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Cover photographs from Department of Defense and US Agency for International Development 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

D uring the course of our work on the Roles and Missions Panel, 

we became more and more aware that there are aspects of our 

current national security system that should change to help us 

better prepare for our uncertain strategic future. But that system is complex and the range of potential challenges enormous, and therefore the exact nature of the required changes is often unclear. These short 

essays highlight only a very few of the areas that may need reform, and 

offer possible solutions for consideration. These are by no means the only 

areas, nor are the solutions proposed the only ones feasible. In offering 

them, we simply mean to challenge our fellow citizens to think about what 

they expect our national security system to provide, and the trade-offs they 

are willing to make. As individual members of the Panel, we do not each 

agree with every view included here, but we all believe that these essays 

pose questions worth considering. Additionally, we hope to inspire the 

reader to think beyond the small set of ideas offered here, and to share 

their ideas with us as we proceed with our task. As members of the House 

Armed Services Committee, we will continue to expand on this beginning 

to ensure our government can provide the capabilities the American people need for their national security. 

MEMBERS’ LETTER
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HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

INTRODUCTION

“All predominant power seems for a time 

invincible, 

but in fact, it is transient.” 

– British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 

Address to Joint Session of Congress, 

2003 

W hen you are the world’s only superpower, how do you stay 

Number One? That is the simple question this Report tries 

to answer. We do not attempt to define the wisest foreign 

or military policies, but to start probing some of the U.S. 

institutional weaknesses in the implementation of any security policy. 

American strength requires that we are able to achieve our policy goals. 

The Pentagon’s traditional way of thinking of restructuring is termed 

“Roles and Missions,” an innocuous-sounding phrase with breathtaking 

reach. Normally confined to the Pentagon, the recent need for nationbuilding has broadened security thinking to agencies outside the Department of Defense. The task of our “Panel on Roles and Missions” is to 

examine the roles of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast 

Guard, as well as the particular missions of the Armed Services, Intelligence Agencies, State Department, the National Security Council and 

other agencies, in protecting American security. It is hard to imagine a 

broader or more daunting task. 

We have divided the task into three levels: 

• Inter-agency problems of coordination on nation-building, 

Africom, and use of American soft power. 

• Pentagon-wide problems of procurement, management and 

strategic vision. 

• Inter-service rivalry over which branch of the military controls drones, airlift, or even the infantry; 
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This Panel’s Report does not attempt to give full answers – and certainly not legislative ones – to these categories of problems, but to begin 

examining several ideas for removing or reducing a number of policy impediments. Many of these ideas will be unpopular with the Pentagon, 

White House, or within Congress, just as the now-famous GoldwaterNichols reforms faced strong opposition before 1986. Some of these ideas 

in this Report deserve strong opposition. But the job of the Panel was to 

break some ground and plant a few seeds. By your reaction, you can help 

decide which ones deserve to grow, and offer new ones that should have 

been planted. 

The timing of this Report is not a criticism, explicit or implicit, of the 

way the Wars in Iraq or Afghanistan are being conducted. The major reorganization of the U.S. military happened in 1947, just after the overwhelming Allied victories in World War II. The Goldwater-Nichols reorganization occurred in 1986, during the Reagan defense build-up and just 

prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Every twenty or thirty years, we seem to realize that our national security institutions are driven not by our country’s strategic needs but by 

petty organizational interests, political expediency, or plain inertia. In 

World War II, we were surprised that our military services did not know 

how to fight jointly. In Vietnam, we discovered that asymmetric warfare 

was a greater threat than we knew. On September 11th, we began to take 

terrorism more seriously. 

But now, terrorism dominates our attention because terrorists are both 

a real threat, and successful in magnifying the fear that is naturally created 

by individual atrocities. In most years, according to Ohio State professor 

John Mueller, the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands 

of international terrorists is roughly the same as the number who drown in 

bathtubs in the United States. The first rule of war is to understand the 

nature of the enemy; today that would include Al Qaeda's intent to spread 

fear and our tendency to exaggerate the actual danger. The native resiliency of America may have been diminished by the enormous sums of 

money that we could have spent on other, more effective ways, of undercutting Al Qaeda's support in the Arab world. Only by thinking deeply 

about the world and our national security can we ensure we are getting 

ready for the challenges we will face in the coming years. 
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America has always overcome its challenges, but we should not make 

it any harder than it has to be, particularly for our service members. It’s 

hard enough to find the enemy; they should not have to fight the bureaucracy too. We must rethink what we expect of our national security apparatus and how we expect it to work. The 9/11 Commission Report helped us 

begin to understand our failure of imagination. 

In this volume, my colleagues and I want to challenge our colleagues 

and fellow citizens to join us in rethinking national security. We have 

included a range of very short essays to address some of the many problems we see. They are designed to prompt a reaction, and a stronger 

America. 

Jim Cooper, Tennessee 

Chairman 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We believe this product is a small first step in serious consideration 

of the roles and missions of not just our military services but our entire 

national security organization. We also recognize we are not the only ones 

thinking about these issues and want to invite the public into the debate. 

We would like to thank the Chairman of the House Armed Services 

Committee, Congressman Ike Skelton. He was key in the last major reorganization of our Defense Department as a junior member of Congress and 

is once again demonstrating his leadership skills at the highest levels. We 

also want to thank our Ranking Member, Duncan Hunter, who made this 

issue part of the Committee Defense Review he initiated in the 109th Congress. 

