, chaired by Jeffrey J. Clarke 

and consisting of Gerald Abbott, Brig. Gen. (Ret.) David A. Armstrong, 

James J. Carafano, John W. Elsberg, and Edgar F. Raines, Jr., also generated worthwhile recommendations. Other readers who made suggestions 

include Terrence J. Gough, Richard W. Stewart, and James L. Yarrison.

My appreciation must also extend to those who helped convert curiosity and rough concepts into a completed historical study. From the 

research end of the project, librarians and archivists at the Center, the 

U.S. Army Military History Institute, and the Pentagon library furnished 

a consistent high level of support. To single out individuals worthy of 

special mention is hard, although I would be remiss in not noting the 

years of assistance that Pamela Cheney, David Keogh, James Knight, 

and Richard J. Sommers have provided. At the opposite end of the 

production cycle, Marie France carefully edited the manuscript. Diane 

Sedore Arms carried the project through to publication, while Gene 

Snyder prepared the charts, the page layout, and the cover. Anne Venzon 

created the index.

But this study would never have gotten off the ground without the 

support and assistance of the scores of participants in the decisionmaking process who allowed access to their deliberations. Many of them 

are cited in the select bibliography, from presidential appointees and 

general officers to action officers who consented to being interviewed

“on the record.” Others, including defense intellectuals and contractors 

in addition to government officials, offered informal insights and key
xi

documents. Throughout my research and writing, these individuals selflessly took time out from hectic schedules to help fill gaps or clarify

complex and often hazy issues.

Finally, a debt is certainly owed to my colleagues. Over the years, I 

have never ceased to be impressed by the depth and breadth of knowledge demonstrated by the historians at the Center, the Military History 

Institute, and elsewhere in the Defense Department’s historical community. This professional competence has been matched by a willingness 

to cheerfully share individual expertise and provide encouragement. It 

has been a pleasure to work under the same roof with the largest body of 

U.S. Army historians in the world.

As always, the author alone retains full responsibility for all matters 

of interpretation as well as for any errors or omissions of fact.

Washington, D.C. MARK D. SHERRY

20 February 2008
xii

The Author

Mark D. Sherry received his Ph.D. in history from Georgetown 

University. He joined the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 

1986. He is the author of the World War II commemorative campaign 

brochure China Defensive. While at the Center, Sherry has specialized 

in institutional history and has served as the Center’s representative to 

several study groups seeking ways to reorganize the Army in the wake 

of sweeping changes following the end of the Cold War. He is currently 

working on studies of innovation in the U.S. Army and small-unit tactical operations in Iraq.
The Army Command Post and 

Defense Reshaping

1987–1997

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

The U.S. Army underwent a decade of significant transformation

between 1987 and 1997. The changes that occurred affected strategy, 

force requirements, structure, basing requirements, and a variety of lesser 

elements. The Army’s leadership directed and controlled some of these 

changes. Others, such as changes in national strategy, were dictated by 

the secretary of defense based on the changing national and international 

landscape. Still others were dictated by Congress, particularly regarding 

budgets, end strengths, and even organization.

This study focuses on the changes that the Army experienced 

from the last years of the Cold War through the 1997 Quadrennial 

Defense Review. The period started with the changes in process and 

organization mandated by the Department of Defense Reorganization 

Act of 1986, popularly known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act. As 

implemented, the act directly affected how the nation’s defense 

establishment would devise its military strategies, apportion its 

existing military forces, and develop future forces. The act sparked 

further changes that strengthened the authority of the secretary of 

defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant 

commanders over both operational and administrative issues. Most 

occurred at the expense of the service secretaries and the individual 

service chiefs and their staffs.

More than any other factor, the end of the Cold War in the late 

1980s provided the initial impetus for defense reshaping and drove the 

pace and depth of change. At the same time, the reduced threat posed 

by the Soviet Union led to the anticipation of a major “peace dividend” 

in Congress, which fueled precipitously declining defense budgets. The 

Defense Department responded primarily through reductions in forces 

and installations and also through deferred procurement of the next 

generation of military equipment. The broad reductions overlapped, 

however, with efforts to restructure the Army from a Cold War footing 

to a force better adapted to the diverse challenges of a new global 

security environment. Whether Army leaders could both restructure 

and reduce, even as they fulfilled a growing variety of unanticipated

overseas commitments, was a question.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

2

The Situation Before the Goldwater-Nichols Act

The strategic, institutional, and political dynamics that resulted in the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act had been building for nearly a century. All manner 

of military reformers had sought to restructure the nation’s armed forces 

to achieve a level of coherence commensurate with the requirements of 

a world power. Since World War II, many of the recommendations had 

centered on the greater unification of the armed forces. Political inertia

and the lack of clear strategic needs, however, hindered implementation 

of such concepts and plans for reform. Indeed, many feared that increased 

efficiency through unification might actually undermine military effectiveness. Nevertheless, the National Security Act of 1947 began an evolutionary processtoward unification, and the Defense Department undertook

several modest subsequent reorganizations in the decades thereafter. The 

political consensus that resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act represented 

a significant milestone in that effort.

By the mid-eighties the structure of the Department of Defense had 

been relatively stable for a decade and a half (Chart 1). At the top of the 

hierarchy were the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Although the 1947 act and subsequent reorganizations had moved toward the type of unified defense establishment

envisioned in the War Department’s proposed Marshall-Collins Plan to 

merge the War and Navy departments into an integrated Department of 

National Defense, the results made for a less than streamlined and cohesive department (Chart 2).1

 Immediately subordinate to the secretary, 

1

 Although detailed discussion of a century of defense unification plans is beyond 

the purview of this study, the Marshall-Collins Plan stands out as a beacon, toward which 

subsequent reform efforts have been ploddingly moving. The plan’s supporters intended 

that one, unified department would apply its institutional energies to future national 

security needs, rather than merely preserve existing service doctrines and forces. Such a 

department would integrate ground, naval, and air strategic doctrines and plans and emerge 

with one unifying strategy and vision. The department would also be strong enough to 

ensure that the services developed compatible doctrines, organizations, and cultures. With 

perhaps uncanny prescience, the Marshall-Collins Plan deliberately eschewed placing 

political appointees at the head of each service, as such placements would likely politicize the department and “perpetuate service partisanship and delay the achievement of 

eventual loyalty to the armed forces organization as a whole.” See Lawrence J. Legere, Jr., 

“Unification of the Armed Forces,” 1958, Center of Military History (CMH), Washington, 

D.C., p. 309. For background on post–World War II defense unification efforts, see also 

C. Kenneth Allard, Command, Control, and the Common Defense, rev. ed. (Washington, 

D.C.: National Defense University, 1996); James E. Hewes, Jr., From Root to McNamara: 

Army Organization and Administration, 1900–1963, Special Studies (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1975); Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1947–1950 (Washington, D.C.: 
Introduction

3

OSD served as the secretary’s “general staff,” having grown to 1,896 

personnel with 2 under secretaries, 11 assistant secretaries, and a general 

counsel by 1983. Forty-one agencies and individuals reported directly 

to the secretary of defense, including eighteen statutory “presidential 

appointees” in OSD. Not surprisingly, the system had proved somewhat 

unwieldy, often stretching the span of control that the defense secretary 

personally exercised beyond its limits. As for the expanded staff, which 

he relied on to help integrate service plans and programs, the political 

appointees at the top levels of OSD had a high rate of turnover—members 

served an average term of less than three years. Thus the department’s 

overall effectiveness was continually frustrated, critics claimed.2

Precluded by statute and policy from assuming all or part of the 

secretary’s “general staff” duties, the JCS focused on strategic planning. 

Having grown to more than fourteen hundred personnel by 1983, the Joint 

Staff continued to suffer from a lack of responsiveness to the chairman, as 

well as from a propensity to “logroll” issues—reducing them to the lowest 

common denominator acceptable to all of the Joint Chiefs.3

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1984); Robert J. Watson, History of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, vol. 4, Into the Missile Age, 1956–1960 (Washington, D.C.: Office 

of the Secretary of Defense, 1997); Edgar F. Raines, Jr., and David R. Campbell, The 

Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Evolution of Army Ideas on the Command, Control, 

and Coordination of the U.S. Armed Forces, 1942–1985, Historical Analysis Series 

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1986); Demetrios Caraley, 

The Politics of Military Unification: A Study of Conflict and the Policy Process (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1966); and Paolo E. Coletta, The United States Navy 

and Defense Unification, 1947–1953 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1981), for 

background on post–World War II defense unification efforts. 2

 See Col Andrew J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of a Conference with the President,” 

18 May 1956, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 

1955–1957, vol. 19, National Security Policy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of 

State, 1990), pp. 303–305, for Eisenhower’s recommendation to Secretary of Defense 

Charles E. Wilson to strengthen his de facto “general staff” to help him control the 

services. 3

 U.S. Congress, Senate, Armed Services Committee (SASC), Defense Organization: 

The Need for Change, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 16 October 1985, pp. 57–61, 87–98, 158–187. 

In contrast, staff officer strengths for the War Department General Staff that performed 

similar functions during World War II, on 1 April 1942, were G–1, 13; G–2, 16; G–3, 14; 

G–4, 12; and Operations Division, 107. The general staff did expand modestly during the 

war, and the number of special staff sections reporting to the chief of staff and secretary 

increased from three to eight by the end of 1944. Otherwise, the headquarters retained its 

basic organization and size throughout the war. See Ray S. Cline, Washington Command 

Post: The Operations Division, United States Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: 

Office of the Chief of Military History, 1951), pp. 107–119, 178–180, 195–202. Otto L. 

Nelson, Jr., National Security and the General Staff (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal 

Press, 1946), pp. 327–328, 389–392, 467–470; Frederick S. Haydon, “War Department 
Chart 2—THE MARSHALL-COLLINS PLAN FOR A UNIFIED DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES, 19 OCTOBER 1945

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

SECRETARY, ARMED FORCES

UNDER SECRETARY

CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE COMMANDER IN CHIEFCHIEF OF STAFF, ARMED FORCESCHIEF OF STAFF, AIRCHIEF OF STAFF, ARMYCHIEF OF STAFF, NAVY

CHIEF

OF STAFF

ARMED

FORCES

DIRECTOR OF

COMMON

SUPPLY &

HOSPITALIZATION

RECOMMENDATIONS ONLY

Source: U.S. Congress, Senate, Department of Armed Forces/Department of Military Security, Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs,

17 October–17 December 1945, 79th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington D.C.: 1945), p. 156.

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PUBLIC INFORMATION

ASSISTANT SECRETARIES

MILITARY POLICYSTRATEGYBUDGET REQUIREMENTS

U.S. ARMY

CHIEF OF STAFF

THEATER &

AREA

COMMANDERS

GROUND FORCESARMY SERVICE FORCES

U.S. NAVY

CHIEF OF STAFF

U.S. FLEET INCLUDINGFLEET AIR ARM,MARINE CORPS,NAVY SERVICE FORCES

U.S. AIR FORCES

CHIEF OF STAFF

LAND-BASED AIR FORCESAIR SERVICE FORCES
Introduction

5

Directly beneath that level, the Department of the Army remained 

administratively independent but bound to both OSD and the JCS by 

department management processes (Chart 3). Participation in major OSD 

programming and budgeting functions directly affected Headquarters, 

Department of the Army (HQDA), organization and internal functions. 

HQDA included the Army Secretariat and the Army Staff, both located 

in the Pentagon. Within HQDA, the Army Secretariat comprised 368 

members in 1985, including a service secretary, an under secretary, five

assistant secretaries, and a general counsel. Directly below the service 

secretariat, the Army Staff had 3,211 members, organized into functional 

sections and each headed by a general officer. There were also more than

fifty thousand personnel in approximately 122 field operating agencies

(FOAs) and staff support agencies (SSAs), smaller specialized organizations that either supported or were directly supervised by HQDA.4

 In 

principle, the Army Secretariat was responsible for making policy for 

the Army, the Army Staff took care of planning, and the Army’s major 

commands (MACOMs) managed execution.5

When Goldwater-Nichols was passed, most Army military and 

civilian personnel served in the Army’s sixteen MACOMs. Their number 

and type had evolved over nearly four decades in reaction to changing 

national strategy and other requirements. Although each was unique in 

terms of size, missions, and structure, there were essentially two main 

kinds of MACOMs: functional commands and service commands. The 

functional MACOMs, such as the Training and Doctrine Command 

(TRADOC), focused on running the Army’s training installations and 

schools, managing its research and development agencies, and training its 

forces for deployment for wartime missions. The Army’s service component commands, such as U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR), provided 

administrative oversight and support to Army units that were assigned to 

a geographic or regional combatant commander (formerly referred to as 

commander in chief [CINC] of a unified or specified command).

The relationships among OSD, HQDA, and the other service headquarters were complex. The most powerful day-to-day management 

tool that the secretary of defense used to exercise his authority over the 

services was the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS), 

Reorganization,” August 1941–March 1942, Military Affairs 16 (Spring 1952): 12–29 

and (Autumn 1952): 97–114. 4

 In contrast, the World War II Army Ground Forces headquarters comprised some 

250 officers and 750 enlisted personnel. See Kent Roberts Greenfield, The Organization 

of Ground Combat Troops, United States Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: 

Historical Division, United States Army, 1947), pp. 219, 359–360. 5

 Ibid., pp. 391–414.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

6

often described as the department’s “overarching management tool.” 

Responding in part to criticisms that, during the decade following the 

Korean War, the United States “wasted fully 25 percent of what it spent 

on national security,” Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara had 

seized on PPBS in the early 1960s to wrest control over the department. In 

doing so, he relied more on the reform of management processes than on 

structural reorganization.6

 Responding to service critics and their allies in 

Congress, however, the Defense Department changed its PPBS processes 

in the late 1960s to incorporate a stronger service role in the programming 

arena. Under the new “participatory” approach, OSD provided financial programming guidance, and the services each submitted a Program 

Objective Memorandum (POM)—a draft budget proposal—biennially for 

review by OSD and integration into the Future Years Defense Program 

(FYDP).

Enhanced service participation in FYDP development further elongated the PPBS processes and expanded manpower requirements of both 

OSD and the services, which rapidly increased their staffs to eclipse the 

OSD manpower devoted to PPBS. Critics argued that enhanced service 

participation in fact unintentionally shifted the balance of power in 

FYDP development back to the services, jeopardizing the secretary’s 

ability to develop a balanced and integrated program.7

6

 One key component of PPBS, the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), is 

the Secretary of Defense’s mechanism for integrating and analyzing programs across 

the defense establishment. Prepared biennially, the FYDP projects programs for materiel, forces, personnel, and all other major department expenditures over a six-year 

period. Prepared initially by OSD, the FYDP permitted the secretary to develop his 

own integrated programs and budgets, rather than respond to service demands on an 

annual basis, as well as provided stability for multiyear programs and opportunities 

for detailed comparison of forces and requirements across the services. Critics argued, 

among other things, that OSD’s rigorous “cost-benefit analysis,” intended to balance 

strategy, forces, and costs, favored programs that emphasized perceived efficiencies but 

reflected little credible analysis of military effectiveness. Another criticism was that, 

in many ways, PPBS exacerbated interservice competition as the services sought to 

advocate and defend competing programs within the arena of OSD’s elaborate management and review processes. See Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and 

Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. 17–24; Alain C. Enthoven and 

K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–1969

(New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 35–53; Peter T. Tarpgaard, “McNamara and the 

Rise of Analysis in Defense Planning: A Retrospective,” Naval War College Review 48 

(Autumn 1995): 67–73. 7

 Carl W. Borklund, Men of the Pentagon: From Forrestal to McNamara (New 

York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), pp. 10–11; Interv, Alfred Goldberg and Ronald Landa 

with Dr. Harold Brown, 4 Mar 1994, OSD Historical Office, Washington, D.C.; Caroline 

F. Ziemke, “Rethinking the ‘Mistakes’ of the Past: History’s Message to the Clinton 

Defense Department,” Washington Quarterly 16 (Spring 1993): 49–50.
Introduction

7

Army leaders had seized this opportunity to participate more effectively 

in PPBS, expanding and reorganizing HQDA to better focus on management and resource issues.8

 By the mid-1980s, the Army had completely 

integrated its core force management processes with PPBS. In their annual 

budget requests, the MACOMs submitted their needs to HQDA for such 

requirements as military construction and training. The Army service 

component commands and the Army’s Forces Command (FORSCOM) 

also submitted requirements for military forces and equipment to support 

contingency plans of the regional combatant commands. When it came to 

designing operational forces and developing requirements for future materiel, TRADOC conducted most of the detailed planning, which it submitted 

to HQDA for review and incorporation into the Army’s POM submission. 

Once OSD received the POM, it subjected all Army programs to review. 

Although it could recommend modification or even outright cancellation

of a program, OSD rarely modified the Army’s POM significantly before

incorporating the Army’s input into the department’s FYDP. In fact, the 

sheer size of these submissions ensured that OSD officials could not challenge them in detail within the time that the process allowed.

Although the Army leadership was relatively satisfied with defense

organization during the Reagan administration’s defense buildup, 

powerful forces in Congress compelled change. In the early 1980s, 

critics had begun pointing to structural problems affecting the Defense 

Department and the Army. For example, the failure of the April 1980 

mission to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran focused attention on flaws in the

operational command of the armed forces and the lack of interoperability 

among service components. In 1982, Air Force General David C. Jones, 

chairman of the JCS, called for reform of joint command and control. 

8

 In 1967, the Army established an assistant vice chief of staff to coordinate and 

integrate the Army’s input to OSD on PPBS issues, especially the development of the 

Army’s POM. After 1974, the Army’s director, program analysis and evaluation, had 

assumed most of these responsibilities. By then, almost all of the Army Staff had become 

involved either directly or indirectly in PPBS, and several Army special staff officers, 

such as the chief of engineers, subsequently emerged from subordination to a deputy 

chief of staff and thus became “principal members” of the Army Staff. Consequently, 

rather than streamlining the Defense Department and reducing overlaps between services, 

McNamara’s management reforms expanded the focus and scale of both OSD and service 

headquarters. See Edward C. Meyer, R. Manning Ancell, and Jane Mahaffey, Who Will 

Lead?: Senior Leadership in the United States Army (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995), 

pp. 115–117; Romie L. Brownlee and William J. Mullen III, eds., Changing an Army: 

An Oral History of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. 

Army Military History Institute and U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988), pp. 

119–120, 171–174; and Interv, Mark Sherry with Lt Gen Richard D. Lawrence, U.S. 

Army, Ret., 3 Sep 1996, Alexandria, Va., Oral History Activity, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

8

Army Chief of Staff General Edward C. Meyer elaborated, arguing that 

the services still retained too much authority both in the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff and elsewhere within the Defense Department. Noting that 

the Joint Chiefs had proven themselves more zealous advocates for 

their parochial service interests than joint interests, he recommended 

replacing them with an advisory council of general officers who would

be ineligible to return to their services. Meyer argued that OSD, as it had 

during the McNamara era, and the Joint Staff should dominate major 

decisions on forces and military requirements.9

Appalled by reports of continued interoperability problems in the 

1983 U.S. operation in Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury, both Senate 

and House Armed Services committees held hearings that highlighted 

the dire need for a Defense Department overhaul. The hearings highlighted ample evidence that the Defense Department was still only 

“quasi-unified.” Service component commanders in the field were

usually more responsive to their services than to their regional combatant 

commanders. Similarly, combatant commanders found that critical differences in doctrine, equipment, communications, and logistical systems 

still limited interoperability among units from different services. They 

had yet to develop an adequate degree of synergistic interdependence 

among service components. Issues that arose among service elements in 

the field still required resolution in the Pentagon. Finally, a 1985 Senate

Armed Services Committee staff study concluded ruefully that structural 

weaknesses in both OSD and the JCS allowed the services to continue to 

dominate the Defense Department by default.10

Despite the rising tide of criticism, Secretary of Defense Caspar 

W. Weinberger resisted reorganization as potentially detrimental to his 

arms buildup. Army Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham, Jr., also 

feared that any significant defense reorganization that strengthened joint

authority risked diluting the chief of staff’s authority over Army programs 

and the Army’s role in strategic planning. He argued in particular against 

any reorganization that would diminish to any significant degree theArmy

chief of staff’s role in the joint arena and within the Army. Wickham also 

9

 Meyer, Ancell, and Mahaffey, Who Will Lead?, pp. 150–153, 177–180; Raines 

and Campbell, Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pp. 154–165. 10 Vincent Davis, “The Evolution of Central U.S. Defense Management,” in 

Reorganizing America’s Defense: Leadership in War and Peace, ed. Robert J. Art, 

Vincent Davis, and Samuel P. Huntington (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 

1985), pp. 158–163. See James F. Locher III, Victory on the Potomac: The GoldwaterNichols Act Unifies the Pentagon (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 

for a definitive account of the congressional efforts that culminated in the GoldwaterNichols Act.
Introduction

9

feared proposals that would enhance the JCS chairman’s authority at the 

expense of the service chiefs of staff. He argued that such proposals not 

only would eliminate the authority of the service chiefs over the Joint 

Staff, but also threatened to distance them from decision making during 

a crisis. Instead of being “actively involved” during contingencies that 

employed troops from their services, service chiefs might find themselves

“informed” of the secretary’s decisions by the JCS chairman. The more 

limited staffs of the JCS and those of the even less experienced and always 

somewhat politicized OSD would thus replace all of the expertise and 

experience contained in the highly capable service staffs. Their very opposition to change, however, foreclosed any opportunity that Weinberger 

and Wickham might have had to influence the legislation, and Congress

enacted its own reorganization on 1 October 1986.11

11 Barry M. Goldwater, Goldwater (New York: Doubleday, 1988), pp. 341–357; 

Major Greg H. Parlier, U.S. Army, “The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986: Resurgence 

Army Chief of Staff General Wickham

and Defense Secretary Weinberger
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

10

The Goldwater-Nichols Act prescribed specific corrections for problems in materiel acquisition, command and control of operational forces, 

joint strategic planning, and the secretary of defense’s limited control 

of the services.12 Congress outlined discrete goals for the act, including 

strengthening civilian authority, improving military advice, clarifying 

responsibilities of combatant commanders for accomplishing their 

assigned missions, ensuring that combatant commanders had authority 

commensurate with their responsibilities, improving strategy formulation and contingency planning, improving efficiencies in the use of

resources, and enhancing joint management of officers. The legislation

incorporated some recommendations of the 1986 President’s Blue Ribbon 

Commission on Defense Management, the “Packard Commission,” for 

changes in national security planning and budgeting procedures, the 

military chain of command, and defense acquisition procedures. Yet the 

law eclipsed the Packard Commission’s recommendations in both scope 

and application. The act strengthened joint planning and operations by 

streamlining command relationships among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 

services, and the unified commands.13 Toward this end the act created 

the position of vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, subordinated 

the Joint Staff to the chairman rather than to the Joint Chiefs, authorized 

expansion of the Joint Staff from about 1,400 to 1,627 members, and led 

to the staff’s reorganization from five to eight directorates.14 GoldwaterNichols also revised materiel acquisition authority within the Defense 

Department. Other changes affected the service departments. The act’s 

Title V directed a reorganization of the military department headquarters, reducing HQDA from 3,653 personnel to a maximum of 3,105. 

The same section directed the reorganization of the respective service 

headquarters, mandating the transfer of several functions, including 

research, development, and acquisition, from the service staffs to the 

service secretariats. Finally, in Title IV the act moved to improve joint 

of Defense Reform and the Legacy of Eisenhower” (Student thesis, U.S. Marine Corps 

Command and Staff College, 1989), pp. 73–85; Headquarters, Department of the Army, 

Report to Congress: Army Implementation of Title V, DoD Reorganization Act of 1986

(Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, Apr 1987). 12 The Department of the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-143).

13 Interv, Mark Sherry with Honorable James R. Locher III, 6 Oct 1997, Pentagon, 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH; President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense 

Management, “A Quest for Excellence: Final Report to the President,” Jun 1986; Mark 

Perry, Four Stars (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1989), pp. 329–339; Locher, Victory 

on the Potomac, pp. 437–438. 14 See Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Organizational 

Development of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1942–1989 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, November 1989), pp. 63–68, for details concerning the Joint Staff reorganization.
Introduction

11

officer management by ensuring

the development of “joint specialty 

officers” and setting statutory

requirements for the promotion of 

“joint-qualified” officers.

Although Congress and OSD 

delegated to the Army the final

design of its headquarters, Title 

V’s specific language restricted

options for the Army’s implementation. Furthermore, Army Secretary 

John O. Marsh, Jr., directed that the 

Army’s restructuring efforts comply 

with the spirit as well as the letter 

of the law.15 Lacking real recourse, 

Wickham dutifully implemented 

the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization and then objected to Congress 

concerning its impact on HQDA 

just before retiring in June 1987. He 

argued that those provisions which directed the consolidation of responsibilities for acquisition, research and development, auditing, comptroller, 

information management, inspector general, legislative affairs, and public 

affairs functions in the Army Secretariat compromised the chief of staff’s 

effectiveness. Although the chief represented the Army in the joint arena, 

he no longer controlled major HQDA staffs and agencies involved directly 

with sustainment and procurement issues critical to joint warfighting. The

transfer of these functions to the Army Secretariat created an unwieldy, 

top-heavy bureaucratic structure. Moreover, these functions were now 

directly under individuals lacking responsibility for operational planning 

and execution and the development of joint military doctrine. Unlike in 

the past, the Army chief of staff could not commit the Army during JCS 

meetings to courses of action in areas of responsibility now delegated 

to the service secretariat. This bureaucratic restructuring meant that the 

15 Interv, Mark Sherry with Maj Gen Theodore G. Stroup, Jr., 14 Dec 1992, Pentagon, 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Memo, Maj C. Kenneth Allard, DACS-ZBAS, 8 Jan 

1987, sub: An Inside Perspective on the DoD Reorganization Act of 1986; Discussion, 

Mark Sherry with Col C. Kenneth Allard, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 

5 Jul 1994; Goldwater, Goldwater, pp. 337–338. See Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr., Unification 

of the United States Armed Forces: Implementing the 1986 Department of Defense 

Reorganization Act (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1986), for an assessment of Goldwater-Nichols’ impact on Defense Department management processes.

Army Secretary Marsh
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

12

chief of staff and the secretary of 

the Army had to coordinate what 

previously had been purely military 

decisions.16

In that respect, the impact of 

Goldwater-Nichols arguably was 

to create a less focused Army 

headquarters. The reorganization 

actually complicated command 

and control within both the Army 

and the Defense Department. 

Whether transferring oversight of 

Army sustainment and acquisition prerogatives from the chief 

of staff to political appointees in 

the Army Secretariat enhanced 

civilian control was questionable.17

As General Wickham argued, 

the reorganization threatened to 

hamper Army participation in 

the joint arena. Besides requiring 

sometimes time-consuming negotiations to coordinate even minor issues within HQDA, the reorganization further diminished the Joint Chiefs’ influence over major planning

and programming issues. Key provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Act 

were intended to strengthen joint influence over service programs. With

the new reorganization, however, service chiefs of staff could not make 

commitments within the joint arena on program and weapons acquisition issues over which they lacked authority.18

16 HQDA, Report to the Congress, pp. 31–36. 17 Brown’s Thinking About National Security, pp. 207–214, offers a persuasive 

case for a comprehensive reorganization to improve unified command and control of the 

Defense Department. For a contrary view, see Archie D. Barrett, Reappraising Defense 

Organization: An Analysis Based on the Defense Organization Study of 1977–1980

(Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1983). 18 During the decade and a half following passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, 

the JCS chairmen have acted to address problems concerning joint oversight of acquisition and other program issues. For example, see Admiral William A. Owens, “JROC: 

Harnessing the Revolution in Military Affairs,” Joint Force Quarterly 5 (Summer 

1994): 55–57; U.S. Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, Directions 

for Defense: Report of the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces

(Washington, D.C.: Commission on Roles and Missions, 1995), pp. 4-23 through 4-25.

General Wickham passes the 

Army flag to Secretary Marsh 

during change-of-stewardship 

ceremonies.
Introduction

13

While the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization made significant structural changes to both HQDA and the Defense Department, it left intact 

the Army chief of staff’s role as the service’s senior uniformed leader. 

The chief continued serving as the soldier’s proponent within the Defense 

Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff for programs and issues relevant 

to the present and future Army, including strategic sealift and air transport. His continuing challenge was to ensure that Army capabilities and 

programs supported joint plans while dovetailing with the capabilities and 

programs of the other services.19

Although resisted by the secretary of defense as well as the Army, 

the Goldwater-Nichols Act that Congress passed encouraged those who 

supported further defense integration. The act significantly altered the

organizational and functional relationships among HQDA and the Office

of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the unified commands.

The legislation limited HQDA’s participation in operational matters and 

mandated changes to its structure. As previously indicated, the most 

significant internal changes to take place withinArmy headquarters were

the transfer of responsibilities for oversight of information management, 

the Army budget, and research, development, and acquisition, as well as 

the inspector general, from the Army Staff to the Army Secretariat. The 

act also reduced HQDA manpower by 15 percent. Of equal consequence, 

Goldwater-Nichols strengthened the chairman’s authority over the Joint 

Staff and its influence on Defense Department management processes.

Finally, the legislation buttressed the secretary of defense’s authority 

over all functions throughout the department. Meanwhile, the Army 

focused on modernization, training, and readiness, in preparation for at 

least what the immediate future would bring. The end of the Cold War, 

however, would soon force a major reevaluation of all its endeavors.

19 Interv, Mark Sherry with Gen John W. Foss, U.S. Army, Ret., 1 Mar 1994, 

Williamsburg, Va., Oral History Activity, CMH.

15

Chapter 2

Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

The Goldwater-Nichols Act arrived during the final months of the

Cold War. The legislation sparked restructuring of OSD, the Joint Staff, 

and HQDA. It also directly affected the interrelationships among the 

three headquarters. Finally, the act set in motion a revision of Defense 

Department management processes that would also affect all three. The 

interaction between organizations and processes would determine how 

the Defense Department would adapt to the post–Cold War era.

Supporters of the Goldwater-Nichols Act saw the legislation as more 

a step along an evolutionary path toward a more unified department, than

a comprehensive solution to then-current problems. To meet the expectations of its authors, the act would have to overcome decades of bureaucratic inertia and transform the balance of power among OSD, the Joint 

Staff, and the service headquarters. Specifically, the Defense Department

would have to refocus its management processes for strategic and program 

planning. It would have to succeed in this endeavor even as it fended off 

interests that intended to deflect or even derail reform. Fortunately for

the reformers, the timing for such a transformation was propitious. The 

services were reaping the benefits of more than half a decade of sustained

arms buildup that addressed many of their shortfalls in forces and equipment. Proponents envisioned that the test of the Goldwater-Nichols 

reforms would be how well they enabled the secretary of defense to blend 

the benefits of that buildup into more integrated and effective armed

forces. The end of the Cold War, however, would provide the Defense 

Department and the Army with a far more comprehensive challenge than 

only the improvement of joint aspects of existing forces and programs.

Although the Army’s leaders had championed improvements to joint 

operations since World War II, they had opposed major provisions of 

Goldwater-Nichols, and they remained wary of the legislation’s impact 

on the land service. In June 1987, Wickham’s successor, General Carl E. 

Vuono, inherited an HQDA that had realigned functionally as mandated by 

Goldwater-Nichols. Major responsibilities had transferred from the chief 

of staff’s oversight to that of the service secretary’s for such functions as 

research and development, acquisition, budget, and information management, among others. Vuono attempted to integrate the residual activities of 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

16

the Army Staff through the vice chief 

of staff, who was to run the staff on a 

day-to-day basis. He also confirmed

the vice chief of staff’s responsibility 

for coordinating programs and other 

resource management functions 

across the Army Staff. The director 

of the Army Staff (DAS) would in 

turn be responsible for coordination between the Army Staff and the 

Army Secretariat. The vice chief of 

staff and under secretary of the Army 

would decide issues impossible to 

resolve at the DAS’ level, especially 

program and budget issues.

Vuono would also serve as the 

Army’s proponent among the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff. In addition, he 

would support the secretary of the 

Army in dealings with OSD and the 

secretary of defense. In these roles, 

one of his major objectives was to ensure that the unfolding GoldwaterNichols reforms of Defense Department management processes did 

not undermine the Army’s capabilities. Soon, however, Vuono and his 

successors had to react to great changes in the national security environment as well.

The Strategic Setting After the Goldwater-Nichols Act

One of the major objectives behind the Goldwater-Nichols’ reorganization was to strengthen the strategic planning roles of the chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, and the combatant commanders (then 

called commanders in chief, or CINCs). At the same time that Congress 

debated the Goldwater-Nichols Act, it placed new emphasis on special 

operations and low-intensity conflict. In October 1986, the FY 1987

National Defense Authorization Act directed that the Defense Department 

establish the position of assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict (ASD [SO/LIC]) and establish the U.S.

Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as a unified command. One

other provision of the legislation had a profound effect on the Army and 

the other services: the provision for a new Major Force Program 11 (MFP 

11) that gave SOCOM its own POM and budget. The impact on the Army 

Army Chief of Staff

General Vuono 
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

17

was immediate, as responsibility shifted from HQDA to SOCOM for 

resource planning for Army special operations forces soon after the new 

command’s activation on 1 June 1987. The Army also found itself sharing 

responsibility with SOCOM for doctrine and force developments for lowintensity conflict and operations other than war.1

Beyond mandating changes in the strategic planning process, both 

the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the legislation that established SOCOM 

left existing national military strategy and contingency plans unaffected. 

These contingency plans, in turn, reflected a strategic posture honed by

the four decades of the Cold War. Their primary objective was national 

survival through strategic deterrence of the Soviet Union. Although the 

Air Force and the Navy provided most of the nation’s capabilities for 

strategic deterrence, the Army, with ongoing research and development 

in the U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command, retained an interest in 

related missile defense. Moreover, the Strategic Defense Initiative had 

recently rejuvenated the Army’s role in the development of groundbased antimissile systems.2

The Army’s basic purpose remained to meet the nation’s requirements for conventional land forces. The North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) commitment to defend against a conventional 

ground attack by Warsaw Pact forces in Europe was the second U.S. 

strategic priority, following strategic deterrence. U.S. Army forces had 

served this commitment in Europe since 1950. Later alliances and agreements promised corps-sized Army forces to support contingency plans 

both in northeast Asia and in the Persian Gulf region. In addition, one 

division was forward-deployed in Korea to serve as a tangible bulwark 

to the United Nations (UN) command located there. Two U.S. Central 

Command (CENTCOM) contingency plans mandated the deployment 

of Army troops to the Middle East, including one for military operations 

in Iran in response to a Soviet invasion.3

1

 U.S. Special Operations Command Historical Office, United States Special 

Operations Command History: Fifteenth Anniversary (MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., 

2002), pp. 3–10. 2

 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Guidance: FY 1988–1992 (DG 1988–

1992) (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 31 Dec 1985), pp. 20–

21; U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Military Posture: FY 1986 (Washington, 

D.C.: Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1986), pp. 8–9; Richard Halloran, To 

Arm a Nation: Rebuilding America’s Endangered Defenses (New York: Macmillan 

Publishing Co., 1986), pp. 307–314; Daniel Wirls, Buildup: The Politics of Defense 

in the Reagan Era (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 136–138, 

154–163. 3 DG 1988–1992, pp. 6–10, 23–26; NSC 68, “United States Objectives and Programs 

for National Security,” 14 Apr 1950, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

18

Prior to the end of the Cold War, the Army’s force requirements 

were daunting. For example, intelligence estimates credited the Soviet 

Army with more than two hundred divisions, eighty of which were 

manned at more than 50 percent strength and ready for operations with 

minimal mobilization and training.4

 To address this kind of threat, the 

JCS developed a “Minimum-Risk Force” intended for a “high assurance 

of success” general war. In 1987, this force required 66 Army divisions: 

40 for assignment to the European Command (EUCOM), 10 for the 

Central Command, 12 for the Pacific Command (PACOM), 2 for the

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and 2 for defense of the continental 

United States (CONUS). Lacking the resources required to provide U.S. 

troops to all contingencies simultaneously, the Joint Staff reduced force 

levels to those of a “Planning Force,” which could meet U.S. strategic 

objectives with “reasonable risk.” Planning Force requirements were 

36 Army divisions in 1987: 26 EUCOM, 6 CENTCOM, 2 PACOM, 0 

SOUTHCOM, and 2 CONUS. The Army’s actual “Current Force” for 

that year was somewhat smaller: 18 active divisions (5 of which had 

reserve component “round-out” brigades) and 10 Army National Guard 

divisions. This “Current Force” obviously accepted increased risk, 

especially in lower priority theaters. Based on risk analysis and political 

priorities, it apportioned the twenty-eight existing Army divisions to the 

regional combatant commands as follows: 19 EUCOM, 5 CENTCOM, 

2 PACOM, 0 SOUTHCOM, and 2 CONUS.5

The national military strategy reflected both forward deployments of

active forces and contingency plan assignments. In Europe, Army forces 

undergirded U.S. support for NATO. NATO “worst-case” contingency 

planning addressed a no-warning, Soviet conventional onslaught in 

Central Europe. The United States had committed itself in 1978 to meet 

such an invasion with ten Army divisions deployed in Central Europe 

within ten days after beginning deployment (M+10). In addition to the 

the United States, 1950, vol. 1, National Security Affairs: Foreign Economic Policy

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1977), pp. 283–285. 4

 The actual balance of power between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe 

during the late 1980s remains controversial. The U.S. Department of Defense, in Soviet 

Military Power, 1987 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987), 

pp. 71–72, credits the Soviet Union with 211 active divisions. Conversely, Malcolm 

Chambers and Lutz Unterseher, “Is There a Tank Gap? Comparing NATO and Warsaw 

Pact Tank Fleets,” International Security 13 (Summer 1988): 5–49, contends that NATO 

intelligence credited the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact with more tank and mechanized 

divisions than they had modern tanks to equip. 5

 Briefing Materials, “Army FY 89 Program Strategic Impacts,” 17 Dec 1987, 

Secret File 87-00035, Carl E. Vuono Papers, U.S. Army Military History Institute 

(MHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

19

four and one-third divisions already forward-deployed in Germany, the 

Army committed five and two-thirds CONUS divisions to reinforce these

units by means of a rapid air deployment to Europe. The ten divisions 

composed the “M+10 Force.” Two other active Army divisions were to 

follow immediately, one to the Denmark area and the other to Turkey.

The five and two-thirds CONUS-based M+10 divisions would join

up in Europe with POMCUS (Prepositioning of Materiel Configured

to Unit Sets) stocks. First established in the late 1960s to permit the 

redeployment of a U.S. Army division from Europe to CONUS, the 

POMCUS sets comprised unit equipment and supplies kept in a high 

state of readiness in Europe. A unit based in the United States could 

quickly move to Europe by air with most of its heavy equipment already 

there. Initial plans had called for the Army to completely fill these stocks

by 1982 in addition to maintaining theater war reserve, ammunition, and 

other materiel requirements. The Army never met this requirement for 

two reasons. Continuing modernization of Army equipment made maintenance of exact duplicate sets for each CONUS-based division both 

unaffordable and unrealistic. The other major problem was a shortfall of 

421 out of the required 910 controlled-humidity warehouses, funded by 

NATO, for POMCUS storage in Germany and the Netherlands.

Consequently, the Army Staff estimated in February 1989 that there 

was a shortfall of 469,000 short tons of unit equipment, worth $15 billion, 

in the NATO Central Region. Materiel to meet the M+10 shortfall would 

have to be shipped from CONUS. Shortages of U.S. strategic airlift, 

however, limited air tonnage to 100,000 tons within ten days, about 

20 percent of what was needed. Fast sealift was unavailable to carry 

the remaining tonnage. These deficiencies meant that the final “M+10”

division could not arrive in Europe until M+22, with its final required

combat service support units and equipment arriving ten days later. The 

1990–1991 defense budget only narrowed the gap by providing for eight 

divisions in ten days, with the tenth closing at M+15 and the last support 

unit at M+22. In short, the gap was never closed.6

The remaining six active U.S. Army divisions had other major 

theater or contingency commitments. The 2d Infantry Division was 

forward-deployed in Korea. The 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and 

the 6th Infantry Division in Alaska would fight in the Pacific in a general

war. The XVIII Airborne Corps, including the 82d Airborne Division, 

the 101st Airborne Division, and the 7th Infantry Division, constituted 

the Army’s contingency force, intended to deploy rapidly to any theater 

6

 “Secretary of Defense Report on the Status of POMCUS,” Feb 1989, File 89-

00118, Vuono Papers, MHI.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

20

of operations in the world. The XVIII Airborne Corps’ priority was to 

support two U.S. Central Command contingency plans, although the 

corps also planned to deploy forces to support lesser operations.7

The second major non-European contingency plan requiring a corpslevel Army commitment augmented the forward-deployed 2d Infantry 

Division in Korea in the event of localized hostilities there. This plan 

called for the 25th Infantry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, the 9th 

Infantry Division (Motorized), an Army National Guard mechanized 

infantry division, and four Army National Guard independent infantry 

brigades to fight in Korea.8

 Even without simultaneous operations in all 

theaters, Army commitments exceeded available forces.9

Readiness and Force Modernization Issues

Although national strategic priorities mandated additional Army 

forces, other Defense Department programs enjoyed higher priorities. 

Rather than expand Army force levels, Secretary of Defense Weinberger 

preferred to rely on mobilization plans to meet wartime requirements. 

His resource priorities for conventional forces were readiness, sustainability, modernization, and force structure expansion, in that order. 

Consequently, Army program planning emphasized readiness and force 

improvements, including purchases of new equipment and modifications of existing materiel (like the M109 howitzer). General Carl E. 

Vuono, the new Army chief of staff who had replaced Wickham in June 

1987, endorsed Weinberger’s emphasis on readiness and implemented a 

standard for training of an “operational tempo” of 910 average miles of 

vehicle use, or 16.0 monthly flight hours, per year as the minimal level

for fully trained units.10 For force modernization, a few costly procurement programs, such as the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) 

7

 Maj Joseph Collins, Summary and Highlights: 1987 JCS Net Assessment, Aug 

1987, Military Net Assessment Secret File 88-00204, Vuono Papers, MHI. The 24th 

Infantry Division also had contingency assignments to the XVIII Airborne Corps in 

support of the U.S. Central Command in the event of a local war, as opposed to a general 

war with the Soviet Union. 8

 The 7th Infantry Division and the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) also had 

concurrent contingency commitments to other regions. 9

 Military History Office, U.S. Forces Command, Annual Historical Review: 

U.S. Forces Command, 1 October 1986–30 September 1987 (Fort McPherson, Ga.: 

Headquarters, U.S. Forces Command, 1987), p. 286. 10 This Army training standard provided a benchmark for resourcing decisions. It 

should not be confused with the operational tempo (OPTEMPO) measurement, which 

the Joint Staff developed and the Defense Department later adopted, that calculates 

actual unit deployments from home station in days per year.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

21

and Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), brought sophisticated 

weapons to field units and supplemented the new armor and aviation

equipment developed earlier. Although expensive, these weapons significantly improved the Army’s battlefield firepower.11

Army modernization programs were running full-stride in 1987. 

Continued production of the M1A1 tank, upgrades to the M2/M3 

Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and development of the XM8

armored gun system and the Armored Systems Modernization program 

remained key to the heavy forces. Artillery modernization programs 

included upgrades to the M109-series howitzers, further purchases of 

the MLRS, and production of the ATACMS. Continued production of 

the UH–60 medium-transport helicopter complemented the Army’s 

ambitious aviation modernization program, which included the 

“Longbow” modification to the AH–64D Apache attack helicopter and

the development of the Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX/RAH–

66). Money for less glamorous systems, including a new generation 

of trucks and new antitank missile systems, rounded out the Army’s 

modernization budget.

By 1988, however, several senior Army leaders questioned the 

Army’s force modernization program, because they believed that it 

was unrealistically expensive. For example, Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) Lt. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf 

warned that cost projections for the LHX helicopter and Armored 

Family of Vehicles in particular exceeded the Army’s projected force 

modernization budgets over the next five years. Rather than sacrifice

readiness or force levels to purchase new hardware, he and like-minded 

officers preferred either to end some programs or to extend production,

thereby stretching costs over longer periods. Thus, even before major 

budget reductions began, key Army leaders were working to reduce 

major procurement programs. Pressures to curtail such programs would 

only increase over the next several years.12

Catalysts for Change

Even as HQDA adapted its internal procedures to the GoldwaterNichols reorganization, it had to respond to a rapidly evolving international environment and stagnant, then declining, defense budgets. These 

dramatic changes accompanying the Cold War’s demise converged to 

eclipse preoccupation with headquarters redesign. The first catalyst to

11 DG 1988–1992, pp. 5, 10–11. 12 Interv, Sherry with Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army, Ret., 13 Jan 1994, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

22

transform U.S. national security plans and programs was the diminishing 

Soviet posture in Europe. General Secretary of the Communist Party of 

the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” reform movement, 

launched in early 1986, reversed his predecessor’s military buildup in 

order to finance needed domestic economic reform. Gorbachev’s plan

began an accelerating chain of events that transformed both the Soviet 

Union and the global balance of power. Its final outcome, however,

would take several years to occur.13

U.S.-Soviet arms agreements, heretofore believed improbable, 

dramatically affected the strategic balance in Europe and Army forces. 

For instance, the 8 December 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) 

agreement, which eliminated the Pershing II missile from the Army’s 

inventory, provided impetus for a fresh approach to the decade-old 

Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) negotiations. The United States 

intended that CFE would impel balanced NATO/Warsaw Pact conventional force reductions in units and major items of military hardware 

stationed between the Atlantic and the Urals. U.S. negotiators desired 

some level of “parity” in NATO/Warsaw Pact capabilities at “lower 

levels than NATO currently maintains.”14

Because it banned an entire category of intermediate-range, 

surface-to-surface missiles that included the Pershing II, the INF Treaty 

required the Army to undertake one immediate force structure adjustment. Anticipating the treaty, the Army’s leaders had planned to transfer 

the 56th Field Artillery Command’s Pershing personnel to other units 

in Germany. The Defense Department had endorsed this plan. After 

the signing of the treaty, however, DoD cut the Army’s end strength in 

numbers equivalent to the Pershing crews.15 The pattern was to repeat 

itself in the years to come.

13 Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World

(New York: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 17–25, 55–59, 218–225; Michael MccGwire, 

Perestroika and Soviet National Security (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 

1991), pp. 278–281, 312–346; Raymond L. Garthoff, “Why Did the Cold War Arise, 

and Why Did It End?” in The End of the Cold War: Its Meaning and Implications, ed. 

Michael J. Hogan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 130–131. 14 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Planning Guidance: FY 1992–1997

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 24 January 1990), pp. 14–15; 

MccGwire, Perestroika, pp. 269–272, 371–372. The Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) 

replaced the Defense Guidance (DG). 15 See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987, 

book 2, July 4 to December 31, 1987 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records 

Administration, 1989), pp. 1456–1485, for the text and accompanying protocols of the 

INF Treaty.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

23

The changing national security environment accelerated growing 

erosion of congressional support for U.S. national security programs. 

After seven straight years of major annual defense budget increases, the 

1987 defense budget augured a period of stagnation and decline for service 

programs and budgets. Pressures from within the Defense Department to 

contain budget growth converged with mounting congressional demands 

for greater efficiencies in procurement and reductions in costs of forwarddeployed forces and “infrastructure,” including bases.16

The White House directed the Defense Department in late 1987 to 

reduce its 1989 budget by as much as $9 billion. The Defense Department 

in turn instructed the Army, whose share of the defense budget was 27 

percent, to reduce its $81.9 billion budget submission by at least $1 

billion. The Army already had a $2.5 billion shortfall in critical readiness, modernization, and sustainment accounts. Because the service 

normally spent more than one-third (36 percent) of its budget on military 

personnel, the highest allocation among all of the services, the Army’s 

leadership determined that it had to reduce active military strength in 

order to maintain readiness in the face of this unanticipated cut.

In addition to the Defense Department’s budget reductions, Congress 

also directed specific force reductions. Noting that the Army planned

to transfer crewmen from Pershing II units in the 56th Field Artillery 

Command scheduled for inactivation to other units in Europe, it directed 

a reduction of the active Army’s 781,000 personnel by 10,000 spaces, 

approximately the level scheduled for reassignment. Existing NATO 

commitments and ongoing Conventional Forces in Europe negotiations 

precluded the Army from taking this reduction in Europe, however. 

Although it eliminated the 56th Field Artillery Command, the HQDA 

did reassign these personnel elsewhere in Europe. To meet the 10,000-

personnel reduction, the deputy chief of staff for operations and plans 

recommended inactivating one active maneuver brigade each from 

the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and the 9th Infantry Division 

(Motorized) in the United States. Army National Guard “round-out” 

brigades replaced the active-duty brigades, allowing the Army to retain 

divisions, albeit at a reduced-readiness level. This instance was the 

first, but not the last, time that the quest by Congress and the Defense

16 Since the early 1970s, an influential minority in Congress had pressed for 

increased “burden-sharing” by European members in NATO. One of this group’s recurrent recommendations was to reduce forward-deployed Army forces in Germany. Amos 

A. Jordan et al., American National Security: Policy and Process (Baltimore: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 164–165; Andrew J. Birtle, “Fiscal Year 1990 

Budget Revisions and the Army,” Jul 1989, Research and Analysis Division, CMH, pp. 

1–3, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

24

Department for quick budget savings would deprive Army leaders 

of what they believed were the flexibility and resources essential for

reshaping their forces.17

The next year brought no reprieve from external pressures for 

immediate and unplanned force reductions. Efforts by OSD to balance 

declining budgets with force reductions generally preceded completion 

of both Joint Staff and Army strategic reviews. Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Program Analysis and Evaluation) Dr. David S. C. Chu offered 

proposals in late March 1989 for reducing U.S. forces in the Pacific.

Highlighting overlaps between Army and Fleet Marine Force capabilities in that region, Chu presented a number of options for reductions 

that would remove or reduce active Army units there. Citing the Army’s 

ongoing reshaping study, General Vuono forestalled reductions to I 

Corps, the 25th Infantry Division, the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), 

and the 2d Infantry Division. Chu’s study, however, portended both 

major force reductions and disputes over service roles and functions.18

Antaeus

Quickly it became HQDA’s primary task to respond to accelerating 

changes in national military strategy. As the Army’s director of program 

analysis and evaluation noted, rapidly changing military requirements 

forced the service on the defensive early during its reshaping. Because 

the Army was an integral part of the Defense Department, many subordinate Army organizations, such as the Military Traffic Management

Command, supported the requirements of other services. (The same 

was true, of course, of the Navy and Air Force.) Consequently, HQDA 

needed detailed direction from higher authority for major reorganizations and could not unilaterally reduce or divest Army organizations and 

functions that it might consider of lesser priority. Instead it was forced to 

integrate its reorganization plans with other Defense Department studies 

that would impose their own momentum on the Army, forcing HQDA to 

react to dictated change.19

17 Briefing Materials, “Discussion with DEPSECDEF, 24 December 1987,” Briefing 

FY 1989 Budget (Dec 87), File 87-00036, Vuono Papers, MHI. 18 Memo, Col Raoul Henri Alcala, CSA’s Assessment and Initiatives Group, for 

Gen Vuono, 30 Mar 1989, sub: Force Structure Issues for Meeting with Dr Chu; Memo, 

Col Alcala for Gen Vuono, 2 Apr 1989, sub: CSA’s Strategy for Pacific Force Structure 

Issues, both CSA’s Strategy for Force Structure Issues file, File 89-00194, Vuono Papers, 

MHI.19 Interv, Dwight Oland with Lt Gen William H. Reno, U.S. Army, Ret., 5 Jan 1993, 

Washington, D.C., Oral History Activity, CMH.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

25

Within these constraints, Army leaders spent most of 1988 and 

1989 attempting to chart a course that would shape the service’s destiny 

while it entered an era of increasing strategic uncertainty and declining 

budgets. Despite reductions of two active maneuver brigades, the 

Army retained eighteen active and ten Army National Guard divisions. 

Critical force modernization programs continued, including M1A1, 

M2/M3A2, UH–60, and AH–64 production. Training and readiness 

levels remained high, with fifteen active divisions rated at C-2 readiness or higher in April 1988. Partly because of shortages of modern 

equipment, Army National Guard readiness lagged slightly, with four 

divisions reporting lower (C-3) readiness during the same month. But 

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) forecasts were discouraging. 

They projected that the Army would obtain only a 27–28 percent 

share of the defense budget’s total obligation authority (TOA) over 

the next five years, forcing it to make major force reductions unless its

leaders could successfully argue for a budget allocation closer to the 

Air Force’s 33 percent or the Navy’s 34 percent. Such an expansion of 

the Army’s budget was unlikely, however, without a revised national 

military strategy that assigned a higher priority to Army capabilities 

and forces.20

The inertia of four decades of Cold War and the still-indistinct consequences of a thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations augured against either OSD or 

the Joint Staff undertaking a comprehensive strategic review, or any major 

changes in defense policy and strategy. Indeed, the Defense Department’s 

strategic guidance in March 1988 emphasized the same strategic threats 

posed by the Soviet Union as it had in 1985. In such an environment, 

Army leaders were constrained from suggesting any radical change of their 

organization.21

Led by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, Lt. Gen. 

John W. Foss, HQDA sought to overcome this vacuum in strategic planning and provide the Army more options as it adapted to a new national 

security environment. The key to a larger slice of the declining defense 

budget was to anticipate future national security requirements and position the Army to better address them. The Army’s Training and Doctrine 

Command, in conjunction with HQDA’s DCSOPS, had already begun 

a major reevaluation of Army organization and doctrine, initiating 

20 Msg, SECDEF to AIG 8798, 090042Z Jan 89, sub: DoD News Briefing: FY 

1990/FY 1991 Department of Defense Budget Introduction, Fiscal Guidance/CSA 

Guidance-FY90 Budget, Secret File 89-00198, and Chief of Staff Monthly Readiness 

Review, Jun 1988, File 88-00102, both Vuono Papers, MHI. 21 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Guidance: FY 1990–1994 (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of Defense, 29 Mar 1998), pp. 25–34.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

26

“AirLand Battle-Future” studies 

in September 1987. These analyses aimed to combine possible 

doctrinal changesfor the battlefield

of the next decade with a comprehensive tactical force redesign.22

The Antaeus study was HQDA’s 

tool for gaining the initiative in 

reshaping the Army. General Foss 

intended that Antaeus enable the 

Army to meet changes in strategy 

with timely adaptations in Army 

capabilities and forces. At the very 

least, the study would enable the 

Army’s leaders to take the initiative in larger Defense Department 

reshaping efforts, rather than simply 

react to dictated force reductions. 