Many other people helped prepare this volume and deserve our 

thanks as well. Erin Conaton leads the HASC staff and provides valuable 

help to the members. Her key staffers for the Roles and Missions Panel, 

Mark Lewis, Tom Hawley, Andrew Hunter, and Andrew Hyde, have aided 

our efforts. 

And we need to thank our own military legislative assistants who 

played such an important role; Russell Rumbaugh, David Sours, Aaron 

Moburg-Jones, Louis Lauter, Dan Adelstein, Ben Rosenbaum, Bryan Winter, Kenan Carraway, Juliet Chelkowski, and Pat Rigney. 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ..........................................................................................5 

Reform is Hard ...................................................................................13 

Clarifying Roles and Missions............................................................19 

Confounding Roles and Missions.......................................................21 

Understanding Our Adversaries 

What Russians Think and Want.................................................25 

Dictatorship of Talent ................................................................28 

The Tehran-Caracas Axis ..........................................................31 

Is Pakistan Pivotal?....................................................................34 

Better Interagency Coordination 

Reforming Ourselves ................................................................39 

A Call to Service .......................................................................42 

The Department of Nation-Building .........................................45 

Enhancing National Security Organization ...............................48 

The Americans Have Landed ....................................................51 

Thinking the Unthinkable .........................................................53 

Preparing for Future Missions 

Is AFRICOM the Model for the Future? ..................................59 

Providing the Tools our Elected Leaders Need ........................61 

National Guard and Reserve Rethought ....................................64 

Provincial Reconstruction Teams .............................................68 

Tyranny of Optimism in Acquisition .........................................70 

A Failure in Generalship ...........................................................72 

Failing Jointness 

The Common Domain ...............................................................79 

The Future of Electronic Warfare ..............................................82 

Ownership Matters.....................................................................86 

Recruiting the Best and the Nerdiest?........................................89 
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REFORM IS HARD

T he Pentagon is always a 

favorite target for reformers. If we still have 

security problems in the 

world with a half-trillion dollar 

budget, the Pentagon must need 

reforming. And usually, it does. 

But actual reform is hard. There 

are a lot of reasons for why the 

Pentagon is how it 

is—some of them legitimately based on 

other priorities and 

many of them based 

on parochial interests. Sorting out 

which is which and making sure 

everyone agrees is not an easy 

task. Even the National Security 

Act of 1947 and the GoldwaterNichols Act of 1986 – the two 

landmark reform efforts since 

World War II – show that restructuring has been slow and clumsy. 

If history is our guide, then 

the Pentagon only changes: a) 

after a string of serious but preventable military failures, b) when 

a four-star general decides to 

break ranks by advocating change, 

c) the opposition of at least two, 

and sometimes all, uniformed services is overcome, and d) Congress votes in favor of new statutes, which are sometimes honored in the breach. This entire 

process, from initial top-officer 

complaint to presidential signature 

takes at least four years. If measured from the date of the first 

tragic military failures, it can take 

decades. Today’s enemies may 

not allow us the luxury of so much 

time. 

Making matters worse, meeting this threat posed by today’s 

enemies might require reform of 

more than just the Pentagon. Even 

The miracle of Goldwater-Nichols 

is that it happened at all. 
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if our military were everything we 

could want it to be, it might still 

not be enough. In today’s complex and 

uncertain world, problems can not be solved 

with military means 

alone. Diplomacy 

must set the stage. 

Intelligence must be 

understood. And all 

elements of national 

power must be brought 

to bear to solve the 

problem. 

 

It is time to reform our national 

security institutions. 

Not to score political 

points but because 

the world has changed and continues to change. The institutions 

that served us well in the Cold 

War are still too focused on that 

conflict and not enough on the 

uncertain world we actually face. 

With an honest need for reform, 

we must look at what has gone 

before to understand what reform 

will require and remind ourselves 

of the hard work still ahead. 

The 1947 National Security Act 

It took more than Pearl Harbor to instigate the 1947 National 

Security Act. Problems with the 

split MacArthur / Nimitz command in the Pacific Theater in 

World War II, President Roosevelt’s perceived favoritism to the 

Navy, and the consensus-driven 

decisions of the powerful Joint 

Chiefs of Staff combined to create 

the conditions for serious overhaul 

of our military establishment. The 

old arrangements often led to confusion and mismanagement, even 

challenging the fundamental Constitutional principle of civilian 

control of the military. 

Army Chief of Staff George 

C. Marshall first proposed unifying the command structure of the 

Pentagon in 1943, the same year 

the famous five-sided building 

was completed. It is difficult to 

imagine now, but before Marshall’s bold initiative, an Army 

Post World War II reform; President Truman 

signing the 1947 National Security Act. 

Truman Library 
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Secretary and a Navy Secretary 

independently represented their 

Services to the President with no 

coordinating authority and no central planning. In spite of this glaring friction in American defense 

policy, Marshall’s reform ideas 

languished until after Roosevelt’s 

death in 1945, when they were 

championed by President Harry 

Truman. Truman was perceived 

as an Army partisan, however, due 

to his service in World War I in 

the Missouri National Guard, 

which inflamed the Navy’s and 

Marine Corps’ opposition to his 

preference for centralized command authority, which they considered to be too similar to the 

Army’s structure. 

The subsequent two-year legislative struggle that produced the 

National Security Act of 1947 was 

really a four-year fight because 

clarifying amendments in 1949 

were necessary to give coherence 

to the political compromise that 

was salvaged in 1947. Although 

the 1947 Act created a separate 

Air Force (a 38-year reform struggle that Brigadier General Billy 

Mitchell had advocated since 

1919), a National Security Council, and a Central Intelligence 

Agency, and consolidated the 

separate Departments of War and 

Navy, critics already knew that it 

did not go far enough. General 

Eisenhower pointed out how weak 

the Secretary of Defense was under this new act, writing, “The 

entire structure... was little more 

than a weak confederation of sovereign military units.” He advocated going further still by mandating a single uniform for all 

services and a requirement that 

West Point and Annapolis cadets 

spend a year at the other institution in order to graduate. 