Organized in late November 1988, 

the Antaeus study group comprised 

16 colonel-level representatives (7 

from the Office of the Deputy Chief

of Staff for Operations and Plans, 2 from the Office of the Deputy Chief

of Staff for Personnel, and 1 each from the National Guard Bureau; the 

Office of the Chief,Army Reserve; the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

for Logistics; the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence;

the Director, Army Budget; the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency; 

and the Office of the Chief, Army Public Affairs). The group also had a

representative from the Rand Arroyo Center. Headed by the chief of the 

DCSOPS’ War Plans Division, this small working group met quietly over 

the next year, considering restructuring options.23

22 John L. Romjue, The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army

(Fort Monroe, Va.: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1993), pp. 123–124; U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army

Training and Doctrine Command: 1988 Annual Historical Review (Fort Monroe, Va.: U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1989), pp. 71–73; U.S. Army Combined Arms 

Center History Office, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center: 1988 Annual Historical Review

(Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 1989), pp. 325–335. 23 Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, Oral History Activity, CMH; and Interv, Mark Sherry 

with Col Michael V. Harper, 30 Mar 1994, Pentagon, Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH. The Antaeus group derived its name from one of the victories of the mythological 

Greek hero Heracles. For a chronological listing of major defense reshaping initiatives, 

see Appendix B.

General Foss as commander 

of the Training and Doctrine 

Command (1989–1991)
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

27

The U.S. Navy had undertaken a similar service-specific strategic

review in 1985, published early the next year as the “Maritime Strategy.” 

Its new Maritime Strategy sought to shift the national military strategy 

to more aggressively employ naval forces offensively in a U.S.-Soviet 

conflict. It also undergirded the Navy’s objective of expanding to a 600-

ship fleet by the end of the decade. Although the chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff declined to adopt the Navy proposals as a pillar of the 

national military strategy, in 1988 the Defense Department did accept 

certain elements of the plan, such as to “seek out and destroy enemy 

forces in high threat areas.” But the Navy’s initiative had been taken too 

early to incorporate the changing security requirements resulting from 

the rapid decline of the Soviet threat.24

Compared with the Maritime Strategy, which sought to supplant 

fundamental elements of the extant national military strategy, the HQDA 

study’s goals were modest. The Antaeus study group initially sought to 

test the existing national military strategy against likely threats during 

the next several years. Lacking detailed guidance from the JCS or OSD 

in the form of an approved strategy, the group developed its own strategic forecast based on the best information available from Army and 

joint sources. Instead of attempting to justify force expansion, as did 

the Maritime Strategy, Antaeus analyzed alternatives for Army forces 

in light of likely future national strategic requirements and reduced 

budgets. It focused on the capabilities and contributions of present and 

projected Army forces on the future battlefield.25

By May 1989, the Antaeus study group had developed a vision of 

the Army’s role in the near future. Centered on conventional ground 

forces, the study projected that the Army would decline to a minimum 

of fifteen active component divisions by the end of the next decade, with

fewer units forward-based overseas. Consequently, active forces based 

in the United States had to become more flexible and capable of rapid

deployment for “contingency” operations, roughly defined as responses

to unanticipated global threats of a limited nature to U.S. interests.

Despite its focus on Cold War conventional capabilities, the Army had 

already developed a number of military forces primarily for contingency 

24 Maritime Strategy section, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (January 1986); F. 

J. West, Jr., “The Maritime Strategy: The Next Step,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 

(January 1987): 40–49; DG: 1990–1994, p. 44. 25 Interv, Maj William Epley with Brig Gen Daniel W. Christman (DAMO-SS), 19 

Dec 1989, Pentagon, and Interv, Maj William Epley with Maj Gen Jerome H. Granrud 

(DAMO-FD), 20 Dec 1989, Pentagon, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH; 

Briefing Materials, Project ANTAEUS: Analyzing the Army in Evolving U.S. Strategy, 

8 Dec 1988, SSW Files (Copies) Nov–Dec 1988, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

28

operations. Prior to the Vietnam War, Air Force jet transports had given 

Army airborne units an intercontinental response capability. Post–Vietnam 

War force programs, including development of light and motorized infantry 

divisions, reinforced rapid-deployment capabilities. By the late 1980s, 

the Army’s leaders had tailored the XVIII Airborne Corps specifically for

contingency operations, with airborne, mechanized, airmobile, and light 

infantry units. Reinforcement by special operations, military police, civil 

affairs, psychological operations, or other specialized or combat units 

provided the XVIII Airborne Corps with rapid-response capabilities for a 

wide range of contingencies.26

The Antaeus study group completed its blueprint for reorienting the 

Army in October 1989. Despite continued wariness of Soviet military 

capabilities, the working group recommended the adoption of more 

balanced strategic priorities between Army forces assigned to NATO 

and those intended for contingency operations elsewhere. Anticipating 

Soviet military reductions in Central Europe and a declining U.S. 

defense budget, the study also assumed that the Defense Department 

or Congress would force Army reductions over the next decade. As a 

result, the group made three major recommendations: first, reduce Army

active forces from 5 corps and 18 divisions to a “floor” of 4 corps and

15 divisions, and 640,000 active military personnel. Second, retain all 

ten Army National Guard divisions and upgrade their readiness. Third, 

convert three National Guard divisions from infantry divisions to heavy 

divisions by transferring equipment from inactivated active Army units. 

The declining prospects of a conflict, with short warning, between NATO

and the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe would allow HQDA to reduce 

active heavy divisions. Although National Guard divisions would take 

longer to train and deploy to Europe in the event of a general conflict,

longer warning times resulting from a reduced Warsaw Pact threat 

made this option feasible. The Defense Department could implement 

these changes either when the Soviet threat to Europe abated or when 

declining budgets forced reductions.27

The study group examined options for a comprehensive redesign of 

tactical forces. A number of influential Army officers believed that an

immediate reorganization was essential to provide the flexibility to tailor

forces for diverse contingency operations. Most redesign concepts thus 

advocated changes to the Army’s divisions to improve flexibility so that

26 Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, Oral History Activity, CMH.

27 Briefing Materials, Antaeus Information Briefing for Chief of Staff, 13 Oct 1989; 

Briefing Materials, Antaeus Information Briefing for Fall Commanders’ Conference, 18 

Oct 1989, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

29

a division headquarters could command and control flexible numbers

and types of brigade-sized subordinate units. The recommended modifications would permit the division to adapt rapidly for different missions. 

TRADOC’s AirLand Battle-Future studies had already developed models 

for more flexible division command and control. If implemented, this

“modular” approach to division design could prove the basis for more 

versatile tactical forces.28

AirLand Battle-Future force redesign proposals pointed to overhauling the existing centralized division structure to one that achieved 

greater flexibility through modularity, employing interchangeable

brigades. The proposed division would have headquarters and signal 

units for the command and control of two to five subordinate brigades.

Corps would control combat support and combat service support above 

brigade level and would assign brigades of various types (e.g., light 

infantry, mechanized) to subordinate divisions for specific missions.

Brigades deploying from different installations could more readily 

serve in division-sized task forces, or even serve independently in 

certain low-threat scenarios.29 The proposed reorganization would 

answer those who argued that the Army’s centralized divisions were 

unwieldy and lacked flexibility in organizing and deploying subordinate units for contingency operations. Similarly, more flexible divisions would refute critics of specialized divisions, notably the light 

infantry division.30 Linked to tactical force redesign were studies that 

recommended consolidating combat service support branches to give 

officers a more generalized background essential for leading units in a

more decentralized tactical environment.31

28 Briefing Materials for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, 

“The Army as a Strategic Force: A Vision for the Twenty-first Century,” 19 May 1989, 

ANTAEUS II Brief for DCSOPS File, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 29 U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Historical Office, U.S. Army 

Training and Doctrine Command: Annual Command History, 1 January to 31 December 

1989 (Fort Monroe, Va.: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Jun 1990), pp. 

37–38, 42–43, 54–56. 30 Schwarzkopf interv, 13 Jan 1994, and Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, both Oral History 

Activity, CMH. See James L. George and Christopher Jehn, eds., The U.S. Marine 

Corps: The View from the Late 1980s (Alexandria, Va.: Center for Naval Analyses, 

1988), pp. 32–34, for a comparison between capabilities of the light infantry division 

and the Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB), to the detriment of the former. See also 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Report on the Roles, Missions, and Functions of 

the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1993), 

pp. III-35 to III-37, for a discussion of roles and functional overlaps between light 

infantry divisions and Fleet Marine Force capabilities. 31 Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, Oral History Activity, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

30

Decentralization of combat service support to maneuver brigades 

in the form of forward support battalions (FSBs) fueled a controversy 

concerning the Army’s combat service support branch structure. FSBs 

required officers capable of rotating through a variety of leadership and

staff positions involving most or all of the battalion’s functional areas, 

such as truck transportation. Critics of the existing branch structure 

argued that it reflected a nineteenth-century approach to combat service

support, with discrete quartermaster, ordnance, transportation, finance,

and adjutant general branch specialization. Such career patterns inhibited decentralized decision making and flexibility.32

Tactical redesign studies could have been the keystone of Army 

reshaping, but General Vuono rejected a major tactical force overhaul 

during his tour as chief of staff, believing that programmed force and 

manpower cuts would prove disruptive enough to the Army without a 

self-imposed tactical reorganization. He did, however, endorse continuation of the redesign studies to address future Army needs.33

Vuono focused the Army Staff instead on problems with the Army’s 

projected readiness levels for 1991. Despite the Army’s training standard (training operational tempo) of 910 miles per year and 16.0 flight

hours per month (910/16.0) for fully trained units, the active Army’s 

1989 training goal was only 850/15.5. For active force training, HQDA 

was willing to accept an operational tempo of 800/15.0 during the next 

two years, the minimum necessary to maintain units at a fully trained 

(C-1) level. Anticipated budget reductions threatened to reduce the 

training tempo to 700/14.0. Rather than accept this decline, Vuono 

directed reductions in the Army’s modernization budget to maintain 

readiness at what he hoped would be a short-term cost. Consequently, 

by early 1989, Vuono demonstrated that he preferred maintaining 

32 Critics of Army officer career developments reinforced many of the arguments 

against overspecialized officer professional development. Highlighting the “grade creep” 

and expansion of the officer corps since World War II, they recommended a return to a 

smaller officer corps with more generalized career paths. This approach, they argued, 

would prove more cost-effective and produce greater cohesion within a refocused and 

more selective officer corps. Edward N. Luttwak, The Pentagon and the Art of War

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), pp. 185–203, and Richard A. Gabriel and Paul 

L. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army (New York: Hill and 

Wang, 1978), are key studies in a protracted debate concerning the deleterious costs of 

an expanded post–World War II officer corps in the U.S. armed forces. See also Thomas 

Lawson, “Officer Inflation: Its Cost to the Taxpayer and Military Effectiveness” (paper, 

Project on Military Procurement, revised, October 1987). 33 Interv, James Yarrison with Gen Carl E. Vuono, U.S. Army, Ret., 24 Mar 1993, 

Alexandria, Va., Oral History Activity, CMH.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

31

readiness to preserving force levels and modernizing or reorganizing 

the force.34

Increasing the Army’s share of the declining defense budget 

remained problematical. The Army’s leadership was well aware that a 

budget share larger than its recent 27–28 percent could come only at 

the expense of the other services. Unless OSD and the Joint Staff were 

to revise strategic priorities to put a premium on Army capabilities, the 

other services would view any Army advocacy for a higher budget as an 

unjustifiable resource grab. Goldwater-Nichols mandated two processes,

however, that offered the Army hope. The act directed that the secretary of defense produce annual guidance containing “national security 

objectives and policies.” The act also required the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff to undertake a triennial review of roles, missions, and 

functions. With the first review due in 1989, the timing was propitious

for a comprehensive reevaluation of Defense Department priorities.35

Many Army leaders believed that such a review would benefit their own

service, as future threats posed by conventional, technologically proficient foes seemed to be declining.

Countervailing needs undermined such hopes and beliefs. The 

soldier’s dependence on the other services for battlefield support

discouraged Army leaders from recommending any changes that would 

reduce their programs. As the most dependent service, the Army was 

also vulnerable to reductions anywhere else in the defense establishment. Without unqualified support by the secretary of defense, the other

services might reduce support for programs in their respective budgets 

that were essential to the soldier. For example, programmed increases to 

Air Force airlift by 1994 would meet only 54.2 million ton miles per day 

(MTM/day) of the 66 MTM/day requirement in existing contingency 

plans for deploying units and equipment to Europe and other theaters. 

Even to reach the 54.2 MTM/day intermediate goal required the Air 

Force to buy 210 C–17 aircraft by the year 2000 and improve readiness 

levels of existing aircraft. A CONUS-based Army would only increase 

Army reliance on Air Force lift capabilities in the future. Although DoDdirected reductions in other Air Force programs might well free funds 

for Army programs, such reductions could in turn lead the Air Force 

to realign its decreased budgets at the expense of items of direct Army 

34 CAIG Action Book, Defense Resources Board, CINC Issues, 5–7 Apr 1989, 

Defense Resources Board: CINC Issues Secret File 89-00195, Vuono Papers, MHI. 35 Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr., Unification of the United States Armed Forces: 

Implementing the 1986 Department of Defense Reorganization Act (Carlisle Barracks, 

Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1986), pp. 16–19, 50–51.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

32

interest, such as C–17 procurement.36 Sea transportation obviously 

forced identical constraints.

The ongoing Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) negotiations 

also complicated the Army’s reshaping plans. After unilateral Soviet 

arms reductions in 1988, President George Bush in July 1989 proposed 

additional, mutual reductions. Accepting Soviet recommendations for 

limitations on both tactical aircraft and personnel based in Europe, he 

challenged Moscow to conclude an agreement by the end of 1990.37

One of Bush’s initiatives, securing major withdrawals of conventional U.S. forces from Western Europe in exchange for Soviet withdrawals from Eastern Europe, directly affected HQDA force planning. 

Although they conformed to growing congressional pressures to bring 

costly forward-deployed troops home from Europe, Bush’s proposals 

froze options for reductions of U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR), forces, 

pending the outcome of withdrawal talks with the Soviet Union. Although 

Antaeus had outlined a plan for the reduction of active Army units to 

match anticipated changes in strategy and budgets, HQDA could thus 

not cut units in Europe. The lack of certainty about future Army force 

levels in Europe also hampered CONUS base closure efforts because 

of the potential need to house returning USAREUR units in the United 

States. Until units were actually inactivated, the housing requirement 

remained. As many as seventeen USAREUR brigade-sized ground units 

might redeploy to the United States, with some or all remaining in the 

active force.38

Contingency Operations

As the Cold War began to thaw, Army units participated in an 

increasing number of contingency operations. These endeavors underscored the Antaeus study group’s recommendations on the need to 

refocus the Army. Although Goldwater-Nichols completed a process 

begun in 1958 to transfer peacetime control of deployable units from 

service to unified commanders, Army participation in contingencies

continued to require HQDA’s active support. The secretary of the Army 

36 “Defense Resources Board Execution Review (CINC Topics),” 22–23 Jun 1989, 

File 89-00201, Vuono Papers, MHI. 37 “Testimony of Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) Paul Wolfowitz before the 

Senate Armed Services Committee,” 1 Jun 1989, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; 

MccGwire, Perestroika, pp. 371–373. 38 Antaeus, “Force Structure Options Briefing for Army Chief of Staff,” 15 Mar 

1989, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

33

still had statutory responsibilities for organizing, training, mobilizing, 

demobilizing, deploying, equipping, and sustaining Army personnel and 

units. He also remained the Defense Department “executive agent” for 

functions such as domestic disturbances and disaster relief. The Army’s 

headquarters thus continued to coordinate the mobilization of individual 

reservists and units with the U.S. Forces Command (FORSCOM), and 

the Joint Staff. HQDA also supervised logistical support for larger 

contingency operations requiring actions such as redistribution of unit 

equipment or ammunition to augment theater stocks. Although excluded 

from direct involvement in tactical operations, HQDA continued to coordinate closely with the Joint Staff on a wide range of administrative and 

logistical support requirements associated with such commitments.39

The first test of the post–Goldwater-Nichols operational command

and control system was a contingency operation that began on 16 

March 1988. Following several shallow incursions by Nicaraguan 

troops, President Ronald Reagan approved a request from the Honduran 

government for a U.S. show of force in the border area. The Joint Chiefs 

approved a training operation, code-named Golden Pheasant, that sent 

an airborne brigade to Honduras to warn the Nicaraguan regime against 

further hostile border activities.40

Although Goldwater-Nichols excluded service chiefs from selecting 

tactical units for such operations, General Vuono exercised his role as both 

a member of the Joint Chiefs and as the Army’s chief of staff to directly 

influence these decisions. For example, he persuaded the FORSCOM

commander, Army General Joseph T. Palastra, Jr., to select two light 

infantry battalions from the 7th Infantry Division and two airborne battalions and the brigade headquarters from the 82d Airborne Division for the 

task force. Although all the units could have come from the 82d, Vuono 

wanted to demonstrate both the capabilities of light infantry units and the 

Army’s ability to task-organize units from different divisions and duty 

stationsfor a rapid-response operation. Deploying via two C–5Aand fiftyeight C–141B aircraft, the task force of 2,943 soldiers arrived at Palmerola 

airfield in Honduras on 17 and 18 March, via a simulated airborne assault.

Training with Honduran and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) 

39 Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, Oral History Activity, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with 

Col William Foster (DAMO-SS), 25 Feb 1994, Pentagon, Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH. 40 Jonathan M. House, “Golden Pheasant: The U.S. Army in a Show of Force: 

March 1988” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989), pp. 

24–26, 36–43.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

34

forces over the next ten days, the task force completed its show of force 

and redeployed to home bases from 28 to 30 March.41

Golden Pheasant hardly strained Army resources. The designated 

units deployed rapidly and without incident and trained in an area that 

had recently seen small skirmishes. But the XVIII Airborne Corps and 

FORSCOM demonstrated the flexibility and interoperability of Army

units by building an ad hoc brigade task force. Because the secretary 

of defense did not mobilize reserve units, and the operation required 

no major sustainment effort, HQDA simply monitored the situation 

with a Crisis Response Cell (CRC) in the Pentagon’s Army Operations 

Center (AOC), without disrupting normal staff operations. The CRC in 

this operation served primarily as a backup, should Golden Pheasant

escalate into a larger effort.42

Army units deployed again to support SOUTHCOM a year later. 

Operation Nimrod Dancer responded to escalating harassment of U.S. 

citizens in Panama by General Manuel Noriega and his supporters. 

On 11 May 1989, the secretary of defense ordered deployment of a 

brigade task force to Central America. FORSCOM and SOUTHCOM 

selected a headquarters and a light infantry battalion from the 7th 

Infantry Division, a mechanized infantry battalion from the 5th 

Infantry Division, and a military police battalion. Unlike the brief 

Golden Pheasant operation, Nimrod Dancer continued for several 

months. Parent units in CONUS had to provide replacement units 

late in the summer when the secretary of defense determined that two 

maneuver battalions would remain in Panama, pending relaxation of 

tension. HQDA again established a CRC that helped to coordinate 

logistical support for the operation and the unit rotations, and assisted 

the under secretary of the Army in his role as chairman of the Panama 

Canal Commission. Without reserve mobilization or major logistical 

support responsibilities, HQDA again simply observed the operation 

and provided update briefings for interested staff personnel.43

41 House, “Golden Pheasant,” pp. 46–58, 81–82, 106–107; Schwarzkopf interv, 13 

Jan 1994, and Foss interv, 1 Mar 1994, both Oral History Activity, CMH. 42 William Joe Webb, Department of the Army Historical Summary: Fiscal Year 

1988 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1993), pp. 46–47.

43 Memo, Commander, XVIII Airborne Corps, for CINC U.S. Southern Command, 

sub: First Impressions Report Joint Task Force South (JTFSO) “Operation Just Cause,” 

20 Dec 89–12 Jan 90; Msg, CDRUSARSO to HQDA (DAMO-ODO), 151500Z 

May 1989, sub: SITREP; Memo, Gen Carl E. Vuono, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, for 

Distribution, 28 Jun 1989, sub: Report of Visit to U.S. Forces in Panama, 5–6 Jun 1989; 

and Memo, Brig Gen Robert B. Rosenkranz, Deputy Director of Operations, Readiness, 

and Mobilization, for DCSOPS, 5 Jul 1989, sub: HQDA Panama Crisis Response 

Cell—Action Memorandum, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv with Gen 
Antaeus and the New Paradigm, 1987–1989

35

The crisis in Panama reached its climax on 20 December 1989 when 

U.S. troops, in Operation Just Cause, intervened to protect the lives 

of U.S. citizens in Panama and U.S. bases there. The commander of 

the U.S. Southern Command, General Maxwell Thurman, designated 

FORSCOM’s XVIII Airborne Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Carl W. 

Stiner, as the Joint Task Force (JTF) commander of all assault units in 

Panama. Stiner’s main ground force, composed of Rangers and units 

from the 82d Airborne and 7th Infantry Divisions, was air-delivered in 

148 sorties by Military Airlift Command aircraft. These elements joined 

a brigade group from the 7th Infantry Division, deployed the preceding 

May, and the 193d Infantry Brigade, stationed in Panama.44

Just Cause was a success, despite being what Stiner termed “the 

most complex contingency deployment and employment U.S. forces have 

undertaken since World War II.” More extensive than Golden Pheasant, 

it was the first combat operation to occur under the Goldwater-Nichols

modifications to joint command and control. Despite the great distance

between Panama and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the staffs of the U.S. 

Southern Command and the XVIII Airborne Corps coordinated detailed 

operational planning effectively. The arrangements, however, meant that 

HQDA was informed, rather than consulted, about the operational plans. 

The chief of staff and the Army’s deputy chief of staff for operations and 

plans were able to monitor the planning phase of the operation in their 

joint capacities, but the chief’s approval of the plan was unnecessary.45

In fact, after operations began, the Joint Staff became preoccupied with 

operational details and failed to provide timely responses to HQDA inquiries for current information. Despite activation of the Army’s CRC, most 

Army Staff members had little idea of what was transpiring in the field

and found it difficult to anticipate future needs. Problems arose, in fact,

when it became necessary to deploy military police and civil affairs units 

to Panama during the poorly planned post-hostilities, “nation-building” 

phase. Nevertheless, because of their small scale and short duration, 

Operations Golden Pheasant, Nimrod Dancer, and Just Cause succeeded 

John W. Foss, Commander, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, 

Va., 25 Oct 1989, Oral History Activity, CMH; Vincent H. Demma, Department of the 

Army Historical Summary: Fiscal Year 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1998), pp. 87–90. 44 Theresa L. Kraus, “The United States Army Staff and Operation Just Cause,” 

29 Nov 1990; and Interv, Theresa Kraus with Gen Maxwell Thurman, 9 Jan 1991, 

Arlington, Va., both Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 45 Since the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947, the operations 

deputies of the military services, representing their service chiefs, have met regularly to 

review joint plans, programs, and policies.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

36

without major HQDA involvement. A more comprehensive trial of the 

new operational command and control system would occur within the 

year.46

Antaeus had given HQDA a head start on and a framework for 

major organizational changes by the time the Berlin Wall collapsed in 

November 1989, portending the Warsaw Pact’s demise. Army leaders 

had reevaluated the service’s global priorities and their relationship 

to national interests. The accelerating pace of change, however, left 

national military strategy mired in the past, still focused on containment 

of possible Soviet and Warsaw Pact military expansion in Europe. In 

short, the existing strategy did not address the changing world situation. 

Instead of conflict in Central Europe, the Army and the other services

faced increasing prospects elsewhere in the world that would require 

them to deploy forces in contingency operations.

Despite the strategic uncertainties, Congress and the White House 

sought ways to reduce the growing federal budget deficit. Both looked

for ways to shift federal fiscal priorities, increasing pressures for reduced

defense spending over the near term. These pressures resulted in OSDmandated budget cuts that in turn forced hasty decisions by HQDA on 

force levels and readiness. Although requirements in existing contingency plans exceeded Army forces, the Army’s leadership responded to 

reduced budgets by sacrificing selected active units in order to protect

funds for readiness and continued modernization of the remaining forces. 

Reflecting General Vuono’s priorities, HQDA desired to maintain a

careful balance between near-term readiness and long-term modernization when facing declining, yet increasingly uncertain, threats to U.S. 

interests worldwide.

46 Memo, Lt Col Patricia B. Wise, Acting Chief, Research and Analysis Division, 

CMH, for the Chief of Staff, 10 Aug 1990, sub: Problems Faced by the Army Staff 

During Operation Just Cause; Thurman interv, 9 Jan 1991; and Kraus, “The United 

States Army Staff and Operation Just Cause,” pp. 28–38, all Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH.
37

Chapter 3

The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

As the Antaeus study group was concluding its work in late 1989, 

the outgoing JCS Chairman, Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., produced 

a new national military strategy with specific objectives and priorities.

Rather than offer a vision for a major realignment of military priorities, 

the new strategy only began a process of change. Crowe argued that 

the world was moving from a “bipolar” (U.S./Soviet) strategic posture 

to one more “multipolar.” Emerging threats to U.S. and allied interests 

were more likely to come from countries not formally allied with the 

Soviet Union, although OSD and the Joint Staff still identified the Soviet

capability to threaten U.S. interests globally as the focal point for U.S. 

military strategy. Nevertheless, noting recent unilateral Soviet withdrawals from Eastern Europe and progress in the Conventional Forces in 

Europe negotiations, OSD anticipated a prompt agreement and directed 

that the Defense Department plan for sequential U.S. force reductions in 

Europe. Key to this plan was “reversibility.” If the thaw were to end and 

U.S./Soviet relations refroze, the United States must be able to quickly 

reconstitute inactivated forces and perhaps restore U.S. forces in Europe 

to Cold War levels.1

Although neither the Joint Staff nor OSD provided detailed guidance for major transformations in U.S. military capabilities, the new 

JCS chairman, Army General Colin L. Powell, had his own ideas. Prior 

to assuming his duties in November 1989, Powell had already developed his own framework for force reductions for the 1992–1999 Future 

Years Defense Program. In one of his first acts as chairman, Powell

briefed his concept to the secretary of defense. Powell’s “A View to 

the 90s” noted that the likelihood of an agreement on mutual European 

force withdrawals had already created expectations within the Defense 

Department of a 6 to 7 percent budget reduction for 1991. He believed 

1

 Memo, Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the 

Secretary of Defense, CM-2145-89, 25 Aug 1989, sub: National Military Strategy, 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH; U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Planning 

Guidance: FY 1992–1997 (DPG 1992–1997) (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary 

of Defense, 24 Jan 1990), Appendix A.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

38

that a cut of this magnitude would 

be reminiscent of “the worst year 

of the post-Vietnam reduction 

in force.” Instead of a series of 

piecemeal force cuts driven by 

annual budget reductions, Powell 

sought a program of integrated, 

sequential reductions. He hoped 

that such an approach would minimize the danger of significantly

weakening all parts of the defense 

establishment simultaneously. 

Although it was an outline plan 

more than a completed program, 

Powell’s vision called for military 

manpower reductions of 11 to 17 

percent by 1994. The main burden 

of his cuts would fall on the Army, 

which would lose three active and 

two National Guard divisions and 

decline from 760,000 active personnel to 630,000, a 17 percent reduction. Powell stressed that these reductions had to be reversible and 

partly offset by strengthening mobilization capabilities and maintaining 

a “warm base” industrial capability for rapid expansion. He essentially 

accepted the Antaeus Army force reductions, but his vision would implement them over five years rather than a decade.2

Quicksilver

Both the Joint Staff and OSD concurred that HQDA’s Antaeus study 

was moving the Army in the right direction. Both signaled increased 

interest in assuming control over defense reshaping. This situation 

suggested that Antaeus would provide HQDA a fleeting opportunity, at

best, for rebuilding the Army for a new era. Even before the study group 

had completed its work, on 13 November 1989, OSD directed reductions to projected Army budgets of 4.3 percent for 1991, 4.4 percent for 

1992, 5.9 percent for 1993, and 3.2 percent for 1994. OSD had accepted 

Powell’s concept in essence for Army force reductions, although it left 

the implementation details to the Army. HQDA answered these budget 

2

 Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “A View to the 90s,” undated, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.

Joint Chiefs Chairman

Admiral Crowe
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

39

cuts with the Quicksilver I reduction plan. The Army’s director, 

program analysis and evaluation 

(DPA&E), Maj. Gen. William 

H. Reno, coordinated the study. 

Lacking detailed program guidance 

from OSD, Quicksilver I operated 

with notional budget figures. It put

these anticipated fiscal cutbacks

into the 1992–1997 Army Program 

Objective Memorandum (POM), 

HQDA’s input for the 1992–1997 

Future Years Defense Program 

(FYDP) was still used to program 

the allocation of resources for 

forces, manpower, force modernization, and other requirements.3

Quicksilver I thus transformed 

Antaeus force-level recommendations into a specific program of

sequential reductions of the Army through 1997. The proposals would 

reduce the Army from 18 to 15 active divisions and also consolidate 

the 10 Army National Guard divisions into 8. Quicksilver would realize 

most of its projected $40 billion in savings over six years from manpower 

reductions. To reach these savings also required reducing active military personnel from 764,000 to 629,000 through 1994. Although one 

implementation option called for making these reductions as rapidly 

as possible, Vuono insisted on holding active personnel reductions to 

35,000 a year in order to minimize disruption to the Army.4

Fiscal guidance that was even more pessimistic arrived from OSD 

in early 1990. With further reductions forecast for the later FYDP 

years, 1995–1997, the secretary of the Army convened a Quicksilver 

II study to prepare options for more Army reductions. The Army’s 

response reduced active personnel to only 580,000 by the end of 1996 

3

 Information Paper, Maj William Epley, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

17 Jan 1990, sub: History of Quicksilver, Program Adjustments FY91–94, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH. 4

 Interv, Lt Col Gary Bounds with Lt Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations and Plans, 4 Dec 1989, Pentagon; Briefing Materials, Quicksilver: 

CSA Brief, 18 Nov 1989; Interv, Dwight Oland with Lt Gen William H. Reno, U.S. 

Army, Ret., 5 Jan 1993, Washington, D.C.; and Office of the CSA, Weekly Summary 40, 

no. 14 (6 Apr 1990): 19–20, all in Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

Joint Chiefs Chairman 

General Powell
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

40

and eliminated another active 

division, leaving only fourteen. 

Quicksilver II preserved readiness 

levels, however, with a budgeted 

operational tempo for training 

of 800 miles/14.5 flight hours

(active component), 288 miles/9 

hours (Army National Guard), 

and 200 miles/8.1 hours (Army 

Reserve). Once again, the HQDA 

response to budget cuts was to 

pay for continued readiness and 

modernization programs with 

force reductions.5

During the Quicksilver II 

deliberations, the Army’s leaders 

recommended that two of the active 

divisions scheduled for inactivation should be units forward-based 

in Europe. Successful negotiations 

for withdrawal of the Group of 

Soviet Forces in Germany, along 

with approved Soviet withdrawal 

agreements in Poland, nullified the surprise-attack scenario, which

underpinned NATO war plans and the need for sizable U.S. forwarddeployed ground forces in Europe. The Joint Staff accepted the Army’s 

planned reduction from 217,000 soldiers in Europe to 158,500 as part 

of the provisions of the anticipated mutual withdrawals. The timing of 

implementation, however, had to await the signing and ratifying of a 

formal agreement. As a consequence, HQDA first had to inactivate two

divisions in the United States, anticipating a favorable political situation 

in Europe in time to effect cuts there.6

The authors of the Quicksilver studies were able to rely on analyses 

of force levels and strategic risk in structuring force reductions to the 

5

 Briefing Materials, Winter Senior Commander’s Conference, 2 Mar 1990, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH; HQDA, The Army POM FY92–97: A Strategic Force for the 

1990s and Beyond, vol. 1, Executive Summary (Washington, D.C.: Director, Program 

Analysis and Evaluation, 30 Apr 1990), pp. 4–7, File 90-00153, Vuono Papers, MHI. 6

 Briefing, Maj Gen William H. Reno, Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation, 

for the Project Vanguard Task Force, 18 May 1990; HQ USAREUR Briefing on 

Conventional Force Reductions in Europe for the Project Vanguard Task Force, 24 May 

1990, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

Army Director of Program 

Analysis and Evaluation 

General Reno

(Photo taken in August 1986.) 
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

41

Army’s tactical side (organized 

by table of organization and 

equipment [TO&E]). The Army’s 

assistant deputy chief of staff 

for operations and plans, Maj. 

Gen. John R. Greenway, noted, 

however, that the Army lacked 

similar methodologies to meet the 

Quicksilver II goal of eliminating 

40,000 military and 57,000 civilian 

spaces from the Army’s nontactical side. Commonly referred to 

as the Table of Distribution and 

Allowance (TDA) Army, this force 

included training installations and 

schools, a variety of administrative 

commands, research and development agencies, and other nondeployable organizations. Unlike 

TO&E units, each TDA organization, from major command 

(MACOM) headquarters to field

operating agency (FOA), was unique. Each was designed to serve a 

specific function. Rather than assign arbitrary manpower and budget cuts

to each MACOM or agency, the Army leadership opted for another study 

group to recommend integrated reductions across the TDA force.7

Vanguard

Chartered by the secretary of the Army and the chief of staff, Project 

Vanguard operated from May to December 1990. The group evaluated all 

TDA organizations and provided a series of restructuring options for the 

smaller Army of the future. The Vanguard task force capitalized on the 

data assembled by the 1988 “Robust” study group, which had examined 

the TDA Army extensively. The Robuststudy had made fifty-seven recommendations, ranging from reducing Reserve Officers Training Corps units

to reorganizing the Army Materiel Command. These recommendations 

7

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Maj Gen John R. Greenway, Director, Project Vanguard, 

31 Aug 1990, Fort Belvoir, Va.; and Interv, Mark Sherry with Col W. A. Whittle, Chief, 

Project Vanguard Concepts Team, 28 Jun 1990, Fort Belvoir, Va., both Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.

Army Assistant Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations and Plans 

General Greenway
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

42

aimed to enhance efficiency of the TDA force and wartime support for

the regional combatant commanders. Army leaders deferred action on the 

Robust study recommendations because of the highly controversial nature 

of several of them, such as one that would subordinate the U.S. Army, 

Japan, and the Eighth U.S. Army in Korea to a consolidated U.S. Army, 

Pacific. By 1990, however, rapidly declining Army budgets encouraged

the Vanguard group to either endorse these recommendations or find

comparable sources of manpower and budget savings.8

Vanguard undertook the first comprehensiveArmy TDAreorganization since the 1973 Steadfast reorganization, which had broken up the 

Continental Army Command (CONARC) into several “functional” major 

commands.9

 Greenway, as the appointed Vanguard study group director, 

conducted an initial concepts phase to determine, among other issues, 

which of the sixteen MACOM headquarters the Army would require in 

the future. One early option, later rejected as too disruptive, re-created a 

CONARC with six functional major subordinate commands (Chart 4). 

After analyzing four, final options, which ranged from keeping all of the

existing MACOMs to consolidating them into seven, Greenway recommended consolidating them into ten. (See Appendix A.)

The resulting “Vanguard Vision” sought an enhanced “functional 

alignment” between MACOMs and HQDA. Its other key features 

included the consolidation of base operations in CONUS under one 

MACOM and an internal reorganization of the remaining MACOMs. 

Finally, the Vanguard Vision would result in either the consolidation of 

as many as possible of the approximately 122 FOAs and SSAs, or their 

transfer to a major command.10

During Vanguard’s next phase of analysis, the task force developed 

at least one alternative for each TDA organization. Unlike Antaeus 

and other previous reorganization study groups, the Vanguard group 

conducted an open dialogue with affected organizations as it prepared 

8

 Charter of the Project Vanguard Study Group, 2 May 1990, Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH; Headquarters, Department of the Army, Final Report: Redistribution of 

BASOPS/Unit Structure Within TDA, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 

15 Dec 1988), pp. EX-1 through EX-B-10, CMH. 9

 CONARC commanded most Army schools and forces in CONUS. The functional MACOMs replacing it were TRADOC, FORSCOM, and the U.S. Army Health 

Services Command (HSC). See Jean R. Moenk, Operation Steadfast Historical 

Summary: A History of the Reorganization of the U.S. Army Continental Army Command 

(1972–1973) (Fort McPherson, Ga.: U.S. Army Forces Command, 1974), and James A. 

Bowden, “Operation Steadfast: The United States Army Reorganizes Itself” (Thesis, 

U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 1 April 1985). 10 Briefing, Vanguard Task Force for General Officer Steering Committee, 27 Jul 

1990, Fort Belvoir, Va., Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Chart 4—CONCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION OF A REESTABLISHED CONTINENTAL ARMY COMMAND

CONTINENTAL ARMY COMMAND

(CONARC)

ARMY COMBAT

DEVELOPMENTS

COMMAND

ARMY

TRAINING

COMMAND

THIRD U.S. ARMY/

READINESS

COMMAND

ARMY

UNIVERSITY

ARMY

RESERVE

COMMAND

ARMY SPECIAL

OPERATIONS

COMMAND

SCHOOLS CORPS ARMY WAR COLLEGE

COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGEOFFICER BASIC AND ADVANCED COURSESCADET COMMAND
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

44

its recommendations. Though laborious and at times contentious, this 

process offered the advantage of using the widest possible expertise 

in developing options. Although certain agencies used the dialogue to 

obstruct Vanguard proposals, others found consensus on options for 

restructuring that could offer the Army significant manpower and cost

reductions.11

The results of Vanguard were not immediately apparent. The extensive coordination requirements had delayed agreement, and, after 2 

August 1990, HQDA and field commands quickly became preoccupied

by Operation Desert Shield, the U.S. buildup in Saudi Arabia in response 

to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Except for the few initiatives mutually acceptable to the task force, the affected organization, and HQDA 

proponents, most Vanguard proposals remained unresolved at the chief 

of staff’s 14 December 1990 decision briefing. The approved initiatives

did eliminate 6,918 military and 10,772 civilian personnel by the end of 

1997. Other options that could eliminate an additional 15,509 military 

and 9,511 civilian jobs remained untouched, however.12

Major Vanguard recommendations left pending included discontinuance of three major commands: the Military Traffic Management

Command, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, and U.S. 

Army, South. A separate August 1990 decision to restructure U.S. Army, 

Japan, as a major subordinate command of U.S. Army, Pacific, would

leave twelve major commands, if the Army leadership disestablished the 

other three. Another major initiative would reorganize TRADOC, transferring combat development personnel from branch and combined-arms 

“integrating” centers to a consolidated doctrine center at Fort Monroe. 

Vanguard proponents believed that these restructuring options would 

yield immediate benefits from collocating individuals who focused on

Army doctrine and combat developments. These options would also 

permit manpower reductions with a minimum of disruption to key planners for the future Army. The study additionally endorsed a number of 

ongoing TRADOC studies intended to consolidate branch centers. For 

example, Vanguard proposals recommended the elimination of the Air 

Defense Artillery Branch and the Chemical Corps and consolidation of 

their functions into existing branches, efforts that the Army’s leadership 

eventually rejected.

Although ongoing contingency operations in the Middle East 

postponed an HQDA reorganization, Vanguard still left a framework 

11 Greenway interv, 3 Jan 1991, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

12 Briefing Materials, Project Vanguard, Decision Briefing for CSA/SEC Army, 14 

Dec 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

45

for change. The study group proposed at least a 20 percent reduction 

in HQDA manpower from the Goldwater-Nichols ceiling of 3,105 to 

fewer than 2,500. Although the task force studied a number of reorganization options, it lacked the concurrence of key officials in HQDA

and therefore recommended a pro rata reduction in manpower rather 

than a major headquarters reorganization. Vanguard did, however, offer 

discrete proposals for merging most of HQDA’s 122 FOAs and SSAs. 

The recommendations would also reduce the 50,000 spaces in these 

agencies by more than 20 percent.

Vanguard’s most significant recommendation for restructuring the

Army’s headquarters intended to improve HQDA’s focus on resource 

planning. The study group put forward two options for attaining 

this end. HQDA could expand the Office of the Director, Program

Analysis and Evaluation, into a consolidated Army “program integrator.” Alternatively, HQDA could transfer PA&E’s functions and 

manpower to an assistant vice chief of staff, who would serve as 

the Army’s resources manager.13 The proposals required additional 

study beyond that done by the Vanguard Task Force. The task force 

believed, however, that either option offered significant improvements in effective program planning, as well as manpower reductions, through consolidation of offices and functions, throughout

HQDA, that dealt primarily with resource planning. The redesign 

would provide one focal point for headquarters’ efforts devoted to 

resource planning and coordination. But such reorganization would 

disrupt HQDA functions over the short term and portended significant

changes in an internal headquarters “balance of power.” Decisions 

on headquarters reorganization were postponed for further study and 

perhaps more propitious timing.14

The Base Force

Through 1990, independent of Army efforts, the Joint Staff built on 

Chairman Powell’s November 1989 briefing to the secretary of defense

calling for a comprehensive plan for transforming the nation’s military 

forces. Finally taking the lead in defense strategy, Powell directed the 

13 Although the Army had an assistant vice chief of staff position from 1967 to 

1974, an HQDA reorganization disestablished it after the creation of the director of the 

Army staff (DAS) position. The DAS had too wide a span of responsibilities to focus on 

Army resource issues. 14 Project VANGUARD, Final Report, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Department of 

the Army, 15 Dec 1990), pp. EX-10 through EX-40, XIV-1 through XIV-9, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

46

Joint Staff early in 1990 to work on what he termed the “Base Force.” 

Despite the initial skepticism of Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney 

that the Cold War would end by the mid-1990s, Powell continued to drive 

the Joint Staff to reduce the fighting forces. His staff’s studies focused

primarily on developing “macro-level” options for reducing numbers 

of divisions, wings, and carrier battle groups. Believing that the United 

States could reduce its active forces from 2.1 million to between 1.5 and 

1.6 million military personnel, Powell sought a plan that delineated the 

minimum U.S. force levels essential for a post–Cold War era. He believed 

such forces would require only ten to twelve Army divisions.15

The Joint Staff conducted the Base Force study without direct 

participation by HQDA. Similarly, the staff undertook its strategic analyses without service concurrence. For example, the Joint Staff optimistically rejected the Army’s hypothesis that force reduction negotiations in 

Europe would not reach fruition in time to affect current force structure 

plans. The Army’s leadership recognized that the continuing withdrawal 

of Soviet military forces from East Germany and Poland gave NATO 

greater warning time of a Soviet attack in Central Europe. However, 

Army planners still judged a short-warning conventional attack to be a 

15 Lorna S. Jaffe, The Development of the Base Force, 1989–1992 (Washington, 

D.C.: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1993), pp. 11–15.

Defense Secretary Cheney hosts an Armed Forces Full Honor Arrival 

Ceremony at the Pentagon for the Japanese minister of state for defense. 
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

47

plausible, if now less likely, scenario. In contrast, Powell and the Joint 

Staff believed the Soviet withdrawal represented a decisive Soviet shift 

from an offensive to a defensive posture in Europe. In essence, the Base 

Force’s planners now took the lead, anticipating a more rapid end to the 

Cold War than even Army leaders had envisioned, and they were proved 

correct by subsequent events.16

The Joint Staff’s dismissal of the Cold War left planners looking 

beyond the threats central to the current national military strategy and 

developing a force-sizing standard other than one focused on containing 

the Soviet threat. The most recent national military strategy and defense 

guidance had addressed the prospect of U.S. operations in Southwest 

Asia to help defend against a “robust regional threat, rather than plan 

solely for thwarting a Soviet attack in the region. Instead of hypothesizing future threats, however, the Joint Staff shifted from a “threatbased” to a more “capabilities-based” force-design process. The latter 

method caused them to focus on developing a diversity of forces to 

respond to a broad number of threats, rather than tailoring forces to one 

or more discrete strategic threats or scenarios.17 In effect no one knew 

what the future would hold once the Soviet threat evaporated.

In order to permit force sizing for both a general war with the Soviet 

Union and regional contingencies, the Joint Staff developed four “force 

packages,” two geographical and two functional. These packages transcended existing regional combatant command areas of responsibility as 

well as the three types of theaters of operations. Since early in the Cold 

War, strategic/space had emerged as a distinct type of theater (primarily 

an Air Force and Navy responsibility), in addition to the traditional maritime (primarily a Navy and Air Force responsibility), and continental 

(Army and Air Force responsibility) theaters. The two geographical force 

packages, Atlantic and Pacific, would provide air, naval, and ground

forces for conventional operations against either Soviet or indigenous 

threats. The Atlantic package, for example, comprised forces allocated 

to fight either in NATO or in a contingency operation in the Atlantic

Command’s or the Central Command’s area of responsibility, including 

Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Two functional force packages, 

Strategic and Contingency, would be CONUS-based, with the “strategic 

16 Ibid., pp. 5–9, 13–14, 17–18.

17 DPG 1992–1997, pp. 4, 17; James A. Winnefeld, The Post–Cold War ForceSizing Debate: Paradigms, Metaphors, and Disconnects, RAND R-4243-JS (Santa 

Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1992), pp. 1–2, 5–8; U.S. General Accounting Office, 

Report to Congressional Requesters. Force Structure: Issues Involving the Base Force, 

GAO/NSIAD-93-65 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, 1993), pp. 

12–13.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

48

forces” constituting all U.S. space and nuclear assets, and the “contingency forces” constituting all unassigned conventional forces. The latter 

could either reinforce a regional combatant command or prosecute a 

different contingency operation elsewhere.18

By the summer of 1990, the Joint Staff had moved beyond “A View 

to the 90s” with a more detailed Base Force plan. The new plan represented a reduction, rather than a significant restructuring, of existing U.S.

conventional forces. In this vein, the Base Force study proposed replacing 

forward-deployed units with smaller “forward-presence” forces. Instead 

of the strong ground forces and supporting base currently in place in 

Europe and Korea, the Base Force study envisioned a greater emphasis 

on CONUS-based “force projection” units, capable of responding to a 

variety of scenarios worldwide.

Reductions in the size and structure of forward-deployed U.S. forces 

could leave Army units particularly vulnerable. Since 1950, Army force 

designs, particularly those of heavy units, had evolved to match qualitative improvements in Soviet and Soviet-supplied ground forces.19 But the 

Army’s armored and mechanized units, designed to dominate a conventional battlefield, were expensive to equip and train, were difficult to

transport, and required extensive logistical support. Critics argued that 

such forces were less valuable for contingency operations elsewhere. 

In response, supporters of heavy forces argued that the proliferation of 

Soviet-designed and manufactured armored equipment throughout the 

Middle East andAsia justified retaining these units.TheBase Force study’s

18 John M. Collins, National Military Strategy, the DoD Base Force, and U.S. 

Unified Command Plan: An Assessment, Congressional Research Service Report 

Number (92-493 S) (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of 

Congress, 11 June 1992), pp. 7, 26–35; Marc Dean Millot, The Future U.S. Military 

Presence in Europe: Managing USEUCOM’s Command Structure after the Cold War, 

RAND Report Number RAND R-4128-EUCOM/NA (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand 

Corporation, 1992), pp. 16–17; James John Tritten, Our New National Security Strategy: 

America Promises to Come Back (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), pp. 33–42; Harry 

E. Rothmann, Forging a New National Military Strategy in a Post–Cold War World: 

A Perspective from the Joint Staff (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 26 

February 1992); Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, pp. 21, 26–27. 19 See John B. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions 

and Separate Brigades, Army Lineage Series (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military 

History, 1998); Glen R. Hawkins, United States Army Force Structure and Force Design 

Initiatives, 1939–1989 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1990); Glen R. 

Hawkins and James Jay Carafano, Prelude to Army XXI: U.S. Army Division Designs 

and Experiments, 1917–1995 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1997); and 

John L. Romjue, The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army (Fort 

Monroe, Va.: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1993), for detailed discussions of Army tactical force redesign efforts.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

49

force-projection logic, however, reinforced the impetus of ongoing Army 

AirLand Battle-Future studies for designing more flexible structures that

could blend heavy and light forces with greater ability to cover rapidly 

diverse contingency operations anywhere in the world.

Despite a certain congruence between Joint and Army plans, the 

Joint Staff’s Base Force proposals threatened to overwhelm Army plans 

for the gradual force reductions developed in the Quicksilver reshaping 

proposals and submitted to OSD in the Army’s FY1992–1997 Program 

Objective Memorandum. As briefed to the Army’s leadership, the JCS 

recommendations envisioned a reduction to 535,500 active-duty Army 

personnel though 1995, far greater than the Quicksilver II reductions, 

cutting the Army to 580,000 in fourteen divisions by 1997. Under 

the Base Force proposals, the total number of active-duty military 

personnel in the Department of Defense would decline by 25 percent 

through 1997. When the reductions were subtracted from the Army’s 

1987 strength of 780,815, total Army cuts would exceed 30 percent. 

Recommended manpower reductions from 1987 levels for the other 

services were Air Force, 29 percent; Navy, 14 percent; and Marine 

Corps, 21 percent. The force cuts translated into a 33 percent reduction in active Army divisions (18 to 12), a 44 percent cut in Air Force 

tactical forces (27 to 15 wings), and a 24 percent cut in naval battle 

force ships (568 to 432), with the Marine Corps retaining a three-division/wing structure at slightly reduced strengths. The only way the 

Army could realistically meet the deeper manpower cut would be by 

accelerated personnel reductions. Such reductions would only further 

disrupt unit readiness and cohesion.20

Army Chief of Staff Vuono (1987–1991) joined other service chiefs 

and regional combatant commanders in objecting to the scope of reductions. Without a comprehensive threat analysis for the new strategic 

environment, future requirements remained murky. The reductions, 

he argued, appeared more budget-driven than the result of a revised 

national military strategy. Except for reductions projected pursuant to 

mutual European withdrawals by NATO and Warsaw Pact nations, the 

Base Force concept eliminated forces without identifying likely future 

contingencies and the respective capabilities needed to respond to them. 

Its entire analysis appeared superficial. Similarly, the concept failed

20 Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, pp. 40–44; Information Paper, Lt Col 

Persyn (DAMO-SSW), 3 Aug 1990, sub: Future of the Force—POM Army and Fiscally 

Constrained Alternative, CINC Conference—Force Structure Book, File 90-00207, 

Vuono Papers, MHI; Collins, National Military Strategy, pp. 24–25; U.S. GAO, Issues 

Involving the Base Force, p. 10.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

50

to provide a clear definition of how each service’s functions would

contribute to the rapidly evolving national security strategy, especially 

contingency operations in “Third World” arenas. Vuono insisted that, 

more than the other services, the Army offered a diversity of military 

capabilities for employment in all contingencies, from security and 

stability operations to high-threat fighting in a conventional ground war.

TRADOC’s ongoing AirLand Battle-Future studies promised to redesign the Army into a force more attuned to contingency operations. Yet 

the Army had already accepted major personnel reductions, exceeding 

those in the other services. Vuono argued that Army personnel therefore 

warranted a reprieve from cuts beyond those already programmed.21

Powell countered these arguments with budget projections. Although 

HQDA had already made its Program Objective Memorandum submission for 1992–1997 based on average budget reductions of 10 percent 

through 1995, Powell had already directed the Joint Staff to plan for a 25 

percent reduction in defense budgets over the same years. He also noted 

that congressional plans projected between 11 and 16 percent additional 

defense budget reductions. His arguments seemed authoritative to the 

secretary of defense and many key OSD officials.22

During these deliberations, Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) Paul 

Wolfowitz sponsored an independent strategic reevaluation in May 1990 

that buttressed the Joint Staff’s summer planning assumptions. Noting 

the impending collapse of the Warsaw Pact, Wolfowitz contended that 

force ratios in Central Europe between NATO and former Warsaw Pact 

members had already shifted from approximately 1:2.5 in 1988 to 1:1.7 

in 1990. The Wolfowitz study assumed that a NATO/former Warsaw 

Pact agreement would provide balanced force reductions in Europe 

while it retained a 1:1.6 NATO/former Warsaw Pact force ratio through 

1997. After the agreement, the Soviet Union would be unable to launch 

a theater-wide military offensive in Central Europe without at least one 

or two years’ advance preparation, providing NATO ample warning. 

Consequently, Wolfowitz offered three U.S. force options: a “Crisis 

Response/Reconstitution” posture, a “Third World Power Projection” 

option, and a “Forward Defense without Reconstitution” posture.

Noting the unsettled geopolitical environment, the Wolfowitz study 

was more cautious than the Base Force study in recommending U.S. 

force reductions. The OSD piece advocated a more gradual pace of force 

21 Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, pp. 22–24, 34–35, 38–44. 22 Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Budget Impact of Illustrative 25% Force 

Reduction,” Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, 

pp. 35–37.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

51

reductions through 1997, rather than the Base Force study’s goal of 1995. 

It further recommended that the United States conduct force reductions 

in three phases, retaining the option to suspend them quickly in the event 

of a reversal of the Warsaw Pact’s decline or escalating tensions. The 

study’s 1997 goal was for a “Crisis Response/Reconstitution force” with 

an active Army of 520,000 (12 divisions), a 450-ship Navy, a 16–17 

tactical wing Air Force, and a Marine Corps of 147,000 (5 Marine 

Expeditionary Brigades [MEBs] rather than 3 divisions/wings). Except 

for Marine force levels, the Wolfowitz study almost duplicated the Base 

Force concept’s force levels. The former emphasized, however, building 

a “reconstitution” capability into any reductions, noting that the final

Crisis Response/Reconstitution force would need up to seven years to 

reconstitute to 1990 levels, should the Soviet threat resurrect itself.23

Finally, Congress entered the debate. At the behest of the Senate 

Armed Services Committee, the 1991 National Defense Authorization 

Act contained language mandating service end strengths. The act established service active component strengths for 1995 at 520,000 for the 

Army, 501,000 for the Navy, 177,000 for the Marine Corps, and 415,000 

for the Air Force. Congress agreed to “orderly” and “phased” force 

reductions and force levels almost identical to those recommended by 

the Base Force study.24

For Army leaders, the recommended cuts were hardly orderly or 

phased. Facing formidable opposition from the Joint Staff, OSD, and 

Congress, General Vuono labored throughout the summer of 1990 to 

adjust the Base Force study’s cuts and put them more in line with the levels 

contained in the Army’s 1992–1997 POM submission. Vuono’s objections, like those of all other service chiefs except Marine Commandant 

General Alfred M. Gray, Jr., were ineffective. Since the passage of 

Goldwater-Nichols, service chiefs could only recommend changes to 

Joint Staff plans. Powell continued to support the Base Force study’s 

reductions, and the Army had little ability to challenge them directly. In 

the end, pursuant to an October budget agreement between the White 

23 USD(P) Briefing Materials, “DPRB: Threat, Strategy and Implications for Force 

Posture,” May 1990, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Don M. Snider, Strategy, 

Forces, and Budgets: Dominant Influences in Executive Decision Making, Post–Cold 

War, 1989–91 (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, February 1993), pp. 

18–22; Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, pp. 30–35. 24 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991, Public Law 510, 101st 

Cong., 2d sess. (5 Nov 1990), sec. 401; Press Release, United States Senate Committee 

on Armed Services, “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991,” 17 Oct 

1990, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Snider, Strategy, Forces, and Budgets, pp. 

28–29.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

52

House and Congress, OSD directed the services to reduce forces below 

Program Objective Memorandum levels, essentially approving the Base 

Force cuts.25 In the face of real, rather than projected, budget cuts, Vuono 

reluctantly acquiesced to a twelve-division, rather than fourteen-division, active force, with all cuts implemented by 1995 instead of through 

1997. He acted in part to preserve Army readiness levels. Retaining what 

the Army considered adequate force levels in light of the reduced budget 

would mean undermining both readiness and force modernization. The 

result would be tantamount to destroying the Army from within—by 

creating a “hollow” Army—and that he refused to do.26

Unlike Vuono, the Navy leaders continued negotiating with the Joint 

Staff on Base Force reductions up until the secretary of defense made 

his final decisions in December. In this effort, Navy leaders focused

more on force structure trade-offs than on postponement of reductions 

beyond 1995. Marine Commandant Gray’s persistent opposition to Base 

Force reductions to Marine forces did reverse some of them, however. 

Powell acquiesced in part to the Marine Corps’ self-proclaimed role as 

the nation’s ready “911 response force” that needed to be kept strong. 

In August, Powell thus backed down and increased the Base Force’s 

end strength for the Marines from 150,000 to 159,000. Furthermore, 

unlike was the case with the other services, the Base Force delayed until 

1996–1997 Marine reductions below 170,600, allowing time for additional negotiation concerning the issue.27

The Defense Planning and Resources Board (DPRB), the Defense 

Department’s highest decision-making body for resource issues, approved 

the Base Force for program and budget purposes on 10 December 1990 in 

the midst of Operation Desert Shield. HQDA planned to implement the 

reductions by decreasing the Army to 12 active divisions with 30 active 

brigades (8 armored, 10 mechanized infantry, and 12 infantry) and 7 

round-out reserve component brigades (2 armored, 3 mechanized infantry, 

and 2 infantry) through 1995. The Army’s reserve components would be 

25 See Snider, Strategy, Forces, and Budgets, pp. 23–31, for a detailed analysis of 

Bush administration and congressional maneuvering that led to the Budget Enforcement 

Act of 1990. 26 Leslie Lewis, C. Robert Roll, and John D. Mayer, Assessing the Structure and 

Mix of Future Active and Reserve Forces: Assessment of Policies and Practices for 

Implementing the Total Force Policy, RAND Report Number RAND, MR-133-OSD 

(Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1992), pp. 33, 41–49, 51–53; Snider, Strategy, 

Forces, and Budgets, pp. 15–16. 27 Lewis et al., Assessing the Structure and Mix of Future Active and Reserve 

Forces, pp. 45–48; Jaffe, Development of the Base Force, pp. 38, 43–44; Powell, My 

American Journey, pp. 438–439.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

53

pared to 8 divisions with 24 brigades (6 armored, 6 mechanized infantry, 9 

infantry, and 3 light infantry) during the same period. Although the reserve 

component reductions reflected Quicksilver II plans, HQDA accepted

OSD proposals to study conversion of two Army National Guard divisions 

to “cadre” formations.28 Thus, having started 1990 with authorization for 

770,000 active military personnel, with 18 active and 10 Army National 

Guard divisions, the Army was ending the year with plans approved to 

reduce active personnel to 535,000 over five years.29

On 19 November 1990, Washington and Moscow reached their anticipated agreement of mutual withdrawal of forces in Europe. This event 

was an important milestone in the end of the Cold War and permitted 

major withdrawals of U.S. units from Europe. But despite Army attempts 

to link reductions to changes in the national military strategy, declining 

budgets remained the primary catalyst for defense reshaping efforts. 

After endeavoring to adapt the Army to the future, HQDA saw the Base 

Force study further decreasing approved Army forces below what Army 

analyses indicated was prudent. Questions remained for the Army’s leadership as to whether the Base Force’s reductions beyond those proposed 

in the Army’s Quicksilver II program would prove too deep and too rapid. 

Also unresolved was whether the human cost of such turmoil would prove 

debilitating for cohesion and morale over the long run.30

In any case, by the end of 1990, the Goldwater-Nichols Act had 

begun to move major national military strategy and force planning 

decisions from HQDA’s control to the Joint Staff and OSD. GoldwaterNichols directed that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff conduct 

a “Chairman’s Program Assessment” of the service’s biennial POMs 

for the secretary of defense. The Base Force study, however, proceeded 

far beyond a simple program assessment. General Powell succeeded 

in breaking what one observer described as the “PPBS cycle, in which 

28 In 1992, Congress rejected reductions to the Army National Guard’s eight divisions, effectively ending plans to convert two divisions to cadre divisions. See Snider, 

Strategy, Forces, and Budgets, p. 31. 29 Memo, Gen Carl E. Vuono for Distribution, 5 Nov 1990, sub: Guidance for 

Updating Fiscal Year 1992/1993 Budget and Fiscal Year 1992–1997 POM, with enclosed 

Program Reduction Strategy, FY 91 Budget Execution Guidance, File 90-00178; 

Directorate, Program Analysis and Evaluation, Briefing Materials: FY 92–97 Program 

Relook, 5 Dec 1990, Program Adjustments DPRB Preparation Secret File 90-00205; 

DCSOPS, DPRB Briefing Materials: Reshaping the Army for the 1990s, 10 Dec 1990, 

DPRB Briefing Secret File 90-00206, all Vuono Papers, MHI. 30 See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, George Bush: 1990, 

bk. 2, July 1 to December 31, 1990 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records 

Administration, 1991), pp. 1640–1642, for the text of the Conventional Forces in Europe 

(CFE) agreement.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

54

the services submitted [POMs] in competition with each other.” Critics 

of the Program Objective Memorandum process had complained that 

services tended to “front load” the PPBS processes with expensive force 

modernization programs, which the secretary of defense could reduce 

only at considerable political cost. But Powell completely overrode the 

service POM submissions with the Base Force recommendations. For 

the first time since Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird instituted the

POM process at the end of the 1960s, the PPBS cycle began with an 

integrated program based, ostensibly, on military requirements.31

Even after Secretary Cheney adopted the Base Force, questions 

continued to arise over its ability to satisfy the nation’s military requirements. Critics quickly took issue with several aspects of the Base Force. 

First, it reduced forces prior to identifying the most likely future contingencies and their respective force requirements. Rather than apportion “pro rata” 

cuts to the services, it reduced Army units, Air Force supporting tactical air 

wings, and the “Atlantic force package” units the most. Although the obviously reduced threat from the Soviet Union was the main catalyst, the exact 

criteria for specific force reductions were unclear to all outside of the Joint

Staff and that handful of service representatives who had collaborated on 

the Base Force study. The failure to share with the services the methodology 

used by quantitative analytical studies that underpinned the study’s recommendations only exacerbated its credibility problems. The key impetus for 

specific force cuts appeared to be the expectation ofincreased warning times

in the event of a political reversal and general war in Europe, as well as the 

ability to reconstitute various service capabilities rapidly. Longer warning 

times for a general war permitted mobilization, training, and deployment 

of Army and Air Force reserve component forces to supplant those in the 

active force. Conversely, the long lead times (up to five years) essential

for ship building and the lack of significant cost savings in manning ships

with Naval Reserve crews argued for retaining relatively larger active naval 

forces until the Soviet situation was more certain.32

A second criticism was that the Base Force merely reduced existing 

forces rather than begin the arduous process of reorganizing military 

capabilities for a new, yet-to-be-divined post–Cold War environment. 

31 Lovelace, Unification of the United States Armed Forces, pp. 44–45; Jaffe,

Development of the Base Force, pp. 13, 27. 32 See, for example, William B. Kaufmann, Assessing the Base Force: How Much Is 

Enough? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 23–24; Winnefeld, Post–

Cold War Force-Sizing Debate, p. 8; John M. Collins, U.S. Military Force Reductions: 

Capabilities Versus Requirements, Congressional Research Service Report Number (92-

43 S) (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 8 January 

1992), pp. 23, 25–26, 56; Collins, National Military Strategy, pp. 9, 21–22, 57–58.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

55

Admittedly, just as Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led ejection of 

Iraqi forces from Kuwait, had disrupted the Army’s Project Vanguard, 

it also hindered the Joint Staff’s ability to complete timely analysis 

for the Base Force. This lack left the study focused on “macro-level” 

military capabilities: divisions, wings, carrier battle groups, and Marine 

Expeditionary Forces (MEFs). As one critic noted, the Base Force study 

reduced forces without ensuring that “decisionmakers act to redress 

undesirable redundancies, consolidate functions, improve procedures, 

eliminate waste, and otherwise substitute quality for quantity.”33 Effort 

to streamline overlapping service roles and functions and adopt common 

doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures could indeed offset part of 

the reduction in military capabilities stemming from the Base Force’s 25 

percent cut in previous Defense Department manpower levels. Yet one 

provision of the 1958 Defense Reorganization Act prevented the Joint 

Staff or OSD from undertaking a detailed force redesign unilaterally. As 

the service chiefs noted during Base Force deliberations, the services 

still retained their legal responsibility for organizing, equipping, and 

training forces.34

Two provisions of Goldwater-Nichols, however, directed the chairman 

to undertake measures directly affecting formerly sacrosanct service hegemony over organizing and training tactical forces. First, the act charged 

the chairman with “developing doctrine for the joint employment of the 

armed forces.”35 But even if the Joint Staff developed and promulgated a 

series of doctrinal publications for joint warfighting and common support,

the legislation left unclear whether these would be “directive” in nature or 

simply guidelines. If directive, then joint doctrine would be a keystone, 

either unifying or overriding the diverse service doctrines. If only guidelines, then joint doctrine, like so many past attempts at fostering “jointness,” would become just another irrelevant adjunct to disparate service 

approaches to warfighting.36

The second provision required the chairman to undertake a triennial 

review of roles, missions, and functions within the Defense Department. 

The changing strategic environment alone mandated a reexamination 

of service roles and functions. Although joint doctrine could harmonize 

the operational capabilities provided by the services, the triennial review 

process could identify and consolidate duplicative service functions, 

33 Collins, U.S. Military Force Reductions, p. 1. 34 John F. Troxell, Force Planning in an Era of Uncertainty: Two MRCs as a Force 

Sizing Framework (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1997), p. 12; Jaffe, 

Development of the Base Force, p. 27. 35 Section 153.

36 Lovelace, Unification of the United States Armed Forces, pp. 48–50.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

56

yielding both efficiencies and improvements in military effectiveness.37

The review would provide the chairman with options for change in existing 

functions that had obvious organization, acquisition, and training duplications. He could then recommend changes, most of which the secretary of 

defense could undertake himself under authority provided by the 1958 act. 

Such a process, rather than service advocacy, would decide authoritatively 

which service capabilities would be most applicable to the nation’s “911 

Force,” for example.38

The outgoing chairman, Admiral Crowe, had completed the first

statutory study of roles, missions, and functions immediately prior to his 

retirement in September 1989.39 But the effort had taken place too early 

to discern changes in the strategic environment authoritatively. Crowe’s 

review noted that the shift of U.S. strategic priorities from a focus on the 

Soviet Union to a posture that incorporated greater contingency planning 

for the Third World mandated adjustments to service roles and functions. Yet even as it recommended further study to “revise” and “update” 

selected functions, Crowe’s review continued to endorse existing service 

roles and functions. The study did note, however, that service doctrines 

and functions would evolve rapidly, not only in light of changing national 

military strategy, but also because of “emerging technology” that made 

possible new operational concepts for the next generation of warfare. 

It also recommended that the Defense Department address overlapping 

service functions for space operations and intelligence analysis. But 

the study avoided any specific reorganization. The only recommended

change to service functions was to assign close air support to all of the 

services, rather than continue to require the Air Force to support Army 

forces. The result was thus of limited value to those who had hoped that 

37 In discussions of roles, missions, and functions, I use the term overlap—

neutrally—for a situation in which two or more services possess military capabilities for 

an identical or a similar function. Redundancy I apply to an overlapping of functions that 

exists for credible military reasons. Duplication refers to an overlapping of functions 

that lacks convincing military reasons. 38 Lovelace, Unification of the United States Armed Forces, pp. 50–51. 39 The phrase roles and missions is used frequently in reference to a service’s statutory “role,” and specific “functions.” Though the term roles and missions commonly 

refers to capabilities of Defense Department organizations, the terms role, mission, and 

function each pertain to a specific organization. Each service has a role. Functions are 

“more specific responsibilities” assigned by executive order or regulation to the services 

to fulfill their roles. Missions are “tasks assigned to a unified or specified command,” 

not a service. See William W. Epley, Roles and Missions of the United States Army 

(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1993), pp. 4–7, for the evolution of these 

concepts.
The Cold War Ends, 1989–1990

57

it would spark a comprehensive redesign and offset reductions with a 

more tightly integrated, effective force.40

The Base Force study also provided little direction for design of a 

joint force for the future. Nonetheless, it was the Joint Staff’s foundation 

for post–Cold War reshaping. The secretary of defense had approved 

force cuts even before any new national military strategy articulated 

how the Base Force would meet the nation’s requirements. The Base 

Force offered few benefits for HQDA or the soldier, other than the prospect that it might avert more arbitrary reductions by Congress. Army 

critics continued to question whether it was a sound reshaping plan and 

argued that the Base Force risked “breaking” critical military capabilities. Anticipating this argument, General Powell and OSD officials

noted that they had designed the Base Force to be “reversible.” Force 

reductions could stop, and reconstitution begin, in the event that world 

events did not conform to the sanguine scenario envisioned by Joint 

Staff planners.

40 Memo, CM-2243-89, Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., Chairman, Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, for the Secretary of Defense, 28 Sep 1989, sub: Report of the Roles and Functions 

of the Armed Forces, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

59

Chapter 4

Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

The Army’s leadership faced two principal hurdles in defending 

current force levels. First, Joint Staff planners argued that heavy ground 

forces were difficult to deploy to a contingency with available U.S.

sealift assets. Second, the Soviet redeployment of ground forces from 

Eastern Europe extended warning times for a possible NATO-Soviet 

conflict in Europe. This changing balance of power in Central Europe

had allowed the Base Force planners to advise shifting more ground 

force requirements for such a contingency from the active Army to the 

Army National Guard. Although Army planners considered these Base 

Force assumptions optimistic, the Army had little leverage to continue 

to oppose the reductions once the secretary of defense had accepted the 

degree of risk inherent in the Base Force.

The Defense Management Review

While the Army undertook Project Vanguard and the Joint Staff 

conducted the Base Force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense

launched its own study, the Defense Management Review (DMR). 

Adopting a 1987 Packard Commission recommendation, Secretary 

of Defense Cheney launched the initial DMR study in 1989. The first

efforts were modest in scope, attempting to shape and coordinate service 

infrastructure reorganization plans. Under the DMR’s aegis, HQDA 

consolidated its own internal reshaping into the 1989 Army Management 

Review, which streamlined acquisition and logistical processes, yielding 

a projected $12 billion in savings through 1995.1

Congress reinforced the Defense Department efforts with the 1991 

National Defense Authorization Act. The act mandated an annual 4 percent 

reduction in personnel assigned to Defense Department “management 

1

 Army Management Review Task Force, “Army Management Review: Report to 

the Secretary of Defense,” Oct 1989; Dick Cheney, “Defense Management: Report to the 

President by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney,” Jul 1989, both Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

60

headquarters” from 1991 through 1995.2 In addition to this cumulative 

reduction of more than 18 percent in headquarters personnel, the act also 

reduced active component general officers, with the Army dropping from

410 to 302 over the same five-year period. Although Base Force reductions

of tactical forces would account for reductions of many general officer positions, HQDA would have to eliminate, downgrade, or consolidate a number 

of general officer positions elsewhere in its structure. Consequently, both

provisions of the act were catalysts for the consolidation of nontactical 

headquarters throughout the Defense Department.3

The cost reduction goals that had driven Base Force cuts and 

congressional actions sparked more ambitious DMR recommendations 

in 1990. Seizing the initiative for infrastructure reform, the OSD comptroller developed a number of discrete initiatives for cost reduction and 

institutional consolidation for study by OSD and the services. These 

proposals aimed at consolidating similar functions that were currently 

spread across the services in defense agencies or under a single service 

as the Defense Department’s “executive agent.” Specific DMR recommendations affected the continued autonomy of the Army’s Corps of 

Engineers, Information Systems Command, Health Services Command, 

Military Traffic Management Command, Criminal Investigation

Division Command, and major elements of the Army Materiel Command 

(Chart 5).4

 Widespread service objections and the Gulf War forestalled 

implementation of such consolidations in 1990. Nevertheless, OSD’s 

continuing studies of various options in these realms left the Vanguard 

Task Force’s proposals and other Army reorganization plans in limbo.

Declining defense budgets provided strong incentives for a continued 

search for organizational efficiencies. The DMR-recommended consolidations offered the potential for cost reductions and streamlined, better 

2

 DoD Directive 5100.73, “Department of Defense Management Headquarters 

and Headquarters Support Activities,” identifies those Defense Department organizations defined as management headquarters. In the Army these include HQDA and staff 

support activities, major command headquarters, U.S. Army Recruiting Command, U.S. 

Army Space Command, and selected major subordinate command headquarters in the 

Army Materiel Command. 3 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991, Public Law 510, 101st 

Cong., 2d sess. (5 Nov 1990), secs. 403, 906. 4 Project VANGUARD, Final Report, pp. I-10 through I-12; Memo, Col Robert B. 

Cato, Chief, Army Management Review Coordination Office (AMRCO), for the Secretary 

of the Army, 18 Sep 1990, sub: Additional FY 1992 Defense Management Report (DMR) 

Initiatives Information Memorandum; Defense Management Report Decision (DMRD) 

996, sub: Consolidation of the Investigative Agencies, 17 Nov 1990; DMRD 982, 

Management of Military Construction, 12 Nov 1990; Office of the CSA, Weekly Summary

40 (13 Apr 1990) No. 15, pp. 17–20, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

61

functionally organized, major support operations within the Defense 

Department. A short-term cost of these benefits, however, would be

disruptions to existing services and programs as well as a reshuffling

of service career patterns for military officers. The DMR initiatives also

left open questions concerning the Army’s continued sovereignty over 

programs essential for mission support and soldier morale. For example, 

the DMR study concerning “Management of Defense Health Care” 

suggested that nondeployable health care facilities might be merged into 

a “Defense Medical Support Agency,” and staff discussions seemed to 

suggest that changing eligibility standards for such care among dependents and retirees in particular might prove a good source for monetary 

savings.5

 Unsurprisingly, the Army leaders opposed such measures, 

questioning their near-term cost savings and emphasizing their potential 

disruption to existing programs during both a major contingency operation and a period of significant force reduction.6

Although it set ambitious goals, the DMR process enjoyed only limited 

success in restructuring the Defense Department for enhanced efficiency

and effectiveness. The DMR proponents lacked the full-time staff that, for 

example, had given the Army’s Project Vanguard the capability to develop 

detailed supporting analyses adequate to confront resistance. Moreover, 

the DMR was not empowered to develop a framework for integrating 

consolidated department functions into a support command structure 

similar to the World War II Army Service Forces, as the 1945 MarshallCollins Plan had proposed (Chart 6). Instead of designing an integrated 

multifunctional support organization, the DMR sought to consolidate 

similar discrete support activities, preferably into new defense agencies. 

In fact, had the Defense Department adopted all of the DMR-proposed 

consolidations, it would have ended up with something reminiscent of the 

nineteenth-century War Department bureau system (Chart 7). Rather than 

integrating these functions in a manner that would ensure both responsiveness to military requirements and a minimum of overlaps and duplications, these new defense agencies would be disconnected and potentially 

unresponsive to anyone except the secretary himself.

The review did effect several consolidations, however, until the 

incoming Clinton administration halted the effort in 1993. A 1991 decision shifted most supply depots from the Army Materiel Command’s 

5

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Dr. David S. C. Chu, 17 Dec 1997, Washington, D.C., 

Oral History Activity, CMH. 6

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Mr. Blair Ewing, Task Force on Defense Reform, 19 Feb 

1998, Pentagon, CMH; DMRD 970, sub: Proposal on Management of Defense Health 

Care, 17 Nov 1990, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Chart 7—THE STRUCTURE OF ARMY ORGANIZATION IN THE 1890S

THE PRESIDENT

Commander in Chief

COMMANDING GENERAL OF ARMY

Source: Maj. Francis T. Julia, Army Staff Reorganization, 1903–1985, Historical Analysis Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987), chart 1 after p. 21;

 Otto L. Nelson, Jr., National Security and the General Staff (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1946), p. 21.

TERRITORIAL

DEPARTMENTS

SECRETARY OF WAR

MEDICAL

DEPARTMENT

ORDNANCE

DEPARTMENT

SUBSISTENCE

DEPARTMENT

ADJUTANT

GENERAL

INSPECTOR

GENERAL

DEPARTMENT

PAY

DEPARTMENT

QUARTERMASTER

GENERAL

JUDGE

ADVOCATE

GENERAL

BOARD OF

PUBLICATIONS

BOARD OF

COMMISSIONERS

RECORD AND

PENSION

OFFICE

CHIEF OF

ENGINEERS

CHIEF SIGNAL

OFFICER
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

63

authority to the Defense Logistics Agency. OSD consolidated service 

finance agencies and commissary operations during the same year.

Finally, the outgoing administration approved consolidation of certain 

information management organizations at installations in November 

1992. These consolidations and related management improvements 

gleaned $40–$50 billion in overhead and support savings from 1991 

through 1997. Although perhaps more successful than the Vanguard 

study in effecting real organizational change, the DMR’s overall failure 

to consolidate more organizations and headquarters left the services to 

meet the statutory management headquarters reduction.7

The Gulf War

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm underscored the need 

for the ongoing U.S. strategic review. They also tested command and 

control arrangements for operational forces implemented subsequent to 

the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization. Finally, they demonstrated the 

effects of the Quicksilver and Base Force reductions upon Army and 

other military capabilities.

Although it disrupted HQDA and Defense Department reshaping 

efforts, the Gulf War demonstrated the Army’s ability to conduct a 

ground operation in a major regional contingency against a regional 

power armed with modern mechanized forces. The 82d Airborne 

Division was the first large Army unit to arrive in theater, joining coalition allies and other U.S. forces already in Saudi Arabia on 8 August 

1990. Unlike previous contingency operations, Desert Shield required 

a major follow-on deployment. In fact, CENTCOM troop requirements 

quickly strained the active Army’s capabilities.8

The XVIII Airborne Corps, with four divisions, completed deployment to the theater by mid-October. Because of Quicksilver reduction plans, the Army had already begun inactivating the 2d Armored 

7

 Defense Management Review study (DMR) 902, sub: Consolidation of Defense 

Supply Depots, undated (1990); DMR 910, sub: Consolidation of DoD Accounting 

and Finance Operations, undated (1990); DMR 918C, sub: Defense Information 

Infrastructure, undated (1990); DMR 972, sub: Consolidate Commissaries, undated 

(1990); Ltr, Mr. Philip A. Odeen, Chairman, Defense Science Board Task Force on FY 

1994–99 Future Years Defense Plan, to Ms. Marilyn Elrod, Staff Director, House Armed 

Services Committee, 17 May 1993; ASD (Comptroller), “Summary Report: Defense 

Management Report Initiatives,” Oct 1993, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 8

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Gen Dennis J. Reimer, Commander, U.S. Army Forces 

Command, Fort McPherson, Ga., 31 Jan 1994; Interv, Dwight Oland with Lt Gen William 

H. Reno, U.S. Army, Ret., 5 Jan 1993, Washington, D.C., both Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

64

Division and the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), two units that 

otherwise could have deployed. The massive troop requirement led 

the secretary of defense to obtain presidential approval on 22 August 

for the mobilization of 25,000 reserve component combat support and 

combat service support personnel. President Bush’s 8 November order 

to increase the U.S. Central Command’s forces for offensive operations, 

rather than to enforce a quarantine against Iraq, necessitated deploying 

another corps headquarters and two divisions from Europe and another 

Army division from CONUS, and further reserve mobilizations. 

Although three Army National Guard brigades were mobilized, they 

became stalled in the train-up process and were not allowed to deploy 

in time to meet the combatant commander’s schedule. Fortunately, the 

seven active divisions proved adequate as a “decisive force” during the 

ensuing campaign, and no other contingencies—such as hostilities in 

Korea—presented themselves.9

Operation Desert Storm devoured Army tactical and combat service 

support resources. CENTCOM’s decisive force required deployment 

of ready Army units in Europe, depriving the European Command of 

most of its forward-deployed forces. Ultimately, the Army deployed 

the equivalent of eight divisions (two-thirds of its Base Force strength) 

to Desert Storm. The desert terrain and enemy armored forces made 

the five armored and mechanized divisions the most valuable units for

the ground campaign.10 Ominously, a protracted Desert Shield–type 

defense “quarantine” of Kuwait and Iraq, rather than an offensive 

operation, would have required unit rotations if the contingency had 

continued beyond twelve months. Even with only four to five division

equivalents in the theater, rotation requirements would have quickly 

exceeded the ten active Army divisions in the Base Force’s Atlantic 

and contingency force packages. The refusal by the commander of 

the U.S. Central Command to accept light infantry divisions in the 

theater further exacerbated the Army’s dilemma of where to find

sufficient forces for rotation. Desert Storm’s eight-division ground 

force requirement, moreover, exceeded available active Army ground 

transportation, bulk fuel, water purification, and other combat service

support capabilities. These shortages required the early mobilization 

of a number of reserve component units, as well as extensive host9

 Frank N. Schubert and Theresa L. Kraus, eds., The Whirlwind War (Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995), pp. 83, 107–108. 10 Two armored cavalry regiments and an independent armored brigade constituted 

forces equivalent to the eighth Army “division” in theater.
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

65

nation support. As a result, the operations yielded abundant lessons for 

future reshaping plans.11

Although not the case during the contingency operation in Panama 

in 1989, HQDA’s support was essential to Operations Desert Shield and 

Desert Storm. HQDA activated the Army’s Crisis Response Cell (CRC) 

and its Crisis Action Team (CAT) to coordinate the mobilization and deployment of Army units. The pace of events and the scale of the mobilization 

quickly exceeded the CAT’s capabilities, which were tailored to a smaller 

contingency operation. By November, most of the HQDA staff was thus 

engaged full-time in coordinating mobilization and logistical support for 

Desert Shield. At the same time, other Army Staff agencies and the Corps 

of Engineers focused on the post-hostilities rebuilding of Kuwait.

Mobilization alone required formidable effort, with more than 

130,000 Army reserve component personnel activated by the end of 

February 1991. The headquarters monitored the selection of units for 

mobilization and helped coordinate the training and equipping of both 

active and reserve component units prior to their deployment. The Army’s 

headquarters accomplished these duties by exercising the secretary of 

the Army’s authority under Title 10 of the U.S. Code and directing the 

transfer of equipment from nondeploying units to compensate for shortages in deploying ones. Ongoing Army reduction efforts complicated 

this last step. Many units in CONUS and Europe were preparing for 

transfer or inactivation under the Quicksilver reduction plans, or as a 

result of negotiated mutual force withdrawal agreements in Europe, 

and were already transferring their equipment. This materiel had to be 

rapidly identified and shipped elsewhere—or the inactivations temporarily suspended. Even after Army units arrived in the theater, HQDA 

ensured continued sustainment and in-theater modernization of Army as 

well as other U.S. and allied forces.12

Although HQDA supported Desert Storm adequately, a growing 

number of subsequent contingency operations tested the Army’s 

ability to sustain them while restructuring and reducing forces. Even 

before U.S. troops had withdrawn from the Desert Storm theater, 

President Bush authorized U.S. aid to Kurdish refugees in Turkey 

and northern Iraq. By 18 April 1991, the U.S. European Command 

had organized a joint task force to provide humanitarian relief to the 

11 Collins, U.S. Military Force Reductions, p. 12; Schwarzkopf interv, 13 Jan 1994, 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 12 Robert H. Scales, Jr., Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War (Washington, 

D.C.: Office of the Chief of Staff, United States Army, 1993), pp. 51–54; U.S. Department 

of Defense, Conduct of the Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Department of Defense, April 1992), pp. H-12 through H-21.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

66

refugees. Designated Operation Provide Comfort, the relief effort 

relied primarily on troops from U.S. Army, Europe, including aviation and special operations units and one airborne infantry battalion. 

These units worked with allied and U.S. Marine troops to provide 

food, shelter, and security for the refugees. HQDA coordinated 

mobilization and deployment of U.S. Army Reserve units to Turkey 

and northern Iraq, including a small number of reserve component 

civil affairs specialists, who were urgently needed to support the 

overcrowded refugee compounds.13

Development of a New Strategy

During the year following the secretary of defense’s December 1990 

approval of the Base Force, the Joint Staff and OSD finally completed

a comprehensive strategic review. Based on that effort, the Defense 

Department promulgated a new national military strategy in January 

1992. Unlike what occurred during development of the Base Force, 

13 Scales, Certain Victory, pp. 340–353.

Army senior leaders receive an update briefing overlooking the Crisis 

Action Team (CAT) in the Army Operations Center (AOC).
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

67

Joint Staff planners worked closely with the Army Staff and the other 

service headquarters in this endeavor. At the same time, events in the 

Soviet Union vindicated the assumptions of General Powell and Base 

Force advocates that Soviet capabilities would decline rapidly. After an 

abortive August 1991 military coup by hard-line Communist elements, 

the Soviet Union had collapsed from within by January 1992, evolving 

into a weak “Confederation of Independent States” (CIS). As a result, 

and for the first time in more than forty years, the United States formally

shifted from a global containment strategy directed at the Soviet Union 

to a focus on regional threats.14

Although the Defense Department had begun planning for 

confronting a non-Soviet aggressor in the Middle East as early as 1989, 

this contingency had remained a secondary consideration until the fall 

of the Soviet Union and the nearly simultaneous conclusion of the Gulf 

War. But thereafter the Joint Staff and OSD focused on maintaining the 

ability to fight two, near-simultaneous, “major regional contingencies”

(MRCs). Basically, Joint Staff planning scenarios envisioned a second 

contingency operation that required deployment of an “initial response 

force” to a second theater after U.S. forces had already engaged an 

aggressor in a first. The two were termed “MRC-East” and “MRCWest.” The planning also envisioned the need for forces to respond to a 

simultaneous, lesser regional contingency. Forces for the lesser regional 

contingency, however, would come from those also earmarked for the 

two major regional contingencies.15

The Joint Staff and Army planners considered MRC-East the most 

“stressful” of the contingencies that Army forces programmed for the 

Base Force would face. For this scenario, which involved the defense of 

friendly Middle East countries against aggression by a regional power, 

the Army envisioned an initial-response force built around the XVIII 

Airborne Corps, including the 82d Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne 

Division (Air Assault), the 1st Cavalry Division (Armored), and the 24th 

Infantry Division (Mechanized). The III Corps, also CONUS-based, 

would reinforce the XVIII Airborne Corps with a “decisive force” 

consisting of the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 4th Infantry 

14 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategy, 1992 (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1992), pp. 1–4; U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Military Net 

Assessment (JMNA): 1992 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 27 July 1992), pp. 

1-1 to 1-6; Tritten, Our New National Security Strategy, pp. 72–84. 15 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Military Net Assessment: 1991 (Washington, 

D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mar 1991), pp. 9-1 to 9-16; JMNA 1992, pp. 9-15 to 9-18; 

DPG 1994–1999, ANNEX A.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

68

Division (Mechanized), and the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized).16

Even though the Joint Staff considered these Army combat forces 

adequate for such a contingency in the Middle East, it still assessed the 

available Army force as deficient in critical support capabilities.17

The Joint Staff designated its second major planning scenario, a 

hypothetical North Korean attack on South Korea, MRC-West. Built on 

the I Corps, the Army’s initial-response force would comprise three divisions: the 2d Infantry Division (two brigades forward-based in theater), 

the 25th Infantry Division (Light), and the 7th Infantry Division (Light). 

Because of a shortage of active divisions, the III Corps would be the 

decisive force in both cases. In the event of concurrent contingencies 

starting in the Middle East, the western contingency would have to 

await successful prosecution of the first contingency before the III Corps

could redeploy and the regional combatant commander could launch a 

counterattack in the second theater. Joint Staff planners envisioned the 

decisive force as the minimum force required to launch a counterattack 

in either theater with only “moderate” risk.18

The Joint Staff also identified another possible major contingency

that would involve aggression by a resurgent Soviet Union, or one or 

more of its stronger former “republics,” against a neighboring country. 

The current defense guidance estimated that, if some central authority 

could gain control of the former Soviet Union, it could rebuild a conventional ground force adequate for a single-theater offensive operation, 

70 to 80 division equivalents (1.4 to 1.6 million soldiers), in three to 

four years. To deter or confront such a threat, the Base Force strategy 

envisioned forward-basing 150,000 U.S. military personnel in Europe, 

in support of NATO. The Army’s contribution would center on the V 

Corps with two heavy divisions, the 1st Armored Division and the 3d 

Infantry Division (Mechanized). In the event of a contingency, additional 

Army reinforcements would come from forces apportioned to the two 

major regional contingencies. Army POMCUS support for reinforcing 

this force would be reduced from six division sets to six brigade sets, 

adequate for the active brigades in the III Corps. The XVIII Airborne 

Corps would reinforce these five divisions with an additional five divi16 Each of these three divisions was a “round-out” division, with one of its three 

brigades an Army National Guard unit that required mobilization and further training 

before deployment. 17 DAMO-SSW Briefing Materials, “Shaping the Army for the 1990s,” 18 Apr 

1991, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; DPG 1994–1999, ANNEX A, pp. 5–8; 

JMNA 1992, pp. 9-9 to 9-12. 18 DAMO-SSW Briefing Materials, “Shaping the Army for the 1990s,” undated; 

DPG 1994–1999, ANNEX A, pp. 9–12; JMNA 1992, pp. 9-4 to 9-7.
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

69

sions, including the 7th Infantry Division. Finally, the I Corps would 

deploy with six Army National Guard divisions, for a total of sixteen 

divisions. But deployment speed was not considered critical, reflecting

the waning military power of the former Soviet republics.

Without a more concrete threat—and as the possibility of a Soviet 

resurgence continued to recede—future plans for Europe and NATO 

remained vague. Unlike in its work on the two major regional contingencies, the Joint Staff had not prepared a detailed assessment for a 

contingency operation in Europe. Questions regarding specific threats

were seconded by uncertainty regarding the depth of reductions in the 

military forces of the other NATO members. One 1991 Army estimate 

concluded that if NATO European allies demonstrated a voracious hunger 

for a “peace dividend,” a worst-case scenario might find NATO forces

unable to defend a neighbor invaded by the Russians. Future events in 

the former Soviet Union would either vindicate the Base Force and the 

new national military strategy or lead to a high-risk situation, given the 

diminution of NATO defense programs.19

A Joint Staff Mobility Requirements Study (MRS) provided 

another component of its strategic review. This study responded to 

congressional direction to “determine future mobility requirements 

for the Armed Forces and . . . develop an integrated plan to meet these 

requirements.”20 The MRS analyzed the Desert Shield deployment and 

programmed U.S. airlift and sealift for both intertheater (strategic) and 

intratheater (tactical) mobility through 1999. After conducting more 

than ninety, separate, simulated theater operations, the study concluded 

that, although the deployment for Desert Shield had been successful, 

the Defense Department needed to invest in additional airlift and sealift. 

Unlike the Base Force study, which had rejected the Army’s Antaeus 

analysis in favor of deeper reductions, the MRS supported the Army’s 

perennial request for enhanced strategic mobility capabilities in terms of 

transport shipping and cargo planes. Army supporters hoped that Army 

force reductions mandated by the Base Force would help pay for these 

ships and aircraft rather than for other Navy and Air Force programs.21

19 DAMO-SSW, “Shaping the Army for the 1990s,” Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; DPG 1994–1999, pp. 18, 36–37, ANNEX A, pp. 13–16, 25–27; JMNA 1992, pp. 

9-4 to 9-7. 20 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991, Public Law 510, 101st 

Cong., 2d sess. (5 Nov 1990), sec. 909. 21 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mobility Requirements Study, vol. 1 (Washington, 

D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 23 Jan 1992), pp. ES-3 to ES-6, IV-32 to IV-34, VIII-3 to 

VIII-4; DPG 1994–1999, pp. 33–34.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

70

Rather than provide a comprehensive plan for designing post–Cold 

War U.S. armed forces, the Base Force study and subsequent strategic 

reviews only began the process of readjustment. The Gulf War and the 

rapid collapse of the Soviet Union opened the door for criticisms of 

the strategic assumptions that underlay the size and composition of the 

Base Force. Operation Desert Storm demonstrated that a high-intensity, major regional contingency could require employing two-thirds of 

the Base Force’s eight Army heavy divisions, leaving only two to three 

heavy divisions to deter or respond to another contingency. A second 

criticism concerned the Base Force’s sufficiency to prosecute extended

contingency operations. If Operation Desert Shield had continued as a 

protracted “quarantine” of Iraq, the Army would have had to resort to unit 

rotation to extend its presence in Saudi Arabia beyond twelve months. 

An extended presence would have required a sufficient pool of units to

allow “reconstitution” and to retrain forces for return to the theater. The 

deep force reductions under the Base Force would deplete active Army 

formations that would have been essential for these rotations.22

Influential outside observers, such as retired Army Lt. Gen. William

E. Odom, questioned the Base Force’s retention of relatively high levels of 

naval forces, especially aircraft carriers. With the apparent Soviet demise, 

the U.S. Navy faced no competitor, or combination of competitors, that 

could justify the quantity of “blue water” naval forces developed in pursuit 

of the previous decade’s Maritime Strategy and “600-Ship Fleet.” Odom 

also questioned retention of Marine forces beyond the single division 

that programmed amphibious assault shipping could transport and launch 

against a hostile shore. His analysis asserted the traditional Army claim 

that Marine forces are naval forces tailored for amphibious-assault operations, not ground forces. Odom went on to maintain that the strategic environment of the future would pose significant demands for ground forces

to participate in frequent contingency operations. To meet these requirements, he recommended reshaping Army forces into 13 heavy divisions, 

1 air assault division, and 1 division-equivalent composed of 2 airborne 

brigades and a ranger regiment.23

22 Collins, U.S. Military Force Reductions, pp. 25–26, 52–56; Collins, National 

Military Strategy, the DoD Base Force, and U.S. Unified Command Plan, pp. 9, 15–16, 

31–34. 23 William E. Odom, America’s Military Revolution: Strategy and Structure after 

the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1993), pp. 74–89. For 

an earlier discussion of the Marine force structure, see Martin Binkin and Jeffrey 

Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings 

Institution, 1976).
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

71

Supporting Odom’s argument for Army force levels larger than 

those of the Base Force was their interoperability on a battlefield that

required highly decentralized decision making. Both heavy and light 

Army units shared a common institutional basis, with compatible 

doctrine, training, and leader development. Army units from different 

duty stations could deploy to contingency operations and operate as a 

coherent team without interservice friction. Indeed, analyzing Operation 

Desert Storm, Congressman Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed 

Services Committee, and fellow committee member Congressman 

William Dickinson noted persistent problems in joint operations of U.S. 

forces. They argued that, although Goldwater-Nichols had solved most 

problems at the theater level involving joint command and control, difficulties persisted at lower tactical levels. For example, Army and Marine 

units relied during Desert Storm on different logistical systems, which 

impeded joint operations involving the two components, as did their 

incompatible communications systems and the lack of adequate Marine 

night-vision equipment. Further doctrinal difficulties that surfaced

concerned the allocation of theater air assets for battlefield interdiction

and close air support, and together they all had threatened to disrupt 

an integrated air-ground campaign. Aspin and Dickinson’s study underscored the need for authoritative joint doctrine and a comprehensive 

review of service roles and functions.24

Reconstituting the Army

Although Desert Storm did not derail ongoing U.S. defense reshaping 

efforts, it stalled them and then sent them along different tracks. The Gulf 

War delayed major Army force reductions, but it could not reverse the 

declining budgets that were now decisively driving change in the Defense 

Department. For Army leaders, the immediate problem after Desert

Storm was to coordinate redeployment of Army units and equipment from 

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and, at the same time, station in the region sets 

of pre-positioned unit equipment that would ease their return if necessary. 

The drawdown of Army forces in Europe complicated the problem. Early 

in March 1991, HQDA completed an “operational plan” to reshape the 

Army. That plan reduced U.S. Army, Europe, to about 158,000 military 

personnel, with 2 divisions, 2 armored cavalry regiments, and 2 division 

sets in POMCUS by the end of 1994. The rest of the equipment would be 

transferred to allies, returned to CONUS, or moved to the Middle East. 

24 Les Aspin and William Dickinson, Defense for a New Era: Lessons of the Persian 

Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1992), pp. 9–10, 15–16, 23–24, 44.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

72

The Army Staff also had to determine rapidly which USAREUR equipment used in Desert Storm would remain in the region, which would 

return to Europe, and which would return to the United States.25

Army plans proved unrealistic to pre-position materiel, rather than 

redeploy the hardware, for a complete armored or mechanized division in 

CENTCOM’s area of operations. Problems in persuading friendly countries in the region to host the storage effort, along with the high costs of 

establishing a massive infrastructure from scratch, ensured that the division goal would be a long-term prospect. Although negotiations continued, 

by 1992 the Army and CENTCOM had redeployed all Army equipment 

from the gulf area except a battalion-sized “training set” in Kuwait.26

Failure to obtain either U.S. or host-nation funding to warehouse 

additional materiel in Saudi Arabia led HQDA to reexamine maritime 

25 Information Paper, Major Daze (DAMO-SSW), 25 Apr 1991, sub: Force 

Generation; Briefing Materials, “CINCEUR CFE Plan,” both Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH. 26 Office of the CSA, Weekly Summary XLII (17 Jan 1992) No. 3, pp. 5–7; 

ODCSOPS Briefing Materials, “Strategic Mobility Concept and Strategy,” 15 Feb 1991, 

File 91-00155, Vuono Papers, MHI.

Les Aspin takes the oath of office as secretary of defense.
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

73

pre-positioning options. Having placed a pre-positioned infantry brigade 

set of equipment on Military Sealift Command ships in the Pacific from

1963 to 1966, the Army was somewhat familiar with pre-positioning 

afloat. The deputy chief of staff for operations and plans in February

1980 had proposed to the joint chiefs that an armored cavalry regiment 

store a complete set of unit equipment afloat in CENTCOM’s predecessor organization’s area of operations.27 Because of higher priority 

POMCUS shortages and marked differences in shipping requirements, 

the JCS instead had selected the alternative, unit equipment for a Marine 

Amphibious Brigade (Marine Amphibious Brigades were redesignated 

Marine Expeditionary Brigades in the late 1980s). The Marine force had 

been based afloat in the Indian Ocean for nearly ten years before Desert

Storm, but it lacked much of the heavy equipment needed for sustained 

combat in the desert and other combat service support. The CENTCOM 

pre-positioning issue remained unresolved until 1993, when HQDA 

obtained Defense Department approval for the combination of a brigade 

set pre-positioned afloat and one pre-positioned ashore. This Army

program continued to raise questions of roles and functions, however, 

with some advocates of Marine programs proposing that pre-positioning 

at sea be an exclusively Marine function.28

Base Realignment and Closure

While the Army’s strategic planners wrestled with matters of 

forward presence and force projection, the service became involved in 

the issue of streamlining military installations. Based on a 1988 congressional authorization, the secretary of defense that year had established 

a commission to recommend closure and realignment of defense facilities, decisions that always had significant political repercussions. The

commission was to give the secretary a list of installations recommended 

for realignment or closure; by previous agreement, Congress could 

disapprove the entire list but not reject individual items. Called the Base 

Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission, it recommended, and 

the secretary approved, the closing over the next several years of several 

small Army headquarters posts such as Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and the 

Presidio of San Francisco. Responding to Defense Department requests, 

27 The U.S. Readiness Command assigned to its Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force 

contingency responsibility for the Middle East from 1979 to 1984, when CENTCOM 

assumed this mission. 28 JCS 1454/161, “Service Recommendations for Prepositioned Sealift Package in 

the Persian Gulf,” 8 Feb 1980; Information Paper, DAMH-HDO, “Forward Floating 

Depot in the Pacific Theater,” 19 Feb 1991, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

74

Congress legislated additional “rounds” of base closure actions in 1991, 

1993, and 1995, with the president appointing a separate commission for 

each round. In each case the commissioners worked closely with HQDA 

and the other services to make the most sensible recommendations.

Although the first commission had recommended closing only a few

installations, the subsequent panels could significantly reduce the number

of Army training installations. Most of the Army’s CONUS installations 

had been constructed during the World War II mobilization and were not 

large enough to meet current unit training standards.29 Unlike after World 

War I, when the War Department disposed of most of its division-sized 

training posts, the Army after World War II retained a number of “excess” 

facilities for mobilization contingencies. Army reserve components used 

inactive or “mothballed” facilities for training during peacetime, and the 

Army reactivated several posts during the Korean and Vietnam wars. To 

meet increasingly stringent Defense Department standards of habitability, 

the Army modernized barracks at active installations after the Korean War 

and built housing for military dependents.30

The Base Force provided a framework for the 1991 and later commissions to close now-“surplus” Army installations and generate savings in 

operations and maintenance budgets. Closure, rather than mothballing, 

of Army training posts posed definite military risks. The 1991 BRAC

Commission, for example, based its analysis on plans for a twelve-division active Army with only eight divisions based in the continental United 

States. Consequently, the commission recommended closing one activedivision post, Fort Ord, California, along with Fort Devens, Massachusetts, 

and other, smaller posts. These recommendations were potentially more 

damaging to the Army than those of the 1989 commission, because they 

reduced the Army’s flexibility to return the three forward-presence divisions (two Europe, one Korea) to bases in the United States if political 

pressures mandated this course. The 1991 BRAC proposals also included 

the disposal of several Army cantonments with modernized facilities that 

would be valuable for mobilization. Despite these drawbacks, the president 

approved the recommendations, Congress acquiesced, and they became 

law. More than the cuts in active forces, the 1991 base closure actions 

29 The contemporary Training Circular 25-1 set a minimum of 82,000 maneuver 

acres for an armored or mechanized infantry battalion to conduct the full range of unit 

training, with a desired minimum of 200,000 acres once ranges, cantonment areas, and 

other facilities were included. 30 John B. Wilson, “Facilities for Mobilization in the Twentieth Century,” in 

“Historical Survey of U.S. Mobilization: Eight Topical Studies of the Twentieth 

Century,” ed. David F. Trask, Manuscript CMH 146, Historical Resources Branch, 

CMH, pp. 10–13, 20–21, 31–33.
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

75

reduced the Army’s ability to “reconstitute” forces rapidly to respond to 

changing strategic requirements.31

Political pressures to offset loss of employment in the local economy 

favored immediate reuse of closed installations rather than their retention in mothball status for mobilization and other military purposes. 

Critics argued that recommendations tended to ignore the impact of a 

base closure on the nearby installations of other services, or on the active 

and reserve component units from other services that often relied on the 

closed installation. Hazardous waste cleanup costs associated with the 

closings, and the Army’s inability to sell property rather than transfer 

it to other government agencies, also threatened to diminish planned 

savings. Consequently, base realignment and closure actions became 

controversial for both military and political reasons.32

HQDA Redesign, 1992

By the time General Gordon R. Sullivan became Army chief of staff 

on 21 June 1991, HQDA’s focus had shifted away from Desert Storm and 

back to reshaping a smaller Army. His predecessor, General Vuono, had 

eschewed a major reorganization during his tour, because he believed it 

would be too disruptive to conduct simultaneously with the major reductions and redeployments already under way. Pressure built rapidly on 

Sullivan, however, to implement the Base Force reductions. At the same 

time, he faced ever-declining budgets with no end in sight. Various Army 

leaders, including TRADOC Commander General John W. Foss, recommended branch and major command consolidations as well as tactical 

reorganizations. Furthermore, Defense Management Review recommendations met with growing approval in a Congress eager to consolidate 

overlapping service support functions, especially in the medical area, in 

order to save money. Several key congressional leaders believed such an 

31 For instance, in January 2000, the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 

Installation Management estimated that it would cost $3.55 billion in FY 2000 dollars 

to build the facilities for one mechanized division post alone, should the Army need to 

expand its CONUS base structure in the future. Interv, Mark Sherry with Mr. Michael 

Ryan, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management (ACSIM), 

HQDA, 5 Jan 2000. 32 Memo, Col Albert J. Genetti, Jr. (DACS-DM), 18 Mar 1991, sub: BRAC 91 Final 

Report, File 91-00166, Vuono Papers, MHI; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col Jack LeCuyer, 

17 May 1994, Pentagon; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col Michael V. Harper, 13 Apr 1994, 

Pentagon, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with Gen 

John W. Foss, USA, Ret., 1 Mar 1994, Williamsburg, Va., Oral History Activity, CMH; 

Stephen E. Bower, The American Army in the Heartland: A History of Fort Benjamin 

Harrison, 1903–1995 (Indianapolis: Indiana Creative Arts, 1996), pp. 443–444.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

76

amalgamation could deliver defense budget savings and thus relieve pressure on the Army’s budget. These external efforts, however, imperiled any 

remaining stimulus from the Antaeus study that might have encouraged 

HQDA to influence the Army’s destiny.

HQDA’s first priority was to stay ahead of declining budgets through

timely unit and manpower reductions. One way to do so was to accelerate 

personnel separations and thus overtake reductions postponed because 

of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. A combination of 

voluntary incentives and involuntary personnel actions thus reduced the 

Army by more than 100,000 military personnel in 1992. Needless to say, 

the process of essentially “pink slipping” so many career soldiers after a 

successful but arduous desert campaign was somewhat distressing.33

Mindful of the cuts being taken by the field army, the service leaders

also sought to streamline the Army’s headquarters. On 14 October 1992, 

Under Secretary of the Army John W. Shannon and Vice Chief of Staff 

General Dennis J. Reimer chartered a Headquarters Redesign Study 

to do just that. With the goal of creating an “optimal structure” for a 

smaller and more efficient Department of the Army (DA) headquarters,

33 Reno interv, 5 Jan 1993; Interv, Dwight Oland with Lt Gen William H. Reno, 

U.S. Army, Ret., 17 Feb 1993, Washington, D.C.; both Oral History Activity, CMH; 

Harper interv, 13 Apr 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

Army Secretary Stone swearing in General Sullivan as Army chief of staff
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

77

the effort also reflected Secretary

of the Army Michael P. W. Stone’s 

overall desire to reorganize the 

Army before OSD imposed its 

own version of restructuring on the 

service.34

In its deliberations, the study 

group consulted with HQDA 

principals and found widespread 

differences of opinion about reorganization that stemmed largely 

from perceptions of the GoldwaterNichols experience. Most officials

agreed that the Army needed a 

more streamlined headquarters but 

disagreed on its final form. Several

Army Staff officers believed that

the Goldwater-Nichols legislation 

had shifted to the Army Secretariat 

too many essential functions, 

such as research, development, 

and acquisition, which required day-to-day coordination and direction 

of the Army Staff. Conversely, other officials wanted to remove more

functions from the Army Staff, recommending, for example, placing the 

Office of the Judge Advocate General under the General Counsel in the

Office of the Secretary of the Army. Few, however, disagreed with the

argument that the headquarters needed to focus most of its efforts on 

Defense Department Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System 

functions.35

Lacking both time and a mandate for a sweeping redesign that would 

have required legislative approval in any case, the Shannon-Reimer 

study accepted the existing headquarters structure. It sought efficiencies through better alignment of functions with statutory responsibilities. The Army’s leadership approved the study’s recommendations on 

15 January 1993. The limited reorganization added an assistant chief 

of staff for installation management to the Army Staff and mandated 

34 Charter of the Headquarters, Department of the Army, Transformation Group, 14 

Oct 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 35 In Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), p. 96, former 

Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr., estimated that 80 percent of the personnel 

in the military departmental headquarters were engaged in PPBS processes during a 

normal year.

Under Secretary

of the Army Shannon 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

78

a reduction of field operating agencies and staff support agencies from

113 to 72 by 1997. Headquarters manpower was to decline from 3,105 

to 2,536 during the same period, and FOA/SSA strengths from 47,487 

to 33,792.36

The 1992 Roles and Missions Study

While the Shannon-Reimer Study was under way, the Defense 

Department undertook a much more significant streamlining effort.

Goldwater-Nichols mandated a triennial JCS Roles and Missions 

Study in 1992. Unlike the chairman’s earlier Base Force study, the 

new roles and missions study offered an opportunity to adapt existing 

service capabilities to evolving national military strategy and to design 

a joint force for the future. Service critics had argued that the Defense 

Management Review attempted to impose civilian concepts of business efficiencies on military organizations. The chairman’s study group

intended, instead, to solicit military input on how to reduce overlap36 Shannon-Reimer HQDA Transformation Study, Final Report, 16 Apr 1993, 

Historical Resources Branch, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with Maj Gen Theodore G. 

Stroup, Jr., 14 Dec 1992, Pentagon, and LeCuyer interv, 17 May 1994, both Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.