Truman recognized these 

flaws but had to overcome the 

military opposition to the new 

system. His strategy to deal with 

the Service opposition was to select the main opponent of reform, 

Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal, to be the first Secretary of 

Defense so that he could experience first-hand the powerlessness 

of the position. After Forrestal 

attempted at Key West in 1948 to 

reconcile the roles and missions of 

the service chiefs, and, even more 

difficult, to get the services to live 

under a single $14.4 billion budget 

in 1949, Forrestal resigned as Secretary in despair. Later in 1949, 

after Forrestal’s suicide, Congress 

amended the National Security 

Act to give the Secretary of Defense the staff and budget authority that Forrestal had needed, and 

to create a non-voting Chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs to slowly begin 

the process of unifying command 

of the services. 
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Naval opposition to reform 

remained strong, however, even 

after the 1947 and 1949 laws were 

passed. When Forrestal’s replacement, Louis Johnson, forced the 

Navy to work within the budget 

set by the new Republicancontrolled Congress and cancelled 

an aircraft carrier after the keel 

had been laid, both the Secretary 

of Navy and Chief of Naval Operations resigned in what was 

called “The Revolt of the Admirals.” Political repercussions extended beyond the Eisenhower 

Administration, creating a fear in 

Congress that, if Ike could not 

control the military in what he 

called “the military-industrial 

complex,” no one could. As a 

result, the next major reform effort 

would wait almost forty years. 

 

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act 

The impetus for 1980s reform 

stemmed from the combined failures of the Vietnam War, the 

Pueblo incident, Desert One, and 

even the limited conflict in Granada. From today’s perspective, 

the Mayaguez incident, the Beirut 

barracks bombing, and the Achille 

Lauro hijacking, showed increasing threats from both state- and 

non-state actors. Terrorism, 

whether from North Korea, Cambodia, Iran, or the Middle East, 

was beginning to show its hand. 

The miracle of GoldwaterNichols is that it happened at all. 

The top general who championed 

reform, David Jones, did so very 

late in his career and very reluctantly. Lacking even a college 

degree, Jones had served eight 

years on the Joint Chiefs and was 

completing his second and final 

two-year term as Chairman when 

he testified informally in a closed 

hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on February 3, 

1982. The hearing was not on 

strategy or organization, but on the 

Pentagon budget. The preceding 

witness, the new Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, privately derided Jones as a 

“holdover” from the Carter Administration who had only five 

months left before retirement. 

When Jones began speaking, only 

one junior member of the HASC, 

Ike Skelton, seemed to realize the 

significance of Jones’ understated 

testimony: 

“I look forward to testifying on 

these budget issues, however, 

there is one subject I would like 

to mention briefly here. It is not 

sufficient to have just resources, 

dollars and weapons systems; 

we must also have an organization which will allow us to develop the proper strategy, necessary planning, and the full warfighting capability. We do not 

have an adequate organizational 
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structure today... at least in my 

judgment.” 

When Skelton’s time for 

questioning came, he said, “This 

seems rather a courageous thing 

for you to do. I think it 

is something that should 

get the utmost attention 

from this committee and 

from Congress.” And 

the reform effort began. 

The entire Pentagon 

and the Reagan Administration opposed reform. 

Every uniformed service 

saw a simplified chain of 

command from the 

President, through the 

Secretary of Defense, 

down to a CINC with 

command of crosstrained services as a threat to their 

traditional prerogatives. Jointness, 

the term the defense world uses to 

describe military training and operations conducted by multiple 

branches, was anathema to services that took great pride in their 

individual history and culture. 

Weinberger thought that even raising the possibility of Pentagon 

disjointedness reduced the chance 

of funding the Reagan defense 

buildup. 

The critics of GoldwaterNichols have turned out to be 

largely incorrect. The fear that the 

services would lose their core 

competencies if forced to coordinate or that an Army General 

could not command Air Force 

assets never materialized. If anything, the years since 1986 have 

seen the Services improve upon 

their core competencies such as 

tank warfare and sea lane control. 

The air campaign in Kosovo saw 

an Army General exclusively use 

air power to achieve his strategic 

objectives. However, even Goldwater-Nichols does not achieve 

the level of jointness that Eisenhower called for as early as 1945. 

The Next Step in Reform 

Today, our national security 

institutions are struggling to adapt 

to a new world. Our intelligence 

community is wrestling with 

Two of the heroes of the 1986 reform of the 

Pentagon: Senator Barry Goldwater with 

General David Jones. 

Department of Defense 
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changes forced on it after painful 

failures. Our State Department is 

scrambling to shift from a world 

of genteel diplomacy to demanding volunteers for Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The rest of 

the government is unprepared to 

use their expertise overseas. And 

our military is stressed trying to 

fill-in for civilian agencies. 

Hopefully, we have suffered 

enough to prompt reform and 

don’t have to wait for even more 

grievous failures. The first legislative language is in the passed 

Defense Authorization Act of 

2008. But so far, no visible military champion of change has 

emerged. There should be vociferous support from inside the Services since the military has been 

left carrying the burden of the 

failures of our national security 

institutions. Instead, our military 

has resisted change just as they 

have past efforts at reform. The 

Air Force and Navy are reemphasizing more traditional threats and 

downplaying the unexpected 

threats we face today. The other 

two services, the Army and Marines, try to tinker at the margins 

of their mission even as they suffer most from the current overstretch .