General Reimer’s swearing-in ceremony as Army chief of staff 
Toward a New Strategy, 1989–1990

79

ping functions among the services and consolidate similar capabilities 

in a more holistic manner. The task was soon to prove exceedingly 

difficult.

With congressional pressure to consolidate duplicative defense 

functions increasing, those working on the chairman’s study soon 

proposed consolidations of combat and support capabilities. Their 

recommendations, however, sparked significant service opposition.

The status quo was at risk, and stakes were high, with opportunities 

for services to gain ever-scarcer resources at the expense of others. 

The results might also produce consolidations, removing, for example, 

certain intelligence and logistical functions from the services, and 

consolidating them under defense agencies. Alarmed, Army leaders 

sought to forestall major reorganization until completion of Joint 

Publication 3-0, “Doctrine for Joint Operations,” which was still 

undergoing revisions and would not be approved until September 

1993, after the chairman’s study. With neither a common warfighting

nor a common support doctrine, Army leaders contended that realignments of roles and functions were premature. The other services found 

similar reasons for caution.

Service objections slowed Joint Staff recommendations for 

major consolidations of functions. The Army objected specifically to

proposals for consolidation of service organizations for space, theaterlevel intelligence mergers, and a modification to the Unified Command

Plan that would assign the U.S. Atlantic Command (ACOM) responsibility for the readiness and joint training of CONUS-based Army 

and Air Force units. General Sullivan argued that the consolidations 

of space and intelligence activities threatened to reduce battlefield

capabilities that were essential to the soldier. He also contended that 

the Atlantic Command, if accountable for both a geographic area of 

responsibility and CONUS readiness, would have too great a span of 

control to be effective.

These objections led to deferrals on decisions regarding the first two

issues but not the last. JCS Chairman Powell approved assignment of 

CONUS-based service tactical/TO&E units to ACOM. The JCS study, 

however, avoided definitive recommendations concerning overlaps

between Army and Marine contingency forces. It circumvented the 

issue by asserting that, despite growing overlaps in conventional ground 

force capabilities for contingency operations, the two forces remained 

“complementary,” not duplicative. The Joint Staff also postponed decisions on depot maintenance consolidations pending further study. Except 

for the Atlantic Command decision, the JCS study thus avoided contentious issues and recommended limited consolidations. The outcome of 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

80

the chairman’s study, as might be expected, hardly assuaged congressional criticism of residual overlaps in the defense establishment.37

The momentum that the Antaeus and Quicksilver studies might have 

given the Army going into the post–Cold War strategic reshaping had 

dissipated by the end of 1992. Now on the defensive, the service was 

fighting to retain capabilities and reshape its tactical and institutional

forces in the face of accelerating budget reductions. Goldwater-Nichols 

had indeed changed HQDA’s influence within the Defense Department.

The JCS chairman wielded his new authority in developing the Base 

Force, circumventing the PPBS process in the absence of service support 

and forcing change on the services. Consequently, the Base Force was 

controversial, reducing operational forces without undertaking proportionately severe infrastructure reductions or aggressively attempting to 

rationalize service roles and functions. The 1992 roles and functions 

study could have complemented the DMR studies and streamlined the 

Defense Department to offset some of the Base Force’s reductions in 

capabilities, with improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness.

Instead the Defense Department left this task for the next administration. 

Time would tell how well the new Clinton administration’s national 

security team would work with the Army to reshape the service for a 

new era while meeting ever-growing contingency requirements.

37 Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Report on the Roles, Missions, and Functions of 

the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, Feb 1993), pp. II-6 to II-7, III-35 to III-51; Memo, Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, Chief 

of Staff, U.S. Army, for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 11 Jan 1993, sub: Review 

of Draft Report, “Roles, Missions, and Functions of the Armed Forces of the United 

States,” Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col William 

Foster (DAMO-SSW), 25 Feb 1994, Pentagon; Reimer interv, 31 Jan 1994; Harper 

interv, 13 Apr 1994; LeCuyer interv, 17 May 1994, all Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; Glenn W. Goodman, Jr., “Powell’s Roles and Missions Report Retains Services’ 

Redundancies,” Armed Forces Journal International (March 1993): 10.
81

Chapter 5

Change from Above

President William J. Clinton entered office in January 1993, a

fortuitous time to be the nation’s commander in chief and influential

leader among the world’s democracies. With the end of the Cold War, 

the United States and its allies were enjoying the dawning of what the 

previous president had termed “a New World Order.” Although he had 

campaigned primarily on a domestic political agenda, the incoming 

president called for another comprehensive strategic review. The new 

effort would focus on reducing costs of national security programs while 

assessing the security needs of the future.

A question for Army leaders was the extent to which they could 

influence the process and outcome of thisreview. Further external efforts

to restructure the Army seemed imminent. Congress clearly desired to 

shape decisions on key defense issues, especially those involving roles, 

missions, and functions. The Base Force had shown that OSD and the 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could impose major cuts on the 

services with little input from below. A key question for the Army’s 

leadership was whether OSD and the Joint Staff in undertaking Clinton’s 

strategic review would invite open participation by the Army and the 

other services, as the chairman’s roles and missions study group had 

in 1992, or whether it would develop concepts in isolation and impose 

them on the services.

The Bottom-Up Review, 1993

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton had stressed that 

the Soviet collapse would now allow the United States to cut military 

forces by as much as 200,000 below Base Force levels and reap additional budget savings. His new secretary of defense, Les Aspin, was on 

record as favoring further force reductions even before his nomination 

for office. As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Aspin

in January 1992 had begun to dispute the assumption that the Base Force 

provided the minimum force levels and military capabilities for the new 

era. Although the Base Force study had anticipated Soviet retrenchment, 

it had not predicted a complete breakup of the Soviet Union, a fortuitous 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

82

circumstance allowing additional reductions in U.S. military forces. 

During the next month, Aspin and his committee staff had developed 

four “illustrative options” for sizing future U.S. conventional forces. All 

four would reduce force levels beyond those of the Base Force, cutting 

Army forces to between eight and ten divisions. The options would also 

reduce the defense budget by $91 billion to $114 billion between 1993 

and 1997.1

With his prior congressional staff work as background, Aspin 

launched a Bottom-Up Review, or BUR, in March 1993, shortly after 

his confirmation as secretary of defense. This strategic review’s name

reflected its methodology. The Base Force study had recommended

preserving what might be viewed as excess military capabilities as a 

hedge against an uncertain future. For the BUR, Aspin directed OSD 

and the Joint Staff to develop a new national military strategy and build 

forces “from the bottom up,” focusing on military units and capabilities 

rather than raw numbers. The study was to undertake a threat assessment 

of the post–Cold War era, develop a new national military strategy, and 

recommend the military forces and equipment to support it.2

Unlike the Base Force study, the BUR incorporated both OSD and 

limited service participation at its outset. Rather than center the study 

in the Joint Staff, Aspin created a series of “task forces” with OSD and 

Joint Staff co-chairs as well as representatives from the services, unified

commands, and defense agencies. Individual task forces focused on 

key issues, including strategy, force structure, force modernization, and 

infrastructure. Service representatives participated in discussions, aware 

that, although they could contribute to options developed by each task 

force, they could not “veto” or forestall these options.3

As a matter of expediency, the Bottom-Up Review adopted Aspin’s 

prior work in the House of Representatives, as well as the president’s 

national security strategy that called for “engagement, prevention, and 

partnership.” The review undertook its threat assessment concurrently 

1

 Congressman Les Aspin, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, An 

Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces for the Post-Soviet Era: Four 

Illustrative Options (Washington, D.C.: House Armed Services Committee, 25 February 

1992); Colin L. Powell, with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: 

Random House, 1995), pp. 579–580; James A. Winnefeld, The Post–Cold War ForceSizing Debate: Paradigms, Metaphors, and Disconnects, RAND Report Number RAND 

R-4243-JS (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1992), pp. 1–6. 2

 Les Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review (Washington, D.C.: Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, October 1993), pp. 3–4. 3

 Ibid.; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col William Foster (DAMO-SSW), 25 Feb 1994, 

Pentagon, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

83

with OSD’s and the Joint Staff’s preparation of a draft national military 

strategy. Congruent with Aspin’s vision of a post–Cold War security 

environment, the study discarded Base Force plans for a major regional 

contingency (MRC) in Europe. It also linked notional Middle Eastern 

(MRC-East) and Asian contingencies (MRC-West) to immediate realworld threats: the Middle Eastern contingency now focused on an Iraqi 

or Iranian invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the East Asian 

scenario was a North Korean invasion of South Korea. The draft strategy 

also identified “smaller scale operations,” including peacekeeping,

peace enforcement, and other intervention operations, as well as overseas presence operations. It thus moved significantly beyond Base Force

assumptions.4

Having directed that the study focus on force requirements for two, 

near-simultaneous, major regional contingencies, OSD officials quickly

found their initial assumptions somewhat ambitious. Their first assessments of the force requirements for two major regional contingencies, 

for example, examined scenarios in which “short-warning” attacks by 

Iraq and North Korea rapidly overwhelmed existing regional defenses 

of the United States and its allies. In the Korean short-warning scenario, 

for instance, United Nations forces failed to halt North Korean forces 

at or near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The analysis offered a similarly pessimistic assessment in the event of an MRC-East short-warning 

scenario. Consequently, each theater required strong ground forces to 

constitute a “decisive force.” Such a requirement was hardly welcome 

by a study group that aimed to reconcile national military strategy with 

declining defense budgets.5

Not surprisingly, OSD officials balked at the cost of forces for two

simultaneous, or even near-simultaneous, major regional contingencies 

as planned in the Base Force strategy. The near-simultaneous scenario 

assumed that conflict in the second theater would commence directly

following the outbreak of hostilities in the first. Instead of basing active

component force requirements on two concurrent major regional contingencies, OSD directed the Bottom-Up Review’s task forces to study a 

concept that emerged from Aspin’s 1992 congressional studies. In the 

case of simultaneous major regional contingencies, a “win-hold-win” 

option called for fighting one contingency through to conclusion and

“holding,” or halting aggression, in the other theater. After a successful 

counterattack in the first major regional contingency, the services would

4

 Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 3, 7–9. 5

 Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000: Force Packages to Meet New 

Dangers,” 8 May 1993, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

84

“reconstitute” the first contingency’s forces in theater, except for “postconflict stability” forces. The reconstituted units would then redeploy to

conclude operations in the second theater.

Aspin’s congressional study suggested that early-deploying U.S. 

air power alone could hold the aggressor in the second theater until 

reconstituted naval and ground forces could arrive. Conversely, Joint 

Staff analyses concluded that 2 to 3 divisions, 9 tactical air wings, 

and 3 carrier battle groups would be adequate to hold in the second 

contingency. The Joint Staff argued that this force might have to 

conduct defensive operations for a protracted time before receiving 

the “swing” forces from the other theater. Some members of the task 

forces questioned whether a U.S. ground force of several light divisions would even deter, or could respond adequately to, a second 

major contingency.6

 By the summer of 1993 the win-hold-win option 

had thus disappeared from consideration, but such debates had set the 

Bottom-Up Review back several months.

Representatives from HQDA’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

for Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS) and Program Analysis and 

Evaluation Directorate (PA&E) had observed the early stages of the 

BUR with growing misgivings. Army analyses concluded that the decisive force for each theater would have to include 2 corps headquarters, 

7 divisions, and 2 armored cavalry regiments. Yet Army representatives 

were unable to secure endorsement from either the Joint Staff or OSD for 

these force levels. Instead, the Bottom-Up Review implicitly endorsed 

the win-hold-win force option of deploying only two or three divisions 

to the “hold” theater, whatever the practicality of such a strategy. This 

position would allow the study to recommend reducing the number 

of Army active divisions to ten and the number of active personnel to 

495,000, with an estimated cost saving of $5 billion to $6.5 billion from 

1994 through 1999.7

After more than seven months of study, the Bottom-Up Review’s 

task forces submitted their recommendations to the secretary of defense. 

Aspin announced his decisions in October 1993, endorsing the recommended force reductions. Outgoing JCS Chairman Powell argued that the 

Bottom-Up Review essentially resulted in “a defense based on the need 

6

 Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000,” Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; Aspin, Report of the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 29–30; DPG 1995–1999, p. 9; 

Winnefeld, Post–Cold War Force-Sizing Debate, pp. 3–4, 9, 61–63; Powell, My 

American Journey, pp. 579–580. 7

 Foster interv, 25 Feb 1994; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col Michael Harper, CSA’s 

Staff Group, 13 Apr 1994, Pentagon; Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000,” all 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

85

to fight two regional wars, the Bush strategy, but with Clinton campaign

cuts.” Aspin programmed Bottom-Up Review reductions through 1999. 

In all cases but one, these reductions exceeded those of the Base Force 

study (Table). 

The Marine Corps managed to increase its end strength from the 

Base Force’s 159,000 to 174,000 (marine expeditionary forces were 

task-organized, air-ground teams consisting of the equivalent of two or 

more marine expeditionary brigades). The Marines succeeded by arguing 

that Base Force study reductions would drive their peacetime “personnel 

tempo” (PERSTEMPO) to one of 65 percent of troops in tactical units, 

either deployed from home station or undergoing training in the field.

The Marine argument assumed, however, that the United States would 

maintain the same numbers of Marine units forward-deployed on unaccompanied tours in Okinawa. The objections of the Army and other 

services to reductions were unsuccessful.8

8

 Powell, My American Journey, p. 579; Collins, National Military Strategy, the 

DoD Base Force, and U.S. Unified Command Plan, p. 24; Aspin, Report on the BottomTable—Proposed Reductions in Force: A Comparison Between Studies

Service Base Force Bottom-Up Review

Army . . . . . . . . . 12 active divisions 10 active divisions

6 reserve divisions 5+ reserve divisions

(including 15 “enhanced

readiness brigades”)

535,000 active personnel 495,000 active personnel

Navy . . . . . . . . . 12 carrier battle groups 11 carrier battle groups

432 ships 346 ships

502,000 active personnel 394,100 active personnel

Air Force . . . . . . 15 active tactical wings 13 active tactical wings

11 reserve tactical wings 7 active tactical wings

436,000 active personnel 390,388 active personnel

Marine Corps. . . 3 marine expeditionary forces 3 marine expeditionary forces

159,000 active personnel 174,000 active personnel

Source: Les Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review (Washington, D.C.: Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, October 1993), pp. 28–29; Office of the Comptroller of the 

Department of Defense, The Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), part 1, Summary 

and Program Element Detail Fiscal Years 1995–1999 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Department of Defense, 29 Sep 1993), p. 5; DPG 1995–1999, pp. 41–42; Joint Staff 

Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000,” all Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

86

The Defense Department thereafter sought to validate through 

further analysis the force levels that the Bottom-Up Review had recommended to fight two “near-simultaneous major regional conflicts.” The

BUR developed a standard “building block” for a major regional contingency that comprised 4–5 Army divisions, 4–5 Marine Expeditionary 

Brigades, 10 Air Force tactical wings, 100 heavy bombers, 4–5 carrier 

battle groups (CVBGs), and special operations forces. In addition to 

forces for major regional contingencies, the study also delineated “the 

prudent level of forces that should be planned for a major intervention 

or peace enforcement operation,” which, although smaller than force 

requirements for a major regional contingency, still was formidable.9

These forces would come from the same active forces planned for 

the two major regional contingencies, thus theoretically precluding 

execution of all these tasks simultaneously. Despite the planning for 

conducting two major regional contingencies while undertaking simultaneous smaller operations, the BUR study proponents apparently 

discounted the likelihood of such a scenario that would require a Base 

Force level of forces. Thus Aspin’s final BUR report argued that “to

maintain forces of this size would require additional resources, thereby 

eliminating any ‘peace dividend’ the American people are expecting 

as a result of the end of the Cold War. Yet our analysis showed that, 

despite this larger investment, [the larger force] would provide only a 

small increment of increased military capability.” The report promised 

that programmed “force enhancements”—modernization and other 

improvements—would succeed in offsetting the reduced capability 

resulting from the greater cuts in force levels.10

The Army leaders grudgingly accepted the Bottom-Up Review’s 

force levels in exchange for the promised “force enhancements” and 

the maintenance of the active Army’s readiness. BUR force enhancements included better strategic mobility through the pre-position of unit 

equipment in theater as well as the continued production of C–17s and 

purchase of Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off (LMSR) ships; 

Up Review, pp. 28–29; Office of the Comptroller of the Department of Defense, The 

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), part 1, Summary and Program Element Detail 

Fiscal Years 1995–1999 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 29 Sep 1993), 

p. 5; DPG 1995–1999, pp. 41–42; Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000,” all 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 9

 The DPG 1995–1999 came up with a slightly larger ground force, noting that this 

“total set of forces might be needed to conduct the most demanding peace enforcement 

operations we envision.” DPG 1995–1999, p. 19. 10 Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 18–23, 30; DPG 1995–1999, pp. 17–19; 

Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Force for 2000,” Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

87

improvement in strike capabilities of carrier battle groups and longrange bombers through the use of “smart” conventional munitions and 

“brilliant” antiarmor weapons; and the upgrade of munitions for Army 

deep-attack missiles and conventional tube artillery.11

To counter Army objections to cutting the active force to ten divisions, 

the Defense Department assented to converting fifteen Army National

Guard combat brigades to “enhanced readiness brigades.” Because of 

readiness problems with the three National Guard brigades mobilized 

for Desert Storm, the Army had refused to deploy them to the theater 

while they underwent retraining in the United States that lasted through 

the Gulf War.12 The Office of the Secretary of Defense now directed

the Army to upgrade the training and materiel readiness of the fifteen

selected brigades to the point that they could deploy at a fully ready “C1” level shortly after mobilization. But whether such an unprecedented 

readiness posture for Army reserve component maneuver units could be 

achieved was questionable. Furthermore, with increasing pressures to 

cut the Army’s reserve components, OSD’s action threatened to ignite a 

competition between the active Army and the Army National Guard over 

missions and resources. Although the Base Force study had opened the 

door to such discord by recommending that the Army National Guard be 

assigned responsibility for mobilizing and deploying most of the forces 

needed for a major regional conflict in Europe, the BUR threatened to

drive a much deeper wedge between Army components.13

In sum, even with “force enhancements” modernization, many Army 

leaders doubted that the Army force levels prescribed by the Bottom-Up 

Review would be adequate to support either the present or the proposed 

national military strategy. The active forces would be strained to provide 

a decisive force for two, near-simultaneous, major regional contingencies, 

to say nothing of what the stress would be were they required to divert 

units to participate in concurrent operations. Yet Army criticisms focused 

more on the study’s force analysis and its analytical “tools” than its basic 

assumptions.

The Joint Staff had analyzed the two major regional contingencies through scenarios that strategists in its Strategic Plans and Policy 

Directorate (J–5) had developed. These scenarios included “excursions” of “baseline” scenarios that examined operational variables, 

11 Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 19–20, 93–94. 12 Department of the Army Inspector General, “Special Assessment: National Guard 

Brigades’ Mobilization,” 14 Jun 1991, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 13 DPG 1995–1999, pp. 30–33, 41; Foster interv, 25 Feb 1994; Harper interv, 13 

Apr 1994; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col Jack LeCuyer, ODSCOPS Initiatives Group, 17 

May 1994, Pentagon, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

88

such as arrival times of units and deployment of different types of 

units than those planned. The Joint Staff did not attempt “weapons 

of mass destruction” excursions, however, because existing analytical 

tools could not easily measure such weapons’ effects on a conventional 

ground campaign.14

After the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J–5) developed 

the Joint Staff’s “illustrative planning scenarios,” analysts in the Force 

Structure, Resources, and Assessment Directorate (J–8) developed 

studies to analyze military capabilities to meet the requirements for two 

major regional contingencies. They relied on an established Tactical 

Warfare (TACWAR) model for the force-on-force analyses of the two 

conflicts.Army critics noted, however, that theTACWARmodel had been

developed for theater-level analysis in Europe. Although it could break 

down a theater into a number of “pistons,” or subtheaters, TACWAR 

was more an operational than a tactical model and derived its results 

through the simulated attrition of opposing forces. TACWAR lacked an 

integral capability for analysis of ground maneuver options, including 

envelopment or flanking attacks. Similarly, it could measure the impact

of tactical air only in broad terms. TACWAR’s relatively unsophisticated 

analytical ability in any circumstances other than direct force-on-force 

attrition required “manual input” of a wide variety of variable data on 

issues, including readiness, maneuver, and command and control. The 

Army’s operations staff, supported by the Concepts Analysis Agency, an 

Army research organization, disputed many of the values that the Joint 

Staff placed on each variable.15

Concurrent with its analysis of force capabilities, levels, and costs, 

the BUR sought to outline a new military strategy based on a reevaluation of future threats. Its analysts rejected equating the tenuous new 

Confederation of Independent States with the former Soviet Union. 

Instead, OSD and the Joint Staff focused on the Russian state itself but 

considered it a declining military threat, unlikely to assume superpower 

status for at least a decade or to engage in aggression on its neighbors 

over the near term. They recommended, however, that the United States 

continue to maintain a reconstitution capability as a hedge against “a 

14 Interv, Mark Sherry with Dr. Robin Buckelew, Strategic Synchronization Cell, 5 

May 1997, Pentagon; Interv, Mark Sherry with Gen John W. Foss, U.S. Army, Ret., 1 

Mar 1994, Williamsburg, Va., both Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 15 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mobility Requirements Study, vol. II (Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 5 June 1993), pp. A-3 to A-5; Col (USA, Ret.) Raoul 

Henri Alcala, “U.S. Army Participation in the Bottom-Up Review,” prepared for Center 

for National Security Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 12 Oct 1993, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

89

Russia that might return to anti-Western national objectives and undertake to reassert its full military potential.”16

The new strategy confirmed the focus already adopted by the

Bottom-Up Review’s force analysis. It identified regional powers in

the Middle East and Asia as posing the principal near-term threats 

to U.S. interests. For example, the primary scenario for the major 

regional contingency in the Middle East (MRC-East) was a defense 

of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia against aggression from a rearmed Iraq. 

Lesser regional contingencies (LRCs), primarily peace enforcement 

and intervention operations, composed the final category of threat

emphasized by the new strategy. The Bottom-Up Review envisioned 

the United States contributing to lesser regional contingencies as a 

member of a multinational force. The new strategy planned for sending 

troops to a lesser regional contingency, if the United States had the 

requisite forces that could deploy rapidly and the contingency offered 

a “high probability of success,” promised “minimal U.S. casualties,” 

would enjoy “sustained support” from the public, and would allow the 

United States to “disengage on our own terms.”17

Strategically, the Bottom-Up Review reaffirmed the maintenance

of U.S. forward-presence forces in Europe and Asia but at reduced 

strengths and costs. It lowered forces in Europe to a hundred thousand, 

cutting each of the two Army divisions there to two brigades, with the 

third brigade returning to the United States. The new review justified

these force levels as essential to “preserve U.S. influence and leadership

in NATO” rather than to pursue a more tangible military need. Such a 

posture suggested only a temporary justification for force levels until it

was clearer how NATO would evolve. Maintaining U.S. forces in Europe 

would also underline Washington’s commitment to NATO and perhaps 

temper the already precipitous decline in the forces of its NATO allies. 

Although insecurity about North Korea postponed further reduction of 

the hundred thousand U.S. troops in East Asia, the Defense Department’s 

1990 East Asia Strategy Initiative, which called for redeploying at least 

one more Army brigade from Korea to CONUS, remained suspended, 

not rejected. A decisive break from its predecessors, the Bottom-Up 

Review’s strategy portended greater changes to come.18

16 DPG 1995–1999, p. 11. 17 Quotes from DPG 1995–1999, p. 14, and see also pp. 1–13, 15, 23–29. Aspin, 

Report on the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 5–12. 18 DPG 1995–1999, pp. 19–21; William E. Berry, Jr., The Invitation to Struggle: 

Executive and Legislative Competition over the U.S. Military Presence on the Korean 

Peninsula (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, May 1996), pp. 12–14. The 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

90

Critics noted several contradictions within the Bottom-Up Review. 

Although the BUR claimed that the four to five Army divisions were

adequate to successfully prosecute a majorregional conflict, the defense

guidance hedged, asserting that “this force should be sufficient under

conditions where we stop the enemy’s offensive short of its primary 

objective. This should not be taken to imply that we might not commit 

more forces than these in a single MRC.” Like the Base Force study, 

the Bottom-Up Review simply reduced forces without expanding 

on the chairman’s recent study of roles, missions, and functions to 

consolidate military capabilities that overlapped services. The study 

also ignored recently completed and ongoing Defense Management 

Review studies, which offered options for consolidations within the 

Defense Department’s infrastructure. Instead, OSD simply noted in 

planning and programming guidance that “opportunities for savings 

through consolidation, both within and across Services and Agencies, 

must also be pursued.”19

Both supporters and critics of the Bottom-Up Review accepted 

that U.S. forces would likely become increasingly involved in 

“lesser regional contingencies.” Yet the study failed to account for 

the increasing demands that these operations would place on Army 

resources. And it offered little justification for reducing Army forces

while keeping the Marine Corps force structure above the five marine

expeditionary brigades that could be deployed by existing sealift 

(slightly more than two by Navy amphibious shipping and three by 

maritime pre-positioning shipping). Instead, the Bottom-Up Review 

implied that Marine and Army ground units were interchangeable for 

both major and lesser contingencies. Such a position disregarded major 

differences in doctrine, training, leader development, and logistics 

that complicated operations involving the two services and thus made 

extensive planning for them mandatory. Finally, having justified Army

force reductions on the basis of the Soviet demise, the review failed to 

justify the continued existence of the Navy’s huge surface, carrier, and 

submarine fleets. The nation had built these ships to counter the now

precipitously declining former Soviet navy, and no peer competitor 

was on the horizon. The huge nuclear arsenal maintained by the air 

and naval services fell into the same category. It appeared to critics 

that the Bottom-Up Review’s results were shaped as much by budget 

considerations and each service’s perceived strength on Capitol Hill as 

withdrawal of the Army brigade in Korea was scheduled for implementation in the 

mid-1990s. 19 DPG 1995–1999, pp. 17, 53; Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review, pp. 85–86.
Change from Above

91

by a rational response to a new national military strategy. Once again, 

the “squeaky wheels” had gotten the grease.20

The Commission on Roles and Missions, 1994–1995

Like the Base Force study before it, the Bottom-Up Review cut 

operational forces while leaving infrastructure (headquarters, doctrine 

centers, and schools) largely intact. Such uneven reductions supported 

criticisms that Defense Department reshaping plans had preserved 

supporting “tail” structure at the expense of warfighting “teeth.” Critics

argued that bloated service headquarters continued to compete with each 

other and promote often duplicative forces and programs. The competition and duplication within the department, along with declining defense 

budgets, only threatened to exacerbate interservice rivalry and make 

effective reshaping even more difficult. A few voices even began to

question the value of service participation in program planning, noting 

that the Base Force study and Bottom-Up Review each circumvented 

existing planning, programming, and budgeting processes to reach 

seemingly integrated results.21

Again Congress reasserted its prerogatives in national security decision making, as it had done with the Base Force. This time the legislature expressed its disapproval of the “egregious” overlap in functions 

among the services. The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, 

Senator Sam Nunn, noted on 2 July 1992 that he believed there were at 

least ten areas of overlap among service tactical and support capabilities 

that needed consolidation. These areas included air power, contingency 

or expeditionary ground forces, theater air defenses, space operations, 

helicopter forces, intelligence, functional organizations and activities, 

logistics and support activities, administrative and management headquarters, and National Guard and reserve component forces.22 The 1992 

Chairman’s Roles and Missions Study, with its gradual, evolutionary 

approach, failed to satisfy Nunn and other congressional critics of 

“wasteful duplication” within the Defense Department. The House Armed 

Services Committee chairman, Congressman Ronald V. Dellums, joined 

20 Foss interv, 4 Mar 1994; Harper interv, 13 Apr 1994; LeCuyer interv, 17 May 

1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Bottom-Up 

Review: An Assessment (Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, February 1994), 

pp. 30–32, 34–40. 21 See, for example, Odom, America’s Military Revolution, pp. 134–137. 22 See floor speech by Senator Sam Nunn, “The Defense Department Must 

Thoroughly Overhaul the Service’s Roles and Missions,” 2 Jul 1992, CORM Background 

Material, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

92

his Senate colleague in seeking reform. Dellums ensured that the 1994 

National Defense Authorization Act directed the secretary of defense 

to establish an independent “Commission on Roles and Missions of the 

Armed Forces.”23

Congress directed the secretary to appoint an independent panel 

composed of seven members (Congress later authorized expansion of the 

panel to eleven members). The legislation required that the commission 

examine critically, “evaluate and report” on “alternative allocations of,” 

and recommend changes in the “definition and distribution” of current

roles, missions, and functions. The secretary of defense was to appoint 

commission members, and the commission was to report, within one 

year of its first meeting, to the congressional armed services committees, the secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff. After consulting with the chairman, the secretary was to submit his 

comments to the committees within ninety days of receiving the report.

The transition between the outgoing secretary of defense, Les Aspin, 

and the new one, William J. Perry, delayed the appointment of members 

until the spring of 1994. Perry selected Dr. John P. White of Harvard 

University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to serve as commission chairman. The other members of the Commission on Roles and 

Missions (CORM) included Perry’s predecessor as secretary of defense 

and fourrecently retired general officers, one from each service.The secretary assigned the commission leased office space in Rosslyn, Virginia,

and provided resources for a full-time staff. The commission appointed 

an executive director, who in turn coordinated the detail of selected 

staff members from DoD. Each service provided two colonel-level staff 

members, and the Joint Staff, the U.S. Special Operations Command, the 

Army Reserve, and the Air National Guard each provided one colonel. 

OSD’s Program Analysis and Evaluation Directorate also contributed 

several staff members, and the commission hired other staff members 

on contract. Finally, the commission obtained analytical support from 

several major contractors, including the four federally funded research 

and development centers (FFRDCs): the Rand Corporation, the Institute 

for Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the Logistics 

Management Institute.24 Meeting about once a month, the commission 

23 Odom, America’s Military Revolution, pp. 123–124; Interv, Edgar F. Raines, 

Jr., Center of Military History, with Mr. Archie D. Barrett, Principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, 19 Sep 1995, Pentagon, Oral 

History Activity, CMH. 24 Memo, Army Roles and Missions Directorate, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations 

and Plans, HQDA (DAMO-ZM), for Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, Aug 1994, sub: John White, 

Directorate of Roles and Missions Files, CMH; Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Mr. 
Change from Above

93

operated in an open forum and 

invited HQDA and the other service 

headquarters to participate. 

Unlike in the Bottom-Up 

Review in which HQDA staff agencies dealt directly with OSD and 

Joint Staff counterparts, HQDA 

established a temporary directorate 

as a focal point for Army actions 

involving the commission. Headed 

by Brig. Gen. John Costello, the 

Roles and Missions Directorate 

in the Office of the Deputy Chief

of Staff for Operations and Plans 

assumed responsibility on 22 June 

1994 for coordination between 

the Army and the commission. 

At its peak the Army’s Roles and 

Missions Directorate had a colonel 

as deputy, an executive officer, nine

action officers (majors and lieutenant colonels), a judge advocate, and a historian. Each action officer

became the HQDA point of contact for several of the issues under deliberation by the commission. By the time the commission began debating 

alternatives in the autumn of 1994, the Army’s Roles and Missions 

Directorate had a written campaign plan with Army positions on each 

likely issue.25

Because the commission was undertaking the second study of roles, 

missions, and functions during General Sullivan’s tour as chief of staff, 

HQDA already had positions on most issues. As with the 1992 Chairman’s 

Roles and Missions Study, Army leaders were apprehensive that decisions 

based on inadequate analysis could damage critical warfighting capabilities. Also, they believed that the commission’s work could ignite interservice rivalries by providing a forum for one or more services to attempt 

a “resources grab” of programs and functions of the others. Noting that 

Michael Leonard, Executive Director, CORM Staff, 26 Jun 1995, Rosslyn, Va.; Interv, 

Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Mr. Mark F. Cancian, Director, Infrastructure and Central 

Support Group, CORM Staff, 13 Jul 1995, Rosslyn, Va.; Interv, Mark Sherry with Mr. 

Philip Odeen, Chairman, National Defense Panel, 8 Apr 1998, Fairfax County, Va., all Oral 

History Activity, CMH. 25 Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Brig Gen John Costello, 8 May 1995, Pentagon, 

Oral History Activity, CMH.

General Costello as a lieutenant 

general later in his career
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

94

the 1992 chairman’s study had enjoyed the best professional input available from the Joint Staff and the services, Sullivan maintained that it had 

gone as far as possible to minimize duplications. He argued, contrary to 

Congress’ perception, that any duplications existed only “at the margins” 

of principal service functions, and he opposed most of the infrastructure 

consolidations that the DMR had proposed and that Congress appeared to 

endorse. Despite the stated congressional intent for the CORM to make 

detailed recommendations leading to significant changes in the Defense

Department, Perry wanted it to focus on savings through efficiencies,

particularly in aircraft procurement programs, operational forces, and 

infrastructure, in order to fund additional modernization programs. Army 

leaders, in contrast, appeared unsure, and either unprepared or unwilling 

to capitalize on the commission’s efforts to reshape the Army and the 

national defense structure.26

Meeting for the first time in May 1994, the commission first set

its staff to work identifying and analyzing issues. The staff divided the 

issues they identified into six mission areas, each of which combined

several of the twenty-one missions that the staff had derived from the 

national security strategy and the national military strategy. The staff 

then derived what they termed the “military components” of each mission 

and discrete tasks for each component, which they then compared with 

the services’ functional capabilities affecting each task. Commission 

analysts found what they considered 328 problems involving overlaps. 

The staff reduced the number of issues to fifty-six by the commission’s

second meeting, on 23 September, at which time the commissioners 

selected twenty-six of them for further review.27

The commissioners invited the JCS chairman and the service 

chiefs to testify at the 23 September meeting. Army General John M. 

Shalikashvili, who had succeeded General Powell as JCS chairman in 

October 1993, urged the commission to protect warfighting capabilities

for two major regional contingencies and to seek ways of “improving 

the joint fight.” General Sullivan argued similarly, detailing the Army’s

focus on protecting and improving warfighting. The Navy and Marine

26 Briefing Materials, Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, CSA, to CORM, “Roles, Functions, 

and Missions,” 14 Sep 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Msg, Gen Sullivan 

to Gen J. H. Binford Peay, CINC U.S. Central Command, 25 Jul 1995, sub: Roles and 

Missions, DAMO-ZM Executive Officer Files, CMH; Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with 

Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, U.S. Army, Ret., 29 Mar 1996, Washington, D.C., Oral History 

Activity, CMH. 27 Transcript, “Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces: Opening 

Meeting,” Rosslyn, Va., 24 May 1994; CORM Briefing Materials, “Update and Initial 

Selection of Issues,” 23 Sep 1994, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

95

Corps took like positions that reflected comfort with the status quo. The

Air Force chief of staff, General Merrill A. McPeak, broke with his 

peers, however, emphasizing the need for more “jointness” and rejecting 

the current balance of forces. McPeak gave the commissioners a detailed 

briefing that highlighted a number of overlapping operational capabilities among the services. He also recommended that the commission 

assess several specific overlaps across service capabilities. He proposed

consolidations affecting Army, Navy, and Marine capabilities but made 

no similar suggestions regarding the Air Force. Although his briefing

obviously breeched interservice collegiality, it set the stage for the work 

that followed.28

After the services and other interested parties made their presentations, the commission’s staff spent the next six months examining 

the twenty-six issues that the commissioners had selected for further 

28 CORM Briefing Materials, “Update and Initial Selection of Issues,” 23 Sep 

1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Chief of Staff’s Presentations to the CORM, 

Army Roles and Missions Directorate Files, CMH; General Merrill A. McPeak, USAF, 

Presentation to the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces (Washington, 

D.C.: Chief of Staff of the Air Force, 14 Sep 1994).

General Shalikashvili being sworn in as chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

96

study. Most of the operational issues affected the Army directly. The 

perennial issue of Army and Marine Corps overlap in expeditionary 

and contingency forces quickly surfaced, with a focus on Army “light 

forces,” including airborne, airmobile, and light infantry divisions. Other 

operational issues directly affecting the Army included headquarters for 

joint task forces, doctrine and forces for peace operations, and possible 

specialized “constabulary forces.” Issues involving Army and Air Force 

overlaps that McPeak’s briefing had highlighted included close air

support, capabilities for “deep battle,” service capabilities for theater 

missile defense and theater air defense, control over space operations, 

and airpower organization. The ten commission issues concerning infrastructure all affected the Army’s support structure. Most of these infrastructure issues had already arisen during the 1992 Chairman’s Roles 

and Missions Study or through the DMR. Although the commission’s 

focus on twenty-six key issues left many major overlaps among service 

functions for other groups to study later, its staff and the Army’s Roles 

and Missions Directorate were fully engaged in examining these issues 

in the time allotted.29

 At least one commission study group evaluated infrastructure alternatives by weighing four criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, risk of “undesired

consequences in key tasks,” and “customer focus.” Initial staff analysis 

developed at least three options, or courses of action, for each issue: maintaining the “status quo,” consolidating, or otherwise restructuring.

The consolidation options generally covered old ground analyzed 

during the Defense Management Review. Unlike in the earlier effort, 

however, the commission’s staff developed a conceptual framework for 

integrating consolidated support functions. Most of the commission’s 

consolidation proposals also had options recommending the merger of 

certain functions into a consolidated OSD-level support organization 

in order to improve “horizontal” integration. The staff provided two 

models for this type of organization: a support “command” reporting to 

the JCS chairman and a “defense support organization” that reported to 

OSD. Either model would create a multifunctional support organization 

reminiscent of the World War II Army Service Forces.30

29 CORM, “Issue Status Review Update” Files, 18 Nov 1994, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH. The Army’s Roles and Missions Directorate maintained its 

own set of issue papers on each CORM issue, along with briefings that articulated the 

Army position on each issue. 30 Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Col L. Patrick Wright, Deputy Director, Army 

Roles and Missions Directorate, 10 Mar 1995, Pentagon, Oral History Activity, CMH; 

CORM, “December 14 Read-Ahead and Issue Review,” CORM, “Issue Paper Reviews, 

February 19–20, 1995,” and CORM, “Executive Summaries: Commission Meeting, 
Change from Above

97

Although the defense establishment had been making slow but steady 

progress toward greater consolidations and unification, the commission

rejected most options that would accelerate that trend. There were a few 

exceptions, however. Despite objections by HQDA, the commission 

did recommend assigning Army “operational support aircraft” to the 

Air Force. For most other infrastructure issues, the commission favored 

“outsourcing” as many support functions as possible to the private sector. 

Unlike consolidation, this approach to infrastructure reform was a radical 

one that went far beyond rationalizing department support functions.31

The outsourcing recommendation sparked immediate controversy. 

For example, one roles and missions study produced by a contractor 

contended that the increasing average age of Defense Department equipment posed significant obstacles to outsourcing depot-level maintenance

support. The study argued that an increasing percentage of military 

aircraft and other hardware was rapidly becoming “old technology and 

not attractive to leading edge, high-tech aerospace firms.” Furthermore,

plants performing depot maintenance suffered a number of environmental problems that dissuaded new firms from undertaking such

efforts. Nevertheless, the commission appeared to favor opportunities 

for greater monetary savings over restructuring actions that could also 

yield improvement in military effectiveness.32

Although the Commission on Roles and Missions may have missed 

opportunities to better integrate the Defense Department’s infrastructure, 

it did offer several recommendations to improve joint warfighting. The

commission stressed that the Joint Staff or a joint agency, rather than 

8 March 1995,” all Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Commission on Roles and 

Missions, Directions for Defense: Report of the Commission on Roles and Missions of 

the Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 24 May 1995), pp. 3-1 

to 3-27. 31 Several CORM staff studies likely contributed to this outcome. They confused 

consolidations of functions—dispersed across the services into a single command or 

agency in place of the service organizations—with centralization, which would create 

another management layer over existing organizations. Consolidation would enhance 

interoperability and flexibility across service lines at the expense of limiting service 

influence on the function primarily to determining requirements. The resulting situation 

would be analogous to the Army’s reliance on the other services for close air support, 

airlift, and sealift. Centralization might also provide an enhanced level of interoperability and common doctrine but at the expense of another bureaucratic layer between 

the supporting organization and its customer. 32 Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Col Christopher A. Rockwell, Army Roles and 

Missions Directorate, 27 Mar 1995, Pentagon, Oral History Activity, CMH; “Logistics 

Issues Case Studies for the Roles and Missions Commission of the Armed Forces,” 8 Feb 

1995, Defense Depot Maintenance Issue, Appendix A, CORM, “Issue Paper Reviews, 

February 19–20, 1995,” Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

98

the services, should rapidly develop a comprehensive joint doctrine. 

Additionally, the commission recommended strengthening the regional 

combatant commander’s authority over theater communications 

support, intelligence requirements and priorities, and joint training. To 

improve joint training and effect integration of CONUS-based forces, 

the commissioners proposed the creation of a “functional” unified

command. Although it applauded the U.S. Atlantic Command’s efforts 

since October 1993 as “joint force integrator,” the commission noted 

that the command’s interpretation of its authority over joint training 

was not accepted by the services. The panel recommended divesting the 

Atlantic Command of its geographic area of responsibility and focusing 

the command on developing forces “trained and integrated as joint 

forces.” The commissioners thus favored extending joint authority at 

the services’ expense.33

In general, the commission respected most of the Army’s positions on 

operational and warfighting issues. Although they designated the Air Force

as the “lead” service in space, the commissioners preserved Army and Navy 

roles there. They also confirmed existing Army and Air Force functions in

theater air defense, theater missile defense, and close air support.

On a more ominous note, the commission recommended that the 

services “make better use” of their reserve components. Could the Army 

National Guard’s “enhanced readiness brigades,” the commission asked, 

attain the readiness levels necessary to meet the timetables for deployment to serve in one or both of the major regional contingencies defined

by the Bottom-Up Review? Also, the commission noted that, because 

the BUR deleted the requirement for eight Army National Guard divisions as a hedge against a renewed Soviet threat to Europe, the Army 

could reduce guard strength by at least fifty thousand personnel. Such

a proposal again invited an open conflict over functions between the

active Army and the Army National Guard. Moreover, the commission’s 

recommendation that forces be developed specifically for “peace operations” and that the Army be assigned responsibility for “short-term” 

training of foreign constabulary units was vague. The recommendation 

also left unclear whether the entire Army or only the Army National 

Guard would serve as the proponent for this function and which components would man forces tailored to peace operations.34

One of the operational issues that the Commission on Roles and 

Missions raised (as did the 1992 chairman’s study) concerned overlap33 CORM, Directions for Defense, pp. 2-1 to 2-31. 34 Ibid.; CORM, “Issue Paper Reviews, February 19–20, 1995,” and CORM, “Issue 

Papers,” 8, 11 Mar. 1995, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
Change from Above

99

ping Army and Marine capabilities for “forcible entry.” The commission’s staff provided five options: (1) maintaining the status quo; (2)

converting the Army’s corps headquarters and Marine Expeditionary 

Force (MEF) headquarters to “joint task forces”; (3) distributing the 

Army’s airborne capability to one brigade in each of three light infantry 

divisions; (4) reducing Marine capabilities for “sustained land combat”; 

and (5) deleting six active Army heavy brigades by relying more on 

Army National Guard and Marine capabilities. The second option would 

delete one corps headquarters and one MEF headquarters in exchange 

for enhanced interoperability and would force jointness on the Army and 

Marine Corps “from the head down.” The fourth option would begin to 

address the surplus of Marine forces over available amphibious shipping but would also mandate reexamination of the Bottom-Up Review’s 

force levels. The fifth option, which would further reduce the active

Army, would also require that Army National Guard units attain readiness levels adequate to mobilize and deploy to meet deadlines for early 

participation in the two major regional contingencies.35

Given these specific options, the commissioners unsurprisingly

opted to retain the overall status quo between Army and Marine capabilities and force levels. They did endorse, however, enhanced interoperability of corps and MEF headquarters. The commissioners also 

recommended that the Marine Corps assume “single agent management” responsibility for pre-positioned unit equipment at sea, despite 

the disparity in the combat service support capabilities between the 

two services. The commissioners accepted the argument that Army 

and Marine forcible entry capabilities (airborne assault and amphibious) were complementary but did not examine force levels for either 

capability. The Army’s action officer responsible for this issue noted

the CORM staff’s predilection for analyzing overlapping capabilities 

primarily through cost-benefit analysis and concluded that the service

was fortunate that the commission avoided the Army-Marine overlap 

question. The two services derived costs differently, all but precluding 

comparison of capabilities, and such analysis tended to ignore a more 

significant criterion‐effectiveness.

Although NATO regularly evaluated Army units in Europe during 

training operations, there was no comparable system in the United 

States to evaluate and compare readiness and other operational capabilities of units from different services. Citing the 1958 Defense 

35 Draft paper, “Army and Marine Corps Capabilities,” 15 Feb 95, in CORM, “Issue 

Paper Reviews, February 19–20, 1995,” Historian’s Background Files, CMH; CORM, 

Directions for Defense, pp. 2-28 to 2-30.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

100

Reorganization Act’s provisions for services to organize, train, equip, 

and sustain forces, OSD and the Joint Staff had regularly deferred to 

them for capability assessments. But service standards for readiness 

and training differed considerably. Moreover, with less than compatible service doctrines, training, leader development approaches, and 

combat service support systems, Army and Marine units were not interchangeable on the battlefield. Consequently, Army leaders preferred to

deploy a full array of Army capabilities, including light infantry, to a 

contingency operation. Once in the theater, it would be much easier to 

attach, detach, and task-organize Army units within the theater than to 

rely on forces from a different service with likely problems of interoperability.36 From the Marine viewpoint, the problems were comparable, 

although their forces often relied on Army components for long-term 

sustainment ashore.

Another largely ignored warfighting issue critical to the Army was

what the Air Force termed the “deep attack” function. The commission 

examined a number of doctrinal issues and programs involving deep 

attack, including the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), noting 

the complexity of the deep-attack function and commission members’ 

lack of the requisite technical knowledge to offer constructive recommendations. Consequently, they advised the secretary of defense to 

undertake an in-depth study of the issue independently.37

In addition to warfighting and infrastructure issues, theCommission

on Roles and Missions addressed Defense Department “processes” 

and management. The commission offered specific recommendations

for streamlining the Defense Department’s Planning, Programming, 

and Budgeting System. Noting problems with attracting and retaining 

political appointees of adequate quality, as well as an extensive duplication of functions between service secretariats and service staffs, the 

36 Intervs, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Lt Col Peter G. Cassi, Army Roles and 

Missions Directorate, 24 Jan, 20 Mar, and 4 May 1995, Pentagon, Oral History Activity, 

CMH. See also David B. Kassing, Light Army and Marine Expeditionary Force Roles 

and Functions: Perspectives from RAND Research, RAND Report Number PM-283-

CRMAF (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, August 1994), for a detailed comparison of Army 

and Marine light forces that underscores the difficulties in using existing analytical 

tools, including TACWAR and Rand’s Joint Integrated Contingency Model (JICM), to 

compare operational capabilities of units from the two services. 37 CORM, Directions for Defense, pp. 2-26 through 2-28, CORM Issue Paper, 

“Deep Attack/Precision Conventional Strike,” 3 Mar 1995, and Briefing Materials, 

“CORM Bomber Analysis,” 10 May 1995, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH; 

Information Paper, Lt Col Richard J. Whitaker, 24 May 1995, sub: Commission on 

Roles and Missions of the Armed Services (CORM) Report: Deep Attack/Precision 

Conventional Strike, CMH Roles and Missions Collection, CMH.
Change from Above

101

commissioners recommended merging secretariats and military staffs. 

Such mergers would result in a reduction of political appointees, 

and a single staff would report to the service secretary through the 

chief of staff. The commission’s proposal was far less sweeping than 

the post–World War II Marshall-Collins Plan or the proposals by a 

1960–1961 advisory panel for defense organization, chaired by former 

secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington, which would have eliminated military departments and service secretaries. At least, however, 

the commission’s proposal would have continued the course of incremental unification while it streamlined headquarters.38

The Army accepted, or could live with, most of the commission’s 

recommendations. Secretary of the Army Togo D. West, Jr., objected, 

however, to the recommendation to reduce political appointees in the Army 

Secretariat and merge it with the Army Staff. He preferred to conduct his 

own reorganization study. The Army’s Roles and Missions Directorate 

did not concur with twelve of the commission’s 174 recommendations. 

38 CORM, Directions for Defense, pp. 4-10 to 4-13, 4-23 to 4-27.

Togo West being sworn in as secretary of the Army
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

102

The secretary of defense accepted most of the Army’s reservations and 

directed more study on disputed issues.39

The Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces 

gave the Defense Department a second look within two years at issues 

essential for development of a joint force. Its report had both strengths 

and weaknesses. The CORM provided an outside perspective from 

individuals without vested interests in future forces and programs. On 

the other hand, the commission lacked the technical expertise that the 

Joint Staff, working with the service staffs, could bring to bear on 

the critical warfighting issues integral to a study of roles, missions,

and functions. The commission also vacillated between organizational 

reforms for military effectiveness and those for greater efficiency. Lack

of support for the commission by all the services except the Air Force 

likely meant that its recommendations would be opposed by most of 

the services. Finally, although a congressional initiative, the commission lacked bipartisan support. Soon after the Republican Party gained 

control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1994 

election, the new leaders of both armed services committees distanced 

themselves from the Commission on Roles and Missions, leaving it 

orphaned. Consequently, the commission proposed no major changes 

but did make recommendations that would advance evolutionary progress toward joint warfighting and institutional unification.40

39 Memo, Secretary of the Army for Secretary of Defense, 14 Jun 1995, sub: Army 

Response to the Report from the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed 

Forces—Information Memorandum, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 40 Interv, Edgar F. Raines, Jr., with Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, U.S. Army, Ret., 29 

Mar 1996, Washington, D.C., Oral History Activity, CMH; Andrew F. Krepinevich, 

Jr., Missed Opportunities: An Assessment of the Roles & Missions Commission Report

(Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, August 1995), pp. 5–6, 31–32, 40–41.
103

Chapter 6

The Army Responds

While the Defense Department, Congress, and HQDA were wrestling with an overhaul of national military strategy and reviewing 

roles, missions, and functions, the Army was expanding its participation in contingency operations. Indeed, the world situation vindicated 

the emphasis that the new national military strategy placed on lesser 

regional contingencies. The Army soon found itself sending more 

units to conduct a variety of humanitarian assistance, peace enforcement, show of force, and stability missions. In these contingencies, 

the units served as part of a multinational force under the auspices 

of an international organization (e.g., the UN), or the Organization 

of American States (OAS), or a collective security organization (e.g., 

NATO). Those skeptical of such U.S. involvement, including some 

Army officers, believed that other countries should provide most of

the forces for these operations. But that rarely happened. The NATO 

countries, in particular, had sought to scale back their military forces 

and defense budgets after having served in the front lines of the Cold 

War for more than four decades and had reduced their active forces 

by a larger proportion than had the United States.1

 Hence the United 

States had to contribute sizable forces for contingency operations in 

Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. The Army provided the bulk of 

U.S. forces for each contingency.

New Contingencies

Army forces began deploying to Africa in 1992 in response to the 

collapse of the Somali government. Internal unrest and famine in the 

country created a major refugee crisis in the region. The first Army

troops deployed to Kenya in August as part of Operation Provide Relief. 

1

 For example, under the 1990 “Two Plus Four” agreement between Germany and the 

Soviet Union, Germany agreed to reduce its total active manpower from almost 500,000 

in 1989 to no more than 370,000, with only 260,000 in its army—this in exchange for 

the withdrawal of the Group of Soviet Forces from the former East Germany.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

104

From there they accompanied many of the relief flights that airlifted

food directly to an airfield in Somalia.2

As the situation in Somalia deteriorated, President Bush decided to 

send U.S. troops directly into the country. In December, the U.S. Central 

Command sent a Marine task force, operating under a UN flag, to secure

the capital, Mogadishu, as part of a follow-on operation entitled Restore

Hope. Army logistical units and then combat forces soon followed the 

Marines, supporting them and forces from UN allies in the distribution of 

relief supplies to alleviate mass starvation in the war-ravaged country.

Shortly after the first U.S. troops arrived in Somalia, the new Clinton

administration persuaded the United Nations to expand its role there to 

include peace enforcement under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. A new 

mission, the United Nations Operations in Somalia II (UNOSOM II), 

began assuming that function, with expanded participation by other 

nations. The Army deployed elements of the 10th Mountain Division 

to Somalia by mid-1993 as part of the UN force. They were joined in 

August 1993 by a special operations task force: Task Force Ranger.3

The Army contingent in Somalia suffered under two main handicaps. First, the UN Command employed disparate forces with little 

interoperability. When these units became engaged in combat operations against local militias, their lack of cohesion posed significant

problems of command and control and coordination. Second, the U.S. 

Army contingent in support of the UN had no heavy units to bolster the 

light forces in the event of conflict with the guerrillas. After a fierce and

deadly firefight in Mogadishu between a local militia and U.S. and UN

forces on 3 October 1993, President Clinton opted to phase out U.S. 

peacekeeping forces by April 1994. The Army redeployed its combat 

forces but retained a small logistical force in Somalia until the following 

year to support the UN Command.4

After the withdrawal from Somalia, Army units continued to deploy 

to lesser regional contingencies elsewhere in Africa and in the Caribbean. 

Confined to humanitarian relief efforts for Rwandan refugees, the

European Command’s Operation Support Hope (17 July–6 October 1994) 

was a more modest effort than that in Somalia, involving only 983 Army 

personnel deployed from U.S. Army, Europe. Among the European-based 

2

 Richard W. Stewart, The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington, 

D.C.: Center of Military History, 2002), pp. 5–9. 3

 Ibid., pp. 15–16; C. Kenneth Allard, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned

(Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1995), pp. 13–20. By mid-November, 

troops from twenty-nine nations, including 28,000 from the United States, were serving 

in Somalia. 4

 Allard, Somalia Operations, pp. 17–20; Stewart, U.S. Army in Somalia, pp. 15–25.
The Army Responds

105

forces deployed to Rwanda were all of USAREUR’s water purification

and distribution units, which remained there for the duration of the contingency. Operation Sea Signal was a combination border enforcement and 

humanitarian relief operation, which also began in July 1994. It involved 

about 2,800 Army personnel deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to maintain a camp for Haitian and Cuban migrants sheltered on the base. Both 

operations strained many active Army units that had specialized capabilities, including water purification, civil affairs, and military police.5

Operation Uphold Democracy, launched in late September 1994, 

was a UN and OAS peace enforcement commitment that restored Haitian 

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. The operation required more 

than 15,000 soldiers, including most of the 10th Mountain Division. In 

addition, units from the 82d Airborne Division were launched on 16 

September for an airborne operation intended to “take down” the country. 