Overcoming that resistance is 

the next step in reform. As reasonable options are tabled, hopefully, a senior military advocate 

will step forward to support the 

changes. Then, with time, Congress can legislate the change that 

is so necessary. 

We are at the earliest stages of 

reform. It is a long, hard task 

ahead of us. But armed with the 

knowledge of what it has taken to 

achieve reform before, we can 

persevere. To secure our nation’s 

future, we have no choice. 
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CLARIFYING ROLES AND

MISSIONS

W e in Congress have 

already started 

taking action to 

ensure the Department of Defense (DOD) is ready 

to meet the threats of the 21st century. In the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008, we enacted a requirement for a thorough 

review of the military services’ 

roles and missions. 

The missions of the Department of Defense must be clearly 

defined. As important as the missions of the Department are, and 

how they are organized and distributed, are what are not the missions of the Department of Defense. In recent years, the shortcomings of the interagency process have led the Department to 

assume missions that are not core 

military responsibilities. A review 

of roles and missions is needed to 

allow the Department a chance to 

correct excesses. The military services bring certain core competencies to the execution of DOD's 

missions. By defining these core 

competencies, the Department can 

evaluate where the military services are engaged in missions for 

which they are not ideally organized, trained, and equipped. And 

it will highlight areas where core 

competencies are lacking. 

To clarify the Department’s 

current state, we have directed the 

Secretary of Defense to review the 

armed forces roles and missions 

and the ability of the Department 

to conduct them. We have tasked 

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff to first conduct an independent military assessment and 

provide his recommendations to 

the Secretary. Armed with the 

Chairman’s recommendations, the 

Secretary will identify the core 

mission areas of the armed forces, 

the core competencies and capabilities needed for those areas, and 

Excerpted from House Armed Services Committee Report 110-46 
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who in the Department of Defense 

is responsible for each competency and capability. He is also to 

note either gaps between or duplication of tasks and devise a plan 

for resolving each of those gaps or 

overlaps. He will then report to us 

his conclusions before we consider 

the next year’s military budget. 

We have also taken steps to 

ensure the report’s conclusions 

help shape our military forces. 

The council responsible for determining what our military needs, 

the Joint Requirements Oversight 

Council (JROC), will conduct its 

own reviews of joint military requirements according to the core 

mission areas the Secretary establishes. To enable the services to 

best accomplish their core competencies and capabilities, the JROC 

must provide the military services 

with clear guidance on the priority 

assigned to each requirement and 

on the expected resources allocated to fulfill such a requirement. 

Accordingly, we have added the 

Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and the Director of the 

Office of Program Analysis and 

Evaluation as advisors to the 

JROC to help the council provide 

this guidance. By incorporating 

clear priorities and budget guidance into the JROC process, we 

ensure that decisions made in the 

requirements, acquisitions, and 

budget areas are truly joint, and 

are not driven primarily by the 

military departments’ budget considerations. 

In addition to these changes, 

we have also amended the law so 

the Department of Defense reports 

its budget not just by major program but also by the core mission 

areas established by the Secretary’s report. 

Finally, to ensure the core 

competencies and capabilities are 

regularly updated, we have required a review of the roles and 

missions of the Department of 

Defense be performed every four 

years. The Chairman will also 

complete his independent military 

assessment and provide recommendations before each report. 

With this legislation, we have 

provided the tools for the Department of Defense to clarify what it 

must do and how it will do it. 

Using this clarity, the Department 

will be better prepared for the 

threats of the future. 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

T he Congress has just 

passed legislation in the 

National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 

to establish new procedures to 

identify core competencies and 

roles and missions in the Department of Defense. 

The spirit behind this legislation is well-intentioned, but it will 

likely achieve the opposite of the 

original intentions. By demanding 

the Department go through a detailed study of core competencies 

and roles and missions, it will put 

in motion a great tidal wave of 

service uniqueness and exceptionalism. There is understandable 

rivalry among the Military Services. That rivalry is basically 

healthy. But at times it becomes a 

negative force. By launching a 

major analytic drive to force the 

services to define core competencies and unique roles and missions, forces that make it harder to 

get jointness are unleashed. 

The key problem in the department is not core competencies. 

The services manage their core 

competencies very, very well. No 

one in the world is as good at 

night time flight operations from 

an aircraft carrier than is the 

United States Navy. No one does 

amphibious assault operations as 

well as the United States Marine 

Corps. The United States Air 

Force is unparalleled in air superiority. Combined maneuver of battle formations is the Army’s unchallenged expertise. Core competencies are not the problem in the 

Department. 

There are two much larger 

problems. The first is the efficient 

preparation for and management 

of joint operations, and second, 

the operations and activities that 

are critical, but which the Military 

Departments do not consider to be 

CONFOUNDING ROLES AND

MISSIONS

Excerpted from testimony of John Hamre, President of Center for 

Strategic and International Studies., House Armed Services Committee, June 19, 2007 
22 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

core missions. The great debate 

going on in the Army today is 

whether post-conflict reconstruction is a core mission. Before Iraq, 

the Army felt that was not a core 

mission. They are now working 

hard to develop expertise. 

This legislation that forces the 

Defense Department to undertake 

core-competency and roles-andmission reviews will only reinforce the things that the services 

do well and keep it from focusing 

on the things that it does not do as 

well. 

The goal of the legislation 

may be to reduce unnecessary 

redundancy and provide better 

stewardship of taxpayer dollars. 

And both of these goals are laudable, but they are better achieved 

through improvements to the Secretary of Defense’s toolkit for 

making the right long-term joint 

investments. A welcome addition 

to that toolkit would be a capable 

advocate for the future joint warfighter who is engaged in major 

decision forums. Second, we need 

to strengthen Office of the Secretary of Defense’s ability to undertake mission area analyses, now 

often referred to as capability portfolio assessments. The Department 

does not systematically and comprehensively assess the linkage 

between the future-years defense 

program and the missions needed 

to support the defense strategy. It 

did this in an earlier day. It needs 

to be brought back. 
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UNDERSTANDING OUR 

ADVERSARIES

If you know the enemy and know 

yourself, you need not fear the result 

of a hundred battles. 

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War 
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Excerpted from Richard Pipes, “Flight from Freedom: What Russians Think and 

Want,” Reprinted by permission of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, (May/June 2004). Copyright (2004) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. www.ForeignAffairs.org

WHAT RUSSIANS THINK

AND WANT

W hen the Soviet Union dissolved in 

1991, expectations 

were high that 

Russia, rid of communism, would 

take a firm pro-Western course... 

But after more than a decade, 

these expectations have not been 

realized. Since ex-KGB colonel 

Vladimir Putin took over as president in 2000, Russia's democratic 

institutions have been muzzled, its 

civil rights restricted, and its cooperation with the international community far from assured. 

What accounts for these unwelcome trends? ...There is a good 

deal of evidence that the antidemocratic, antilibertarian actions 

of the current administration are 

not being inflicted on the Russian 

people but are actually supported 

by them. 

DEJÀ VU 

...Despite its reputation for 

unpredictability, Russia is a remarkably conservative nation 

whose mentality and behavior 

change slowly, if at all, over time, 

regardless of the regime in power. 

...In a predominantly rural 

society, the kind of social cohesion that Westerners took for 

granted in their own countries was 

very weakly developed in Russia’s 

past: Russia was not so much a 

society as an agglomeration of 

tens of thousands of separate rural 

settlements. National feelings, 

therefore, were also poorly developed, except at times of foreign 

invasions...Private property and 

public justice were similarly underdeveloped, arriving in the 

country relatively late and in an 

imperfect form... 

These factors—the absence of 

social and national cohesion, the 

ignorance of civil rights, the lack 
26 

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of any real notion of private property, and an ineffective judiciary—prompted Russians to desire 

strong tsarist rule. With few lateral 

social ties, they relied on the state 

to protect them from each other. 

They wanted their rulers to be 

both strong and harsh...Experience 

has taught Russians to associate 

weak government—and democracy is seen as weak—with anarchy and lawlessness. 

Such is Russia's cultural inheritance, the net effect of which 

is to make Russians, even in modern times, the least socialized or 

politicized people on the European 

continent. Twice in one century—

1917 and 1991—their governments collapsed almost overnight, 

with people seemingly indifferent 

to their fate... 

REJECTING RIGHTS 

[Polling sources] suggest that 

modern Russians, like their ancestors, feel estranged from both the 

state and society at large. Their 

allegiance is to family and 

friends....and they feel little affinity with any larger community... 

Comparing citizens' attitudes toward their government in Russia 

[with other countries], Validata 

surveys concluded that Americans 

and Swedes display the highest 

trust in the state, whereas Russians 

"don't trust the state at all".1

Democracy is widely viewed 

as a fraud...Asked in a poll 

whether multiparty elections do 

more harm than good, 52 percent 

of respondents answered "more 

harm" and a mere 15 percent said 

"more good.” 2 ,,,When asked to 

choose between "freedom" and 

"order," 88 percent of respondents 

in Voronezh Province expressed 

preference for order...Twenty-nine 

percent were quite prepared to 

give up their freedoms of speech, 

press, or movement for nothing in 

return, because they attached no 

value to them. 3

Such opinions led Alexander 

Yakovlev, a principal architect of 

Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, 

to bemoan his compatriots' penchant for authoritarian rule. In an 

interview with the "Financial 

Times," he observed that none of 

the winning parties in the December 2003 Duma elections "had 

even once mentioned the word 

'freedom' [;] all the slogans were 

about banning, locking up and 

punishing...” 4

PEOPLE'S MAN 

In aggregate, the conclusions 

from surveys of Russian opinion 

are far from encouraging. Western 

commentators watch with dismay 

as Putin slowly and deliberately 

transforms Russia into a one-party 

state. But they fail to recognize, 
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even more ominously, that Russians by sizable majorities actually 

approve of his actions. Putin's 

victory in the 2004 presidential 

elections is certainly due in part to 

his stifling of the opposition. But 

he is popular precisely because he 

has re-instated Russia's traditional 

model of government: an autocratic state in which citizens are 

relieved of responsibility for politics and in which imaginary foreign enemies are invoked to forge 

an artificial unity.

1 Validata, "Nations as 

Brands" (Moscow, 2003); p. 20 

2 Vestnik Moskovskoi Shkoly Politicheskikh Issledovanii, no. 13 (1999), 

p. 91 

3 "Izvestiia," Dec. 22, 2003 

4 "Financial Times," Dec. 30, 2003 
28 

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David Brooks, “The Dictatorship of Talent,” From The New York Times, December 4, 2007 

© 2007. The New York Times All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the 

Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission 

of the Material without express written permission is prohibited." 

DICTATORSHIP OF 

TALENT

L et’s say you were born 

in China. You’re an 

only child. You have 

two parents and four 

grandparents doting on you. 

Sometimes they even call you a 

spoiled little emperor. 