The operation was canceled at the last moment because of a diplomatic 

settlement that averted a direct clash between U.S. and Haitian military 

5

 Trudie Eklund, “Operation Support Hope (Rwanda): Chronology,” undated, 

Historical Resources Branch, CMH; David Bentley, Operation Sea Signal: U.S. Military 

Support for Caribbean Migration Emergencies, May 1994 to February 1996, Strategic 

Forum 73 (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, May 1996); W. Darren Pitts, 

“A Guantanamo Diary—Operation Sea Signal,” Joint Force Quarterly 9 (Autumn 

1995): 114–120.

A Pentagon press briefing being held on Operation Restore Hope
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

106

forces. The U.S. Atlantic Command also dispatched to Haiti headquarters, medical, and combat support troops from the XVIII Airborne Corps, 

the 3d Special Forces Group, and the 75th Ranger Regiment, augmented 

by various civil affairs and psychological operations personnel. The 

Defense Department relieved the 10th Mountain Division with most of 

the 25th Infantry Division during the spring of 1995, and OAS troops 

relieved most of the U.S. ground forces by the end of the year. Once 

again, HQDA helped mobilize several of the reserve civil affairs units 

that proved essential for this type of operation. Reserve component military police units also mobilized to replace active-duty units deployed 

from essential duties in the United States.6

On 9 October 1994, in Operation Vigilant Warrior, President 

Clinton directed a show of force by the U.S. Central Command in 

Kuwait. This operation involved two brigades of the 24th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized), which were airlifted to Kuwait, where pre-positioned equipment awaited them. Unlike the other contingencies, this one 

did not require reserve mobilization. HQDA was involved in Vigilant

Warrior, however, applying the secretary of the Army’s authority under 

Title 10 to sustain Army forces with pre-positioned equipment afloat and

coordinating with the Joint Staff for shipment of it to Kuwait.7

As the Army was preparing for the withdrawal of the 25th Infantry 

Division from Haiti, and the 10th Mountain Division was undergoing 

reconstitution after having returned earlier, the U.S. European Command 

was dispatching most of the 1st Armored Division from bases in Europe 

to a peace enforcement operation in Bosnia. Three years of ineffective 

operations by a UN protection force had failed to end the continuing 

civil war there, and greater direct military involvement by U.S. and other 

NATO forces was essential. Although the United States had expected 

members of the European Community or European NATO members to 

expand peace enforcement operations to a level sufficient to suppress

organized violence, the Europeans had failed to act.

After the warring parties in Bosnia signed the 21 November 1995 

Dayton Peace Agreement, the United Nations approved a NATO 

“Implementation Force” (IFOR) of sixty thousand troops in Operation 

Joint Endeavor. The first of these units began entering Bosnia in

December. The United States initially contributed twenty-eight thousand 

6

 Margaret Daly Hayes and Gary F. Wheatley, eds., Interagency and PoliticalMilitary Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti—A Case Study (Washington, D.C.: 

National Defense University, 1996), pp. 9–28. 7

 Army Operations Center Briefing Materials, “Current Operations and Intelligence 

Briefing,” 3 Nov 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Responds

107

troops, mostly 1st Armored Division soldiers from U.S. Army, Europe, 

to the operation, which disarmed warring parties over the next year. 

The United Nations authorized continuation of NATO operations in 

December 1996, when it replaced the IFOR with a smaller “Stabilization 

Force” (SFOR).

With the change in mission, Operation Joint Guard supplanted Joint

Endeavor. NATO cut its forces almost in half, to 31,000 troops, with 

the United States reducing its contingent by one-third. Facing the likelihood of an extended operation, the European Command relieved the 1st 

Armored Division with most of the 1st Infantry Division. Although most 

Army forces in Bosnia came from active units based in Europe, HQDA 

and Forces Command mobilized selected reserve component military 

police, civil affairs, military history, and combat service support units, 

which rotated through Bosnia along with active Army units. In sum, as 

in Somalia and Haiti, the Army had to commit substantial forces to these 

missions for extended periods of time.8

What President Bush had titled the “New World Order” did 

indeed signal significant changes in the international environment that

affected the U.S. Army. One significant impact on HQDA was a tide

of continuing demands for Army forces to conduct contingency operations. Operations Golden Pheasant in 1988 and Just Cause in 1989 had 

been brief and relied entirely on active forces from the rapid-reaction 

XVIII Airborne Corps. Thereafter, however, contingency operations 

had been frequent and extended, taxing the Army’s active and reserve 

forces. For example, in 1994 the 10th Mountain Division participated 

in its second contingency deployment in two years. That division was 

relieved in Haiti in early 1995 by the Army’s only other light infantry 

division, a U.S. Army, Pacific, unit, the 25th Infantry Division. But

existing contingency plans committed this unit to early deployment 

in the event of a major regional contingency in the Pacific or Asia,

and its assignment to a contingency in the Caribbean increased the 

level of risk associated with a major regional contingency. The Army 

could no longer maintain readiness for major regional contingencies 

and simultaneously support contingency operations without relying on 

reserve units.

Army participation in lesser regional contingencies revealed several 

difficulties attendant to the employment of U.S. and combined forces

in what were now termed “operations other than war (OOTW).” These 

missions taxed certain specialized Army units. Shortages of active 

8

 Larry Wentz, ed., Lessons from Bosnia: The IFOR Experience (Washington, D.C.: 

National Defense University, 1997), pp. 1–52.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

108

Army civil affairs and military police units were particularly severe. In 

addition, these contingencies strengthened the arguments for restructuring the Army into more easily task-organized contingency forces, 

combining special operations, light, and heavy forces at the division 

level and lower. With Army tactical forces organized into fixed divisions, taking functional units away from their larger parent organizations caused significant administrative, logistical, maintenance, training,

and command problems. The Army’s experience in these operations 

also underscored the difficulties faced by a multinational force of units

that lacked common training, doctrine, or even a common language in 

attempting to operate together as a team. Because they involved NATO 

forces that had trained together over four decades, operations in Bosnia 

proved far smoother than had those in Somalia and elsewhere.

The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers

Even as they were participating in studies to respond to a changing 

strategic environment and coordinating Army participation in contingency operations, Army leaders also were attempting to regain the initiative in reshaping the Army. As his vehicle for this endeavor, Chief of Staff 

Sullivan launched the “modern” Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM). Sullivan 

adopted the name from a series of major field maneuvers that had tested

and helped overhaul the Army’s tactical forces in 1941. He intended the 

analogy to signal a break with the Cold War Army’s tendency toward 

“business as usual” and its gradual, almost cautious, pace of change. 

Sullivan sought to galvanize creative energies throughout the Army for 

a broad-based, comprehensive, and dynamic overhaul of Army doctrine, 

forces, and modernization programs.9

The new chief of staff spent his first year, 1991–1992, defining his

goals for the Army and for the Louisiana Maneuvers. Although he hoped to 

quickly establish momentum for change, Sullivan first considered whether

to adopt a new division design that the Army would implement over the 

next two years. Any decision in favor of a redesign was bound to elicit 

challenge from a number of senior Army leaders who believed that success 

in Operation Desert Storm vindicated existing organizations. Rather than 

risk a hasty decision, Sullivan chose a path of more deliberate change, 

carefully coordinated throughout the Army. Consequently, in May 1992, 

he disseminated a charter formalizing the Louisiana Maneuvers process as 

his tool to transform the Army. The charter prescribed the establishment 

9

 James L. Yarrison, The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers (Washington, D.C.: Center 

of Military History, 1999), pp. 8–11.
The Army Responds

109

of a LAM Task Force of approximately fifty personnel, headed by a brigadier general, to coordinate the “maneuvers.” With the task force’s main 

body at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and elements at other TRADOC posts, the 

chief of staff opted to make the TRADOC commander “deputy director” 

while retaining ultimate control himself. The LAM Task Force served to 

coordinate the articulation and investigation of LAM issues, from force 

redesign to the accelerated development of a second-generation, forwardlooking infrared receiver (FLIR) system. Sullivan established a LAM 

“Board of Directors,” and pressed into service all commanders of major 

Army commands, regional combatant commanders who were Army 

generals, and other selected general officers, including the vice chief of

staff and HQDA’s deputy chief of staff for operations and plans, to act 

as its members. This board would debate LAM issues and make recommendations to the Army’s leaders.10

During its first two years, the Louisiana Maneuvers focused on

designating issues for investigation. The LAM Task Force coordinated 

ideas solicited throughout the Army and guided these issues through the 

LAM process to the board of directors. In this respect, like the Base 

Force study and the Bottom-Up Review, the LAM process bypassed the 

biennial Program Objective Memorandum, the Army’s normal vehicle 

for submitting an integrated program into the Defense Department’s 

planning, programming, and budgeting processes. Sullivan intended 

the Louisiana Maneuvers to provide a more comprehensive means to 

develop issues that required multiyear development and experimentation programs.

In its first year, the Louisiana Maneuvers process accelerated development and the fielding of a number of programs. Among them were

logistics hardware and software programs designed to provide “total asset 

visibility” of parts and consumable supplies both in theater and in transit. 

Too often, central accounting offices lost track of supplies and materiel in

transit or in intermediate depots. The LAM process also developed a wide 

range of simulations and exercises as tools for the design and testing of 

new tactical forces and doctrine, such as the “Synthetic Theater of War” 

used at the Army’s Combined Arms Center. Finally, the process resulted in 

Sullivan establishing in July 1994 on the Army Staff an Army Digitization 

Office (ADO) that reported to the vice chief of staff. The ADO was the

chief’s tool for coordinating the disparate Army force modernization 

programs that used digital information technology to provide various 

10 Ibid., pp. 15–23, 35–39.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

110

battlefield forces with common “situational awareness” through electronic

information sharing.11

Sullivan also used the Louisiana Maneuvers to coordinate three 

HQDA command-post exercises, General Headquarters Exercise 

(GHQ)-93, GHQ-94, and GHQ-95. GHQ-93 operated from 12 to 28 

August 1993 in the Army Operations Center in the Pentagon. GHQ94 continued the exercises, operating in four phases through 17 June 

1994, and GHQ-95, covering three phases, ended in June 1995. These 

exercises were the first since Operation Desert Storm to test the Army 

Command Post’s ability to coordinate Army support in the event of a 

major contingency operation. The Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

for Operations and Plans conducted each exercise, with the LAM Task 

Force providing evaluators. GHQ-93 operated in conjunction with the 

annual Ulchi-Focus Lens (UN Forces Korea) and Fuertes Defensas

(U.S. Southern Command) command-post exercises.12

To enhance control, the Army’s DCSOPS conducted all three exercises as Army-only operations centered on two, near-simultaneous, major 

regional contingencies. Both GHQ-93 and GHQ-94 showed that the Army 

would be overtaxed to meet regional combatant commanders’ requirements for early-deploying forces. In both, players, who represented the 

combatant commander, requested that the 101st Airborne Division be one 

of the first units to deploy to their theater. GHQ-95 exercised a scenario

similar to that of its predecessor, further refining detailed troop requirements for two major regional contingencies. The exercises validated the 

need for an Army force of two corps headquarters, seven divisions, and 

two armored cavalry regiments to prevail in a single major regional contingency. Other key GHQ findings endorsed the need for early access to the

Army’s reserve components, unlike what had happened during Operation 

Desert Shield. The exercises also highlighted the requirement for greater 

accuracy in reserve-unit readiness ratings and in setting dates on which 

units would be available for deployments.13

11 Ibid., pp. 23–24, 39–43; Department of the Army, United States Army Modernization 

Plan, 1995 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1994). 12 Yarrison, Modern Louisiana Maneuvers, pp. 43–45; HQDA, “GHQx 93 After 

Action Report: Volumes 1 & 2 (17–26 August 1993),” Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; Lt Col John C. Dibert, “General Headquarters Exercise Insights,” Military Review

77 (March–April 1997): 62–66. 13 HQDA Briefing Materials, “GHQ 94 Phase III Update,” 18 May 1994; HQDA 

Briefing Materials, “GHQ 94 Phase IV Update,” 16 July 1994, both Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH; Dibert, “General Headquarters Exercise Insights,” pp. 64–67.
The Army Responds

111

Force XXI

During its final active year, 1994–1995, the Louisiana Maneuvers

focused on “Force XXI.” Force XXI began as a concept for combining 

a comprehensive Army tactical and institutional force reorganization 

with the adoption of advanced digitized communications by selected 

tactical units. The first objective of Force XXI was to reorganize the

Army around a new operational doctrine by the year 2000, when the first

tactical digital communications equipment would be available. Sullivan 

assigned TRADOC to undertake the reorganization of tactical forces, 

centered on the redesign of the Army’s “heavy” divisions. Designating 

this effort “Joint Venture,” TRADOC dusted off the AirLand BattleFuture reorganization studies while it also planned for the tactical use 

of electronic information in conjunction with the Army Digitization 

Office. In addition to redesigning the tactical forces around emerging

technology, Sullivan charged Joint Venture to develop more “modular” 

organizations to ease the tailoring of deployed task forces and for 

“distributed,” more decentralized, operations.14

TRADOC undertook its study using both simulations and directed 

exercises with troops (Advanced Warfighting Experiments/AWEs)

to design and test model organizations. The first experiment tested a

battalion-sized armored task force in April 1994. A second exercise 

tested a brigade task force three years later. By April 1995, the command 

had developed eleven options for heavy division redesign and by the 

following autumn reduced those to three: a scaled-down version of the 

existing division, a hybrid heavy/light division, and a flexible “brigadebased” model. After additional testing in early 1998, TRADOC 

recommended that the Army adopt the most conservative option, the 

scaled-down fixed division. The Army’s leadership could implement

this design with minimal disruptions stemming from new doctrine, 

tactics, techniques, procedures, leader development, and training. The 

option, however, disappointed some Army officers who sought a more

comprehensive reorganization that might have resulted in a more agile 

force better adapted to the decentralized operations envisioned for future 

contingencies. Others worried that gutting the traditional combat division would be politically disastrous for both the active Army and the 

National Guard, as few civilians would understand the complexities of a 

more flexibly organized force.15

14 Yarrison, Modern Louisiana Maneuvers, pp. 49–50. 15 Ibid., pp. 41–42, 67–69; TRADOC Briefing Materials, “The Army in Transition,” 

undated (Feb 1996), Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

112

The second main thrust of Force 

XXI was an institutional redesign 

aimed at the TDA, or “institutional,” 

Army—the training commands, 

recruiting agency, schools, labs, 

and major headquarters, including 

Army component commands for 

each regional combatant command. 

Secretary West and General 

Sullivan appointed the Army’s 

vice chief of staff, General John 

H. Tilelli, Jr., in conjunction with 

the assistant secretary of the Army 

(manpower and reserve affairs), 

to coordinate the project. HQDA’s 

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

for Operations and Plans, which 

coordinated the institutional redesign effort, eschewed establishment 

of a temporary special task force 

to conduct the study. Instead, to analyze such functions as personnel 

management and information management, the DCSOPS organized eight 

“functional area assessments.” He also established an “umbrella” assessment intended to integrate the results of the other analyses. Each assessment would provide the Army’s vice chief of staff and assistant secretary 

of the Army (manpower and reserve affairs) with three reorganization 

options for each subject organization. The functional area assessments 

would analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each option and 

recommend one solution to the Army’s leadership. Neither OSD nor the 

Joint Staff undertook similar infrastructure reshaping efforts, as they had 

done concurrently with the 1990 Vanguard study and the 1992 HQDA 

Transformation Study. Consequently, neither organization offered either 

specific guidance or alternative reorganization proposalssuch asthe DMR

initiatives. The Army was free to conduct its own comprehensive redesign 

but without a means to assess how its reorganization might contribute to 

or detract from joint warfighting.16

16 Secretary of the Army Togo D. West, Jr., and Gen Gordon R. Sullivan, “Charter 

for Redesigning the Institutional/TDA Army,” 13 Jan 1995; Memo for Institutional 

Army Axis General Officer Steering Committee (GOSC) Members, 21 Mar 1995, 

sub: Institutional Army Re-engineering and Redesign Campaign Plan, both Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.

Army Vice Chief of Staff 

General Tilelli
The Army Responds

113

The functional area assessments of the Army’s major commands 

began in September 1995. As their framework for institutional redesign, the functional assessments used “Draft Department of the Army 

Pamphlet (DA PAM)-100XX,” which attempted to develop a doctrine 

for reorganizing the Army’s nondeployable organizations to best 

support the operational or field Army. Taking language employed by the

Commission on Roles and Missions, the Army’s leaders directed that 

these and the other functional assessments focus on “core competencies,” “core capabilities,” and “core processes” for the Army and each 

subordinate organization.17

The draft pamphlet provided options for consolidating the Army’s 

fourteen major commands. Its preferred option would consolidate the 

CONUS MACOMs into three, large commands, one for force development, another for force generation and projection, and a third for 

force sustainment. The Army service component commands for each 

unified command would remain unchanged. This reorganization, a

more comprehensive one than Project Vanguard had recommended in 

1990, would reverse the trend of a widening horizontal span of control 

below HQDA that had begun in response to the planning, programming, 

and budgeting processes established during the McNamara era. At that 

time, the Army had created single-function major commands such as 

the Corps of Engineers and Army Medical Command to permit those 

organizations to compete better for resources in program and budget 

processes that OSD dominated.18 Merging these organizations into 

multifunctional commands threatened to disrupt the Army’s existing 

resource management processes and might also undermine joint operations. Submerging organizations such as the Army’s Military Traffic

Management Command under an intermediate headquarters could hinder 

their responsiveness to the unified commander they supported. Draft DA

PAM-100XX provided an ambitious framework for reorganization, but 

17 Department of the Army Pamphlet 100-XX, “Force XXI Institutional Force 

Redesign: Final Draft,” 31 July 1996. The Army disseminated the final version of the 

document, DA PAM 100-1, on 5 March 1998. 18 The Army created a number of staff support agencies and field operating agencies 

subordinate to HQDA for the same reason. During Secretary McNamara’s administration, OSD dominated the services by developing its own program and budget issues. 

It then referred these to the affected services for comment, usually with a very short 

deadline. Too often, intervening multifunctional headquarters delayed getting a timely 

response to OSD and jeopardized the Army’s position. Consequently, Army headquarters 

and MACOM force design operated on a “centralize it if you want to keep it” basis. See 

Brownlee and Mullen, Changing an Army, pp. 171–174, for General William DePuy’s 

firsthand experience with late McNamara-era PPBS policies.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

114

the difficulty in adopting such a plan would lay in the details of both

design and implementation.

The functional area assessments provided uneven and often disjointed 

recommendations for reorganizations. Although HQDA’s principal 

members participated in a decision briefing for each assessment, the DA

operations staff relied primarily on major commands rather than on an 

independent task force to develop redesign options. Hence most functional area assessments focused on options for the internal redesign of 

existing commands. For example, although TRADOC coordinated the 

Training, Leader Development, Organize [sic], and Doctrine assessment, 

it concentrated its efforts on TRADOC rather than on how the larger Army 

performed those functions. Consequently, although the HQDA Redesign 

assessment recommended the transfer of the Army War College from the 

DCSOPS to the Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC was unprepared to take it. Despite these coordination difficulties, the functional

area assessments led to the elimination of one major command and the 

establishment of another. The Army’s Forces Command absorbed most 

of the Information Systems Command, with the remaining functions 

going to TRADOC and the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC). The 

Army leadership also chose to convert the Space and Strategic Defense 

Command from an HQDA field operating agency to a major command,

redesignated the Space and Missile Defense Command.19

Unlike those who directed the other assessments, the directors of 

the HQDA Redesign Functional Area Assessment established a special 

study group to develop detailed recommendations. The Army’s director 

of management organized the Headquarters, Department of the Army, 

Redesign Working Group in May 1995 for this purpose. Located in 

leased space in Arlington, Virginia, the group comprised twelve action 

officers, augmented by five contract personnel and retired Army general

officer, Lt. Gen. Charles P. Otstott, whom the vice chief of staff hired on

contract during the early autumn. Two colonels and one senior civilian 

from the Army Staff and Army Secretariat, respectively, initially cochaired the group.20

The Redesign Working Group operated independently, subject only 

to general guidance. It conducted most of its own research and generally 

19 DCSOPS Briefing Materials, “Redesign of the Institutional Army: Phase II/GOSC 

1,” 16 Apr 1996, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; and Interv, Mark Sherry with Mr. 

Albert D. Brown (DAMO-FDF), 28 Feb 1996, Pentagon, Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH.20 Conversation, Mark Sherry with Col Michael G. Jones, HQDA Redesign Working 

Group, 31 Oct 1995, Arlington, Va.; Conversation, Mark Sherry with Mr. B. Anthony 

Turner, HQDA Redesign Working Group, 2 Apr 1996, Arlington, Va.
The Army Responds

115

did not solicit recommendations from within headquarters. It did obtain 

briefings from most major staff sections and agencies, as needed, and

group members also conducted interviews with principal members of 

HQDA. Conspicuously missing from this process was specific direction

from the Office of the Secretary of Defense concerning how to streamline the Army’s headquarters.21

This absence of OSD guidance was critical because, to a greater 

degree than the Army’s major commands, HQDA, its field operating

agencies, and its staff support agencies had evolved in response to 

changes in organization and management processes by OSD and the 

Joint Staff. Former Senator Sam Nunn, who had been a key architect 

of the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization, included HQDA as an integral part of the thirty-thousand-person “corporate DoD headquarters,” 

which, he argued, required visionary reorganization in order to eliminate duplication. Yet, as inextricably linked as it was to OSD and Joint 

Staff processes, HQDA could hardly eliminate or consolidate offices

that allowed the Army to participate in the PPBS. And the Army needed 

to continue its participation in the Joint Staff’s Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council (JROC), which reviewed the services’ key modernization programs. Since the late 1980s, Army participation in the JROC 

had increased significantly.22

Lacking direction from a comprehensive DoD redesign study, or 

even detailed guidance from OSD, the HQDA Redesign Working Group 

turned to the National Performance Review (NPR). The review was an 

effort by the Clinton administration to improve management efficiencies

and “business practices” throughout the executive branch. But it offered 

little direction for a headquarters redesign intended to streamline and 

eliminate duplications, much less to advance the Defense Department’s 

slow march toward jointness and unification.23

Conducting “functional area reviews” in November and December 

1995, the Redesign Working Group developed a series of alternatives 

for headquarters restructuring. The working group produced options for 

reorganizing the Army Secretariat, the Army Staff, and each one of the 

headquarters’sixty-one field operating agencies and fourteen staff support

21 Ibid.

22 Sam Nunn, “Future Trends in Defense Organization,” Joint Force Quarterly 13 

(Autumn 1996): 64. 23 Vice President Al Gore, Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs 

Less: The Report of the National Performance Review (New York: Penguin Books, 

1993); Report of the National Performance Review, Creating a Government That Works 

Better and Costs Less: Status Report (September 1994) (Washington, D.C.: Executive 

Office of the President, 1994).
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

116

agencies. In compliance with Draft DA PAM 100-XX, the redesign 

options sought to realign the headquarters through the transfer of “operational functions” to major commands or, in one case, to OSD. All of the 

options would reduce all headquarters agencies by at least 10 percent. 

The working group’s recommended options would eliminate or merge 

fourteen field operating agencies and eight staff support agencies. These

recommendations also would transfer another twelve field operating agencies out of the headquarters. The recommended redesign would significantly reduce authorized headquarters’ personnel spaces from 37,110 to 

20,237, including SSA/FOA manpower. HQDA proper, however, would 

be trimmed less, from 2,457 to 2,311 spaces. In February 1996, the 

working group presented to the principal members of headquarters all of 

the options in its “HQDA Redesign Functional Area Assessment.” The 

Army’s leadership accepted most of the recommended options, eliminating 

3,268 civilian spaces from the Army and, in addition, transferring 13,605 

military and civilian personnel authorizations to major commands.24

The Redesign Working Group’s recommended restructuring of the 

headquarters proper entailed only minor changes. Some HQDA officials

had proposed some consolidation of the Army Secretariat and the Army 

Staff. At the secretary of the Army’s direction, however, the HQDA 

assessment ignored all recommendations to merge the Army Staff and 

Secretariat and eliminate most assistant secretary positions. The group 

did, though, persuade Army leaders to re-create the position of assistant vice chief of staff at the rank of lieutenant general. This position 

mirrored equivalent positions on the staffs of the Navy and Air Force 

and afforded the Army parity when fighting for Army programs in interactions with the Joint Staff and OSD. The HQDA Redesign Functional 

Area Assessment also transferred two large field operating agencies,

the Army Recruiting Command and the Military Entrance Processing 

Command, from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel to

the Training and Doctrine Command.25

24 HQDA Redesign Working Group Briefing Materials, “HQDA Redesign Analysis: 

The Most Promising Organizational Options,” 25 Oct 1995; Briefing Materials, 

“Redesign of the Institutional Army: Phase II/GOSC 1,” 16 Apr 1996, both Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH. 25 Briefing Materials, “HQDA Redesign Analysis,” 25 Oct 1995; Memo, Honorable 

Togo D. West, Jr., for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 16 Oct 1995, sub: Commission 

on Roles and Missions Recommendations on Restructuring Military Department Staffs, 

both Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Conversation, Mark Sherry with Col Michael 

G. Jones, Headquarters Redesign Working Group, 4 Mar 1996, Arlington, Va. The Army 

Secretariat’s recommendation would have had the assistant secretaries and ARSTAF 

principals reporting simultaneously to the service secretary, under secretary, chief of 

staff, and vice chief.
The Army Responds

117

Like the other functional area assessments, the HQDA Redesign 

Assessment provided a headquarters reorganization that reflected the

“art of the possible.” It continued the Army’s course of evolutionary 

organizational change. This approach minimized disruption to a force 

already undergoing considerable turmoil because of budget reductions 

and increasing commitments to contingency operations.

When the Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force ceased operations in June 

1996, it had seen its main creation, Force XXI, take shape, sponsored 

jointly by the HQDA deputy chief of staff for operations and plans and 

TRADOC. Although it had championed a number of materiel programs 

that helped adapt the Army to a battlefield incorporating modern digital

information technology, the main impact of the Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers was intellectual. By late 1993, it had focused HQDA and all 

Army major commands on the force modernization process dominated 

in recent years by the Training and Doctrine Command and the Army’s 

acquisition community, providing a conduit for bringing programs, such 

as the second-generation, forward-looking infrared receiver (FLIR), 

directly to the Army’s leadership for enhanced support.26

Despite its successes, the Modern Louisiana Maneuvers could not 

restore the Army’s lost force structure. After Desert Storm, the service’s 

leaders continued to fight an uphill battle forresources.Budgetreductions

from the Bottom-Up Review forced the Army to balance force modernization with force levels and readiness. Instead of trying to protect force 

levels, the Army’s leadership chose to favor readiness, continuing to 

budget for a training operational tempo of 800 annual miles/14.5 flight

hours for the active Army, while its active strength declined from 535,000 

to 495,000 by 1996. At the same time, the evolving international environment posed increasing requirements for Army formations. National 

military strategy was shifting to a post–Cold War footing, emphasizing 

major regional contingencies and lesser regional contingencies. Neither 

changes in roles and functions nor expanded contingency requirements, 

however, led directly to a larger budget share for the Army that could 

increase either its end strength or its capabilities. Nevertheless, the first

priority of the Army’s leaders continued to be readiness, and the second 

to attract the level of resources to support its expanding missions. 

Restructuring remained but a distant third.

26 Yarrison, Modern Louisiana Maneuvers, pp. 78–81; Louisiana Maneuvers Task 

Force, Louisiana Maneuvers: The First Year (Fort Monroe, Va.: March 1994); LeCuyer 

interv, 17 May 1994, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

119

Chapter 7

The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

The 1996–1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) was an 

attempt to conduct an overarching strategic review on a scale adequate 

for the redirection of the nation’s security priorities. Several influential

members of the Senate and House armed services committees, along 

with some OSD leaders and outside defense experts, saw the world 

undergoing a “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) and believed 

that the Defense Department had already fallen behind. This concept 

postulated revolutionary changes in military technology that would 

rapidly make existing military hardware and organizations obsolescent. RMA advocates sought to fund high-technology modernization 

at the expense of existing force levels and even readiness throughout 

the Defense Department. These advocates quickly collided with 

nervous service chiefs and regional combatant commanders who noted 

that increased participation by U.S. forces in contingency operations 

mandated the maintenance of ready, active component forces for a 

variety of missions. At the same time, although the post–Cold War 

drawdown was ending, budget pressures continued to demand reductions and economies in defense programs and structures.

The QDR was a relatively recent innovation. Having last 

asserted its prerogatives for defense reorganization when it chartered the 1994–1995 Commission on Roles and Missions of the 

Armed Forces, Congress acted again in 1996. Based on a recommendation by the CORM for a “quadrennial strategy review” at 

the outset of each administration, Congress charged the secretary 

of defense, “in consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff,” to undertake the first such Quadrennial Defense Review 

and report to Congress by 15 May 1997. The effort would examine 

defense strategy, forces, modernization programs, infrastructure, 

projected budgets, and other major aspects of defense programs and 

policies. Congress further directed that the QDR project military 

strategy and force alternatives through 2010, rather than over the 

next five years. Among its specific tasks, the QDR was to examine 

the impact on the Defense Department of recent participation in 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

120

“military operations other than war,” such as peacekeeping, peace 

enforcement, and humanitarian assistance.1

Changing National Military Strategy

By late 1996, participation in lesser regional contingencies (LRCs) 

had become a recurrent event for Army units of all types and sizes. The 

Defense Department gradually modified its strategic priorities to reflect

the increasing frequency and importance of such missions. In April 

1996, Secretary of Defense Perry directed that the Defense Department 

plan to respond with military force when essential to protect three 

“categories of national interests”: “vital interests,” “important interests,” 

and “humanitarian interests.” The last two were new, with “important 

interests” defined as those that, although they do not affect “our national

survival or well-being . . . do affect Americans’ quality of life and the 

character of the world in which we live,” and “humanitarian interests” 

as those that could be served by assuaging the effects of natural disasters and other hardships with available relief forces. Perry wanted to 

place several conditions on deploying troops in the two new categories. 

As he saw the future, the sequel to the Cold War was not world peace 

and disarmament but active U.S. engagement around the globe to help 

“shape” international security by maintaining the peace.2

Except for maritime interdiction operations in the Caribbean and 

shows of force staged exclusively at sea, most U.S. contingency operations involved Army forces. For example, the Army provided about 

79 percent of U.S. troops in Operation Just Cause in 1989 and 57 

percent of U.S. forces in operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 

1990–1991. Subsequent commitments to peacekeeping and peace 

enforcement operations kept active Army units busy and required the 

activation of reserve units that were in high demand. In addition to 

maintaining their fighting skills, active units deploying to contingency

operations usually required specialized training for tasks not part of 

their normal missions. Such double training loads, when added to days 

deployed on contingency operations, created a high “personnel tempo” 

1

 Commission on Roles and Missions, Directions for Defense: Report of the 

Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Department 

of Defense, 24 May 1995), p. 4-9; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 

1997, Public Law 201, 104th Cong., 2d sess. (23 Sep 1996), secs. 923–924.

2

 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Defense Planning Guidance: FY 1998–2003

(Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 10 Apr 1996), pp. 1, 5–7, 

26–30, 34–35.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

121

(PERSTEMPO).3 Reservists activated for contingency operations 

suffered similar training demands in addition to disruption of their 

full-time civilian careers. Both conditions augured morale problems 

likely to affect reenlistments.4

From the beginning, Defense Secretary Perry recognized the link 

between these increased commitments and their impact on the morale of 

the force. Unlike the post–World War II draftee Army, the post–Vietnam 

War volunteer force was composed of career soldiers with extensive 

family commitments. He thus made maintaining and improving “quality 

of life” part of his programming guidance and a criterion for decision 

making in the Quadrennial Defense Review.5

 For example, many soldiers 

suffered from inadequate or substandard family housing and barracks on 

the Army’s many installations, both overseas and in CONUS. Although 

the service was slowly building or converting most of its barracks to meet 

the 1982 standard of two soldiers per room, low budgets and construction lags had continually bedeviled the effort. That the Army was ahead 

of the Marine Corps in this area was its only consolation.6

But despite emphasis on improving the soldier’s quality of life, Perry 

hesitated to obtain funds to accelerate improvement by making additional 

cuts in personnel and forces. He hoped that programmed modernization 

and other improvements of existing forces would increase their effectiveness over the long run, making them adequate for the growing number 

3

 PERSTEMPO was originally a Navy accounting category that compared days 

away with days in residence at the home port (home station). In recent years, the Army 

and other services have expanded the category to include “time spent in deployed field 

activities” while in residence at the home station, including overnight field training. 4

 Strategic Synchronization Cell, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, Briefing 

Materials, “America’s Army,” undated (Nov–Dec 1996), Historian’s Background 

Files, CMH. 5

 Perry had appointed a “Task Force on Quality of Life” in November 1994 to 

examine problems and make recommendations. The task force noted a wide diversity in 

the quality of quarters for single soldiers in particular. One member asked, “Would you 

drop off your son or daughter at a college dorm, if it looked like some of the barracks 

we’ve seen?” The task force’s report further asserted that only the Air Force came close 

to meeting the 1995 revision of the Defense Department’s housing standard, which 

mandated no more than one soldier per room, with the quality of the other services’ 

facilities varying significantly. 6

 OSD, DPG 1998–2003, pp. 51–52; Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition and Technology, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Quality 

of Life (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Oct 1995), pp. 1–94; 

Rick Maze, “Barracks Blues,” Navy Times, 11 Aug 1997, pp. 12–14. Although the Navy 

claimed it could meet 1995 DoD barracks standards by 2013, ahead of the Army, most 

Navy unmarried enlisted personnel lived in cramped spaces aboard ship even while in 

port, offsetting the apparently higher Navy standard of living.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

122

of tasks being assigned to them. For example, the modernization of 

U.S. airlift and expansion of sealift and pre-positioned unit equipment 

in selected theaters would increase deployment speed and flexibility. In

another case, improvements in joint and service capabilities in surveillance 

and in command, control, communications, and computers promised to 

make existing forces more effective. The accelerated acquisition of more 

effective munitions, especially precision-guided munitions, promised 

similar dividends. Perry also hoped that the fifteen Army National Guard

“enhanced brigades” could be brought to a level of readiness adequate to 

deploy in time to a second major regional contingency and to serve as a 

“hedge” in the event that either conflict needed more forcesthan projected.

Having thus endorsed the modernization of the Bottom-Up Review force, 

the defense secretary recommended against further reductions in forces 

and manpower at the outset of the QDR.7

Army Preparations for the Quadrennial Defense Review

Dismayed by the disproportionate reductions in Army forces relative to the other services made by the Base Force study and the BottomUp Review, many Army officers approached the Quadrennial Defense

Review warily. During the summer of 1996, Army Chief of Staff General 

Dennis J. Reimer began organizing HQDA’s effort for the upcoming 

review. He decided that the Army would coordinate its QDR functions through a special cell, similar to the Army’s Roles and Missions 

Directorate during the 1994–1995 Commission on Roles and Missions’ 

tenure. Established in September 1996, the “Strategic Synchronization 

Cell” comprised twelve to fifteen field-grade action officers assigned

as “directed military overstrength” for no longer than a year. The cell’s 

director was a brigadier general, with a colonel as his deputy. Assisting 

was a full-time Senior Executive Service analyst to coordinate Army 

studies to ensure their integration with OSD and Joint Staff analyses. 

The new assistant vice chief of staff of the Army (AVCSA) provided 

overall coordination.8

7

 Quoted words from OSD, DPG 1998–2003, p. 24, and see also pp. 8–19, 21–23, 

25–27. 8

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Lt Gen Jay M. Garner, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, 

U.S. Army, 9 May 1997, Pentagon; Interv, Mark Sherry with Col William McManaway, 

Deputy Director, Strategic Synchronization Cell, 8 Apr 1997, Pentagon; and Interv, 

Thomas Carhart with Lt Col Timothy S. Muchmore, Strategic Synchronization Cell, 

Dec 1996, Pentagon, all Oral History Activity, CMH. Directed military overstrength 

personnel were those staff assigned for no more than one year to positions beyond 

HQDA’s table of distribution and allowances.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

123

The Strategic Synchronization Cell participants sought to develop 

an Army “campaign plan.” Some held that the Bottom-Up Review, 

relying on flawed analytical studies, had reduced the Army two divisions

below the level of prudent risk. These officers believed that, in light

of the Army’s recent high operational tempo (OPTEMPO), which was 

the result of its expanded participation in contingency operations, the 

Defense Department should restore Army force levels to twelve active 

divisions. Other participants sought clarification as to what the Army

would seek to defend most during the review. Were the “crown jewels” 

ten active divisions, or were they an active Army strength of 495,000 

soldiers? Still others sought clarification of the relative priority of Army

force modernization programs, current readiness, and current and future 

force levels. Other questions surfaced concerning the Army’s relations 

with the other services and how to react to possible raids by them on 

Army “turf,” or resources. Few answers were forthcoming through 

the autumn as the Army’s QDR team members prepared for what they 

expected to be a contest.9

Inhibiting the Army’s efforts to map out a detailed campaign 

“strategy” for the Quadrennial Defense Review was a general confusion 

over what exactly the effort would emphasize and the methodology it 

would employ. Secretary Perry stepped down in late autumn, leaving the 

review to his successor, William S. Cohen. Then, as OSD officials organized for the study, they decided to bring the Joint Staff into the effort to 

a greater degree than during the Bottom-Up Review. Subsequently, OSD 

and the Joint Staff divided the QDR into three echelons. To oversee the 

entire study effort was a Senior Steering Group (SSG), co-chaired by the 

deputy secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, and staffed by the under secretaries and vice chiefs of staff of the 

services. Beneath the SSG, an Integration Panel co-chaired by OSD’s 

director of program analysis and evaluation, the assistant secretary of 

defense (strategy and requirements), and the Joint Staff’s director, J–8, 

9

 Garner interv, 9 May 1997, Oral History Activity, CMH; Strategic Synchronization 

Cell Briefing Materials, “The BUR—In Retrospect,” undated (Autumn 1996), and 

Dr. Ralph A. Hallenbeck, “Defending an Army End Strength of 495,000,” Science 

Applications International Corporation, 10 Sep 1996, Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH. For examples of studies recommending a minimum Army force level of twelve 

active divisions and at least 500,000 active military personnel, see Kim R. Holmes and 

Thomas G. Moore, eds., Restoring American Leadership: A U.S. Foreign Policy and 

Defense Policy Blueprint (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1996), pp. 192–204, 

212–213; General Glenn K. Otis, Decisive Force: Landpower Essay No. 96-2 (Arlington, 

Va.: Association of the U.S. Army, Mar 1996), and Frederick W. Kagan and David T. 

Fautua, “Could We Fight a War If We Had To?” Commentary (May 1997): 25–29.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

124

would perform most of the study’s coordination. This panel included the 

Army’s assistant vice chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, and equivalent representatives from the other services (Chart 8). Finally, the third, 

or working level, would consist of several functional panels treating 

discrete issues, a setup similar to that employed by the BUR.

In October 1996, OSD established five functional panels, one each for

Strategy, Force Structure, Modernization, Readiness, and Infrastructure, 

and in December added a sixth, a Human Resources Panel. A deputy 

under secretary or an assistant secretary from OSD and a one- or two-star 

officer from the Joint Staff co-chaired each functional panel. OSD also

invited the Army and the other services each to provide a one- or twostar representative on each panel. By December, the QDR’s Integration 

Panel had even further subdivided the functional panels by approving 

the establishment of several subpanels within the Modernization and 

Infrastructure areas. Over the course of the review, the Integration Panel 

would establish additional subpanels within all panels, expanding their 

number to more than fifty. But whatever the number of panels and

Defense Secretary Cohen, left, hosts an Armed Forces Full Honor 

Arrival Ceremony at the Pentagon for a visiting dignitary.
Chart 8—OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE/JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

ORGANIZATION FOR QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW, DECEMBER 1996

DEFENSE

RESOURCES BOARD

Source: Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (AVCSA) Briefing Materials.

SENIOR STEERING GROUP

DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (CHAIR)

- Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff- Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) (Strategy and Resources)- Under Secretaries of Defense- Service Under Secretaries- Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation- Service Vice Chiefs of Staff

INTEGRATION PANEL

- Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation (Co-Chair)- ASD (Strategy and Resources) (Co-Chair)- Director, J–8 (Co-Chair)- Selected Assistant Secretaries of Defense and Military Services (3 Stars)

SUPPORT GROUP

- Deputy Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation- Deputy, ASD (Strategy and Resources)- Deputy Director, J–8- Military Services (2-Star Reps)

NATIONAL DEFENSE PANEL

LIAISON CELL

STRATEGY PANEL FORCE STRUCTURE ASSESSMENT PANEL

MODERNIZATION PANEL READINESS PANEL INFRASTRUCTURE PANEL
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

126

subpanels, the QDR would operate 

in a more open forum than had the 

Bottom-Up Review, with the Army 

and the other services participating 

in all echelons.10

HQDA appointed a general 

officer as “quarterback” for the

Army’s efforts on each of the 

six main panels. The deputy 

chief of staff for operations and 

plans provided quarterbacks for 

the Strategy, Force Structure, 

Modernization, and Readiness 

panels. These assignments ensured 

that the Army’s QDR effort would 

tap the diverse capabilities of 

HQDA’s largest staff element. 

Each Army quarterback headed an 

Army “task force” composed of 

HQDA action officers with responsibility in the functional area. Each 

quarterback had, as a full-time deputy, a colonel from the Strategic 

Synchronization Cell who was the cell’s expert in that area. Through 

these colonels, the cell endeavored to “horizontally coordinate” the 

efforts of the Army task forces, an admittedly difficult task. Although

OSD and the Joint Staff did not establish a “resources” panel, General 

Garner set up a separate Army Resources Task Force, quarterbacked by 

the Army’s director of program analysis and evaluation. Garner believed 

that the Quadrennial Defense Review would focus primarily on resource 

issues and that HQDA thus needed a task force devoted exclusively 

to examining how any changes in Army resources could affect Army 

programs (Chart 9).11

Although lacking a clear sense of how OSD and the Joint Staff 

would proceed, Garner directed the Strategic Synchronization Cell to 

gather information on the gamut of issues likely to surface during the 

study. Such matters included the implications of the “win-hold-win” 

10 Joint Staff, “Charter for the Quadrennial Defense Review,” undated (Autumn 

1996), Historian’s Background Files, CMH; McManaway interv, 8 Apr 1997. 11 Garner interv, 9 May 1997; McManaway interv, 8 April 1997; Strategic 

Synchronization Cell Briefing Materials, “Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR): Army 

Plans and Preparation,” undated (Oct 1996), Historian’s Background Files, CMH.

Assistant Vice Chief of Staff 

General Garner
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

127

concept for fighting two major regional contingencies that OSD had

proposed during the Bottom-Up Review, or delays in or cancellations 

of major modernization programs. Meanwhile, the Army’s Strategy 

Task Force members sought to develop a “metric” for sizing the Army’s 

tactical forces, including a realistic “division slice” incorporating 

support units for contingency operations. The analysis extended further 

to developing simple “force packages” of Army units smaller than a 

division—“mission task-organized forces” (MTOF) that the Army could 

sell to the Joint Staff and OSD. Perhaps the most significant product

emerging from the Army’s initial efforts to define likely QDR issues

was a “vignette drill,” led by the Army’s Resources Task Force, which 

developed three scenarios based on possible reductions in the Army’s 

budget. Each vignette examined the impact of budgetary reductions of 

10, 20, and 30 percent on Army organizations, with regard both to their 

forces and their administrative structures.

The vignette exercise demonstrated that previous reorganizations 

had already gleaned all significant efficiencies in Army infrastructure.

Consequently, even a 10 percent Army reduction would require cutting 

active forces by at least two divisions as active strength fell to 450,000. 

Reductions of this size, analysts felt, would doom the nation’s ability to 

respond to two, “near simultaneous,” major regional contingencies. The 

Army was either closing in on its minimum level of resources or had 

already reached that point.12

By November 1996, the Army’s Quadrennial Defense Review team 

had developed several study goals. First, HQDA sought to guide the 

QDR to an outcome reflecting an emerging national military strategy

that focused on worldwide ground contingency operations. Such a result 

would not only favor the Army but also reflect current realities. Recent

experience had demonstrated a demand for Army forces that would 

likely continue into the foreseeable future. Many HQDA staff officers

believed that the recent increase in Army involvement in lesser regional 

contingencies justified a corresponding increase in the Army’s share

of the defense budget. Wary that advocacy for such an increase would 

provoke major interservice rivalry during the review, General Garner 

acted to avoid anything that would appear to be an Army raid on other 

12 Strategic Synchronization Cell Briefing Materials, “QDR: Army Plans and 

Preparations”; Strategic Synchronization Cell, “ Strategic Synchronization Cell Tasking 

List,” 28 Oct 1996; Strategic Synchronization Cell Briefing Chart, “Phase 0 . . . The 

Buildup Period”; Information Paper, DACS-DPR, sub: Quadrennial Defense Review 

Working Issue #2 - Impacts on Army of TOA Reductions, 31 Oct 1996; and Strategic 

Synchronization Cell Briefing Materials, “DRAFT: Response to AVCSA Tasker,” 24 Oct 

1996, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

128

services’ programs or resources. His position, however, tended to eschew 

any comprehensive review of service roles and functions.13

The Army’s second major goal for the Quadrennial Defense Review 

was to prevent OSD from reducing Army active forces or their readiness to fund any modernization programs of the Army or other services. 

Operation Desert Storm had precipitated a number of articles and 

monographs by defense intellectuals heralding an imminent revolution 

in military affairs driven by information technology. Presumably, such 

future development would sweep aside existing warfighting doctrines,

equipment, and organizations, making existing, or “legacy,” forces 

superfluous and all expenditures on them wasteful. Unfortunately, such

“pie-in-the-sky” predictions had a long history in the twentieth century.

The Army itself had sought to harness various technological aspects 

of the revolution in military affairs during the Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers process, especially rapidly evolving digital information 

technology. Yet Army leaders hardly subscribed to a notion, advanced by 

more zealous commentators, that weapons platforms with revolutionary 

new capabilities and a generation of enhanced precision-guided munitions would emerge over the next two decades to dominate the battlefield. Ostensibly, these systems would offer “leap-ahead” technology

capable of rendering existing weapons obsolete. Many RMA supporters 

had thus advocated reducing existing forces, especially ground forces, 

to provide funding for developing and fielding these promising new

systems. But the specifics of the promised revolutionary technology

remained vague.14

Obviously, such radical proposals threatened the Army’s QDR 

campaign. From the perspective of many Army action officers, the

recommendation would continue a disturbing trend begun by the Base 

Force and aggravated by the Bottom-Up Review: reducing Army forces 

in order to fund other services’ programs, such as sealift. Consequently, 

the Army’s QDR game plan had to deemphasize modernization in order 

13 Briefing Materials, “QDR 97: America’s Army,” undated (Jan 1997); Army 

Operations Center Briefing, “Army Briefing to the Honorable William S. Cohen,” 19 

Dec 1996; Garner interv, 9 May 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 14 For examples of contemporary studies supporting RMA visions, see Daniel Gouré 

and Christopher M. Szara, eds., Air and Space Power in the New Millennium (Washington, 

D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), and Briefing, Dr. Dan Gouré 

and Jeffrey M. Ranney to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Avoiding the 

Defense Train Wreck,” 14 Apr 1998. For examples of contemporary studies challenging 

key RMA premises, see Stephen Biddle, “Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells 

Us About the Future of Conflict,” International Security 21 (Fall 1996): 139–179, and Lt 

Gen Paul Van Riper, USMC, and Maj Gen Robert Scales, USA, “Preparing for War in the 

21st Century,” Strategic Review 25 (Summer 1997): 14–20.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

129

to provide a coherent message to OSD and the Joint Staff. Early studies 

by the Army’s Modernization Task Force—set up by HQDA to coordinate Army issues in the QDR’s Modernization Panel—had indicated that 

major Army weapons systems, such as the M1 main battle tank and UH–

60 medium-transport helicopter, would be reaching obsolescence by the 

end of the next decade. Army leaders also maintained their commitment 

to developing and fielding the Crusader self-propelled howitzer and the

RAH–66 Comanche scout helicopter. But they chose not to make force 

modernization central to their Quadrennial Defense Review effort.15

In the end, the Army’s QDR position projected evolutionary—

rather than revolutionary—change. The United States was no longer 

engaged in an arms race with a “near-peer” competitor, a contest 

that had been characterized by often rapid, but generally ephemeral, 

“leap-frog” advances in technological advantage by one side over the 

other. Rather, the Army’s QDR team postulated that technologically 

the United States was enjoying a “strategic pause” after more than 

four decades of superpower competition.16 The nation was now free to 

research, develop, and experiment carefully with extremely expensive 

hardware that incorporated new technology in as close to an operational 

environment as possible before deciding which proven “leap-ahead” 

systems to purchase. In cases where new weapons systems failed to 

demonstrate leap-ahead capabilities, the United States could continue 

to “recapitalize,” maintaining existing inventories by purchasing 

new items of the same systems already in service. Carefully planned 

maintenance and rebuild programs could also extend the lives of such 

systems. These cheaper solutions would enable the United States to 

continue to “overmatch” technologically any likely opponent in the 

next decade. The Army’s campaign plan for the Quadrennial Defense 

Review was thus markedly conservative: hold on to forces and readiness, rather than seek to use the study to modify defense and Army 

resource priorities.17

15 Rand Briefing Materials, “Developing the Army’s QDR Story,” Nov 1996, 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH; McManaway interv, 8 Apr 1997, Oral History 

Activity, CMH. 16 Interpretations of “strategic pause” vary, and the concept remains controversial. 

Among Army QDR participants, it connoted a cessation of “leap-frog” technological

innovation between two “near-peer” rivals. Army participants were well aware that 

the international environment would continue to evolve in ways both predictable and 

unpredictable through the next decade and that national military strategy would have 

to change in response. Other services used “strategic pause” to connote an opportunity 

to reduce active force levels to obtain funds for more aggressive modernization of U.S. 

forces. 17 Briefing Materials, AVCSA to CSA, “Army QDR Puts & Takes,” 17 Dec 1997; 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

130

Joint Staff Quadrennial Defense Review Plans

During the QDR the Joint Staff, for the first time since the 1992

Chairman’s Study of Roles, Missions, and Functions, would play a major 

role in a reshaping study. The Joint Staff was now armed intellectually with 

Joint Publication 3-0, which provided a capstone doctrine for joint operations, alongwith sixty-two other published jointmanuals.Anotherthirty-five

manuals were in production. Although critics argued that the services might 

simply choose to ignore the joint material in developing their own doctrines 

and programs, this recent productivity portended continuing, albeit slow, 

progress toward truly integrated multiservice operations.18

JCS Chairman General John M. Shalikashvili had advanced the 

cause of jointness during the summer of 1996. He approved Joint Vision 

2010 for publication as a “conceptual template” for force development 

throughout the armed forces over the next decade and a half. Joint Vision 

2010 sought a “more seamless integration of service capabilities” with less 

duplication of functions, suggesting renewed emphasis on the consolidation of roles and functions. The joint concept also identified “accelerating

technological change” as a tool likely to transform, rather than supplant, 

existing military capabilities through 2010. Joint Vision 2010 predicted 

that technology’s most likely impact on warfare was in the information/

intelligence arena, through the provision of what he called “dominant 

battlespace awareness” of both friendly and enemy operations in a theater. 

Such information superiority promised that U.S. forces would dominate 

a likely enemy through faster joint maneuver capabilities, “precision 

engagement” (the use of smart munitions), better “force protection” (the 

ability to avoid casualties), and “focused logistics” (the use of information 

technology to distribute supplies more effectively).19

Joint Vision 2010 offered the promise of “enhanced synergism” by 

the more thorough integration of all service components at the theater 

level. The new doctrinal template opened the door for greater joint 

involvement in force development and the extension of joint command 

and control of operations below the regional combatant commander, or 

theater level. Finally, Joint Vision 2010 suggested a more evolutionary 

approach in warfighting than that trumpeted by the more zealous proponents of an impending revolution in military affairs.

and Briefing Materials, “Task Force In Progress Reviews For VCSA,” 4 Nov 1996, both 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 18 Gen John M. Shalikashvili, “A Word from the Chairman,” Joint Force Quarterly

12 (Summer 1996): 1–5. 19 “Joint Vision 2010: America’s Military Preparing for Tomorrow,” Joint Force 

Quarterly 12 (Summer 1996): 34–49.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

131

The Joint Staff made only minor organizational adjustments for its 

role in the Quadrennial Defense Review. The chairman designated the 

director, J–8 (force structure, resources, and assessment), to coordinate 

the Joint Staff’s participation in the study. J–8 established a QDR support 

team of four officers who worked full-time coordinating study analyses

with the QDR panels, other Joint Staff directorates, the services, and OSD. 

Once the panels began to develop recommendations for alternatives to 

the existing Future Years Defense Program force, the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council (JROC) also became involved in both oversight and 

support of the QDR. But it was the Joint Staff’s J–8 Directorate that would 

undertake most of the analyses of options recommended by the panels and 

the JROC, a function of keen interest to the Army.20

The Joint Staff had already undertaken a recent study that would 

prove useful for the QDR. In response to a recommendation by the 

1994–1995 Commission on Roles and Missions, the secretary of 

defense had directed the Joint Staff to do what came to be known as the 

Deep-Attack Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS). The JROC organized the 

study as part of a three-phase Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessment

(JWCA) that began in August 1995. During the next year, the Joint 

Staff also conducted a separate “Close Support End-to-End Analysis” 

(CSEEA) that complemented the DAWMS. The Joint Staff accepted 

conceptual and analytical support from the Army’s TRADOC Analysis 

Center for the CSEEA, which concentrated on surface-attack capabilities from the forward line of own troops (FLOT) to a line 40 kilometers 

beyond (0–40). The J–8 and the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) 

provided the analytical support for the rest of DAWMS, relying on the 

familiar TACWAR model as well as a new “Weapon Optimization and 

Resource Requirements Model” (WORRM). Developed by the Institute 

for Defense Analyses, WORRM used existing war plans for major 

regional contingencies in Southwest Asia and Korea to identify the 

highest priority targets in the theater and assign the appropriate delivery 

system and weapons to attain the “maximum target value destroyed.” 