They instill in you the legacy 

of Confucianism, especially the 

values of hierarchy and hard work. 

They send you off to school. You 

learn that it takes phenomenal 

feats of memorization to learn the 

Chinese characters. You become 

shaped by China’s intense human 

capital policies. 

You quickly understand what 

a visitor understands after dozens 

of conversations: that today’s 

China is a society obsessed with 

talent, and that the Chinese ruling 

elite recruits talent the way the 

N.B.A. does — rigorously, ruthless, in a completely elitist manner. 

As you rise in school, you see 

that to get into an elite university, 

you need to ace the exams given at 

the end of your senior year. Chinese students have been taking 

exams like this for more than 

1,000 years. 

The exams don’t reward all 

mental skills. They reward the 

ability to work hard and memorize 

things. Your adolescence is oriented around those exams — the 

cram seminars, the hours of preparation. 

Roughly nine million students 

take the tests each year. The top 1 

percent will go to the elite universities. Some of the others will go 

to second-tier schools, at best. 

These unfortunates will find that, 

while their career prospects aren’t 

permanently foreclosed, the odds 

of great success are diminished. 

Suicide rates at these schools are 

high, as students come to feel they 
 29 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

have failed their parents. 

But you succeed. You ace the 

exams and get into Peking University. You treat your professors like 

gods and know that if you earn 

good grades you can join the 

Communist Party. Westerners 

think the Communist Party still 

has something to do with political 

ideology. You know there is no 

political philosophy in China except prosperity. The Communist 

Party is basically a gigantic Skull 

and Bones. It is one of the social 

networks its members use to build 

wealth together. 

You are truly a golden child, 

because you succeed in university 

as well. You have a number of 

opportunities. You could get a job 

at an American multinational, 

learn capitalist skills and then 

come back and become an entrepreneur. But you decide to enter 

government service, which is less 

risky and gives you chances to get 

rich (under the table) and serve the 

nation. 

In one sense, your choice 

doesn’t matter. Whether you are in 

business or government, you will 

be members of the same corpocracy. In the West, there are tensions between government and 

business elites. In China, these 

elites are part of the same social 

web, cooperating for mutual enrichment. 

Your life is governed by the 

rules of the corpocracy. Teamwork is highly valued. There are 

no real ideological rivalries, but 

different social networks compete 

Projecting a map based on percentage of world population rather than area highlights the weight of China and Asia. 

Used with permission of Worldmapper.org 
30 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

for power and wealth. And the 

system does reward talent. The 

wonderfully named Organization 

Department selects people who 

have proven their administrative 

competence. You work hard. You 

help administer provinces. You 

serve as an executive at stateowned enterprises in steel and 

communications. You rise 

quickly. 

When you talk to Americans, 

you find that they have all these 

weird notions about Chinese communism. You try to tell them that 

China isn’t a communist country 

anymore. It’s got a different system: meritocratic paternalism. You 

joke: Imagine the Ivy League taking over the shell of the Communist Party and deciding not to 

change the name. Imagine the 

Harvard Alumni Association with 

an army. 

This is a government of talents, you tell your American 

friends. It rules society the way a 

wise father rules the family. There 

is some consultation with citizens, 

but mostly members of the guardian class decide for themselves 

what will serve the greater good. 

The meritocratic corpocracy 

absorbs rival power bases. Once it 

seemed that economic growth 

would create an independent middle class, but now it is clear that 

the affluent parts of society have 

been assimilated into the state/

enterprise establishment. Once 

there were students lobbying for 

democracy, but now they are content with economic freedom and 

opportunity. 

The corpocracy doesn’t stand 

still. Its members are quick to admit China’s weaknesses and quick 

to embrace modernizing reforms 

(so long as the reforms never challenge the political order). 

Most of all, you believe, educated paternalism has delivered 

the goods. China is booming. 

Hundreds of millions rise out of 

poverty. There are malls in Shanghai richer than any American 

counterpart. Office towers shoot 

up, and the Audis clog the roads. 

You feel pride in what the 

corpocracy has achieved and now 

expect it to lead China’s next stage 

of modernization — the transition 

from a manufacturing economy to 

a service economy. But in the 

back of your mind you wonder: 

Perhaps it’s simply impossible for 

a top-down memorization-based 

elite to organize a flexible, innovative information economy, no matter how brilliant its members are. 

That’s a thought you don’t 

like to dwell on in the middle of 

the night. 
 31 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

Reprinted from “The New Tehran-Caracas Axis,” by Mary Anastasia 

O’Grady with permission of The Wall Street Journal © 2006 Dow 

Jones & Company. All rights reserved. 

THE TEHRAN-CARACAS

AXIS

W ith Iranian nuclear 

aspirations gaining 

notice, it's worth 

directing attention 

to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud 

Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's 

President Hugo Chávez. The 

Reagan administration repulsed 

Soviet efforts to set up camp in 

Central America. Iranian designs 

on Venezuela perhaps deserve 

similar U.S. attention. 

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and 

Chávez is very public. The two 

tyrants are a lot more than just pen 

pals. Venezuela has made it clear 

that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' 

hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just 

how far along Iran is in putting 

down roots in Venezuela. 

In September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency 

offered a resolution condemning 

Iran for its "many failures and 

breaches of its obligations to comply" with its treaty commitments, 

Venezuela was the only country 

that voted "no." Ahmadinejad congratulated the Venezuelan government, calling the vote "brave and 

judicious." 