Although this weighting criterion focused on military effectiveness, 

the DAWMS also integrated similar efficiency measures in its assessment. Another study criterion was a maximum resource “cap,” or limit, 

20 Joint Staff QDR Support Group Briefing Materials, “Quadrennial Defense Review,” 

26 Nov 1996; and MFR, 29 Oct 1996, sub: “Two Laps Around the Table: The Joint 

QDR Process,” both Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with Lt 

Col Frank Finelli, USA, QDR Support Team (J–8), 25 Apr 1997, Pentagon, Oral History 

Activity, CMH; John Y. Schrader, Leslie Lewis, and Roger Allen Brown, Quadrennial 

Defense Review (QDR) Analysis: A Retrospective Look at Joint Staff Participation, RAND 

Publication DB-236-JS (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1999), pp. 8–12.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

132

of the $10.6 billion already programmed for deep-attack programs. 

Each weapon analyzed in the simulation counted against this cap, and 

weapons competed against one another. Thus cost-benefit comparisons

remained integral to the study and could conceivably eclipse military 

effectiveness as a decision-making criterion.21

The DAWMS continued through March 1997, while the QDR was 

still under way. As DAWMS operated with open participation by the 

services, HQDA initially assigned the Concepts, Doctrine, and Force 

Policy Division of the Office of the DCSOPS to coordinate the Army’s

work on it. To better focus that work, the DCSOPS established in the 

summer of 1996 a temporary organization dedicated to the study, the 

Joint Warfighting Studies and Analysis Division.

DAWMS and the CSEEA each involved the conduct and analysis of 

“excursions” from, or alternatives to, the baseline case. These alternatives examined strategic scenarios for three periods, 1998, 2006, and 

2014, using munitions programmed or projected to be in the U.S. inventory at those times. Both studies reached completion during the late 

spring of 1997. They concluded that tactical air would play a major role 

in the two regional contingencies under all scenarios examined and that 

it would gain air superiority during the early stages, or “halt” phase, of 

each contingency. This stabilized situation would permit aircraft to rely 

more on conventional munitions delivered from medium altitudes, rather 

than expensive precision-guided munitions, for both close support and 

interdiction operations. DAWMS endorsed both the Army’s helicopterlaunched Hellfire missile and the service’s projected later generations

of its long-range surface-to-surface guided missile, the Army Tactical 

Missile System, as “critical and effective” systems in the major regional 

contingencies. The study recommended increased purchases of these 

systems over the next five years. Army participants in the two studies

believed that the DAWMS and the CSEEA vindicated their own analyses. The studies confirmed that Army weapons with ranges of more

than forty kilometers beyond friendly lines gave the regional combatant 

commander a backup to air-delivered weapons. Rather than a duplication resulting from unconstrained interservice competition, these Army 

systems could compensate for limitations of weather and communications on air-delivered, precision-guided weapons.22

21 DAMO-FDX Briefing Materials, “Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS) 

and the Close Support End to End Assessment (CSEEA)” (Nov 1996), Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH. 22 DAMO-FDX Briefing Materials, “Attack Weapons Mix Study,” undated (Dec 

1996); and Joint Staff Briefing Materials, “Close Support End to End Assessment 

DAWMS MAA Part 1, April 1997,” 26 Mar 1997, both Historian’s Background Files, 
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

133

The Review Begins

JCS and OSD analysts used approved wargaming tools to help 

examine future needs. Expanding their efforts beyond the BUR’s focus 

on major regional contingencies, they did five separate studies to support

the review. The first, the “Two Major Theater War (MTW) Warfight

Analysis,” dealt with two, near-simultaneous, major contingencies and 

was similar in method and scope to the Bottom-Up Review.23 Done by 

a J–8 group working primarily with the Force Assessment Panel, this 

study used the familiar TACWAR model for analyzing ground and air 

campaigns. A related study by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) 

assessed the naval aspects of each major theater war. As DAWMS had 

already provided a “warm” TACWAR database for each contingency, the 

J–8’s analyses of force alternatives for each war were relatively straightforward. Several of the Army’s and some of the other services’ QDR 

participants questioned TACWAR’s suitability for the post–Cold War 

era, especially because of its inadequate ability to model for such variables as maneuver, weather, and terrain. TACWAR nonetheless remained 

the standard analytical tool for the Quadrennial Defense Review.24

CMH; Conversation, Mark Sherry with Capt Robert Sweeney, U.S. Navy, Warfighting 

Analysis Division, Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment Directorate (J–8), Joint 

Staff, 30 Jun 1997, Pentagon. 23 Although the current DPG 1998–2003 used the familiar “major regional contingency (MRC)” to denote the notional theater wars in Southwest Asia and Korea, in 

February 1997 OSD and the Joint Staff changed the reference to “major theater war 

(MTW).” At the same time, they changed “lesser regional contingencies (LRCs)” to 

“small-scale contingencies (SSCs).” 24 Interv, Sherry with Capt Sweeney, 30 Jun 1997; and with Dr. Robin Buckelew, 

Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 5 May 1997, Pentagon, CMH; 

Rear Adm John W. Craine, Jr., U.S. Navy, and Cmdr Michael R. Shumaker, U.S. Navy, 

Ret., “Navy’s Response to the Quadrennial Defense Review,” Military Operations 

Research 3, no. 5 (1997): 6–8, 14–16. TACWAR, the oldest of four theater-level simulations in the Defense Department, was used by the Joint Staff, OSD (PA&E), and the 

combatant commands. The other models were Joint Integrated Contingency Model 

(JICM), developed and used by the Rand Corporation; Concepts Evaluation Model 

(CEM), used by the Center for Army Analysis (formerly the Army Concepts Analysis 

Agency); and THUNDER, used by the Air Force’s Studies and Analysis Agency. See 

U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency Memorandum Report CAA-MR-97-54, “A 

Survey of Theater Combat Models: Tools That Support DoD’s Strategic Analysis and 

Policy Development” (Bethesda, Md.: CAA, October 1997), for an overview of the 

strengths and weaknesses of each model. See also Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., ed., Military 

Modeling for Decision Making, 3d ed. (Alexandria, Va.: Military Operations Research 

Society, 1997), pp. 31–33, 37–39, 141–177, for background on strengths and weaknesses of models and simulations used by the Defense Department.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

134

The “Two MTW Warfight Analysis” study group began its work

in January 1997 and continued until late April. The results provided 

the Force Assessment Panel with a “force sufficiency” analysis and a

“risk assessment” analysis of two future wars, one in Korea and one 

in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both fought in 2006. The war scenarios 

came directly from the Illustrative Planning Scenarios (IPSs) that 

supported the current defense guidance, not from the regional combatant 

commanders’ existing war plans, and incorporated all programmed force 

modernizations. Consequently, the two major theater wars reflected the

peculiarities of terrain and estimated opposing forces unique to those 

theaters, rather than those that would be encountered with more generic 

adversaries in notional contingencies.25

The Two-MTW study expanded several aspects of similar analyses 

done for the Bottom-Up Review.26 The J–8 study group ran eight, full, 

near-simultaneous, two-MTW simulations. Some of these began with 

hostilities in Korea, followed by an outbreak of war in Southwest 

Asia. The others followed the opposite sequence. Unlike the BottomUp Review’s analyses of the two major regional contingencies, these 

simulations incorporated insights from two other ongoing analytical 

efforts. The QDR’s Baseline Engagement Force analysis and Dynamic 

Commitment exercises both contributed data concerning “peacetime 

force engagement,” the level of effort that U.S. forces were expending 

on a routine basis in lesser contingencies and operations other than war. 

That is, rather than starting the two major theater wars with all U.S. forces 

at home stations, the Two MTW Warfight Analysis commenced hostilities in the two theaters while essential forces were engaged in smallscale contingencies across the globe, as they would be in a “real world” 

situation. The analysis also conducted “excursions,” or variants, of the 

baseline analysis, incorporating the use of weapons of mass destruction 

in a given theater. Other such excursions involved decreasing warning 

times before the outbreak of hostilities in each theater and the impact 

25 Finelli interv, 25 April 1997, CMH; J–8 Warfighting Analysis Division Briefing 

Materials, “MRC Assessment,” 19 December 1996, Historian’s Background Materials, 

CMH; DPG 1998–2003: Scenario Appendix, pp. A-1 to A-3-15. 26 The Joint Staff followed the 1993 Bottom-Up Review with another strategic 

mobility study, the 1994–95 Mobility Requirements Study/Bottom-Up Review (Update) 

(MRS BURU). The Joint Staff’s next study, the 1995 Nimble Dancer I, assessed the BUR 

force’s capabilities for conducting near-simultaneous major regional contingencies in 1997. 

Shortly after this study, Nimble Dancer II assessed the BUR force’s capabilities for two, 

near-simultaneous, MRCs in the period 2001–2005. DAWMS then conducted a weapons 

optimization analysis for 1998, 2006, and 2014. See DCSOPS Briefing Materials, “Nimble 

Dancer Implication,” undated (1996), Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

135

of “across the board” U.S. force reductions of 10, 20, and 30 percent. 

Although these analyses were more comprehensive than previous 

studies evaluating the two-regional conflict scenario, they still relied on

what many observers believed to be excessively optimistic assumptions. 

For example, the analyses assumed that the United States and its allies 

would attain rapid dominance of the sea around each theater, permitting 

the unmolested transport of Army forces and materiel to each contingency. Hence the Army and other services continued to dispute elements 

of these analyses.27

Complementing the Two MTW Warfight Analysis, the Baseline

Engagement Force study attempted to calculate the impact of peacetime forward presence, humanitarian and peacekeeping deployments, 

and small-scale contingencies. The study provided analytical support 

for the efforts of the Readiness, Strategy, and Force Assessment panels. 

One study goal was to determine total force requirements to support an 

overseas presence of a hundred thousand personnel in Western Europe 

and a hundred thousand in East Asia. A second goal was to calculate the 

units needed for small-scale contingencies, including those units “reconstituting” at their home stations after returning, and those training for 

deployment to a contingency operation. Another category of units was 

those involved in sustained peacekeeping operations under international 

agreements, including the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai 

Desert and an operation in Montenegro. As the study progressed, it also 

identified certain “high demand-low density” (HD-LD) units, required

for both major-theater wars and small-scale contingencies, that suffered 

from a high annual operational tempo, such as water purification teams,

civil affairs detachments, and specialized aviation maintenance units. It 

also examined the impact on soldiers in occupational specialties with 

high personnel tempo rates and how their possible overuse might affect 

the continued health of an all-volunteer force.28

Another study, related to the Baseline Engagement Force study, 

was the Multiple Lesser Regional Contingency (LRC)/Small-Scale 

Contingency (SSC) Assessment. Undertaken by the assistant secretary of defense (strategy and requirements) with Joint Staff assistance, 

it supported the strategy, force assessment, and readiness panels by 

analyzing U.S. participation in small-scale contingencies over the 

27 Craine and Shumaker, “Navy’s Response to the Quadrennial Defense Review,” 

pp. 8–9; Memo, Lt Gen Eric K. Shinseki, USA, Army Operations Deputy, for the 

Director, Joint Staff, 27 Mar 1997, sub: Ground Force Assessment Analysis, Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH. 28 Briefing Materials, J–8 Forces Division, “Baseline Engagement Force Status 

Report,” 23 Dec 1996, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

136

previous two decades. Attempting to forecast future U.S. participation 

based on the new national military strategy, the study projected needs 

for “heavy-demand future” and “moderate-demand future” cases to 

2010. Although its authors acknowledged that the department’s leadership could accept either scenario as a forecast, they characterized the 

heavy-demand future as a “conservative” or “worst-case” projection. 

The study also recommended more selectiveness in U.S. involvement in 

future small-scale contingencies.29

At the other end of the spectrum of conflict, OSD sponsored a “Peer

Competitor” analysis to support the QDR. Rather than focus on immediate 

problems with small-scale contingencies and other peacetime engagement 

operations, this analysis looked fifteen years into the future. Its primary

aim was to determine when the United States could face another superpower, or “near-peer,” competitor, whether nation-state, empire, or unified

coalition. The Peer Competitor analysis undergirded the Modernization 

Panel’s efforts. Unlike for the other major QDR analytical studies, it was 

the assistant secretary of defense (program analysis and evaluation), rather 

than the Joint Staff, who led this study. In conjunction with this effort, his 

office also conducted a TACWAR-based analysis that focused on a hypothetical major-theater war scenario in the more distant future.30

The J–8’s Dynamic Commitment wargame series, which was the 

last of the analytical efforts by either the Joint Staff or OSD, overlapped with the Small-scale Contingency and Baseline Engagement 

Force analyses and helped integrate them. The primary objective of 

the Dynamic Commitment series was to give decision makers a better 

idea of the forces needed to satisfy the requirements of all the future 

scenarios being studied. The result was a “force allocation” exercise 

that committed programmed forces planned in the services’ 1998–2003 

Program Objective Memorandums against a series of projected contingencies, termed “vignettes,” over an eight-year period. It integrated 

baseline force commitments to forward presence and extended peace29 Briefing Materials, J–8, “Dynamic Commitment: The Transitions Wargame Series 

in Support of the Quadrennial Defense Review,” 23 Dec 1996; Briefing Materials by Col 

David M. Shanahan, J–8, “Multiple LRC Assessment,” 23 Dec 1996; Briefing Materials 

by Ms Michelle Flournoy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Strategy), “SmallerScale Contingency Force Requirements Study,” 19 Apr 1997, SECDEF Review Briefing, 

25 Apr 1997, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 30 Interv, Mark Sherry with Honorable William Lynn, Assistant Secretary of Defense 

(Program Analysis and Evaluation), 19 Jun 1997, Pentagon, CMH; Briefing Materials, 

OSD (PA&E), “Parametric Modernization Analysis/Regional Great Power Scenario,” 

18 Apr 1997, QDR Executive Session Briefing Materials, Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; Finelli interv, 25 Apr 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

137

keeping missions with force requirements for small-scale contingencies, 

domestic humanitarian assistance operations, and major theater wars. 

Dynamic Commitment augmented the two major regional contingencies studies by demonstrating that not all units could deploy at a high 

state of readiness from home stations to a theater. In actuality, units 

earmarked for employment in a major theater war are often engaged in 

other contingencies, training for deployment to a contingency operation, 

on a baseline engagement force mission, or reconstituting and retraining 

after returning from an operation. Such conditions must influence a force

sufficiency analysis.31

Unlike the Two MTW Warfight Analysis, Dynamic Commitment

operated without modeling and simulation tools. Although retaining 

the game methodology, it consisted of four seminars, Dynamic 

Commitment 1 through Dynamic Commitment 4. The first session

was an administrative exercise that focused on game procedure. The 

second seminar, in January 1997, identified issues and disagreements

and submitted them for resolution to the senior decision makers at 

Dynamic Commitment 3 in February. After that seminar, interest in 

the games grew. Some two hundred players participated in Dynamic 

Commitment 4, held 20–22 March. The exercise divided game players 

into two “Blue Teams,” with game controllers running each team 

through separate and simultaneous operations. Each team played 

the same vignettes but in a different order. Representatives at the 

colonel/captain level from the Joint Staff, the unified commands, and

the services played the roles of regional combatant commander and 

service chief roles for each Blue Team. Other participants served as 

“facilitators,” or controllers; technical experts on transportation, intelligence, personnel, and other issues; and Joint Staff and OSD “risk 

assessors” from the QDR panels.32

The Blue Teams operated over a timeline of eight years, extending 

from 1997 through 2004, with each year divided into four quarters and 

31 Interv, Mark Sherry with Col Stanley F. Gorenc, USAF, Chief, Studies, Analysis, 

and Gaming Division, J–8, 29 Jul 1997, Pentagon, CMH; Briefing Materials, Joint Staff 

for JROC, “Quadrennial Defense Review,” 9 January 1997; and Briefing Materials, 

Strategic Synchronization Cell for RC Offsite Conference, “Dynamic Commitment,” 1 

June 1997, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 32 Briefing Materials for JROC Update, “Dynamic Commitment: A Risk Assessment 

of the POM Force Against the JSR World,” 3 April 1997; Briefing Materials, Col John 

Gingrich (DAMO-SSW), Army Strategy Task Force, “Dynamic Commitment GAME 

2: QDR Dynamic Commitment HOTWASH,” undated (February 1997); Joint Staff, 

Dynamic Commitment 3 Game Book (19–20 February 1997); Joint Staff, Dynamic 

Commitment 4 Game Book (20–22 March 1997), all Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; Gorenc interv, 29 Jul 1997, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

138

with one game “move” for each team per quarter. Each move centered 

on one or more vignettes, or scenarios, that required the commitment 

of U.S. forces. Dynamic Commitment developed its forty-six vignettes 

from a variety of sources. Actual contingency operations that the United 

States had conducted over the past nine years were the bases for twentythree of the vignettes. Another nine were derived from the ongoing 

Small-scale Contingency Assessment. Four were based on the current 

defense guidance and another four on actual war plans. The remaining 

six came from miscellaneous sources. Vignettes represented various 

types of past and anticipated contingency operations that included major 

theater wars, opposed interventions, shows of force, “no-fly” operations

that restricted flights of military aircraft, maritime operations, peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations, humanitarian assistance 

and disaster relief operations, domestic humanitarian assistance operations, and noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs). During each 

move, game players representing the regional combatant commanders 

developed force requirements and referred them to the services to be 

filled with forces available. Dynamic Commitment made no effort to

“fight” each vignette, or otherwise test the sufficiency of the forces to be

committed, beyond seminar consensus.33

The Dynamic Commitment war games examined two possible 

“futures.” One exercised the force contained in the services’ Program 

Objective Memorandums for 1998 through 2003. The second pursued an 

“excursion” that exercised a force that had undergone an across-the-board 

10 percent reduction. The games examined the impacts of “tradeoffs” 

of forces of different capabilities or even different services. They also 

assessed the effects of a high tempo of employment on units that were high 

demand-low density, specialized forces.34 They demonstrated that forces 

deployed to other contingency operations could not always immediately 

withdraw and deploy to a major theater war effectively without some rest 

and retraining. Dynamic Commitment thus showed that the QDR’s forcesufficiency analysis would face significant requirements for forces and for

other capabilities to satisfy small-scale contingencies.35

33 Gorenc interv, 29 Jul 1997, CMH; JROC Update Briefing, “Dynamic 

Commitment,” 3 April 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Craine and Shumaker, 

“Navy’s Response to the Quadrennial Defense Review,” pp. 7–8. 34 Although the HD-LD category pertained primarily to aircraft and other assets of 

the Navy and the Air Force, it also encompassed several Army capabilities, including 

Patriot air defense units and Guardrail intelligence aircraft. 35 Gorenc interv, 29 Jul 1997; JROC Update Briefing, “Dynamic Commitment,” 3 

Apr 1997, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

139

Army players, as well as those of the other services, had mixed 

reactions to Dynamic Commitment’s methodology and conclusions. 

For instance, several Army players objected to changes in the types 

and number of vignettes from Dynamic Commitment 2 to Dynamic 

Commitment 4. Contingencies played in the earlier seminar reflected

the historical frequency of each type of operation during the preceding 

nine years. The Army’s QDR team argued that Dynamic Commitment 4 

vignettes, based more on the emerging national military strategy than on 

historical experience, underestimated likely participation of Army units 

in future contingencies.36

A second problem concerned management of the game play. An 

unstated goal for service players was to maximize commitment of their 

own forces in each vignette. Increasing their service’s utility for the 

exercise would hopefully offer an effective hedge against force reductions. Consequently, some service representatives attempted to commit 

their units to every vignette possible, despite the lack of requirements for 

these forces by regional combatant command representatives, actions that 

often seemed blatant grabs for roles and functions. Similarly, Dynamic 

Commitment controllers deferred to service representatives on issues of 

readiness and on the time required to reconstitute units after they had 

participated in a contingency. Services offered often radically different 

estimates of the time required to recommit such units to other vignettes, 

because lower estimates could often increase a service’s participation in 

the next vignette. As game controllers failed to assert common standards 

for assessing the readiness and reconstitution times for units from the 

services, service and regional combatant commander representatives 

had to stop the game and argue whether a specific unit from a service

should contribute to the next vignette. Such issues left Army players 

uncomfortable with the overall “fidelity” of the exercise.37

The diverse service approaches to force allocation raised larger issues 

of roles and functions. Army players argued specifically that Dynamic

36 Briefing Materials, Center for Land Warfare, “QDR Transition Game ‘Dynamic 

Commitment’: Army Response and Analysis Plan,” undated (Feb 1997); Briefing Materials, 

Col John Gingrich (DAMO-SSW), “Dynamic Commitment Game 2 Hotwash,” undated 

(Jan 1997); Briefing Materials, Col John Gingrich (DAMO-SSW), “Army Insights from 

Dynamic Commitment 4,” 2 Apr 1997; JROC Update Briefing, “Dynamic Commitment,” 

3 Apr 1997; QDR Executive Session Briefing Materials, Maj Gen Mark Hamilton, Vice 

Director, J–8, “Dynamic Commitment,” Apr 1997, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 37 Briefing Materials, Col John Gingrich (DAMO-SSW), Army Strategy Task Force, 

“QDR Dynamic Commitment 2 Hotwash,” undated (Jan 1997); Position Paper from 

Col Brownlee (DAMO-SSW), 18 Feb 1997, sub: Dynamic Commitment (DC) Game 

Issues-OPTEMPO/PERSTEMPO Impacts; Gorenc interv, 29 Jul 1997, all Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

140

Commitment controllers considered Army and Marine units interchangeable. In many vignettes, controllers agreed to Marine demands to add their 

units to a contingency operation that already had Army combat, combat 

support, and combat service support units assigned. In some cases these 

additions appeared to displace similar Army units. The result was a divided 

U.S. ground contingent with several incompatible capabilities, a situation that hampered operational flexibility. Army and Marine forces often

required distinctive maintenance and other logistical support, which led to 

separate combat service support organizations for the same contingency 

operation. Dividing the ground component between two services posed 

another complication when duration of a contingency required rotation 

of units into and out of the theater. Limited commonality of unit equipment meant that only units from the same service could relieve units in a 

theater without bringing in their own materiel, sustainment, and command 

and control hardware. Differences in doctrine, communications, and other 

aspects of operations also hindered interoperability.38 Of course, to many 

JCS and OSD observers, such problems underlined the need for greater 

commonality, or jointness.

Despite these reservations, the Army’s team accepted Dynamic 

Commitment as a welcome addition to the overall analytical effort. The 

game opened the QDR process to extensive participation by services, 

unified commands, and players from defense agencies. Army players

observed not only their input into each vignette, but also the impact 

of inputs from the other services and the unified commands. Likewise,

the outcome of Dynamic Commitment 4 was welcome to the Army’s 

leaders. The detailed breakdown of forces committed to the vignettes 

and the depth of post-game analysis far exceeded the limited depth of 

the 1993 Bottom-Up Review’s analysis. Dynamic Commitment yielded 

a far more realistic picture of the diversity and intensity of threats that 

the United States would likely confront in the future.

Although they welcomed the opportunity to participate in the 

review’s analyses, the Army’s Quadrennial Defense Review team 

members objected to how OSD and the Joint Staff used these analyses 

in decisions involving future forces and programs. At the end of January 

1997, the QDR’s Force Assessment Panel shifted its approach from 

one that sought an analysis measuring programmed U.S. forces against 

expected future threats to one that would assess several “integrated 

options” thatspecified 10, 20, and 30 percent reductionsin programmed

38 Briefing Materials, QDR Executive Session, “A Risk Assessment of the POM 

Force Against the JSR World: J–8/SAGD Gaming Input to the Force Assessment Panel,” 

25 Apr 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

141

forces. The Army’s leadership strongly disagreed with this approach. 

General Reimer had consistently argued that the Quadrennial Defense 

Review should develop a strategy and then apportion forces to meet 

that strategy’s requirements. The 1993 Bottom-Up Review had promised to take such an approach but failed to do so. Nevertheless, as 

OSD assumed leadership of the QDR from the Joint Staff in February, 

it appeared to be pursuing once again a force-cutting exercise in the 

guise of a strategic review.39

Results

In March and early April 1997, the Quadrennial Defense Review’s 

panels briefed the Senior Steering Group on the results of their analyses. 

The QDR’s Strategy Panel provided an essential framework for the 

other panels’ studies. It adopted assessments from two recent Defense 

Department strategic reviews. The Joint Staff’s Joint Strategy Review

(JSR), a comprehensive strategic review undertaken in collaboration 

with OSD and the services, had been completed in November 1996. It 

contended that the United States would not have a “near-peer competitor” 

through 2010. Rather, the JSR postulated that the nation faced one or 

more major theater wars and a variety of small-scale contingencies. The 

strategic review also noted the likelihood of “asymmetrical” threats to 

U.S. interests by weaker actors, states, or nonstate groups. These adversaries would probably avoid U.S. strengths in conventional military 

power and resort to terrorism and other means to strike areas of weakness, including the U.S. civilian population and those of allies. Instead 

of the Bottom-Up Review’s forecast of a world offering reduced risk 

to U.S. interests, the panel posited a more “multipolar” world through 

2010, with the nation facing a diversity of potential and likely threats.40

The Joint Staff and OSD incorporated key points of the JSR into a 

draft defense strategy, which was circulated for comment and review in 

late March 1997. The proposed revision to strategy had three elements: 

shaping the international environment through forward presence and other 

forms of engagement, responding to aggression and other crises, and 

39 Memo, Gen Ronald H. Griffith, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, for Vice Chairman, 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 19 Mar 1997, sub: Response to QDR Force Assessment Briefing; 

and Information Paper (DAMO-FDF), 21 Mar 1997, sub: Accepting a QDR-Mandated 

$20K Cut in Army Active Component End Strength, both Historian’s Background Files, 

CMH; McManaway interv, 8 Apr 1997, Oral History Activity, CMH. 40 Briefing Materials Extracted from DIA Briefing to QDR Senior Steering Group, 

“Future Threats and Challenges,” 17 December 1996; Joint Staff, Joint Strategy Review 

(JSR) (Final Draft), 26 November 1996, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

142

preparing for an “uncertain future.” It reaffirmed the Bottom-Up Review’s

requirement for forces adequate to “rapidly halt or defeat initial enemy 

advances in two theaters.” The draft strategy also noted that, in the event 

of a major theater war, U.S. and allied forces would have to halt an enemy 

invasion as rapidly as possible, gain the initiative, and evict the enemy with 

a timely counterattack. If this concept for a major theater war buttressed 

Army arguments for maintaining substantial ground capabilities to prevail 

rapidly and with a minimum of casualties in such a conflict, at least one

other aspect of the strategy was more worrisome. The strategy’s authors 

rejected the necessity for sizing active U.S. forces to a level adequate to 

prosecute concurrently two simultaneous theater wars, peacetime engagement operations, and small-scale contingencies, arguing that such an 

approach was “neither necessary nor affordable.” Thus the draft strategy 

accepted more risk than many Army QDR participants believed prudent, 

although it endorsed requirements for ground forces adequate to prevail in 

at least two concurrent major theater wars.41

Both the JSR and the new defense strategy obviously influenced the

review’s force assessment. As in the case of the Bottom-Up Review, 

the Two MTW Warfight Analysis was the primary analytical foundation

for this force assessment study, although Dynamic Commitment and the 

other analyses contributed. The Force Assessment Panel measured Army 

forces against requirements for major theater wars and forward presence, as well as against peacetime operational and deployed personnel 

tempos. The analysis considered options for reducing Army active forces 

by three brigades and by six brigades. These options would substitute 

some of the fifteen Army National Guard enhanced readiness brigades

for late-deploying active units. The proposal threatened to spark another 

intraservice conflict between the active Army and the Army National

Guard. The tension grew when the QDR’s Force Assessment Panel 

rejected, as requirements for determining Army National Guard force 

structure, both state humanitarian assistance missions and the strategic 

reserve mission that the Base Force study and the Bottom-Up Review 

had advocated. A second Army issue concerned whether the Quadrennial 

Defense Review could reduce Army theater-level combat service support 

forces by substituting host-nation support, primarily through contracts 

with local civilians to perform these functions. The Army’s QDR team 

challenged both analyses, charging that the Army was the only service 

to undergo this level of scrutiny. The team noted that the Army’s politi41 Memo, Brig Gen Howard J. Von Kaenel (DAMO-SS) for Distribution, 19 Mar 

1997, sub: Draft Defense Strategy, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; McManaway 

interv, 8 Apr 1997; Schrader, Lewis, and Brown, QDR Analysis, pp. 19–20.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

143

cally powerful reserve components would fight any effort to reduce

their combat service support and other forces, possibly precipitating an 

intense struggle if Army leaders acquiesced to any such cuts.42

In the end both the Force Assessment Panel and the QDR’s Senior 

Steering Group decided against making major reductions in the active 

force structure of the Army, validating the existing ten divisions. One 

influence was the unique nature of the Korean theater of operations,

with large indigenous ground forces located close to their wartime 

positions. Dynamic Commitment demonstrated that the Army’s active 

force would be heavily committed before entering the first of two

near-simultaneous major theater wars. The Army’s QDR team had 

argued that at least seven Army divisions were essential to prosecute 

a successful and vigorous counterattack in a single major theater war. 

Nevertheless, the Force Assessment Panel rejected increasing active 

Army strength to reduce risk.43

The review’s Force Assessment Panel considered but did not recommend substitution of enhanced readiness brigades for active Army units 

scheduled to deploy to the two, near-simultaneous, major theater wars. 

Noting that the assistant secretary of defense (reserve affairs) supported 

this position, the panel effectively left the issue open to further study. It 

also rejected the strategic need for existing Army National Guard force 

levels, virtually preordaining a conflict over missions between the active

Army and the Army National Guard. The panel also waffled on the issue

of substituting host-nation support for Army theater-level combat service 

support requirements, leaving that issue open to future debate as well.44

Although the Quadrennial Defense Review’s force assessment 

based its recommendations for active force levels primarily on strategic 

requirements, it also considered unit and personnel deployment tempos. 

However, it deferred to the Readiness Panel deployment and readiness 

issues. The Readiness Panel focused on improving readiness throughout 

the armed forces, by adopting one or more of five approaches analyzed:

(1) internal improvements to the current approaches of each service in 

managing its own unit readiness; (2) adopting across the department 

42 Memo, Col John R. Gingrich (DAMO-SSW) for Chief, Ground Forces Subpanel, 

OSD/PA&E, JS/J8, ATTN: Col Clemence, 21 Feb 1997, sub: Input for Ground Forces 

Assessment Subpanel, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 43 Sweeney interv, 30 Jun 1997.

44 Briefing Materials for SECDEF Review, “Ground Force Assessment”; “Campaign 

Analysis”; “Army Additional Assessment”; and “Army National Guard Issues”; all 25 

Apr 1997; Memo, Maj(P) John J. Dolac, USA, Military Secretary, J–8, for Planners, 

8 May 1997, sub: Coordination Draft, Force Assessment Panel Report, all Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

144

the Army’s method of “fixed tiering” based on likely unit deployment

dates; (3) adopting cyclical readiness of CONUS-based forces; (4) 

adopting the Navy’s cyclical readiness/unit deployment model; and (5) 

adopting tiered readiness by component, with all reserve component 

units funded for lower readiness levels. Each approach had strengths 

and weaknesses.45

The Army’s QDR team sought to preserve the Army’s existing readiness system and avoid adopting tiered readiness in active Army units. 

The team had several advantages in arguing its position. First, when 

the Readiness Panel considered converting Army forward-deployed 

combat units in Europe to six-month unit deployment tours without 

dependents, it found that cost savings did not offset the disruptions in 

the training of rotating units. The Army’s QDR team also noted that 

recent base closures in the United States had reduced infrastructure, 

especially family housing, below a level adequate for home-basing of 

units redeployed from Europe. Finally, the Army’s Readiness Task Force 

quarterback was able to demonstrate to the review’s Readiness Panel 

that, under the tiered-readiness proposal, the Army would be unable to 

train and deploy active units that had been reduced to a low readiness 

level in time to meet their deployment timelines in a major theater war. 

These delays in turn would adversely affect reserve component units 

scheduled to mobilize and train at the vacating active unit’s installation. In sum, Army commitments were simply too numerous to support a 

tiered system that accepted lower readiness conditions in large numbers 

of regular units.46

If the Readiness Panel focused on near-term issues, the review’s 

Modernization Panel focused on issues of long-term interest to the Defense 

Department and the Army. With the Crusader self-propelled howitzer 

and the Comanche helicopter as its only major hardware programs, the 

Army’s modest modernization program seemed safe from significant cuts.

Curtailing, or even canceling, one or both programs would hardly yield 

major immediate savings, as both were still in development. The Army’s 

QDR team feared that OSD would instead try to reduce Army forces in 

45 Briefing Materials, Joint Staff (J–3), “QDR Readiness Panel,” 1 Apr 1997, and 

Briefing Materials, Joint Staff (J–3), “JROC In-Progress Review: QDR Readiness 

Panel,” 18 Mar 1997, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Craine and Shumaker, 

“Navy’s Response to the Quadrennial Defense Review,” pp. 11–12. 46 Briefing Materials, DAMO-ODR, “Tiered Readiness Assessment—In Progress 

Review,” 5 Nov 1996; William A. West and Michael W. Collins, “Issues That Determine 

the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Strategy: Readiness,” undated; and Dan Butler, 

“Mobilization Issues Associated with the 2 MRC Strategy,” undated, all Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

145

order to fund the ambitious aviation programs of the other services. But 

the review’s Modernization Panel subjected the other services’ tactical 

air programs to a rigorous analysis. Although the panel did not advise 

cancellation of any of the other services’ three major tactical air modernization programs or the Marine Corps’ and Air Force’s controversial V-22 

“tilt rotor” transport, it recommended curtailed procurement in all four 

programs. Because the secretary of defense approved the Army’s modernization program without major restructuring, the Army seemed to have 

met its limited QDR modernization objectives.47

While the Quadrennial Defense Review’s main assessments focused 

on operational forces, its Infrastructure Panel attempted to analyze the 

complex network of base organizations and functions. The panel’s 

review extended beyond installations to encompass all nondeployable 

Defense Department organizations, nontactical headquarters, and even 

department management processes, confronting issues that had thwarted 

early reform attempts. Despite a plethora of recommendations, the 

1989–1992 Defense Management Review had fallen short of significantly overhauling the Defense Department. Similarly, the 1994–1995 

Commission on Roles and Missions had focused about half of its efforts 

on infrastructure issues without effecting major organizational changes. 

Such changes were key not just to greater efficiency but to enhanced

effectiveness of the U.S. armed forces. To succeed where earlier efforts 

had failed, the Quadrennial Defense Review’s infrastructure reforms 

would have to reduce excess institutional capability and reorganize the 

Defense Department to consolidate truly duplicative functions.48

Facing a complex task, the Infrastructure Panel focused on finding

cost savings for future defense budgets rather than pursuing overarching 

restructuring and reform. The panel rejected reexamining former Defense 

Management Review initiatives for major organizational consolidations 

and instead chose to follow a recommendation by the Commission on 

Roles and Missions to pursue a “revolution in business affairs.” One 

key component of this “revolution” was to “outsource” and “privatize” 

a number of traditional support functions, including depot maintenance. The Defense Science Board buttressed the recommendation to 

47 Modernization Panel Briefing Materials for QDR Steering Group, “Ground Forces 

Task Force Briefing,” 24 Mar 1997; QDR Briefing Materials for SECDEF Review, 

“Army Ground Forces and Rotary Wing Consolidated Task Force Briefing,” 25 Apr 

1995; and QDR Briefing Materials for SECDEF Review, “TACAIR Modernization,” 

29 Apr 1997, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH; McManaway interv, 8 Apr 1997, 

Oral History Activity, CMH. 48 Briefing Materials, QDR Infrastructure Panel, “Briefing to Dr. White (Deputy 

Secretary of Defense),” 28 Jan 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

146

outsource functions, arguing in November 1996 that, combined with 

other management reforms, outsourcing of logistical functions could 

save the Defense Department more than $30 billion a year by 2002. The 

QDR’s Infrastructure Panel could hardly ignore recommendations that 

could yield savings of such a magnitude.49

The Army’s QDR team viewed the Infrastructure Panel’s activities 

with misgiving. Anxious that the panel sought greater efficiencies over

enhanced effectiveness, the Army sought to ensure that the panel made 

no recommendations that would disrupt existing Army organizations and 

programs. Its Infrastructure Task Force endorsed the principle behind 

outsourcing and privatization but feared an OSD-led rush to outsource 

without careful analysis of alternatives. Consequently, Army leaders 

adopted a defensive position concerning infrastructure issues and sought 

to avoid damage rather than help the QDR’s Infrastructure Panel implement major restructuring.50

Overwhelmed by the scope of its responsibilities and the lack of 

service support for panel initiatives, the Infrastructure Panel made only 

conservative recommendations for changes in existing organizations and 

programs. Although it noted a 32 percent reduction in military personnel 

over the past eight years and a reduction of only 21 percent in “domestic 

facilities,” the Infrastructure Panel failed to demonstrate a correlation 

between the two issues. Despite this omission, the panel endorsed further 

base realignments and closures even as it largely ignored mobilization 

requirements and the extensive replacement costs for facilities hastily 

abandoned to obtain short-term budget savings. In response to service 

complaints that defense agencies were bloated and that they overpriced 

their services, the Infrastructure Panel recommended a follow-up study 

of the issue. But, to a number of critics, the panel’s lack of real success 

in either reorganizing defense infrastructure or finding significant cost

savings was disappointing.51

49 Defense Science Board, Report of the Defense Science Board 1996 Summer Study 

on Achieving an Innovative Support Structure for 21st Century Military Superiority: 

Higher Performance at Lower Costs (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, November 1996), pp. ES-2, II-1 to II-24; Schrader, Lewis, and Brown, QDR 

Analysis, pp. 21–22. 50 Garner interv, 9 May 1997, CMH; Briefing Materials, QDR Infrastructure Panel, 

“Briefing to JROC,” 25 Feb 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 51 QDR Infrastructure Panel, “Draft OSD Level Final Report Summary,” 4 Apr 

1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial 

Defense Review (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 1987), pp. 

53–57; Garner interv, 9 May 1997, Oral History Activity, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

147

The remaining major QDR panel, Human Resources, also confronted 

an unwieldy series of discrete issues affecting both military and civilian 

manpower. As with the infrastructure review, the Army sought to avoid 

damage rather than to gain through the panel’s efforts. During the panel’s 

deliberations, Army representatives thus objected to any consolidation 

proposals advanced by JCS or OSD staffers.52

As a start, the Human Resources Panel examined a series of initiatives for Defense Management Review–type consolidations of selected 

personnel services, including morale, recreation, and welfare tasks. The 

military services, including the Army, objected to these initiatives and, 

in deliberations of the JROC, succeeded in sidelining most of them. As 

in the case of infrastructure issues, rather than pursue consolidations, the 

panel recommended outsourcing and privatizing several personnel functions. In the area of civilian personnel management, the Human Resources 

Panel favored establishing a centralized OSD civilian executive system 

to administer GS-13 through GS-15 managers, including their transfers 

among services, OSD, and the Joint Staff. The panel also proposed legislative action to transfer personnel management authority from the U.S. 

Code’s Title 5 civil service regulations to its Title 10 national security 

provisions. If implemented, this recommendation would mean removing 

civilian employees in the Defense Department from civil service protection. Capitalizing on a Commission on Roles and Missions recommendation, the panel also endorsed a proposal to allow the Defense Department 

to establish its own civil service rules. As was the case with the major 

Infrastructure Panel recommendations, most Human Resources Panel 

recommendations required legislative approval. Consequently, the secretary of defense deferred decisions on most of them.53

The secretary of defense’s decisions on the defense review’s 

recommendations, disseminated in May, left most major Army interests unaffected. If the study did not reverse the Bottom-Up Review’s 

reductions in Army force levels and instead directed further manpower 

reductions for the Army, neither did it recommend elimination of active 

Army units or curtailment of major modernization programs. But 

despite General Reimer’s objections, the review emphasized additional 

resources for accelerated modernization rather than for further definition of the nation’s strategic requirements and the forces to meet them. 

52 Interv, Sherry with Maj Gen Arthur Dean, Director, Military Personnel 

Management, DCSPER, 28 Jul 1997, Pentagon, Oral History Activity, CMH. 53 Briefing Materials, Human Resources Panel, “Civilian Personnel Task Force,” 6 

Mar 1997, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Dean interv, 28 Jul 1997, Oral History 

Activity, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

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The review’s final report endorsed a proposal by several members of

the Defense Science Board to increase Defense Department procurement funding to $60 billion in 2001. Reimer had argued that, although 

this modernization objective “has merit, it is only loosely linked to our 

defense strategy and has yet to be precisely defined.” Nevertheless,

the secretary of defense opted to fund enhanced modernization at the 

expense of service manpower. Directed to save manpower costs equivalent to 45,000 active military personnel, HQDA developed a plan to 

cut 15,000 active soldiers, 45,000 reserve component soldiers, and 

33,700 civilians. Noting that cutting the reserve soldiers and civilians 

necessitated overcoming strong lobbying by affected parties, Reimer 

argued that he could not take cuts beyond 15,000 in the active force, 

should Congress balk at reducing the other two components.54

Despite misgivings about QDR manpower reductions, the Army’s 

vice chief of staff and the assistant secretary of the Army (manpower 

and reserve affairs) chaired an “offsite conference” to address the 

secretary of defense’s reductions in the Army’s reserve components. 

Key HQDA officials, including the chief, Army Reserve, and the chief,

National Guard Bureau, met from 2 to 4 June at Fort McNair, D.C., to 

develop a detailed implementation plan for the cuts. The Army’s leadership intended this meeting to develop a five-year plan for implementing

Army reserve component force reductions. Not surprisingly, the conference was contentious, with the reserve component leaders unable to 

agree to reductions beyond 3,000 in the Army Reserve and 17,000 in 

the Army National Guard. The Army’s experience in the conference 

reaffirmed the difficulties of reducing the Army’s reserve components

without careful negotiation and without a willingness by the secretary of 

defense to assume the political consequences of forcing such cuts.55

Like the Base Force study and the Bottom-Up Review, the 

Quadrennial Defense Review conflicted with and overshadowed the

Program Objective Memorandum process. The Army developed its 

biennial POM and submitted it to the Office of the Secretary of Defense,

54 Ltr, Gen Dennis J. Reimer, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, to Gen John M. Shalikashvili, 

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 26 Mar 1997; Memo, Lt Gen Eric K. Shinseki, Army 

Operations Deputy, for Director, Joint Staff, 27 Mar 1997, sub: Ground Force Assessment 

Analysis; and Author’s notes, Army Quarterback meeting, 21 Apr 1997, all Historian’s 

Background Files, CMH; Cohen, Report of the QDR, pp. 29, 59–60. 55 Memo, Honorable Togo D. West, Jr., Secretary of the Army, for the Secretary of 

Defense, undated (Jun 1997), sub: Implementation Plan for Army Personnel ReductionsQDR; Briefing Materials, Strategic Synchronization Cell, “Quadrennial Defense 

Review Overview,” 1 Jun 1997; and Briefing Materials, DCSOPS, “Total Army Force 

Overview,” 1 Jun 1997, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996–1997

149

expecting the customary rigorous review and modifications before OSD

consolidated the Army’s POM into its Future Years Defense Program. 

As had the Base Force study and the BUR, the QDR not only duplicated 

the normal program process, it reversed it. OSD and the Joint Staff, 

rather than the services, developed a framework of forces and programs 

to meet the requirements of the national military strategy. Instead of 

initiating this process, the Army and the other services merely participated in it. That Army leaders were able to defend their existing force 

structure for the time being obscured their decreasing influence over the

service’s destiny.

151

Chapter 8

Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

Supplementing the QDR study were two separate reviews, one by a 

National Defense Panel (NDP) and another by a Task Force on Defense 

Reform. Like the Commission on Roles and Missions, the NDP was to 

provide the secretary of defense with an evaluation by national security 

experts from outside the government. Its charter was extremely broad, 

and its purpose was in large part to evaluate the work of the QDR and 

propose alternative courses of action. In contrast, the charge of the Task 

Force on Defense Reform was narrower. Composed primarily of defense 

experts associated with but not part of the Department of Defense, it had 

the task of recommending more specific reforms in the organization and

management processes of the Pentagon, to include OSD itself as well as 

the JCS and the three military departments. Together the two advisory 

groups promised to provide the secretary of defense with a bit more 

flexibility regarding options for change even as they underlined those

choices that garnered general agreement.

The National Defense Panel

In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, 

which mandated the Quadrennial Defense Review, Congress also directed 

the secretary of defense to establish the NDP. The statute directed the 

secretary of defense to appoint the panel’s nine members no later than 1 

December 1996. Overlapping the final stage of the Quadrennial Defense

Review, the panel was to provide three products by 1 December 1997: 

an assessment of the QDR and its report; an “alternative force structure 

assessment”; and budget estimates to support the panel’s force structure 

assessment. The NDP would also meet the Commission on Roles and 

Missions’ recommendation that the quadrennial strategic review extend 

beyond the Defense Department to all executive agencies represented on 

the National Security Council (NSC).1

1 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, Public Law 201, 104th 

Cong., 2d sess. (23 Sep 1996), secs. 923–924; CORM, Directions for Defense, p. 4-9.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

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As directed in the authorizing legislation, the National Defense Panel 

provided an early assessment of the QDR in mid-May 1997. At that time 

the panel endorsed the general outlines of the review but criticized certain 

initial conclusions and key procedural aspects. The panel agreed that the 

QDR’s manpower reductions would not compromise essential military 

capabilities. Echoing a major Army objection to QDR results, however, 

the NDP’s assessment noted an “insufficient connectivity between strategy

on the one hand, and force structure, operational concepts, and procurement decisions on the other.” The panel further argued that the QDR’s 

draft national military strategy addressed more and diverse challenges, 

yet with significantly reduced resources, than had the national military

strategy four years earlier.2

Rather than recommending additional conventional forces, however, 

the panel favored replacing selected forces with those more tailored to 

small-scale contingencies, such as military police units. It also criticized 

the QDR for focusing on military capabilities during the Future Years 

Defense Program (1998–2003) rather than looking forward to 2010 

and beyond. The panel touched additionally on the QDR’s reluctance 

to confront issues of roles, missions, and functions but did not itself 

address the matter of excessive duplication across service capabilities, recommending only “further development of joint and combined 

operational concepts.” Last, the panel joined the critics of the TACWAR 

theater-level campaign model and its impact on QDR analyses. Although 

preliminary, the panel’s initial response offered insights into the directions its later assessment would take.3

Beginning its actual work in early 1997, the panel operated out of 

leased space in Arlington, Virginia. Over the course of its work, March 

through December, its nine members participated in forty-five meetings,

averaging more than five a month. Selected by the secretary of defense,

the panel included four retired four-star officers, one from each service; a

former assistant secretary of defense; a former ambassador; two defense 

intellectuals; and, as chairman, an executive with a major defense 

contractor who was a veteran of McNamara’s Office of the Assistant

Secretary of Defense (Systems Analysis). The blend of backgrounds 

combined seasoned professional military judgment with civilian government, management, and academic perspectives on defense issues.4

2

 Memo, Philip A. Odeen, Chairman, National Defense Panel, for the Secretary of 

Defense, 14 May 1997, sub: National Defense Panel Comments on the Report of the 

QDR, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 3

 Ibid.

4

 Interv, Mark Sherry with Philip A. Odeen, Chairman, National Defense Panel, 8 

Apr 1998, Fairfax County, Va.; Interv, Mark Sherry with Admiral David Jeremiah, U.S. 
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

153

To do research, develop issues for decisions, and prepare its final

report, the National Defense Panel relied on an executive director, a 

deputy director, and a staff of more than thirty. As in the case of the 

Commission on Roles and Missions, the services, OSD, and the Joint 

Staff provided most of the supporting manpower for the study’s duration. 

Approximately a dozen contractors, focusing on research and analysis, 

rounded out the staff.5

By late spring the panel had developed a methodology. The study 

would undertake eight consecutive tasks: (1) identify national security 

objectives, (2) identify future environments and situations, (3) develop 

a strategy, (4) develop options for military capabilities, (5) derive “force 

elements” from the larger military capabilities, (6) develop force structures by applying military strategy to force elements, (7) develop support 

concepts and infrastructure, and (8) complete a budget assessment. The 

staff coordinated briefings by outside experts and conducted “seminars”

for each task, or phase, and invited representatives from OSD, the Joint 

Staff, and service headquarters to participate in the discussions. Although 

many staff members preferred to examine issues related to forces and 

specific weapons programs, the panel chose to focus on broader national

security issues that would require attention over the next two decades.6

The Army’s assistant vice chief of staff continued to coordinate the 

Army’s QDR-related efforts after the review itself ended in May and 

interest shifted to the National Defense Panel. He assigned day-to-day 

responsibility for NDP actions to his new Center for Land Warfare, which 

had replaced the Strategic Synchronization Cell in July 1997. By that 

time most cell personnel had transferred to other assignments during the 

summer. Their transfers meant that a Senior Executive Service analyst 

was left to run the center, a colonel to serve as deputy director, and eight 

to ten action officers to serve as staff. HQDA also detailed a colonel and

a lieutenant colonel from the Army’s Program Analysis and Evaluation 

Directorate to serve full-time on theNDP’sstaff.Neither officer, however,

had served with the Army’s QDR team, and both approached their duties 

with a fresh perspective. In addition, action officers from the Office of

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans and other HQDA 

elements represented the Army at National Defense Panel seminars in 

Navy, Ret., National Defense Panel, 23 Jan 1998, Burke, Va.; and Interv, Mark Sherry 

with Honorable Robert M. Kimmitt, National Defense Panel, 23 Jan 1998, Washington, 

D.C., all Oral History Activity, CMH. 5

 Odeen interv, 29 Apr 1998, Oral History Activity, CMH.

6

 Briefing Materials, “National Defense Panel Tasks,” undated (Summer 1997), 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv, Mark Sherry with James R. McDonough, 

NDP Staff, 20 Aug 1997, Oral History Activity, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

154

their areas of expertise. But it was the Center for Land Warfare that 

sought to coordinate the Army’s attempt to integrate its NDP support 

elements across HQDA.

The Army did not enter the National Defense Panel’s deliberations 

with a detailed campaign plan. During the initial phases of the QDR, 

Army participants had anticipated having to appeal to the panel recommendations for reductions to Army forces. However, the subsequent 

lack of any such proposals in the final QDR report made the issue moot.

In any case, although the Army’s NDP participants remained engaged 

with the panel’s staff in all perceived areas of Army interest, the panel 

itself remained closed to direct Army participation, and the direction it 

would take remained elusive.7

The overly ambitious scope of the National Defense Panel’s mandate 

became evident by late summer. Its first major milestone was to develop

a strategic concept valid through 2020. Panel staffers examined seven 

strategy options, ranging from a “Fortress America” isolationism to a 

“Primacy” option in which the United States would act as the world’s 

“police chief.” The options compared approximate military capabilities required for each strategy with those that the Quadrennial Defense 

Review had identified as essential to prosecute a major theater war.

But disagreements soon arose among both panel and staff members 

concerning the QDR’s recommended force levels.

Members of the National Defense Panel and its staff raised questions concerning the QDR’s concept for prosecuting two, near-simultaneous, major theater wars. Several staff members recommended that the 

panel examine an MTW warfighting option that would permit a major

restructuring of U.S. conventional forces. The “strategic halt” concept, 

as it came to be known, applied to the second regional contingency. The 

concept envisioned an air interdiction campaign to stop the advance of 

an aggressor’s ground forces. Continuing air strikes would defeat the 

enemy by inflicting casualties until it could no longer continue offensive

operations. In theory, such a successful air campaign would preclude 

the need for a ground counteroffensive, or at least an immediate one. 

This operational concept directly contradicted the QDR’s hypotheses 

concerning a major theater war, existing U.S. and combined war plans, 

and agreements with allies. Army participants in the NDP process also 

realized that the strategic halt concept threatened to transfer resources 

from conventional ground forces to high-technology weapons. Although 

the panel ultimately rejected the concept, the debate underscored divisions within the national security community over priorities for future 

7

 McManaway interv, 8 Apr 1997, CMH.
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

155

U.S. forces, as well as difficulties in developing a strategy for a future

that extended beyond 2010.8

The NDP debate on strategy issues confirmed the difficulty of

having the panel expand on the Quadrennial Defense Review’s efforts 

and develop a strategy for 2010–2020. Lacking the trained analysts, 

models, and detailed databases essential for campaign analysis, the panel 

accepted the fact that the development of coherent national security and 

military strategies that far into the future was beyond its capabilities. 

So, rather than attempt to develop a concrete strategy for the far future, 

the panel recommended a “transformation strategy.” Building on its 

staff’s strategy review, it posited four possible futures, ranging from a 

“shaped stability,” characterized by a high degree of international cooperation, to a world in “chronic crisis.” Unable to predict which of the 

four scenarios was likely, the panel recommended that the nation adopt 

a “strategic” concept for transforming its defense establishment to maximize flexibility. Within that context, the panel believed that the Defense

Department was expending too many resources trying to protect existing 

service structures and programs for the near term.9

Some implications of the transformation strategy troubled Army 

leaders. The panel’s final report argued that the world “was in the early

stages of a revolution in military affairs—a discontinuous change usually 

associated with technology but also representing social or economic 

changes that fundamentally alter the face of battle.” This statement 

echoed the opinion of a working group of civilian experts commissioned 

by OSD’s director of net assessment in the summer of 1997. These 

analysts had argued that a revolution in military affairs would “render 

obsolete or subordinate existing means for conducting war,” a claim 

that Army leaders had already rejected. Reviewing the panel’s recommendations, the Army’s QDR team thus was concerned that a concept, 

which many still considered more an academic theory than a road map 

for transformation, could precipitate ill-conceived force reductions to 

fund a number of dubious high-technology programs.10

8

 Briefing Materials, Army ODCSOPS, “NDP Strategy and Capabilities: Strategy 

Development (Task 3) Overview,” 7 Aug 1997; NDP Draft Issue Paper, “Summary of 

Strategies,” 13 Aug 1997; Gen James P. McCarthy, U.S. Air Force, Ret., “A Proposal for 

an Alternate Strategy,” 19 Jun 1997, all Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 9

 Odeen interv, 8 Apr 1998; and Interv, Mark Sherry with James R. McDonough, 

3 Dec 1997, Washington, D.C., both Oral History Activity, CMH; National Defense 

Panel (NDP), Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century (Report of 

the National Defense Panel) (Arlington, Va.: National Defense Panel, December 1997), 

pp. 5–11, 60–67. 10 NDP, Transforming Defense, p. 7; Briefing Materials by OSD (Net Assessment), 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

156

The NDP’s failure to recommend a cohesive strategy rendered it 

unable to provide an alternative force structure analysis. The panel 

offered more general recommendations for evolving and integrating 

military capabilities as part of its recommended “transformation 

strategy.” It started on a lofty note. Expanding on an issue it raised in 

its assessment of the QDR, the panel argued for a stronger joint role in 

force development. But without suggesting a time frame, the panel also 

argued for a reduction in active force levels at some future date. Instead 

of maintaining forces that DoD considered adequate to prosecute two 

major theater wars, the panel recommended that Defense reduce these 

forces to a level adequate for one major theater war and several concurrent small-scale contingencies.11

Other panel recommendations also affected the Army. The group 

proposed the restructuring of “above-the-line,” or division-sized, 

units into “smaller operational elements with equivalent (or greater) 

lethality.” This concept embraced both “fixed brigade” division options

that the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command had studied since 

the late 1980s and more unconventional solutions.12 Regarding the 

Army’s reserve components, the panel proposed tighter integration of 

Army National Guard enhanced readiness brigades with active Army 

forces. It also proposed the conversion of some Guard strategic reserve 

forces from general-purpose combat units to units specifically organized

for domestic emergencies, civil support, and service in small-scale 

contingencies.13

Like the QDR, the panel avoided direct recommendations concerning 

roles, missions, and functions. Its assertion that “competition among the 

services can assist in determining how best to exploit new capabilities, 

or how to solve emerging challenges,” at first glance seemed ready to

reverse the Defense Department’s ponderous march toward unification.

However, its ideas of “competition” did not mean a return to the type of 

interservice conflict that characterized the Defense Department during

the decade and a half after 1945. The panel viewed such competition as 

useful when limited primarily to the realm of combat developments and 

“OSD/Net Assessment Summer Study 1997: Transformation Strategy for a Period of 

Revolutionary Change,” undated (Summer 1997), Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 11 Odeen interv, 8 Apr 1998; McDonough interv, 3 Dec 1997, Oral History Activity, 

CMH; NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 23–24, 68–70. 12 See Douglas A. Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design for Landpower 

in the 21st Century (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), pp. 59–93, for detailed concepts 

for more ambitious tactical force redesigns. 13 NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 36–37, 46–47, 52–55; McDonough interv, 8 

Dec 1997.
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

157

force modernization programs, carefully supervised by the upper DoD 

echelons. In this area it clearly favored more interservice solutions to 

future problems.14

To direct joint initiatives, the panel championed a new organization, a “Joint Forces Command.” This unified command would assume

the role of the U.S. Atlantic Command’s since 1993 as “joint force 

provider” to other regional combatant commanders. The recommendation resembled in many respects a concept that Army Chief of Staff 

Reimer had espoused in March for enhancing joint force development. 

As the NDP perceived it, the Joint Forces Command would become 

involved in issues of force design and development. To better accomplish this role, the joint forces’ commander would be encouraged to 

create a tactical “Joint Battle Command” headquarters in addition 

to the exercise of oversight over existing joint force development 

agencies, including the Joint Doctrine Center. If this new command 

could rationalize competition among service modernization programs, 

it could also integrate service doctrinal developments and weapons 

programs. In such a role, it could also serve as an executive agent for 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.15

The panel offered few other recommendations concerning defense 

infrastructure. In fact, it deliberately avoided recommendations in this 

area, deferring to the Task Force on Defense Reform, which the secretary of defense had commissioned at the end of the Quadrennial Defense 

Review to conduct a detailed review of defense organizations. At least one 

infrastructure issue, however, came under the NDP’s consideration. The 

panel recommended consolidating the U.S. Transportation Command 

and the Defense Logistics Agency into a Logistics Command. This 

proposal reinforced an earlier suggestion by the staff of the Commission 

on Roles and Missions and offered a framework for integrating support 

activities within the Defense Department.16

Finally, the panel recommended reviewing defense mobilization 

assets, including government-owned industrial facilities. Because of 

the post–Cold War drawdown and differing replacement dates for major 

14 See Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Restructuring for a New Era: Framing the Roles 

and Missions Debate (Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, April 1995), pp. 62–

65; and Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Missed Opportunities: An Assessment of the Roles 

& Missions Commission Report (Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, August 

1995), pp. 37–41, for earlier versions of this argument by a panel member. 15 NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 57–59, 68–70, 76; Interv, Mark Sherry with 

Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, National Defense Panel, 7 Apr 1998, Washington, D.C.; 

McDonough interv, 3 Dec 1997, both Oral History Activity, CMH. 16 NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 72–75.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

158

weapons systems, projected force modernization programs followed 

cyclical patterns that threatened to force industry to react to a “feastfamine” cycle. The National Defense Panel’s transition strategy emphasized research and development, but not necessarily serial production, of 

a wide variety of new weapons systems and “technology demonstrators.” 

Among other drawbacks to such a modernization strategy, further reductions in the production of major weapons could threaten the viability of 

private contractors, the defense “industrial base.” Furthermore, many 

new concepts and systems might not appeal to private contractors, 

necessitating development in either government arsenals or government-owned, contractor-operated facilities.17

Not unexpectedly, the panel also recommended moving toward 

more joint use of existing facilities of all types. Such a move could 

open the door to a more active OSD role in overseeing installations, involving OSD in dependent housing and other quality of life 

issues. The panel also linked infrastructure recommendations to the 

Quadrennial Defense Review’s controversial proposal for new base 

realignment and closure actions. However, such proposals were based 

on a number of assumptions about private industry that were beyond 

OSD’s ability to control.18

The National Defense Panel’s composition, its comparatively short 

working time, and its focus on long-term planning through 2020 ensured 

that most of its recommendations would be of theoretical rather than 

immediate practical value. Several panel members, at least, believed that 

such a theoretical approach was desirable. They argued that the National 

Defense Panel’s long-range focus and lack of responsibility for existing 

programs permitted it broad latitude for visionary thinking. They recommended launching a similar study panel in conjunction with a future 

quadrennial defense review, and they wanted its findings available

before, rather than after, any future QDR. Such an existing conceptual 

base would be of advantage to QDR participants in developing shortterm recommendations. The secretary of defense accepted the panel’s 

recommendations and forwarded them to Congress. Although the secretary noted their overall value, he supported the Army’s position that it 

was premature to reduce active forces from a level adequate to fight two

major theater wars.19

17 NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 72–77; Krepinevich interv, 8 Apr 1998. 18 NDP, Transforming Defense, pp. 79–86. 19 Odeen interv, 8 Apr 1998; Kimmitt interv, 23 Jan 1998; and Interv, Mark Sherry 

with Honorable William J. Lynn III, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Program Analysis 

and Evaluation), 19 Jun 1997, all Oral History Activity, CMH.
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

159

The Task Force on Defense Reform

While the National Defense Panel was devising its recommended 

transition strategy, the secretary of defense had another group developing 

options for reforming defense infrastructure. On 14 May 1997, Secretary 

Cohen established the Task Force on Defense Reform, composed of 

seven members. A “designated federal officer” from the Office of the

OSD Comptroller coordinated support for the task force by a half-dozen 

staff personnel in the comptroller’s office. The task force was to recommend options for reorganizing and modifying management processes in 

four main areas: (1) the Office of the Secretary of Defense, (2) the Joint

Chiefs of Staff and the military departments, (3) defense agencies and 

field activities, and (4) “enterprise-wide business practices.”20

Of the task force’s seven members, four were defense contracting 

executives, two were management consultants, and one was the president of an information technology trade association. All had served 

on congressional staffs or in the Congressional Budget Office. Four

had been political appointees within the Defense Department. All were 

sensitive to the highly political nature of issues involving defense 

infrastructure. With its members’ extensive Washington backgrounds, 

the task force began work with little need for a “shake-down.” From 

the outset the group strove to avoid burdening the secretary with yet 

another set of theoretical recommendations. Its membership sought to 

make recommendations that could be implemented in the short term 

and that offered practical solutions to immediate problems rather than 

to long-term, politically sensitive ones.21

Because of the task force’s potential for recommending major institutional changes, Army leaders took a keen interest in its deliberations. 

Unlike the Quadrennial Defense Review and the National Defense Panel, 

however, the Task Force on Defense Reform conducted its study in relative isolation, with only restricted access by nonstudy group members. 

20 Charter, Task Force on Defense Reform, 6 May 1997; Press Conference Opening 

Statement by Arnold Punaro, Chairman, Secretary of Defense Task Force on Defense 

Reform, 29 May 1997; and Talking Paper, Center for Land Warfare, Office of the 

Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, 5 Sep 1997, sub: Task Force on Defense Reform, all 

Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 21 Memo, Secretary of Defense for Secretaries of Military Departments et al., 11 Jun 

1997, sub: Task Force on Defense Reform, Historian’s Background Files, CMH; Interv, 

Sherry with Mr. Arnold Punaro, Chairman, Task Force on Defense Reform, 21 Jan 1998, 

McLean, Va., and Interv, Sherry with Honorable James R. Locher III, Task Force on 

Defense Reform, 7 Oct 1997, Pentagon, both Historian’s Background Files, CMH.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

160

No seminars or other forums were open to the services.22 Army leaders 

thus again feared that the task force could easily make recommendations affecting Army interests without reference to service positions or 

needs.23

Between May and November 1997, the entire task force met at least 

twice a week, and individual members conducted interviews with OSD, 

Joint Staff, and service leaders. Although infrastructure reform had 

daunted the Defense Management Review, the Task Force on Defense 

Reform had at least one advantage. In October 1997 Congress mandated 

another reduction, of 25 percent, in management headquarters personnel 

by October 2002.24 A cut of this magnitude would be difficult to reach

solely through internal reductions to existing headquarters and portended 

major institutional consolidations. The commander in chief, U.S. Atlantic 

Command, endorsed a major Defense Department reorganization that 

“eliminates, or at least reduces, redundant [duplicative] layers of hierarchal bureaucracy—organizations that filter or delay the exchange of

information and decisions.” Such an ambitious reorganization would 

require consolidation of a number of organizations, analogous to some 

of the 1989–1992 Defense Management Review proposals. In short, the 

congressional action suddenly positioned the task force to make some 

concrete recommendations concerning organizational consolidation.25

With a deadline of 1 November, the task force had to narrow its 

efforts somewhat, especially given that its members served only parttime and that only limited staff support was available. Thus the task force 

focused on OSD and the Joint Staff, rather than design a comprehensive 

departmental reorganization. Individual members worked on separate 

headquarters’ functions, such as intelligence and criminal and security 

investigations, and developed recommendations debated by the entire 

task force. In October, the group gave Deputy Secretary of Defense John 

J. Hamre a series of briefings with a number of reorganization options,

some of which Hamre selected for decision. After the secretary approved 

the items selected, Hamre published them on 10 November in a Defense 

Reform Initiative Report.

26

22 Punaro interv, 21 Jan 1998; Locher interv, 7 Oct 1997.

23 Comments by HQDA action officers at Army Quarterback meetings, Sep–Oct 1997.

24 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998, Public Law 85, 105th 

Cong., 1st sess. (18 Nov 1997), sec. 911. 25 General John J. Sheehan, USMC, “Building the Right Military for the 21st 

Century,” Strategic Review 25 (Summer 1997): 11–12. See also Robert Worth, “Unwieldy 

and Irrelevant: Why Is the Military Clinging to Undated and Ineffective Command 

Structures?” Washington Monthly 29 (October 1997): 26–30. 26 Locher interv, 1 May 1998; Punaro interv, 31 Jan 1998; and Interv, Mark Sherry 
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

161

With this report, Hamre used the Task Force on Defense Reform’s 

recommendations to launch what he termed the “Defense Reform 

Initiative.” One key aspect of the report was establishment of a Defense 

Management Council consisting of the deputy secretary and the under 

secretaries of defense, the service under secretaries, the vice chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the service vice chiefs of staff. Empowered 

primarily to ensure implementation of the secretary’s defense reform 

decisions, it was also to review deferred initiatives of the Task Force on 

Defense Reform and consider other recommended reforms. Task force 

recommendations approved in the report included a 10 percent reduction 

in all Defense Department headquarters’ elements by the end of 2003. 

The report also directed a 9 percent reduction in presidential appointees 

in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.27

As the Task Force on Defense Reform recommended, the Defense 

Reform Initiative focused its efforts primarily on the Office of the

Secretary of Defense and defense-level agencies. In summary, the body 

with Honorable Kim Wincup, 19 Feb 1998, all in Oral History Activity, CMH; Honorable 

William S. Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report (Washington, D.C.: Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, November 1997), pp. 15–18. 27 Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report, pp. 15–20.

John Hamre being sworn in as deputy secretary of defense 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

162

proposed that the secretary reorganize OSD and reduce its size, reversing 

several decades of incremental growth. The secretary approved a 33 

percent reduction of OSD manpower that was intended to focus his 

immediate office on its “core functions” of policy and “strategic leadership” for the department. This emphasis meant divesting program 

management and other functions that the office had accumulated over

time. Despite some misgivings that OSD might not retain sufficient

resources to integrate service programs effectively, several task force 

members argued that streamlining operations would refocus efforts 

without compromising effectiveness.28

The Defense Reform Initiative also addressed issues concerning defense 

agencies. Defense Management Review initiatives had consolidated several 

functions, such as finance and accounting, into defense agencies early in

the post–Cold War drawdown. However, turbulence caused by declining 

resources and by geographic moves resulting from base realignment and 

closure actions had complicated these efforts. Having opposed most of these 

consolidations, the Army and other services continued their opposition by 

complaining about the costs of defense agency operations and by suggesting 

the outsourcing of many of these functions. Members of the Task Force 

on Defense Reform proposed that DoD undertake a “revolution in business affairs,” and recommended outsourcing, privatization, and competition 

in general as reform tools. Although the task force endorsed the goal of 

enhanced competition, it stopped short of proposing the disestablishment 

of specific organizations and the outsourcing of their functions. Finally, the

Defense Reform Initiative endorsed another two rounds of base closures 

without addressing how to deal with mobilization needs. The end of the Cold 

War apparently made mobilization a minor, more manageable chore.29

Although more comprehensive than the preceding Bottom-Up 

Review, the QDR and the studies by the National Defense Panel and the 

Task Force on Defense Reform disappointed critics who sought more 

extensive reforms that would produce a cohesive and better focused 

Defense Department. None of these studies offered major suggestions 

for reducing duplications or changing service roles and functions, 

nor did the task force yield infrastructure reorganizations on the scale 

proposed during the earlier Defense Management Review and endorsed 

by the congressional authors of the Commission on Roles and Missions. 

28 Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report, pp. 16–18; and Interv, Mark Sherry 

with Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, Task Force on Defense Reform, 10 Dec 1997; Punaro interv, 

21 Jan 1998; and Wincup interv, 19 Feb 1998, all Oral History Activity, CMH. 29 Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report, pp. 1–14, 27–31, 37–40; Punaro interv, 

21 Jan 1998.
Two Final Reviews, 1997–1998

163

Although the National Defense Panel did offer some recommendations 

for long-term institutional change, perhaps its most important proposal 

for sparking greater military efficiency and effectiveness was creation of

a Joint Forces Command. If adopted, this recommendation could finally

yield an organization capable of building integrated joint forces. DoD 

could then reduce other headquarters, including HQDA, in proportion to 

the shift of responsibilities to the Joint Forces Command.

Army leaders perhaps could look on the entire exercise with some 

relief. With the Base Force and Bottom-Up Review as recent precedents, 

the endeavors of the Quadrennial Defense Review, the National Defense 

Panel, and the Task Force on Defense Reform had appeared to pose 

significant threats to Army interests. Many Army leaders and participants had feared that these studies would simply constitute a pretext for 

additional reductions of Army forces and budgets. Consequently, HQDA 

had established the Strategic Synchronization Cell and its successor, the 

Center for Land Warfare, to focus Army efforts during these studies. 

These organizations had helped Army leaders to conduct a successful 

campaign for Army interests, with timely, effective Army participation 

in each study. The openness of the Quadrennial Defense Review and the 

National Defense Panel to service participation had helped preclude the 

type of inadequately informed decisions that critics argued characterized the Bottom-Up Review. Finally, the Task Force on Defense Reform 

had not really grappled with the major issues that might have affected 

Army matters. Still, without a visionary national military strategy and 

comprehensive joint doctrine for warfare that would provide a detailed 

road map for force developments, future reviews were inevitable. Rather 

than ending, the process was in many ways just beginning.

165

Chapter 9

Conclusion

The U.S. defense establishment underwent several major changes 

from 1987 to 1997, including several revisions of the defense and the 

national military strategies, structural overhaul within the Defense 

Department, and modifications of programs, budgets, and management

processes. Taken as a whole, these changes marked the end of the Cold 

War Army and the nation’s longest period of peacetime military mobilization. They also marked the advent of a new era. At the end of the 

decade, international developments and U.S. political processes were 

still defining the new national security environment in a period of transition best described as the “post–Cold War era.”

The transition significantly affected the U.S. Army. Headquarters,

Department of the Army—its “Command Post” expended considerable 

effort during those ten years in defense-reshaping endeavors. Declining 

budgets and changing strategy drove a series of DoD restructuring actions. 

The most significant of these changes not only forced deep reductions

in Army forces, but also overshadowed all of HQDA’s reorganization 

efforts. Consequently, the Army’s headquarters increasingly found itself 

reacting to OSD and Joint Staff proposals on strategy, programs, and 

forces, rather than charting the Army’s transition from a Cold War force. 

That transition would require a refocus away from the forward defense 

of key allies against Soviet expansion to a more mobile force designed 

to deploy rapidly to theaters around the world.

Goldwater-Nichols

The decade of reshaping began with an overhaul of the Defense 

Department’s management, especially the processes that dictated the 

direction and pace of change. After four decades of periodic but halfhearted attempts to effectively unify the armed forces, the GoldwaterNichols Act inaugurated a more sustained and vigorous effort. 

Generations of defense reformers had sought to create a consolidated 

department, with its military services integrated by an authoritative 

warfighting concept, joint doctrine, and complementary programs and

capabilities. Despite their efforts, the Defense Department remained 
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

166

“balkanized.” Three overlapping organizational models still prevailed 

within the department: a cabinet department with organizational details 

prescribed by statute, a military organization with functional headquarters and staffs, and an organization managed through business-type 

processes. One of these processes, the Planning, Programming, and 

Budgeting System (PPBS), had become the department’s overarching management tool. Not surprisingly, the three models were rarely 

compatible, compromising both effectiveness and efficiency in many

disparate ways.

Rather than attempt a comprehensive ”fix” for accumulated Defense

Department failings, the Goldwater-Nichols Act settled for more limited 

goals. The act continued the trend of legislating specific corrections to

egregious problems rather than undertaking the type of comprehensive 

reorganization that many reformers advocated (e.g., mandating consolidations of service support functions). The act also continued the 

trend of consolidating the secretary’s authority over the entire Defense 

Department, steadily increasing the authority of the Office of the

Secretary of Defense to integrate service programs and functions, as well 

as the authority of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over these 

areas. A succession of secretaries of defense and chairmen capitalized 

on these provisions during the subsequent decade to strengthen their 

control over the Army and the other services.

The Goldwater-Nichols provisions that expanded the authority of 

the chairman and the combatant commanders in program decisions 

began to affect decisions concerning resources. Most significantly,

these provisions increased the emphasis on military effectiveness, as 

opposed to military efficiency, in the evaluation of competing programs. The chairman’s new role in program decisions, in particular, 

brought a vitally needed military perspective to resource management 

processes at the top levels of the Defense Department. Prior to the 

chairman’s expanded involvement in force structure and modernization issues through the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and the 

Chairman’s Program Assessment, OSD staffs dominated recommendations to the secretary concerning service programs. The Office of

the Secretary of Defense had relied almost exclusively on cost-benefit

analysis to derive its program recommendations. Many critics argued 

that such a reliance on economic factors, combined with a paucity 

of military officers in key OSD analytical positions, undermined the

credibility of such recommendations. Goldwater-Nichols began a process that would alter the balance between military and civilian advice 

on resource issues even while it reduced the authority of the military 

services as institutions. The resulting combination of Joint Staff and 
Conclusion

167

OSD efforts expanded the joint role in program and budget issues at 

the expense of the services.

The act also modified the Army headquarters’ organization in a

way that directly affected its internal functions. The transfer of selected 

functions from the Army Staff to the Army Secretariat complicated dayto-day operations. These changes also jeopardized the Army’s responsiveness to Joint Staff initiatives and raised concerns over the ability of 

subcabinet-level political appointees to directly affect military requirements. Particularly problematic were the Goldwater-Nichols provisions 

that mandated the transfer from service staffs to service secretariats 

of oversight over research, development, acquisition, and information management functions. The act’s authors labeled these functions 

as components of the “business” part of the service infrastructure that 

could be managed by political appointees. But many Army leaders obviously disagreed with this judgment. Those opposed argued that such 

functions contributed directly to fighting capabilities and to defining

military requirements and thus should be regarded as military rather 

than business functions. The 1995 Commission on Roles and Missions 

endorsed this latter argument, having recommended a major structural 

change through the elimination of most service assistant secretary positions. Under its proposals, supervision of these functional areas would 

either shift back to the service staffs or over to the Joint Staff.

Early Reshaping

Although the end of the Cold War and declining defense budgets were 

the catalysts, the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization set the parameters 

for HQDA’s most significant challenge over the next decade, post–Cold

War reshaping. By strengthening OSD and enhancing joint control over 

program and budget issues affecting the Army, the act continued the 

course of further unification, primarily through modifications to defense

management processes. Secretary McNamara’s PPBS had started this 

trend. HQDA participated in PPBS, which continued to integrate strategic plans, programs, and budgets. The act strengthened the chairman’s 

authority to institute program recommendations and to undertake the 

Chairman’s Program Assessment, thus expanding the Joint Staff’s participation in military requirements and resource management processes. 

The Base Force study, the Bottom-Up Review, and the Quadrennial 

Defense Review broadened OSD and joint control over Army forces, 

programs, and budgets. To a large extent, the decisions resulting from 

these studies overrode decisions made in the PPBS processes, which 

were based generally on the Army’s POM and budget submissions. In 
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the Base Force study and the Bottom-Up Review, OSD and the Joint 

Staff operated without HQDA participation.

Having attempted through the 1989 Antaeus study to plot the Army’s 

course, HQDA quickly lost the initiative to Joint Staff and OSD efforts. 

After the 1990 Base Force study, the Army faced accelerating change. 

Although HQDA participated in the 1992 Chairman’s Roles, Missions, 

and Functions Study and the 1996–1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, it 

simply reacted to OSD and Joint Staff initiatives that were made within 

the context of these assessments. Consequently, the Army’s headquarters enjoyed limited influence over the outcome of Defense Department

reshaping and developed a defensive mind-set.

Army leaders argued consistently during the post–Cold War reductions that the evolving national military strategy should be the cornerstone of defense reshaping. Rapid changes in the international arena, 

stemming from the Soviet collapse and increasing instability elsewhere 

in the world, had obviously made the existing Cold War national military 

strategy irrelevant. But the lack of an agreed-upon replacement strategy 

for President Bush’s “New World Order” precluded long-term decisions 

on levels of forces, force mixes, modernization programs, basing, and 

strategic mobility programs.

Clearly, the Defense Department’s strategy development processes 

lagged behind changes in the world. Intelligence agencies failed to predict major geopolitical changes, such as the Soviet military collapse, in 

time to alert strategists. Consequently, planners initially did little more 

than react to these changes. The Quadrennial Defense Review was the 

first major reshaping study in which an approved strategy preceded decisions on forces. In the other studies, the lack of strategic vision hindered 

development of reshaping options. Both Army and joint planners succumbed to strong pressures to simply reduce existing forces proportionally and incrementally rather than take more positive steps to redesign 

forces for the future.

During the Cold War, as in previous conflicts, the nation’s armed

forces had evolved in response to political and military requirements. 

Consequently, post–Cold War reshaping began with a force that did 

not precisely reflect the major, unforeseen changes in these areas.

For example, superannuated legislative provisions undergirded some 

existing force levels and missions despite changes in requirements and 

technology that had overtaken any military rationale for such prescriptions. This situation, as well as past decisions to avoid issues concerning 

duplications of roles and functions, left a defense organization often 

hindered by stark duplications of capabilities across services and components. Yet a hard examination never took place of ground roles and 
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missions of Marine Corps and Army forces, nor of Army active duty 

and reserve components. Conversely, major shortfalls existed in forces 

critical for missions that fell between the services. For example, the 

Air Force and Navy consistently maintained airlift and sealift at levels 

below those that Army leaders believed prudent. The establishment 

of almost a separate department or service for the special operations 

forces solved some of these types of problems but, at the same time, 

posed others regarding the division of roles and missions. Post–Cold 

War reshaping studies still found it markedly difficult to confront this

formidable legacy of unresolved institutional problems.

The first two major Defense Department reshaping studies, the Base

Force and the Bottom-Up Review, established a pattern for defense 

restructuring. Driven more by the quest for budget reductions than by 

strategic vision, both studies reduced forces without offering any real 

incentives or guidelines for restructuring Army and other service operational forces for a new strategic environment. The Bottom-Up Review, 

in particular, recommended that a higher priority be given to contingency 

operations yet failed to provide for additional ground forces earmarked 

for small-scale contingencies. Both studies called for more reductions in 

Army and Air Force units on a proportional basis, than they did for naval 

forces, which were designed specifically to combat what was by then a

rapidly declining Soviet fleet. To justify these relatively high naval force

levels, the Bottom-Up Review cited overseas “presence” requirements, 

which entailed political as much as military considerations.

Although it followed the force reduction trends of the earlier studies, the 1996–1997 Quadrennial Defense Review used a different study 

methodology. Contrary to what they had done in the Base Force study, 

the chairman and the secretary of defense invited service participation 

in the Quadrennial Defense Review. Representatives from HQDA participated directly in the QDR panels and through the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council. Consequently, the Defense Department’s leadership avoided most of the recriminations that accompanied the earlier 

study. Nonetheless, Congress and the secretary of defense accepted 

the Quadrennial Defense Review’s recommendations to cut Army 

manpower. Like the previous reshaping studies, the QDR study did 

not offset these cuts with specific recommendations for innovative

organizations and programs that would transform the armed forces to 

meet the challenges of the next century.

The Army and the Defense Department had at least two other 

opportunities to shape a more cohesive, effective, and efficient defense

establishment. Two major studies of roles, missions, and functions in 

1992 and 1994–1995 provided an opportunity to redress major problems 
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170

of duplication of functions across services. These studies also offered a 

forum to begin steps that would lead to a redesign of the armed forces 

for the future. Finally, the studies provided a vehicle to integrate the 

services’ programs of force modernization. A general lack of support 

by the chairman, the secretary of defense, and the services, however, 

doomed the 1992 chairman’s study to recommending marginal changes 

only. The 1994–1995 Commission on Roles and Missions demonstrated 

another difficulty in changing roles and functions. This group lacked sufficient technical expertise to develop specific proposals that would carry

enough weight to overcome opposition within the Defense Department. 

Furthermore, after the 1994 election, political support for the CORM 

declined. Instead of advocating controversial proposals for restructuring 

the armed forces, the commission offered a series of concepts intended 

to continue the Defense Department on a path of evolutionary change. 

Like the QDR, neither study of roles, missions, and functions provided a 

comprehensive solution to duplication of functions, nor did either study 

provide a detailed road map to develop joint forces for the future.

The Army and the other services balked at attempting major changes 

in roles and functions at a time when they were experiencing significant

turbulence resulting from force reductions and internal streamlining 

actions. After the Base Force study, Army leaders were justifiably wary

of external realignment efforts that might also portend additional reductions in Army forces and programs. The roles and functions studies, 

however, offered a forum to adjudicate overlapping Army and Marine 

ground force capabilities, based on their military merits rather than on 

a cost-benefit analysis. Possession of a full spectrum of ground force

capabilities—airborne, air assault, light infantry, mechanized, and special operations forces—offered the Army an appreciable advantage in 

such a review. Yet during the 1992 and 1994–1995 reviews, the Army’s 

leadership sought to defend the status quo rather than demand that the 

studies develop an integrated vision of a future less plagued by interservice turf battles.

Accused of being focused on finding economic efficiencies rather

than on improving institutional effectiveness, the 1989–1992 Defense 

Management Review drew widespread opposition from the Army and the 

other services. Nonetheless, discrete Defense Management Review initiatives offered opportunities for significant consolidations of departmental

support functions. Consolidations would yield reductions in numbers of 

headquarters and standardization of supporting functions across the services. But in the face of widespread service opposition, the deputy secretary of defense adopted only a few of the DMR recommendations. This 

irresolution deferred major department restructuring even as it incurred 
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congressional displeasure. Indeed, failure of both the 1992 Chairman’s 

Roles, Missions, and Functions Study and the Defense Management 

Review to reduce infrastructure commensurate with reductions in warfighting forces stirred Congress to mandate the 1994 Commission on

Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces.

Congress addressed directly what it considered superfluous headquarters. The 1991 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 

directed a 20 percent reduction in management headquarters throughout 

the Defense Department. The 1998 National Defense Authorization Act 

mandated a further 25 percent cut. The 1991 NDAA buttressed streamlining efforts of the Army and other departments. The further cut was also 

pivotal to the Defense Management Review’s limited successes in the 

consolidation of finance and accounting agencies, commissaries, some

supply functions, and selected information management functions. The 

1998 NDAA directed annual cuts of 5 percent through 2003, which were 

implemented with some difficulty by the Army and other services but

without resorting to the types of consolidation of service headquarters 

and support functions that various DMR studies had recommended.

These two acts forced military leaders to continue addressing structural reform, however painful. Army leaders themselves had attempted 

to streamline the service through Project Vanguard, the 1992 HQDA 

Transformation Study, and the 1995–1996 Force XXI Institutional Axis 

redesign. HQDA made only marginal changes, however. The Army thus 

maintained between fourteen and eighteen major commands during the 

decade following the enactment of Goldwater-Nichols, unable to merge 

or eliminate service component commands supporting unified commanders without coordinated action by OSD, the Joint Staff, and the 

other services. Similarly, major commands such as the Army Materiel 

Command and the Military Traffic Management Command directly supported and required close integration with the other services, precluding 

their consolidation under a single Army major support command. Such 

a unilateral reorganization would have impaired operations by imposing 

an additional layer of bureaucracy between these functional headquarters 

and HQDA, the Joint Staff, OSD, and the other services. This limitation 

constrained the efforts of the 1995–1996 Force XXI Institutional Axis 

redesign to consolidate Army major commands.

The growing interdependence among OSD, the Joint Staff, and the 

services also inhibited efforts to streamline HQDA. Statutory restrictions precluded functional consolidations between the service secretariat 

and staff. The PPBS also impeded consolidations. As was the case with 

most Defense Department management processes, the Army participated in PPBS without “owning” the system. The Program Objective 
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172

Memorandum, OSD’s Program Review, and the annual budget processes had caused HQDA to evolve into a broad, “horizontal” organization. Although cumbersome, this structure permitted wide participation 

by technical program proponents, including the surgeon general and 

the chief of engineers. Thus, unless carefully planned and executed, a 

streamlined headquarters would cost the Army more in disruptions to 

programs than it would save.

The Quadrennial Defense Review demonstrated the benefits to the

Army of HQDA’s participation in Defense Department management 

processes and reshaping studies, albeit at the cost of a significantly

increased workload. After the enactment of Goldwater-Nichols, HQDA 

expanded its participation in defense management processes through 

its membership in the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. Further 

demands on HQDA included the need to respond to defense-reshaping studies, including the Base Force and the Bottom-Up Review, and 

to participate in the QDR, as well as in studies of roles, missions, and 

functions, and base realignment and closures. Army leaders had little 

choice but to participate fully in all such endeavors. Always their hope 

was to influence such processes before they led to possibly irreversible

decisions adverse to the Army. In the absence of a coordinated Defense 

Department reorganization, the attendant increase in workload limited 

the Army’s incentive to reduce its command post beyond the cuts already 

being made at congressional and OSD direction.

The four rounds of Base Realignment and Closure actions between 

1989 and 1995 also had a significant impact on Army infrastructure.

Basing their decisions primarily on service input, the BRAC commissions 

ignored deleterious effects of base closures on adjacent installations of 

other services. As the National Defense Panel implied, the commissions 

missed opportunities for advancing joint use of certain facilities or enhancing interdependence in geographic regions. Like most of the reshaping 

studies, the base realignment and closure process focused on divestiture 

of installations rather than serving to develop a Defense Department base 

and installation plan for the future, emphasizing joint basing solutions. 

Base closures undermined the Base Force study’s purported goal of offsetting reductions in active forces by maintaining a strong reconstitution 

capability. The closures also diminished one of the Army’s major political 

advantages with Congress—its presence in more states than any other service. Finally, the BRAC process underscored the degree to which budget 

cuts and political dynamics, as much as projected military requirements, 

determined the outcome of post–Cold War reshaping.

Base realignment and closure was an example of a reshaping process 

that largely averted comparisons across service lines. Such comparative 
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173

calculations, along with assessments of military capabilities, might have 

influenced reductions of the services’ force structures in the Base Force

study and Bottom-Up Review. In contrast to these earlier studies, the 

Quadrennial Defense Review sought to integrate “quality-of-life” issues 

in its determinations. The QDR did not, however, consider the quality of 

service installations as it made its force-reduction recommendations.

Toward a New Strategy

Throughout post–Cold War reshaping of the U.S. armed forces, 

both joint and Army planners consistently suffered from lags in developing approved strategies, essential for decisions concerning forces 

and programs. HQDA preceded the post–Cold War drawdown with its 

own reshaping studies. The 1988–1989 Antaeus study conducted its 

own strategy review, developed a plan for future force reductions, and 

endorsed the continued study of AirLand Battle-Future’s concepts for 

tactical force redesign. The Louisiana Maneuvers further adapted and 

refined Antaeus and AirLand Battle-Future concepts for the Army of the

future but without undertaking a major overhaul of Army operational 

forces. The studies offered concepts for a comprehensive redesign of 

Army fighting units to create a more flexible and agile force structure,

resulting in more rapidly deployable forces to meet expected future 

needs such as small-scale contingencies. In addition to its operational 

benefits, a major tactical restructuring could also help the Army politically in the lingering Army and Marine contention over roles and functions. But the days when the Army could make such unilateral changes 

were long gone.

As Army participation in contingency operations rose sharply during 

the decade, the requirements of a new strategy continued to be elusive. 

Operation Desert Storm, which had been the model for major theater 

wars, required two Army corps. At the other end of the conflict spectrum, humanitarian assistance operations, from northern Iraq to Haiti, as 

well as other small-scale contingencies, such as the 1989 incursion into 

Panama, kept both active and reserve component forces deploying at a 

moderate to high operational tempo. Overlapping contingency operations often exacerbated the demand on selected units, such as military 

police and civil affairs units, which became overcommitted at times.

U.S. national military strategy adapted slowly to the increasing tempo and diversity of small-scale contingencies. Only after the 

Bottom-Up Review did the Defense Department address the likelihood 

of what it then termed “lesser regional contingencies.” Yet the BottomUp Review and subsequent reshaping studies failed to support either 
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174

additional forces to prosecute small-scale contingencies concurrent 

with major contingencies, or forces specifically tailored to small-scale

contingencies.

The nature and diversity of small-scale contingencies also argued 

for flexibility and a high degree of operational compatibility among

U.S. forces. Although this trend underlined the growing importance of 

joint doctrine and other tools to facilitate interservice operations, it also 

affected Army doctrine, such as an increased emphasis on peacekeeping and stability operations. A number of critics, however, argued that 

the Army should reorganize its tactical forces into a “flexible division”

design. Such an organization would capitalize on standardized doctrine, 

training, and tactics. A more flexible structure would be useful for conducting protracted operations that required several rotations of units, 

such as Joint Endeavor in Bosnia. It would also provide greater flexibility for reinforcing light forces with heavy forces, as in Somalia.

The contingency operations from 1987 through 1997 underscored 

the degree to which the world had changed since the Cold War. Yet the 

National Defense Panel argued that the U.S. military had not evolved into 

a balanced and integrated post–Cold War force. Through the Louisiana 

Maneuvers and Army XXI, HQDA developed concepts for tactical 

force modernization for the first decade of the new century. But neither

OSD nor the Joint Staff was able to develop processes that ensured that 

interservice programs complemented one another during this period. 

Without greater and more stable direction from above, the progress that 

a single service could make toward transformation would be limited.

Process and Progress

Antaeus gave HQDA the ability to develop the Quicksilver I and 

Quicksilver II plans, which offered the Army initial momentum in 

reshaping itself. These initiatives were quickly overwhelmed, however, 

by OSD and Joint Staff actions and the general push for force reductions. 

The Base Force study, the Bottom-Up Review, and the Quadrennial 

Defense Review increasingly saw HQDA reacting to initiatives from 

higher authority rather than developing its own options. The GoldwaterNichols reorganization set the stage for this shift in the balance of 

power within the Defense Department. Provisions that strengthened the 

chairman’s role in program planning spawned the Base Force, as well 

as the roles, missions, and functions studies, and periodic reviews by the 

Joint Requirements Oversight Council. The Army’s headquarters either 

participated in these efforts or had to react to their recommendations. 

The resulting workload was in addition to that required for HQDA’s 
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normal operations, which centered on participation in the PPBS processes. Yet the Army’s headquarters had to undertake these efforts even 

as it suffered from declining strength.

By the end of the Quadrennial Defense Review, HQDA’s role in 

Defense Department program and resource planning had become more 

clearly defined: it served primarily as a participant in a larger process.

The Army’s headquarters continued to submit an annual budget and 

submitted or updated a Program Objective Memorandum on a nearly 

annual basis. Other Defense Department studies and processes, however, such as the Base Force, superseded the PPBS processes. Indeed, 

the Quadrennial Defense Review had become a statutory requirement in 

1999 and would become a regular event. This situation raises the question as to how long HQDA will continue to develop and submit a POM 

as part of the PPBS processes, rather than respond to a consolidated 

OSD/Joint Staff recommendation.

Toward a New Century

After the passage of Goldwater-Nichols, the Department of 

Defense, including HQDA, continued to evolve. Alterations in Defense 

Department management processes and statutory reductions in headquarters’ manpower were the main catalysts for change. Structural 

and functional consolidations across HQDA, the Joint Staff, and OSD 

lagged behind the expectations of some critics. But new management 

tools, such as the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, and studies 

such as the Quadrennial Defense Review had a subtler yet still decisive 

outcome. Most important, they further subordinated service decisionmaking authority to that of OSD and the Joint Staff.

The need to react to OSD and Joint Staff reshaping studies kept 

the Army’s headquarters busy and helped define its structure. The

Quadrennial Defense Review evolved into a recurrent survey of national 

military strategy, forces, and programs. These periodic reviews, along 

with statutory reviews of roles, missions, and functions, overlapped with 

“routine” resource processes, primarily the PPBS. The pace of change 

made HQDA’s biennial Program Objective Memorandum and OSD’s 

Program Review annual affairs. The Army’s annual budget process also 

had to react to changing guidance and requirements, causing an additional 

strain on HQDA’s manpower resources. Despite the increase in workload, 

the Army’s headquarters’ strength declined more than 25 percent between 

1987 and 1997. This decline in strength, as well as the continued turnover 

on the Army Staff of officers with the requisite expertise, undermined the

ability of HQDA to operate at maximum effectiveness.
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176

The Army headquarters’ experience of more work to be done by 

fewer people pointed to the need for a comprehensive overhaul of the 

Defense Department, something which a number of critics cited. Often 

focusing on the need for a second “Goldwater-Nichols” reorganization, 

most of the critics’ ideas centered on a comprehensive reorganization 

of OSD, the Joint Staff, and service headquarters, with a corresponding 

restructuring of management processes. The constant turbulence that the 

Army continues to experience in developing and revising its Program 

Objective Memorandum underscores the ongoing need for reform 

of the Defense Department’s planning, programming, and budgeting 

processes. A number of studies have recommended ways to restructure 

the roles of OSD, the Joint Staff, and the services in the programming 

and budgeting processes. Although both the Commission on Roles and 

Missions and the National Defense Panel endorsed the need to overhaul 

these processes, the Defense Department had not undertaken any major 

revisions in these areas through 1997.

The mixed results of recent defense reshaping activities argue 

against a restructuring that would eliminate HQDA’s participation in the 

Defense Department’s planning and programming processes. At the end 

of the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Office of the Secretary of

Defense and the Joint Staff still lacked the ability to undertake unilateral 

program decisions. In addition to consistent criticisms that the Base 

Force, the Bottom-Up Review, and the Quadrennial Defense Review 

were not sufficiently visionary, each study underscored the difficulties

inherent in major force reviews. Neither OSD nor the Joint Staff then 

or now possess sufficient technical expertise or analytical capabilities

to undertake detailed force design without some degree of service participation. This problem is most acute with the Office of the Secretary

of Defense. Almost four decades after McNamara, OSD still relies more 

on cost-benefit analysis than on measurements of military effectiveness

for major force decisions. Both OSD and the Joint Staff have also had to 

rely on service input into their decision-making processes. Nonetheless, 

service input has often varied significantly in its level of objectivity,

as demonstrated in the Dynamic Commitment exercises during the 

Quadrennial Defense Review. This problem has presented continuing 

challenges to the Defense Department’s analytical capabilities to credibly assess service capabilities.

Yet structural changes recommended by the National Defense Panel 

augur for an increasingly joint role in force development. Under the NDP’s 

scheme, the Joint Staff could develop future design rules and analytical 

tools adequate to design a force without active service involvement. Joint 

training exercises and warfighting experiments could provide a source of
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data concerning tactical and weapons capabilities that would preclude the 

need for such information from HQDA and other service headquarters. 

A reorganization on the order of “Goldwater-Nichols II” might truncate 

HQDA’s capability to exercise a significant role in reshaping the nation’s

forces into a more capable and integrated joint force for this century. Yet, if 

permitted, as a long-standing proponent of enhanced joint operations, the 

Army and its “Command Post” can continue to contribute to the Defense 

Department’s force development efforts.

Another major consideration argues for HQDA’s continued advocacy in Defense Department resource management processes. Despite 

structural and procedural changes that Goldwater-Nichols mandated, 

both OSD and the Joint Staff continued to base their decision making on 

political as well as military calculations. After nearly six decades of evolution toward jointness, the Defense Department still lacks an authoritative doctrine that delineates and integrates service responsibilities for 

joint warfighting. Similarly, inadequate progress in authoritatively defining service roles and functions has promoted a continuing, intense level 

of interservice competition over programs and forces. Such competition 

continues within the Defense Department and before Congress. As long 

as this degree of dynamic interplay remains a critical determinant in 

Defense Department resource management processes, the Army must 

maintain in the Pentagon a strong advocate for the soldier.

The Army’s headquarters has continued to remain focused on programs that benefit the soldier, promote enhanced joint warfighting, and

further institutional reform of the Defense Department. General Reimer’s 

advocacy during the Quadrennial Defense Review of an outcome that best 

supported the national military strategy and enhanced joint operations 

exemplified this stance.At the same time, during the drawdown, theArmy

carefully avoided advocating reductions to other service programs to bolster marginal Army programs. Further Defense Department reductions 

may overwhelm this collegial approach and precipitate another round of 

intense interservice conflict. Preparation forsuch an outcome looms as yet

another in a series of reshaping challenges.

179

Epilogue

After the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, Army leaders continued to confront many of the same issues that bedeviled them during 

the decade after Goldwater-Nichols. Perhaps their most unanticipated 

and vexing dilemma was how to support the dramatically expanding 

scope of contingency operations. Initially, the Army had committed a 

division-sized stabilization force in Bosnia in 1995 as part of NATO 

operations Joint Endeavor and Joint Guard. The force requirement 

declined to a brigade two years later, and the Army maintained this commitment by rotating active and reserve component units into Bosnia. 

With the conclusion of a NATO air campaign that ejected Serb forces 

from neighboring Kosovo in 1999, the Army had to provide another 

brigade-sized peacekeeping force to Kosovo as the U.S. contribution 

to Operation Joint Guardian. By 2000, the Army had run out of available active component combat forces and had begun mobilizing and 

deploying to Bosnia and Kosovo Army National Guard combat units, 

in addition to reserve component civil affairs, military police, and other 

combat support units.

Army force requirements increased dramatically as the United States 

launched a war on terrorism in response to the terrorist attacks on its 

homeland on 11 September 2001. The Defense Department responded 

to escalating homeland security responsibilities with Operation Noble

Eagle, which forced theArmy to mobilize significant reserve component

forces, including elements of all eight Army National Guard divisions, 

to protect military installations, airports, and other critical facilities in 

the United States. By the end of the year, Operation Enduring Freedom

was also under way in Afghanistan. Army special operations forces 

spearheaded the U.S. effort, augmented by ground forces including elements of the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st Airborne Division 

(Air Assault). Although major operations ended in Afghanistan in the 

spring of 2002, the Army continued to maintain a ground force commitment in Afghanistan equivalent to an understrength division.

In March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom, which involved Army 

and Marine units, expanded Army force requirements. The 3d Infantry 

Division and the 101st Airborne Division undertook most of the initial ground operations. The 4th Infantry Division arrived at the end of 

ground operations in May and moved north of Baghdad, joining the other 
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180

divisions in occupation duties. Since May 2003, occupation duties and 

counterinsurgency operations in Iraq have required an average of at least 

three Army or Marine divisions. Reserve component combat brigades 

participated in the later phases of both Operation Enduring Freedom in 

Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their extensive use forced 

the Army to undertake an almost continuous effort to mobilize and train 

and deploy reserve component units to meet Army force requirements 

for the U.S. Central Command, as well as those for Operation Noble

Eagle. The frequency and intensity of U.S. participation in contingency 

operations raised significant questions concerning the adequacy ofArmy

force levels to execute the requirements of the national strategy.

While Army forces were occupied in the war on terrorism, defense 

reshaping activities continued. The debate over the efficacy of a “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) continued unabated, with many reform 

advocates still arguing that the world was entering an era where revolutionary changes in military technology were rapidly making existing 

military hardware and organizations obsolescent. Army leaders remained 

concerned that this argument might persuade leaders in the Defense 

Department and Congress to fund the high-technology modernization 

programs advocated by RMA proponents at the expense of existing 

force levels and readiness. The debate over the RMA and defense transformation entered into the 2000 presidential campaign when candidate 

George W. Bush endorsed a platform calling for accelerated defense 

transformation.

Despite Army concerns over the direction of the RMA debate, Army 

Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki had already embraced Army 

transformation as the key issue in his tour of duty. He sought to reestablish the Army’s momentum for transforming itself, building on prior 

studies from the LAM era and Force XXI to change doctrine, organizations, and materiel of Army operational forces. Among his transformation goals, Shinseki wanted to develop a force more readily deployable 

than the Army’s heavy forces and more lethal than its light forces. By 

mid-2000, he had approved the design for what were termed Interim 

Brigade Combat Teams, later redesignated as Stryker Brigade Combat 

Teams. By the time he stepped down as chief of staff in June 2003, the 

Army had plans in place to field six of these brigade combat teams by

the end of the decade.

Shinseki’s longer-term goal for Army transformation was to begin 

fielding the Objective Force by the end of the decade. One major target

for the Objective Force was to be able to deploy a brigade-sized Army 

unit anywhere in the world within 96 hours, a division within 120 hours, 

and five complete divisions within 30 days. To make this deployment
Epilogue

181

goal realistic, the Army would have to replace its existing fighting

vehicles with lighter vehicles (designated the Future Combat System 

[FCS]) but withoutsacrificing the force’slethality. Design criteria for the

Stryker combat teams included better modularity of subordinate units, 

integration of digitized tactical communications, and the reduction of 

the overall “logistical footprint” of the Objective Force.

Transformation extended to the institutional Army as well. Army 

Secretary Thomas E. White initiated a review of HQDA’s organization 

and functions, establishing a Department of the Army Realignment Task 

Force on 25 June 2001 to conduct the study. Among other decisions, 

White accepted the task force’s recommendation to implement one option 

that the 1995–1996 HQDA Redesign Functional Area Assessment had 

studied, but Army leaders had rejected. He opted to create an “Executive 

Office” of HQDA that consisted of the secretary of the Army, the under

secretary, the chief of staff, and the vice chief of staff. His goal was 

to better integrate efforts of both the Army Secretariat and the Army 

Staff and to “eliminate the existence of two separate decision making 

channels, clearly delineate responsibilities within the Headquarters, 

streamline the flow of information, and speed decision making.” At

the same time, White strengthened the position of director of the Army 

Staff, delegating to that official the responsibility for coordinating and

tasking actions across HQDA. Another major change in authority was to 

centralize management of Army installations by 1 October 2002 under a 

new field operating agency, the Installation Management Agency, which

would report to the Army’s assistant chief of staff for installation management.1

 The reorganization also affected the structure and functions 

of HQDA’s all-important resource management efforts. HQDA’s Office

of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Army had been converted into 

the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs in 2000, assuming many of the functions formerly executed in the Force Management 

Directorate in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations

and Plans. The new reorganization converted the DCSPRO into the new 

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G–8, who also assumed oversight of

the Army’s Program Analysis and Evaluation Directorate and the Center 

for Army Analysis.2

 These changes implemented a recommendation that 

had been made by a succession of reorganization study groups going 

1

 “Executive Summary: Realignment of Headquarters, Department of the Army,” 

17 December 2001, Historian’s Background Files, CMH. 2

 Headquarters, Department of the Army, General Orders 3, “Assignment of 

Functions and Responsibilities Within Headquarters,” Department of the Army, 9 

July 2002.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

182

back to the 1988 Robust study, strengthening HQDA’s focus on resource 

management issues.

When theGeorgeW.Bush administration took office in January 2001,

preparations for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR 2001) had 

already begun. In late 1999, Congress had directed that the secretary of 

defense conduct a review of strategy, forces, and programs every four 

years. The Joint Staff took the thirteen questions that Congress directed 

that QDR 2001 address and developed a list of “overarching issues” to 

enable the secretary of defense to report to Congress by the statutory 

deadline of 30 September 2001. The Joint Staff also established seven 

functional panels that would analyze options for forces and programs 

during the review itself. The Army participated in all of the panels as 

well as in the development of the overarching issues.3

After Donald H. Rumsfeld was confirmed as secretary of defense

in January 2001, he decided to move QDR 2001 in a different direction 

than the Joint Staff had taken it. The new secretary established eight 

“study groups,” composed of retired officers, other defense experts, and

others outside the Defense Department, to advise him on such issues 

as transformation and strategic mobility. These groups met from March 

to early June, developing a series of recommendations without direct 

participation by either the Army, or in most cases, the Joint Staff.

While these groups were conducting their deliberations in closed 

sessions, OSD directed the Joint Staff to suspend most of the operations 

that the QDR panels had been undertaking. Instead, under the direction 

of the principal deputy under secretary of defense (policy), OSD began 

establishing several Integrated Product Teams (IPTs). For the most part, 

the IPTs analyzed issues similar to those that the Joint Staff’s panels 

had undertaken, but the IPT efforts were clearly led by members of 

OSD. The IPTs started work in late April and had only really begun their 

major analyses by June. Among the most challenging tasks undertaken 

by the QDR was the “Forces IPT” work to shift analyses of forces from 

a “threat-based” approach, used since the 1993 Bottom-Up Review, to 

one that was more “capabilities-based,” such as that pursued by the 1990 

Base Force study. One significant difficulty faced by the IPTs and the

Joint Staff’s panels was the absence, until the end of the review, of a new 

national security strategy, an approved defense strategy, or a national 

military strategy that articulated the Bush administration’s vision and 

goals.

3 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Public Law 65, 106th 

Cong., 1st sess. (5 Oct 1999), sec. 901.
Epilogue

183

Because of the relatively late start of OSD’s IPTs and the complexity of issues involved in the new administration’s first QDR, Secretary

Rumsfeld made no recommendations for major changes in existing 

defense programs in his 30 September 2001 report to Congress. The 

report did, however, articulate a new set of strategic priorities. It changed 

the elements of the department’s strategic framework and defense policy 

goals. Instead of three elements—(1) shape the international environment, (2) respond to the full spectrum of crises, and (3) prepare now for 

an uncertain future—the new model had four elements: (1) assure allies 

and friends, (2) dissuade future military competition, (3) deter threats 

and coercion against U.S. interests, and (4) if deterrence fails, decisively 

defeat any adversary. The new “force-sizing construct” intended to 

implement these goals also had four elements: (1) defend the United 

States; (2) deter aggression and coercion forward in critical regions; (3) 

swiftly defeat aggression in overlapping major conflicts and preserve

for the president the option to call for a decisive victory in one of those 

conflicts, which might involve the possibility of regime change or occupation; and (4) conduct a limited number of smaller-scale contingency 

operations.4

Despite the Defense Department’s success in reorienting the nation’s 

strategic focus to emphasize expanded homeland security requirements, 

the review stopped short of recommending major changes in forces and 

programs. One reason for this outcome was that the IPTs were unable to 

reach a consensus by the end of the summer on how to shape active and 

reserve component forces. Consequently, instead of making hasty decisions, Secretary Rumsfeld chose to continue studying these issues as 

part of the department’s biennial Defense Planning Guidance (DPG).