Three months later, in a 

Christmas Eve TV broadcast, 

Chávez declared that "minorities, 

the descendants of those who crucified Christ, have taken over the 

riches of the world." That ugly 

anti-Semitic swipe was of a piece 

with an insidious assault over the 

past several years on the country's 

Jewish community. In 2004, heavily armed Chávez commandos 

raided a Caracas Jewish school, 

terrifying children and parents. 

The government's claim that it had 

reason to believe that the school 

was storing arms was never sup-
32 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

ported. A more reasonable explanation is that the raid was part of 

the Chávez political strategy of 

fomenting class hatred--an agenda 

that finds a vulnerable target in the 

country's Jewish minority--and as 

a way to show Tehran that Venezuela is on board. Ahmadinejad 

rivals Hitler in his hatred for the 

Jewish people. 

It's tough to tell whether 

Chávez is a committed bigot or 

whether his anti-Semitism and 

embrace of the mullahs are simply 

a part of his calculated efforts to 

annoy the Yanquis. But it doesn't 

make much difference. The end 

result is that the Iranian connection introduces a new element of 

instability into Latin America. 

In his efforts to provoke the 

U.S., the Venezuelan no doubt 

hopes that saber rattling against 

imperialismo can stir up nationalist sentiment and save his floundering regime. That view argues 

that the U.S. would do best to ignore him, but it's not easy to ignore a Latin leader who seems 

intent on forging stronger ties with 

two of the worst enemies of the 

U.S., Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro. 

That Chávez is making a hash 

of the Venezuelan economy while 

he courts international notoriety is 

no secret. There are shortages of 

foodstuffs that are abundant even 

in other poor countries. Milk, flour 

for the national delight known as 

arepas, and sugar are in short supply. Coffee is scarce because 

roasters say government controls 

have set the price below costs, 

forcing them to eat losses. The 

Chávez response last week was a 

threat to nationalize the industry. 

Property rights are being abolished. Last week, authorities invaded numerous "unoccupied" 

apartments in Caracas to hand 

them over to party faithful, part of 

a wider scheme to "equalize" life 

for Venezuelans. 

A bridge collapse earlier this 

month on the main artery linking 

Caracas to the country's largest 

airport, seaport and an enormous 

bedroom community is seen as a 

microcosm of the country's failing 

infrastructure. Aside from the 

damage to commerce, it has 

caused great difficulties for the 

estimated 100,000 commuters who 

live on the coast, Robert Bottome, 

editor of the newsletter Veneconomy, told me from Caracas on 

Wednesday. The collapse diverted 

all this traffic to an old two-lane 

road with hairpin turns and more 

than 300 curves. It is now handling car traffic during the day and 

commercial traffic at night, with 

predictable backups. 
 33 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

With Venezuelan oil fields 

experiencing an annual depletion 

rate on the order of 25% and little 

government reinvestment in the 

sector, similar infrastructure problems are looming in oil. In November, Goldman Sachs emerging 

markets research commented on a 

fire at a "major refinery complex" 

in which 20 workers were injured: 

"In recent months there has been a 

string of accidents and other disruptions [of] oil infrastructure, 

which oil experts attribute to inadequate investment in maintenance and lack of technical expertise to run complex oil refining 

and exploration operations." 

Chávez is notably nonchalant 

about all this, as if the health of 

the economy is the last thing on 

his mind. His foreign affiliations 

are more important to him. The 

Iranian news agency MEHR said 

last year that the two countries 

have signed contracts valued at 

more than $1 billion. In sum, Iranians, presiding over an economy 

that is itself crumbling into disrepair, are going to build Venezuela 

10,000 residential units and a 

batch of manufacturing plants, if 

MEHR can be believed. Chávez 

reportedly says these deals--

presumably financed with revenues that might be better employed repairing the vital bridge--

i n c l u d e t h e t r a n s f e r o f 

"technology" from Iran and the 

i m p o r t a t i o n o f I r a n i a n 

"professionals" to support the efforts. 

Details on the Iranian 

"factories"--beyond a high-profile 

tractor producer and a widely publicized cement factory--remain 

sketchy. But what is clear is that 

the importation of state agents 

from Hugo-friendly dictatorships 

hasn't been a positive experience 

for Venezuelans. Imported Cubans 

are now applying their "skills" in 

intelligence and state security networks to the detriment of Venezuelan liberty. It is doubtful that 

the growing presence of Iranians 

in "factories" across Venezuela is 

about boosting plastic widget output. The U.S. intelligence agencies 

would do well to make a greater 

effort to find out exactly what 

projects the Chávez-Ahmadinejad 

duo really have in mind. Almost 

certainly, they are up to no good. 
34 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

Reprinted from “Politics & Economics: Is Pakistan Pivotal for al Qaeda? --

- Islamist Group's Losses Elsewhere Raise Its Stake in South Asian Strife” 

By Jay Solomon and Siobhan Gorman with permission of The Wall Street 

Journal © 2008 Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved. 

IS PAKISTAN PIVOTAL? 

T he current chaos in Pakistan could turn into a 

defining moment in the 

fight against Islamist 

extremism. 

Al Qaeda-linked groups have 

been surging across the country, 

feeding fears in Washington of a 

prolonged offensive against Islamabad's secular establishment. 

At the same time, the U.S. and its 

allies have notched a string of 

wins against militant groups in 

Southeast Asia and the Middle 

East. 

This conflicting dynamic 

leads many U.S. strategists to argue that what happens in Pakistan 

this year could be pivotal: If al 

Qaeda and other militant Islamist 

groups gain a greater toehold, the 

terrorist network will have its 

strongest base of operations since 

the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in 

the late 1990s. But having been 

backed into a corner in other parts 

of the world, losses in Pakistan 

could be a major blow, these officials say. 