Since QDR 2001, a series of studies directed by the DPG have led 

the Defense Department to pursue a course toward what has been termed 

“joint transformation.” One of the studies associated with DPG 2004–09 

recommended specific enhancements to joint transformation planning.

The secretary endorsed the study and approved DoD’s Transformation 

Planning Guidance in mid-2003. At the same time, the JCS chairman 

weighed in on transformation issues by updating the regulation that 

dealt with “joint capabilities integration.” The new Joint Capabilities 

Integration and Development System (JCIDS) modified joint resource

planning by changing the manner by which the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council reviewed service programs. Since the early 1990s, 

the JROC has reviewed all major programs at certain milestones in their 

4

 Donald H. Rumsfeld, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, D.C.: 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 30 September 2001), pp. 1–7, 17–23.
The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

184

development to gauge the value of each against joint requirements. Yet 

the JCIDS portended a far more intensive process. One evident goal 

of JCIDS was that all new programs be “born joint,” subjected to an 

extensive review by the Joint Staff and Joint Forces Command to ensure 

that joint integration and interoperability were emphasized from the 

earliest stages of a program. As part of its review process, the Joint Staff 

compares service programs against existing and projected systems and 

capabilities in the other services to reduce the likelihood of duplications 

or gaps in capabilities in the future force. If the JCIDS process matures, 

as many critics of service supremacy in force modernization have argued 

is necessary, the rigorous joint concept development process and review 

will ensure that there will be fewer, if any, truly service programs.5

Secretary Rumsfeld pursued an assertive personal management of 

the Defense Department. He moved carefully and methodically toward 

consolidation of decision making at either his level or lower echelons of 

the joint chain of command. Perhaps more than any secretary of defense 

since Congress enacted Goldwater-Nichols, Rumsfeld capitalized on the 

act’s legal provisions to drive change within the department. Rumsfeld 

employed the full authority of his office to reshape the department

in contrast to what many critics have argued was a more phlegmatic 

approach taken by his immediate predecessors. If these criticisms stand 

the test of time, they underscore the degree to which joint direction of 

change within the Defense Department remains more dependent on the 

personality at the top than on institutional dynamics.

5

 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3170.01c, Joint 

Capabilities Integration and Development System, 24 Jun 2003.
Appendixes

Appendix A: Project Vanguard’s Major Command Options

Option A: Life Cycle Model

Option B: Dual-Hat Model

Option C: “Fighting Force” Model

Option D: Vanguard Vision

Appendix B: The Road to the Quadrennial Defense Review
186

Appendix A

Project Vanguard’s Major Command Options

The Army’s 1990 Project Vanguard Study Group developed the 

following four models, or options, for organizing the Army’s major 

commands and elements of Headquarters, Department of the Army 

(HQDA), for the new strategic environment. These charts depict options 

for MACOMs and their respective relationships with HQDA.

Acronym Key

ARSTAF Army Staff

ASA-CW Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works)

ASA-FM Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management)

ASA-ILE Assistant Secretary of the Army (Installations, Logistics, 

and Environment)

ASA-MRA Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve 

Affairs)

ASA-RDA Assistant Secretary of the Army (Research, 

Development, and Acquisition)

COE Chief of Engineers

CSA Chief of Staff, Army

DISC 4 Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, 

Communications, and Computers

MACOM Major command

MDW Military District of Washington

TO&E Table of Organization and Equipment

Color Key

Service Secretariat level

ARSTAF level

MACOM level

Illustrative functions
MDW

TO&E

Option A: LIFE CYCLE MODEL

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

ASA-FM ASA-MRA ASA-ILE ASA-RDA DISC 4 ASA-CW

CSA

OPERATIONS PEOPLE PLACES THINGS INTEL

PEOPLE PLACES THINGS

RecruitingTrainingDevelop doctrineCombat developmentReligionHealth careLegalCriminal investigations

InstallationsBuildingsMotor poolsSupply pointsMedical facilitiesCivil works

Research & developmentLabsTestingMaterial acquisitionsSupplyMaintenanceDisposalTraffic management

CONCEPT • Derived from the Life Cycle Model taught at the U.S. Army Force Management School • Eleven MACOMs functionally aligned.

• Staff and operations separate• Active components, reserve components, and civilians are fully integrated.
MDW

TO&E

Option B: DUAL-HAT MODEL

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

ASA-FM ASA-MRA ASA-ILE ASA-RDA DISC 4 ASA-CW

CSA

OPERATIONS PEOPLE COE THINGS INTEL

TrainDevelop doctrineCombat development

CONCEPT • Follows Corps of Engineers model • ARSTAF principal dual-hatted as MACOM commander.

• Eliminates most field operating agencies

TRAINING PEOPLE COE THINGS INTEL/

SECURITY

RecruitingAssignmentsHealth supportAdmin system

Civil worksEngr construction

SupplyMaintenanceDisposal of equipmentResearch & developmentMateriel testingAcquire equipmentFielding of equipmentTraffic management

Intel

• Staff, operations, and base operations combined.• Thirteen MACOMs functionally aligned.• Active components, reserve components, and civilians are fully integrated.

*

*COE (Corps of Engineers) as a major command
MDW

COMPONENT

COMMANDS

Option C: “FIGHTING FORCE” MODEL

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

ASA-FM ASA-MRA ASA-ILE ASA-RDA DISC 4 ASA-CW

CSA

OPERATIONS PEOPLE COE THINGS INTEL

HEAVY FORCE SPECIAL

OPERATIONS

FORCES

SERVICE

SUPPORT

TrainsMaintainsDevelops doctrineRuns installationsIntell

CONCEPT

• Follows World War II model• Mission-oriented MACOMs similar to U.S. Air Force and U.S.  Navy• Staff and operations separate• Mission and base operations combined.• Seven MACOMs operationally aligned.• Active components, reserve components, and civilians are fully integrated.

LIGHT FORCE

TrainsMaintainsDevelops doctrineRuns installationsIntell

TrainsMaintainsDevelops doctrineRuns installationsIntell

People• Recruits• Trains• Investigates• Health care• Develops patient adminPlaces• Acquires• Runs installations• Engr construction• Civil worksThings• Acquires equipment• Supplies equipment• Maintains• Disposes• Traffic management
FORCES

COMMAND

Option D: VANGUARD VISION

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

ASA-FM ASA-MRA ASA-ILE ASA-RDA DISC 4 ASA-CW

CSA

OPERATIONS PEOPLE COE THINGS INTEL

Leader developmentDoctrineCombat developmentsTrains (Initial Entry Training)

CONCEPT • Modified Life Cycle Model • Nine MACOMs functionally aligned.

• Staff and operations separate

TRAINING AND

DOCTRINE

COMMAND

PERSONNEL

COMMAND

SERVICE

COMMAND

LOGISTICS

COMMAND

INTELLIGENCE

AND SECURITY

COMMAND

People• Recruits• Manages• Health care• Criminal investigations• Safety• Branch proponency

Places• Acquires• Runs installations• Engr construction• Civil works

Things• Acquires equipment• Supplies equipment• Maintains• Disposes• Traffic management• Research & development• Testing materiel• Information management (systems)

Strategic intel

U.S. ARMY

SPECIAL

OPERATIONS

U.S. ARMY,

COMMAND

PACIFIC

U.S. ARMY,

EUROPE

• Eliminates or reduces many field operating agencies• Separates mission from base operations• Active components, reserve components, and civilians are fully integrated.
191

Appendix B

The Road to the Quadrennial Defense Review

Study Time Frame Proponent

Defense Management

 Review 1989–1992 Office of the Secretary of Defense

Base Force 1989–1990 Chairman, Joint Chiefs of

 Staff

Antaeus 1988–1990 Army Deputy Chief of Staff

 for Operations and Plans

Quicksilver 1990–1991 Army Program Analysis and 

 Evaluation Directorate

Vanguard 1990–1991 Army Vice Chief of Staff

Joint Chiefs Chairman’s

 Roles and Missions 1992–1993 Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Bottom-Up Review 1994 Office of the Secretary of

 Defense

Commission on Roles and

 Missions (CORM) 1994–1995 Congress/Office of the Secretary of Defense

Quadrennial Defense

 Review (QDR) 1996–1997 Congress/Office of the Secretary of Defense

National Defense Panel

 (NDP) 1997 Congress/Office of the Secretary of Defense

193

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Interviews

The author conducted interviews and taped conversations with the 

following individuals: Col. C. Kenneth Allard, National Defense 

University; Albert D. Brown, Force Integration and Management 

Division, Force Development Directorate, Office of the Deputy

Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (DAMO-FDF); Robin 

Buckelew, Strategic Synchronization Cell; David S. C. Chu; Maj. 

Gen. Arthur Dean, Director, Military Personnel Management, 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; Blair Ewing, Task Force on 

Defense Reform; Lt. Col. Frank Finelli, U.S. Army, Quadrennial 

Defense Review Support Team (J–8); General John W. Foss, U.S. 

Army, Ret.; Col. William Foster, War Plans Division, Strategy, 

Plans, and Policy Directorate, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Operations and Plans (DAMO-SSW); Col. Stanley F. Gorenc, U.S. 

Air Force, Chief, Studies, Analysis, and Gaming Division, J–8; Maj. 

Gen. John R. Greenway, Director, Project Vanguard; Col. Michael 

V. Harper, Chief of Staff, Army’s Staff Group; Admiral David 

Jeremiah, U.S. Navy, Ret., National Defense Panel; Col. Michael G. 

Jones, Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA), Redesign 

Working Group and Headquarters Redesign Working Group; Robert 

M. Kimmitt, National Defense Panel; Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., 
206

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

National Defense Panel; Lt. Gen. Richard D. Lawrence, U.S. Army, 

Ret.; Col. Jack LeCuyer, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Operations and Plans Initiatives Group; James R. Locher III, Task 

Force on Defense Reform; William Lynn III, Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Program Analysis and Evaluation); James R. McDonough, 

National Defense Panel staff; Col. William McManaway, Deputy 

Director, Strategic Synchronization Cell; Philip Odeen, Chairman, 

National Defense Panel; Arnold Punaro, Chairman, Task Force on 

Defense Reform; General Dennis J. Reimer, Commander, U.S. Army 

Forces Command; General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army, 

Ret.; Maj. Gen. Theodore G. Stroup, Jr.; Capt. Robert Sweeney, U.S. 

Navy, Warfighting Analysis Division, Force Structure, Resources,

and Assessment Directorate (J–8), Joint Staff; B. Anthony Turner, 

HQDA Redesign Working Group; Col. W. A. Whittle, Chief, Project 

Vanguard Concepts Team; Kim Wincup, Task Force on Defense 

Reform; and Dov S. Zakheim, Task Force on Defense Reform. 

Other interviews used in this study are with the following individuals: 

Archie D. Barrett, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army 

for Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Harold Brown; Mark F. Cancian, 

Director, Infrastructure and Central Support Group, Commission on 

Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces (CORM) staff; Lt. Col. 

Peter G. Cassi, Army Roles and Missions Directorate; Brig. Gen. 

Daniel W. Christman, Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate, Office

of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (DAMO-SS); 

Brig. Gen. John Costello; Maj. Gen. Jerome H. Granrud, Force 

Development Directorate, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Operations and Plans (DAMO-FD); Michael Leonard, Executive 

Director, CORM staff; Lt. Col. Timothy S. Muchmore, Strategic 

Synchronization Cell; Lt. Gen. William H. Reno, U.S. Army, Ret.; 

Col. Christopher A. Rockwell, Army Roles and Missions Directorate; 

Lt. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations 

and Plans; General Maxwell Thurman; General Carl E. Vuono, U.S. 

Army, Ret.; and Col. L. Patrick Wright, Deputy Director, Army 

Roles and Missions Directorate.

Brownlee, Romie L., and William J. Mullen III, eds., Changing an Army: 

An Oral History of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired. Carlisle 

Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army Military History Institute and U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1988.
207

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACOM U.S. Atlantic Command

ACSIM Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation 

Management

ADO	 Army Digitization Office

AMC U.S. Army Materiel Command

AMRCO	 Army Management Review Coordination Office

AOC Army Operations Center

ARSTAF Army Staff

ASD (SO/LIC) Assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict

ATACMS Army Tactical Missile System

AVCSA Assistant vice chief of staff of the Army

AWE	 Advanced Warfighting Experiment

BRAC Base Realignment and Closure

BUR Bottom-Up Review

CAA U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency

CAT Crisis Action Team

CEM Concepts Evaluation Model

CENTCOM U.S. Central Command

CFE Conventional Forces in Europe

CINC Commander in chief

CINCEUR Commander in chief, Europe

CIS Confederation of Independent States

CJCSI Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction

CMH U.S. Army Center of Military History

CNA Center for Naval Analyses

CONARC Continental Army Command

CONUS Continental United States

CORM Commission on Roles and Missions

CRC Crisis Response Cell

CSA Chief of Staff, Army

CSEEA Close Support End-to-End Analysis

CVBG Carrier battle group

DA Department of the Army

DA PAM Department of the Army Pamphlet 
208

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

DAMO-FD	 Force Development Directorate, Office of the

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

DAMO-FDF Force Integration and Management Division, 

Force Development Directorate, Office of the

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans 

DAMO-FDX Joint Studies and Analysis Division, Force 

Development Directorate, Office of the Deputy

Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

DAMO-ODR Force Readiness Division, Operations, Readiness, 

and Mobilization Directorate, Office of the

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

DAMO-SS	 Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate, Office of

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and 

Plans

DAMO-SSW War Plans Division, Strategy, Plans, and Policy 

Directorate, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

for Operations and Plans

DAMO-ZM	 Roles and Missions Directorate, Office of the

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

DAS Director of the Army Staff

DAWMS Deep-Attack Weapons Mix Study

DC Dynamic Commitment

DCSOPS Deputy chief of staff for operations and plans

DCSPER Deputy chief of staff for personnel

DCSPRO Deputy chief of staff for programs

DEPSECDEF Deputy secretary of defense

DG Defense Guidance

DMR Defense Management Review

DMRD Defense Management Report Decision

DMZ Demilitarized Zone

DoD Department of Defense

DPA&E Director, program analysis and evaluation 

DPG Defense Planning Guidance

DPRB Defense Planning and Resources Board

EUCOM U.S. European Command

FCS Future Combat System

FFRDC Federally funded research and development center

FLIR Forward-looking infrared receiver

FLOT Forward line of own troops

FOA Field operating agency 
209

FORSCOM Forces Command

FSB Forward support battalion

FY Fiscal year

FYDP Future Years Defense Program

GAO	 U.S. General Accounting Office

GHQ General Headquarters

GOSC	 General Officer Steering Committee

HD-LD High demand-low density 

HQDA Headquarters, Department of the Army

HSC U.S. Army Health Services Command

IDA Institute for Defense Analyses

IFOR Implementation Force

INF Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement

IPS Illustrative Planning Scenario

IPT Integrated Product Team

JCIDS Joint Capabilities Integration and Development 

System

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff 

JICM Joint Integrated Contingency Model

JMNA Joint Military Net Assessment

JROC Joint Requirements Oversight Council

JSR Joint Strategy Review

JTF Joint Task Force

JWCA	 Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessment

LAM Louisiana Maneuvers

LHX/RAH–66 Light Helicopter Experimental 

LMSR Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off

LRC Lesser regional contingency

MACOM Major command 

MEB Marine Expeditionary Brigade

MEF Marine Expeditionary Force

MFP 11 Major Force Program 11 

MHI U.S. Army Military History Institute

MLRS Multiple Launch Rocket System

MRC Major regional contingency

MRS Mobility Requirements Study

Abbreviations and Acronyms
210

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

MRS BURU Mobility Requirements Study/Bottom-Up Review 

(Update)

MTM/day Million ton miles per day 

MTOF Mission task-organized forces

MTW Major Theater War

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDAA National Defense Authorization Act

NDP National Defense Panel

NEO Noncombatant evacuation operation

NPR National Performance Review

NSC National Security Council

OAS Organization of American States

ODCSOPS	 Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations

and Plans

OOTW Operations other than war

OPTEMPO Operational tempo

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

PACOM	 U.S. Pacific Command

PA&E Program Analysis and Evaluation

PERSTEMPO Personnel tempo

POM Program Objective Memorandum

POMCUS	 Prepositioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets

PPBS Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review

QDR 2001 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review 

RMA Revolution in military affairs

SASC Senate Armed Services Committee 

SFOR Stabilization Force

SOCOM U.S. Special Operations Command

SOUTHCOM U.S. Southern Command

SSA Staff support agency 

SSC Small-scale contingency

SSG Senior Steering Group

TACWAR Tactical Warfare model

TDA Table of Distribution and Allowance 
211

TOA Total obligation authority

TO&E Table of organization and equipment 

TRAC TRADOC Analysis Center

TRADOC Training and Doctrine Command

UN United Nations

UNOSOM II United Nations Operations in Somalia II

USA United States Army

USAF United States Air Force

USAREUR U.S. Army, Europe 

USMC United States Marine Corps

WORRM Weapon Optimization and Resource Requirements 

Model

Abbreviations and Acronyms

213

Index

Advanced Warfighting Experiments/

AWEs, 111

Afghanistan, 179

Africa, 103–04

AH–64D helicopter. See Helicopters.

Airborne Corps, XVIII. See Corps, XVIII 

Airborne.

Airborne Division 

82d, 19, 33, 35, 63, 67, 105

101st (Air Assault), 19, 67, 179

AirLand Battle-Future, 26, 111. See also

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command (TRADOC).

and Antaeus study, 173

and Base Force proposals, 48–49, 50

on command and control, 2

Airlift, 19, 69, 122

Air National Guard, 92

Antaeus study, 24–25, 29–31, 37, 38, 42, 

76, 80, 174

and AirLand Battle-Future, 173

goals of, 27

members of, 26

and organizational changes, 36

recommendations of, 28, 32

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 105

Armored Division

1st, 68, 106, 107

2d, 63–64

Armored Family of Vehicles, 21

Armored Systems Modernization 

program, 21

Army Chief of Staff, 8–9, 11, 13. See 

also under names of individual 

chiefs.

Army Digitization Office (ADO), 109, 111

Army, Eighth U.S., 42

Army Management Review of 1989, 59

Army National Guard, 18, 69, 111, 142, 

148

and Antaeus study, 28

Base Force study impact on, 59

in Bosnia, 179

and Bottom-Up Review, 98

and contingency plans, 20

divisions of, 25

enhanced readiness brigades of, 87, 

121–22, 142–43, 156

force levels of, 143

in Gulf War, 64

and Kosovo, 179

and Quicksilver I, 39

and Quicksilver II, 39–40

readiness of, 25

“round-out” brigades of, 23–24

units as cadre formations, 53

and war on terrorism, 179

Army Operations Center (AOC), 34, 110

Army Reserve

and CORM, 92

and Gulf War, 64

and humanitarian aid, 66, 173

morale issues in, 120–21

use mothballed facilities, 74

and “off-site conferences,” 148

in peacekeeping operations, 120–21

and Quicksilver II, 40

and readiness, 144

Army Secretariat

and Army Staff, 16, 167, 181

political appointees in, 12, 101

responsibilities of, 5, 11, 13, 77

and Redesign Working Group, 114, 

115, 116

Army Service Forces, 61, 96

Army Staff, 5, 67, 77, 167

	 Army Digitization Office developed,

109

and Army Secretariat, 16, 101, 181

director of (DAS), 16, 45n, 181

on equipment, 19, 75

and Kuwait, 65

and PPBS, 7n

and readiness, 30

and Redesign Working Group, 114, 

115, 116

responsibilities of, 13, 77, 181

turnover on, 175

and vice chief of staff, 16

Army Tactical Missile System 

(ATACMS), 21, 100, 132

Army War College, 114

Aspin, Les, 72, 81, 82–83, 84–85, 86, 92

Assistant secretary of defense for special 

operations and low-intensity 

conflict (ASD[SO/LIC]), 16
214

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

Assistant vice chief of staff of the Army 

(AVCSA), 122, 124, 153, 181

Asymmetrical threats, 141

Baghdad, 179

Base Force, 45–46, 50, 56, 57, 59, 69, 

78, 81–82, 142, 149, 163, 167, 

168, 174

and AirLand Battle-Future studies, 

48–49

Atlantic Force Package of, 47, 64–65 

and base closures, 74

and Bottom-Up Review, 80, 91

and Chairman, JCS, 80

Cheney adopts, 54, 66

and contingencies, 67–68, 70

Contingency Force Package of, 47, 

64–65

criticism of, 54–55, 70, 176

cuts expanded, 82

DPRB approves, 52–53

force projection units emphasized, 48

force reductions, 51–52, 59–60, 122, 

128, 170, 172–73

and forward-basing, 68

Gulf War impacted by, 63

	 Pacific Force Package, 47

and POM process, 109, 148–49

Quicksilver impacted by, 49

readjustment begun by, 70

risk involved in, 59

on rivalry between active Army and 

National Guard, 87

Strategic Force Package of, 47

view of Cold War, 47

Base Realignment and Closure 

Commission (BRAC), 73–75, 

172. See also under individual 

installations.

Bosnia, 106, 108, 174, 179

Bottom-Up Review (BUR), 90, 91, 93, 

122, 126, 140, 149, 162, 163, 174

Aspin authorizes, 82

bombers, long-range, under, 86–87

budget reductions recommendations, 

117

carrier battle groups under, 86–87

and contingencies, 86, 90–91, 98, 

134n, 169

contradictions in, 90–91

criticism of, 123, 176

force analysis of, 89

force enhancement of, 86–87

forecasts of, 141

and HQDA, 168, 172

and humanitarian assistance missions, 

142

and national military strategy, 82–83, 

88

organization for task forces, 82

and OSD, 167

and POM, 109, 148

reductions of, 128

on U.S. forward presence in Europe 

and Asia, 89

and win-hold-win concept, 83–84, 

126–27

Bush, George H. W., 64, 65, 104

and arms reductions, 32

and New World Order, 107, 168

Bush, George W., 182

C–5A (aircraft), 33

C–17 (aircraft), 86–87

C–141B (aircraft), 33

Cavalry Division (Armored), 1st, 67–68

Center for Army Analysis, 181–82

Center for Land Warfare, 153–54, 163

Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), 

92–93, 133

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 27, 81. 

See also Joint Chiefs of Staff 

(JCS).

authority of, 1, 13, 80, 166

Chairman’s Program Assessment of 

POMs, 53, 167

Chairman’s Roles, Missions, and 

Functions Study, 78, 91, 96, 130, 

171

Cheney, Richard B., 46, 54, 59

Chu, Dr. David S. C., 24

Civil affairs units, 35, 66, 105, 108, 179

tempo of, 135, 173

Clinton, William J., 81–82, 104, 106

Close Support End-to-End Analysis 

(CSEEA), 131, 132

Cohen, William S., 123–24, 159

Cold War, 15, 27, 47, 53

defense budgets impacted by end of, 1

force requirements during, 18
215

Index

Combatant commanders, 8, 16, 42, 49, 

134, 138, 157

and contingency operations, 119

Goldwater-Nichols and, 1, 166

Louisiana Maneuvers, 109, 110

responsibilities of, 10

Combined Arms Center, 109–10

Commission on Roles and Missions of 

the Armed Forces (CORM), 94, 

102, 113, 153, 167, 176. See also

Deep-Attack Weapons Mix Study 

(DAWMS); Office of the Deputy

Chief of Staff for Operations 

and Plans (ODCSOPS); Roles, 

missions, and functions.

and civil service, 147

consolidation combined with 

centralization, 97n

on Defense Department processes and 

management, 100

established, 92, 171

and infrastructure issues, 97, 145, 

162

	 on joint warfighting, 97

membership of, 92

and National Defense Review, 151, 157

on outsourcing, 97

and overlap, 98–99

political support for, 170

QDR recommended by, 119

Concepts Analysis Agency, 88

Confederation of Independent States 

(CIS), 67, 88

Congressional Budget Office, 159

Continental Army Command 

(CONARC), 42

Continental United States (CONUS), 

18, 19

and Air Force lift capabilities, 31

and base closures, 32, 74

CORM on, 97–98

and East Asia Strategy Initiative, 89

force projection units of, 48

and functional force packages, 47

and Gulf War, 64–65

and major commands, 113

Panama operations, 34

and Vanguard Vision, 42

Contingency forces, 19–20, 27–28, 

32–36

overlap among, 79, 96

requirements of, 174

and restructuring, 108

Contingency operations, 100. See also

Operations.

Army participation in, 103, 107, 120, 

173, 180

and Bottom-Up Review, 169

in Caribbean, 120

expansion of scope of, 179

and HQDA, 32–33, 65

in Middle East, 44

and OPTEMPO, 123

plans for, 17, 83

and QDR, 127–28

win-hold-win option, 83

Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), 

22, 23–24, 32, 37

Corps 

I, 24, 68, 69

III, 67, 68

V, 68

Corps, XVIII Airborne, 19, 20, 68, 106

and contingency operations, 28, 34, 

35, 107

in Desert Storm, 63

and MRC-East, 67

Costello, Brig. Gen. John, 93

Crisis Action Team (CAT), 65

Crisis Response Cell (CRC), 34, 35, 65

Crowe, Admiral William J., Jr., 37, 56

Crusader self-propelled howitzer, 129, 

144

Cuba, 105

Dayton Peace Agreement, 106–07

Deep-Attack Weapons Mix Study 

(DAWMS), 131, 132, 133, 134n

Defense Logistics Agency, 63, 157

Defense Management Council, 161

Defense Management Review (DMR), 

59, 61, 80, 90, 112, 170

and consolidation, 63, 96, 162

and infrastructure issues, 160, 171

recommendations of, 60–61, 75–76

Defense Planning Guidance 2004–2009

(DPG), 183

Defense Planning and Resources Board 

(DPRB), 52

Defense Reform Initiative, 160, 161–62
216

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

Defense Reorganization Act of 1958, 55, 

56, 99–100

Defense Science Board, 145–46, 148

Dellums, Ronald V., 91–92

Department of the Army, 5, 7n, 76. 

See also Army Secretariat; 

Headquarters, Department of 

the Army (HQDA); Planning, 

Programming and Budgeting 

System (PPBS); U.S. Army Forces 

Command (FORSCOM).

Department of the Army Realignment 

Task Force, 181

Department of Defense, 1, 2, 151, 175. 

See also Joint Chiefs of Staff 

(JCS); Office of the Secretary of

Defense (OSD).

and Base Force proposals, 49

and Bottom-Up Review, 86

consolidation of nontactical 

headquarters in, 60

impact of Goldwater-Nichols on, 13, 15

“operational tempo,” 20n

reorganization studies, 24

and reversibility of reductions, 37

Department of Defense Reorganization 

Act of 1986. See GoldwaterNichols Act. 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations 

and Plans (DCSOPS), 23, 35, 73, 

112, 114. See also under names of 

individuals.

Antaeus study and, 26

and Bottom-Up Review, 84

Concepts, Doctrine, and Force Policy 

Division of, 132

and Force XXI, 117

and Force Management Directorate, 

181

	 Joint Warfighting Studies and

Analysis Division, 132

Louisiana Maneuvers, 109, 110

and QDR, 126, 153

and Roles and Missions Directorate, 93

Dickinson, William, 71

“Doctrine for Joint Operations.” See 

Joint Publication 3-0.

“Draft Department of the Army 

Pamphlet” (DA PAM)-100XX, 

113, 115–16

Dynamic Commitment exercises, 

134, 136, 143, 176. See also 

Quadrennial Defense Review of 

1997 (QDR); Vignette drills.

responses to, 139–40

seminars held during, 137–40

East Asia Strategy Initiative of 1990, 

89

Field Artillery Command, 56th, 22, 

23–24

Field operating agencies (FOAs), 5, 41, 

45

Fleet Marine Force, 24

Force XXI, 111–17, 171, 174, 180

Force modernization, 20–21, 25, 82, 123, 

157, 158, 170

	 and Army Digitization Office, 109

and Bottom-Up Review, 82

and IPSs, 134

and Louisiana Maneuvers, 117

and POMs, 39, 54

and QDR, 129

tactical, 174

Force Structure Panel. See

Quadrennial Defense Review of 

1997 (QDR).

Fort Bragg, 35

Fort Devens, 74

Fort McNair, 148

Fort Monroe, 44, 109

Fort Ord, 74

Fort Sheridan, 73

Forward-looking infrared receiver 

(FLIR), 109, 117

Forward support battalions (FSBs), 30

Foss, General John W., 25, 26, 75

Fuertes Defensas (U.S. Southern 

Command), 110

Future Combat System (FCS), 181

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), 

6, 25, 37, 131, 149, 152

Garner, Lt. Gen. Jay M., 124, 126, 127

General Headquarters Exercises

GHQ-93, 110

GHQ-94, 110

GHQ-95, 110

and Louisiana Maneuvers, 110
217

Index

Goldwater-Nichols Act, 1, 15, 63, 77, 

165–67

and contingency plans, 17

goals of, 10, 32, 166

and HQDA, 15, 45, 53, 80

impact of, 12, 13

JCS Roles and Missions study 

mandated by, 31, 78

and joint command and control 

modifications, 35

and joint doctrine, 55, 71

and Joint Staff, 15, 53, 55

motives for, 2

and national military strategy, 17, 53

Nunn and, 115

opposition to, 15

and OSD, 15, 53

requires Chairman’s Program 

Assessment of POMs, 53

Title IV, 10–11

Title V, 10–11

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 21–22

Gray, General Alfred M., Jr., 51–52

Greenway, Maj. Gen. John R., 40–41, 42

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 104–05

Gulf War, 60, 63–66, 67, 70, 87. See also

Operation Desert Storm.

Haiti, 105–06, 107, 173

Hamre, John J., 160, 161

Headquarters, Department of the Army 

(HQDA), 5, 17, 35, 59, 60n, 

75, 76, 175, 177, 181. See also

Army Secretariat; Army Staff; 

Crisis Action Team (CAT); Crisis 

Response Cell (CRC); Field 

operating agencies (FOAs); 

Headquarters Redesign Study; 

Staff support agencies (SSAs).

and Base Force study, 46, 53, 57

budgets impact, 21, 76

and contingency operations, 33, 65, 

106, 107

and CORM, 97, 168

	 Executive Office of, 181

and force modernization, 174

force reductions by, 23, 24, 28, 32, 76

Goldwater-Nichols impacts, 10, 13, 

15, 21, 167, 172

and Gulf War, 63

and humanitarian aid, 65–66

and Joint Staff, 33

and management and resources, 7

operational plan to reshape Army, 71

operational tempo, 30

and Operation Desert Shield, 44, 65

Operation Vigilant Warrior, 106

pre-positioned equipment, 72–73

and QDR, 122, 126, 129, 168, 169

and Quicksilver I reductions, 39

Redesign Functional Area 

Assessment, 114, 116, 117, 181

Redesign Working Group, 114, 115

streamlining of, 76, 171

Transformation Study of 1992, 112, 171

Vanguard Vision and, 42, 45

Headquarters Redesign Study. See

Shannon-Reimer Study.

Helicopters

AH–64D Apache, 21, 25

RAH–66 Comanche, 129, 144

Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX/

RAH–66), 21

UH–60, 21, 25, 129

High demand-low density units (HD-LD), 

135

Homeland security, 183

Honduras, 33

Host-nation support, 64–65, 142–43

Humanitarian assistance, 103, 120, 137, 

138, 142, 173

Human Resources Panel. See 

Quadrennial Defense Review of 

1997 (QDR).

Illustrative Planning Scenarios (IPSs), 134

Implementation Force (IFOR), 106. See 

also Bosnia.

Infantry Brigade, 193d, 35

Infantry Division

1st (Mechanized), 68, 107

2d, 19, 20, 24, 68

3d (Mechanized), 68, 179

4th (Mechanized), 23, 67–68, 179

5th (Mechanized), 34, 68

6th, 19

7th (Light), 19, 20, 33, 34, 35, 68, 69

9th (Motorized), 20, 23, 24, 64

24th (Mechanized), 67, 106

25th (Light), 19, 20, 24, 68, 106, 107
218

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

Information technology, 109, 117, 128, 130

Infrastructure Panel. See Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 (QDR).

Infrastructure Task Force, 146

Installation Management Agency, 181

Institute for Defense Analyses, 92, 131

Integrated Product Teams (IPTs), 182, 183

Integration Panel. See Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 (QDR).

Interim Brigade Combat Teams, 180

Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) 

agreement, 22

Interoperability, 7, 8, 34, 100, 140, 184

CORM on, 97, 99

and force levels, 71

in Somalia, 104

Interservice rivalries, 127–28, 177

Iran, 17, 82–83

Iraq, 44, 55, 64, 70, 83, 89, 173

John F. Kennedy School of Government, 

92

Joint Capabilities Integration and 

Development System (JCIDS), 

183–84

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 2, 13, 157. 

See also Chairman, Joint Chiefs 

of Staff; “Minimum-Risk Force”; 

Mobility Requirements Study 

(MRS); under names of individual 

chairmen.

and Army Chief of Staff, 11–12

and Base Force proposals, 49

Goldwater-Nichols Act impacts, 10, 12

Mobility Requirements Study of, 69

and Operation Golden Pheasant, 33

pre-positioned equipment, 72–73

Roles and Missions study by, 78

and the services, 7–8

and strategic planning, 3, 16

and Task Force on Defense Reform, 

159

war gaming used by, 133

Joint doctrine, 55, 165, 174

Joint Doctrine Center, 157

Joint operations, 71, 130

Joint Publication 3-0, 79, 130

Joint Requirements Oversight Council 

(JROC), 115, 131, 166, 169, 172, 

174, 175, 183

Joint Staff, 24, 45, 50, 116, 171, 176. See 

also Close Support End-to-End 

Analysis (CSEEA); Deep-Attack 

Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS); 

Joint Requirements Oversight 

Council (JROC); Joint Warfighting

Capabilities Assessment (JWCA). 

and Antaeus study, 38

and Base Force study, 46, 48, 55, 57, 

59, 168

consolidation recommendations of, 79

on contingencies, 59, 68–69, 84

and CORM, 92, 97–98

force design process of, 47

and force modernization, 174

Force Structure, Resources, and 

Assessment Directorate (J–8), 88, 

131, 133, 134–35

geographical and functional force 

packages, 47–48

Goldwater-Nichols Act and, 10, 13, 

15, 51

and HQDA, 33, 35

illustrative planning scenarios of, 88

and joint doctrine, 97–98

	 on major regional conflicts, 67, 87

and mission task-organized forces, 127

on MRC-East, 67

national military strategy, 66, 83, 149, 

182

operational tempo developed, 20n

“Planning Force” levels, 18

and QDR, 123, 130–32, 141

and QDR 2001, 182

readiness issues and, 99–100

and reductions of Army in Europe, 40

resource management of, 167–68

on Soviet Union, 37

Strategic Plans and Policy 

Directorate, 87, 88

strategic review completed, 66–67

and Task Force on Defense Reform, 

160

Joint Strategy Review (JSR) (Joint Staff), 

141–42

Joint Venture, 111

Joint Vision 2010, 130

Joint Warfighting Capabilities

Assessment (JWCA), 131

Jones, General David C., 7
219

Index

Korea, 17, 19, 20, 134, 143. See also

North Korea; South Korea.

Kosovo, 179

Kurds, 65

Kuwait, 65, 83, 134

Iraqi occupation of, 44, 55

and MRC-East, 89

quarantine of, 64

training equipment set in, 71, 72, 

106

Laird, Melvin R., 54

Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off 

(LMSR) ships, 86

Leap-ahead technology, 128

Lesser regional contingencies (LRCs), 

89, 90, 117, 173

Army impacted by, 107–08, 120, 

127

and national military strategy, 103

LHX/RAH–66. See Helicopters.

Light forces, 95–96

Logistics Command, 157

Logistics Management Institute, 92

Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM), 108, 111, 

173, 180

exercises and simulations developed 

by, 109

and force modernization, 174

and information technology, 128

POM bypassed, 109

Synthetic Theater of War, 109–10

Task Force, 109, 110, 117

Low-intensity conflicts, 16–17

M1 main battle tank, 129

M1A1 tank, 21, 25

M2/M3 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle,

21, 25

M109 howitzer, 20, 21

Major commands (MACOMs), 41, 113, 

115, 171

Army Staff and, 5

budget requests of, 7

and Louisiana Maneuvers, 117

and redesign options, 114, 116

types of, 5

and Vanguard study, 42, 44

Major Force Program 11 (MFP 11), 

16

Major Regional Contingencies (MRCs), 

87, 117

and Bottom-Up Review, 82–83

East, 67–68, 83, 89

West, 67, 68–69, 83

Major Theater War (MTW), 133n, 134, 

137, 173

and Desert Storm, 173

and Dynamic Commitment, 138, 143

forces needed for, 135, 144, 156

Joint Strategy Review on, 141, 142

naval aspects of, 133

and QDR, 154–55

TACWAR analysis of, 136

“Management of Defense Health Care,” 61

Marine Amphibious Brigades, 73

Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEB), 73

Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), 99

Maritime Strategy, 70

Marshall-Collins Plan, 2, 61, 101

Marsh, John O., Jr., 11

McNamara, Robert S., 6, 7n, 113, 167, 176

McPeak, General Merrill A., 94–96

Meyer, General Edward C., 7–8

Military Airlift Command, 35

Military police, 34, 35, 105, 108, 173

and contingencies, 28, 152

reserve component, 106, 197, 179

Military Sealift Command, 73

Military Traffic Management Command,

24, 44

“Minimum-Risk Force,” 18

Missile defense, 17

Missiles, 87

Mission task-organized forces (MTOF), 

127

Mobility Requirements Study (MRS), 69

Mobilization plans, 18, 19, 20, 38

Modernization, 20–21, 30–31, 121–22, 

126–27

Modernization Panel. See Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 (QDR).

Modern Louisiana Maneuvers. See

Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM).

Mogadishu, Somalia, 104

Montenegro, 135

Mountain Division, 10th, 104, 105, 106, 

107, 179

Multinational Force and Observers in the 

Sinai Desert, 135
220

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

Multinational forces, 89, 103, 107–08

Multiple Launch Rocket System 

(MLRS), 20–21

National Defense Authorization Act 

(NDAA). See also Commission on 

Roles and Missions of the Armed 

Forces (CORM).

for 1987, 16

for 1991, 51, 59, 171

for 1994, 92

for 1997, 151

for 1998, 171

National Defense Panel (NDP), 151, 162, 

172, 174, 176. See also Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 (QDR).

on force levels, 156

on jointness, 158

methodology of, 153

organization of, 153

recommendations of, 157–58, 163

on research and development, 158

scope of, 154

strategic issues debated by, 155

transformation strategy recommended 

by, 155, 156

National Guard Bureau, 26, 148

National military strategy, 18, 25, 37, 66, 

94, 120–22, 173

Aspin on, 82

forecasts based on, 135–36

and Goldwater-Nichols Act, 17

and QDR, 127, 182

National Performance Review (NPR), 115

National Security Act of 1947, 2

National Security Council (NSC), 151

National security strategy, 49–50, 82–83, 

94, 182

Nation building, 35–36

Nicaragua, 33

Nimble Dancer I, 134n

Nimble Dancer II, 134n

Noriega, General Manuel, 34

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO), 18, 28, 69, 99, 103

and arms agreements, 22

and Bosnia, 106, 107, 179

force ratios in Europe, 50

forward basing of troops in support 

of, 68

strategic priority of U.S., 89

and troops withdrawals, 49

and U.S. forces in Europe, 40, 89

North Korea, 68, 83, 89

Nunn, Sam, 91, 115

Objective Force, 180–81

Odom, Lt. Gen. William E., 70, 71

Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of

Staff of the Army, 181

Office of the Chief,Army PublicAffairs, 26

Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 26

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Intelligence, 26

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Logistics, 26

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS)

and Bottom-Up Review, 84

and command-post exercises, 110

Force Management Directorate, 181

and National Defense Panel, 153–54

Roles and Missions Directorate, 96, 

101, 122

War Plans Division, 26

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Personnel, 26, 116

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Programs, 181

Office of the Director, Program Analysis

and Evaluation, 45

Office of the Judge Advocate General, 77

Office of the Secretary of Defense

(OSD), 2, 50, 51, 77, 83, 116, 176. 

See also Integrated Product Teams 

(IPTs).

and Antaeus study, 38

and Base Force, 57

budgets, 24, 36

and capability assessments, 99–100

consolidation of functions, 63

Defense Management Review (DMR) 

conducted by, 59

and force reductions, 24, 51–52, 

174–75

Goldwater-Nichols impacts, 13, 15, 

166, 167, 171, 177

and HQDA, 168

	 major regional conflicts, 67

Meyer on, 8
221

Index

and mission task-organized forces, 127

and National Defense Panel, 158

national military strategy drafted by, 83

and Planning, Programming, and 

Budgeting System, 6n

and POM process, 148, 149

Program Review, 171–72, 175

and QDR, 123

and QDR 2001, 182

reductions implemented, 81

on Russia/Soviet Union, 37, 88–89

size of, 2–3

strategic review completed, 66

and Task Force on Defense Reform, 

159, 160, 161–62

 war gaming used by, 133

Okinawa, 85

Operational tempo (OPTEMPO), 20n, 

123, 135, 173

training, 20–21, 30, 39–40, 117 

Operation Desert Shield, 44, 52, 63, 64, 

69, 76, 110, 120

Operation Desert Storm, 63, 73, 75, 76, 

108, 117, 120, 173

and CENTCOM, 72

and equipment, 71

force reductions delayed by, 71

and joint operations, 71

National Guard brigades readiness, 87

and Project Vanguard, 55

and troop rotation, 64

Operations 

 Enduring Freedom, 179, 180

 Golden Pheasant, 33, 34, 35, 107

 Iraqi Freedom, 179–80

Joint Endeavor, 106, 107, 174, 179

Joint Guard, 107, 179

Just Cause, 35, 107, 120

 Nimrod Dancer, 34, 35

 Noble Eagle, 179, 180

 Provide Comfort, 66

 Provide Relief, 103

Restore Hope, 104

 Sea Signal, 105

 Support Hope, 104–05

Uphold Democracy, 105

Urgent Fury, 8

Vigilant Warrior, 106

Operations other than war (OOTW), 17, 

107

Organization of American States (OAS), 

103, 105, 106

Otstoot, Lt. Gen. Charles P., 114

Outsourcing, 97, 145, 146, 147, 162

Packard Commission, 10, 59

Palastra, General Joseph T., Jr., 33

Palmerola, Honduras, 33

Panama, 34, 35, 173

Panama Canal Commission, 34

Peace enforcement, 82–83, 89, 103, 104, 

119–20

Peacekeeping, 83, 120

Perestroika, 21–22

Perry, William J., 120, 121n, 123

on CORM, 92, 94

modernization program, 121–22

and quality of life issues, 121

Pershing II missile, 22, 23

Personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO), 

120–21, 135

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting 

System (PPBS), 7, 80, 115, 166, 

167, 175 

CORM on, 100–101

and interservice competition, 6n

secretary of defense uses, 5–6

Powell, General Colin L., 37, 38

on assignment of units to ACOM, 

79

and Base Force, 45–46, 51, 52, 57

on Bottom-Up Review, 84–85

and POM process, 53–54

on reversibility of reductions, 38

on Soviet withdrawals from Eastern 

Europe, 47, 67

Prepositioning of Materiel Configured to

Unit Sets (POMCUS), 19, 68, 73

President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on 

Defense Management (1986). See

Packard Commission.

Presidio of San Francisco, 73

Program Analysis and Evaluation 

Directorate (PA&E), 84, 92, 153, 

181

Program Objective Memorandum 

(POM), 6, 7, 52, 54, 109, 148, 

167, 171–72, 175, 176

for 1992–1997 Army, 39, 49, 50, 51

Chairman’s Program Assessment of, 53
222

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

Program Objective Memorandum—

Continued

and Dynamic Commitment war 

games, 137–38

force allocation exercise based on, 

136–37

and SOCOM, 16

Project Vanguard, 43, 55, 59, 60, 113, 

171

detailed analyses of, 61

dialogue with organizations, 42, 44

recommendations of, 41–42, 44

TDA organizations evaluated, 41, 42

Quadrennial Defense Review of 1997 

(QDR), 1, 119, 159, 162, 163, 176, 

179. See also Base Realignments 

and Closure Commission (BRAC); 

National Defense Panel (NDP).

Army force packages, 127

Army Modernization Task Force, 

129

Army preparations for, 122–29

Army Resources Task Force, 126–27

Army Strategy Task Force, 127

Baseline Engagement Force study, 

134–36

and contingency operations, 127

Dynamic Commitment exercises, 134

Force Assessment Panel, 133, 134, 

135, 140, 142–43

Force Structure Panel, 124

and Future Years Defense Program 

(1998–2003), 152

goals for, 127–28

and HQDA, 168, 172, 174, 175

Human Resource Panel, 147

impact of, 167–68

Infrastructure Panel, 124, 145–46

infrastructure reforms, 145

Integration Panel, 123–24

and major theater war, 154–55

methodology, 169

Modernization Panel, 124, 129, 136, 

144, 145

Multiple Lesser Regional 

Contingency (LRC)/Small-Scale 

Contingency (SSC) Assessment, 

135–36

and national military strategy, 127

openness of, 124, 126

and outsourcing, 145–46

and Peer Competitor analysis, 136

quality of life issues considered in, 

121, 172–73

Readiness Panel, 124, 135, 143–44

Senior Steering Group, 123, 141, 143

Small-scale Contingency Assessment, 

136–37, 138

Strategy Panel, 124, 135, 141

and TACWAR, 152

“Two Major Theater War (MTW) 

Warfight Analysis,” 133, 134, 135,

137, 142, 154

Quadrennial Defense Review of 2001 

(QDR 2001), 182

Quicksilver I, 39, 63, 65, 80, 174

Quicksilver II, 39, 49, 63–64, 65, 80, 174

reductions of nontactical personnel, 

40–41

reserve components and reductions, 

52–53

training tempo budget, 39–40

RAH–66. See Helicopters.

Rand Corporation, 26, 92

Ranger Regiment, 75th, 106

Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, 73n

Readiness, 20, 25

Readiness Panel. See Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 (QDR).

Reagan, Ronald, 33

Reimer, General Dennis J., 147, 148, 

157, 177. See also ShannonReimer Study.

and Headquarters Redesign Study, 76

and QDR, 122, 141

Reno, Maj. Gen. William H., 39

Reserve Officers Training Corps

(ROTC), 41

Revolution in military affairs (RMA), 

119, 128, 130, 155, 180

Robust study group, 41–42, 181–82

Roles, missions, and functions, 56n, 130, 

152, 162–63, 168–70

	 and definition of duplication, 56n

	 and definition of redundancy, 56n

overlapping among services, 91, 95, 

96, 98–99, 166, 170

CORM addresses overlapping, 92, 94
223

Index

Rumsfeld, Donald H., 182, 183, 184

Rwanda, 104–05

Saudi Arabia, 44, 63, 70, 71, 83, 134

and equipment positioning, 72

and MRC-East, 89

Schwarzkopf, Lt. Gen. H. Norman, 21

Sealift, 13, 19, 69, 90, 128, 169

and contingencies, 59

CORM study and, 97n

modernization, 121–22

Secretary of the Army, 12, 33, 77, 106, 

116, 181. See also under names of 

individuals.

and Project Vanguard, 41–42

and Quicksilver II, 39–40

Secretary of Defense, 13, 31, 50, 

73, 145, 147, 148. See also

Commission on Roles and 

Missions of the Armed 

Forces (CORM); Planning, 

Programming, and Budgeting 

System (PPBS); Task Force on 

Defense Reform; under names of 

individuals.

authority of, 1, 10, 65

and National Defense Panel, 151, 158

and national defense strategy, 1

and Operation Golden Pheasant, 34

and QDR, 119, 169, 182

Shalikashvili, General John M., 94, 130

Shannon, John W., 76

Shannon-Reimer Study, 76, 77–78

Shinseki, General Eric K., 180–81

Show of force operations, 103

Somalia, 103–04, 107, 108, 174

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), 18, 

33–34, 35, 110

South Korea, 68, 83

Soviet Union, 68–69

and arms reductions, 32

decline of, 22, 67, 70, 81

“Two Plus Four Agreement,” 103n

withdrawa1s, from Eastern Europe, 

37, 40, 46, 59

Wolfowitz on, 50

Special Forces Group, 3d, 105–06

Special operations. See U.S. Special 

Operations Command (SOCOM).

Stability missions, 103

Stabilization Force (SFOR), 107. See 

also Bosnia.

Staff support agencies (SSAs), 5, 45

Steadfast reorganization, 42

Stiner, Lt. Gen. Carl W., 35

Stone, Michael P. W., 77

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 17

Strategic deterrence, 17

“Strategic halt,” 154–55

“Strategic pause,” 129 

Strategic Synchronization Cell, 122, 123, 

126, 153, 163

Strategy Panel. See Quadrennial 

Defense Review of 1997 

(QDR).

Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, 180, 181

Sullivan, General Gordon R., 75, 79, 

94

and Force XXI, 111, 112

and Louisiana Maneuvers, 108, 109, 

110

Sustainability, 20

Symington, Stuart, 101

Table of Distribution and Allowance 

(TDA), 41–42, 44

Tactical Warfare model (TACWAR), 88, 

133n

and DAWMS, 131–32

and QDR, 133, 136, 152

Task Force on Defense Reform, 

151, 157. See also Defense 

Management Council; Defense 

Reform Initiative.

on defense infrastructure, 159–63

and outsourcing, 162

Task Force on Quality of Life, 121n

Task Force Ranger, 104

Terrorism, 179, 180

Thurman, General Maxwell, 35

Tilelli, General John H., Jr., 112

Training, 25. See also Personnel tempo 

(PERSTEMPO).

Training Circular 25-1, 74n

Transformation Planning Guidance, 183

UH–60. See Helicopters.

Ulichi-Focus Lens (UN Forces, Korea), 

110

Unified Command Plan, 79
224

The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

United Nations, 17, 83, 103, 104, 107

and Bosnia, 106

and Haiti, 105

in Somalia, 104

United Nations Operations in Somalia II 

(UNOSOM II), 104

U.S. Air Force, 47, 49, 51, 69, 95, 116, 

145, 169

airlift capabilities of, 31

and Army airborne units, 28

CORM on, 98

and strategic deterrence, 17

U.S. Army Adjutant General Branch, 30

U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Branch, 

44

U.S. Army Chemical Corps, 44

U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 26

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 60, 65, 113

U.S. Army Criminal Investigation 

Command, 44, 60

U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR), 5, 32, 

71–72

U.S. Army Forces Command 

(FORSCOM), 7, 33, 34, 114

U.S. Army General Counsel, 77

U.S. Army Health Services Command, 60

U.S. Army Information Systems 

Command, 60, 114

U.S. Army, Japan, 42, 44

U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), 

41, 60, 61, 114, 171

U.S. Army Medical Command, 113, 133

U.S. Army Military Entrance Processing 

Command, 116

U.S. Army Military Traffic Management

Command, 60, 113, 171

U.S. Army Ordnance Branch, 30

U.S. Army, Pacific, 42, 44, 107

U.S. Army Quartermaster Branch, 30

U.S. Army Rangers, 35

U.S. Army Recruiting Command, 60n, 

116

U.S. Army, South, 44

U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense 

Command, 114

U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense 

Command, 114

U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command, 

17

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command (TRADOC), 5, 7, 109, 

116, 117, 156

	 and Advanced Warfighting

Experiments, 111

and AirLand Battle-Future force 

redesign studies, 29, 50, 111

Analysis Center (TRAC) and 

CSEEA, 131

Army organization and doctrine 

reevaluated by, 25–26

and Vanguard Vision, 44

U.S. Army Transportation Branch, 30

U.S. Army vice chief of staff, 16, 109, 

112, 148, 181

U.S. Atlantic Command (ACOM), 47, 

98, 106, 157

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), 

17, 18, 47, 73, 180

in Desert Storm, 63, 64

equipment deployment, 72

Operation Vigilant Warrior, 106

and Somalia, 104

U.S. Code

Title 5, 147

Title 10, 65, 106, 147

U.S. Congress, 10, 23, 160, 182

U.S. European Command (EUCOM), 

18

and Bosnia, 106, 107

and Gulf War, 64

and humanitarian relief, 65–66

and Rwandan refugees, 104–05

U.S. House of Representatives Armed 

Services Committee, 8, 71, 81, 

91, 102

U.S. Joint Forces Command, 157, 

162–63, 183–84

U.S. Marine Corps, 49, 51, 71, 94, 169, 

173

and Bottom-Up Review, 90–91

in Mogadishu, 104

Odom on, 70

Operation Provide Comfort, 66

quality of life issues in, 121

and personnel tempo, 85

and V-22 transport, 145

U.S. Navy, 47, 49, 69, 94, 116

and Base Force reductions, 52

and Bottom-Up Review, 90–91

CORM on, 98
225

Index

deployment model, 143–44

force levels, 168–69

Maritime Strategy of, 27

and strategic deterrence, 17

U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), 18

U.S. Readiness Command, 73n

U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 

8, 51, 91, 102

U.S. Special Operations Command 

(SOCOM), 16, 17, 92

U.S. Transportation Command, 157

V-22 tilt-rotor transport, 145

Vanguard Task Force. See Project 

Vanguard.

Vanguard Vision, 42, 112

 “View to the 90s, A” (Powell), 37, 48

Vignette drills, 127, 136, 137, 138, 

139, 140. See also Dynamic 

Commitment exercises.

Vuono, General Carl E., 15, 36

on Base Force reductions, 49, 50, 

51, 52

and modernization budget, 30

“operational tempo” of training, 20

and Operation Golden Pheasant, 33

and readiness, 30–31

on reductions, 24, 39, 75

War gaming, 133

Warning times, 54, 83, 134

and NATO, 18–19, 28, 46–47, 50, 59

Warsaw Pact, 17, 28, 51

collapse of, 36, 50

and troop withdrawals, 49

Water purification units, 64–65, 104–05,

135

Weapon Optimization and Resource 

Requirements Model (WORRM). 

See Deep-Attack Weapons Mix 

Study (DAWMS).

Weinberger, Caspar W., 8, 9, 20

West, Togo, Jr., 101

White, Dr. John P., 92

White, Thomas E., 181

Wickham, General John A., Jr., 8, 9, 11, 

12, 15

Win-hold-win concept. See Bottom-Up 

Review (BUR).

Wolfowitz, Paul, 50

XM8 armored gun system, 21

PIN : 084252–000