In Iraq, the Pentagon, working 

with Sunni tribes, has largely 

forced the group al Qaeda in Iraq -

- which has declared itself to be a 

unit of al Qaeda -- out of its onetime stronghold in western Anbar 

province. American allies, often 

with U.S. assistance, have significantly weakened terrorist groups 

operating in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Lebanon 

and Saudi Arabia. Just a few years 

ago, terrorism experts were predicting al Qaeda's ideology could 

solidify major bases in these countries. 

The U.S. has "had a number 

of significant tactical successes, 

but in the aggregate, they haven't 

yet affected the strategic balance," 

said Bruce Hoffman, a counterter-
 35 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

rorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington. He said 

that as al Qaeda has suffered 

losses in Iraq, it has shifted "the 

center of gravity" of its struggle to 

South Asia. 

Last week, Pakistan's government accused al Qaeda of overseeing the assassination of former 

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on 

Dec. 27. Intelligence officials in 

Washington and London are still 

scrutinizing this charge, with some 

weighing the possible involvement 

of Islamabad's own intelligence 

service or some purely homegrown Pakistani militant groups. 

But U.S. intelligence analysts are 

increasingly concentrating their 

attention on a Pakistani militant 

with ties to al Qaeda, Baitullah 

Mehsud, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official. 

U.S. officials have been 

watching with growing alarm what 

they say is the spread of the Taliban and other Islamist groups 

linked to al Qaeda across Pakistan. 

They note that a few years ago, 

these organizations were largely 

confined to the remote tribal regions along the AfghanistanPakistan border. But now they're 

pushing east and building support 

in major Pakistani cities. 

The fear now is that al Qaeda 

and its allies will expand their 

influence as the country faces instability fueled by Ms. Bhutto's 

death. Counterterrorism experts 

say they expect more attacks on 

secular Pakistani politicians and 

military leaders as militants seek 

to expand the power vacuum. Experts note that al Qaeda's No. 2 

commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, 

has repeatedly exhorted Pakistanis 

in recent months to overthrow 

President Pervez Musharraf's military government. 

"In order for Pakistan to marginalize the extremists, you need 

to have a compelling leadership 

who can marshal the forces," said 

Robert Grenier, the Central Intelligence Agency's Islamabad station 

chief from 1999 to 2002. 

"Musharraf can no longer do it." 

Pakistan's deteriorating situation has fueled calls for radical 

solutions. One theory among some 

counterterrorism officials says 

U.S. forces should now directly 

engage al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating inside Pakistan. 

Previously, policy makers worried 

such a move would undermine Mr. 

Musharraf; his weakened state 

diminishes such fears. Most Pakistan experts believe this would 

only further radicalize the country's population. 

U.S. counterterrorism officials, conversely, are seeking to 
36 

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learn from successes Washington 

has achieved in other places. In 

Iraq, the Pentagon succeeded in 

wooing tribal leaders away from al 

Qaeda by offering economic and 

political incentives, and by exploiting ideological differences. 

In Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials 

are lauding a government strategy 

that has directly targeted senior al 

Qaeda leaders while also working 

to rehabilitate lower-ranking 

members of militant groups. The 

Saudi government recently released hundreds of onetime fighters from prison who had gone 

through the program. U.S. officials believe it has significantly 

reduced the threat of terrorism 

inside Saudi Arabia, though they 

still worry it is being exported into 

countries such as Iraq. 

"The Saudi program is about 

the best program in existence today," said Dell Dailey, the State 

Department's coordinator for 

counterterrorism. 

In Lebanon, too, U.S. allies 

weakened the Fatah al Islam militia that led a mutiny in a northern 

Palestinian refugee camp. The 

Lebanese army fought the militia 

with light arms and logistical support provided by the Pentagon and 

Arab allies. 

Washington and Islamabad 

have arrested hundreds of top al 

Qaeda figures in Pakistan since 

the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 

strikes, but have failed to damp a 

broader growth of radical Islamist 

ideology among the local population, according to current and former U.S. officials. This campaign 

has been undercut by a failure by 

the U.S. to develop effective allies 

in the tribal regions, say former 

counterterrorism officials who 

have worked in the region. 

In the coming months, these 

officials say, the U.S. needs to 

find common cause with tribal 

leaders who could prove willing to 

break with al Qaeda, as they have 

in Iraq. These tribal chiefs could 

also assist Washington in dispensing $750 million that the State 

Department has earmarked for 

economic development in the 

tribal areas. 

"The way for the central government and for the U.S. to deal 

with it is to figure out a way to coopt these guys," said Frank Anderson, who was the CIA's Near East 

Division chief from 1991 to 1994. 
 37 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

BETTER INTERAGENCY

COORDINATION

But there were times in 2003 when the complete absence of coordination among the Defense Department,

the State Department and the Treasury—to say nothing of the Commerce Department, the trade representative, the U.S. Agency for International Development 

and the host of institutions now notionally concerned 

with “homeland security”—recalled the worst 

“polycracy” of Wilhelmine Germany. 

— Niall Ferguson, Colossus 
38 

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 39 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

AP/WORLD WIDE IMAGES 

REFORMING OURSELVES

S ince the attacks of 9/11, 

Congress is the only part 

of our national security 

system that has not been 

overhauled. All the other parts of 

our defense establishment have 

been reformed. The Department 

of Homeland Security was created, combining 26 formerly separate domestic security agencies. 

The intelligence community went 

through its biggest reorganization 

since 1947 subordinating all of the 

intelligence agencies to the new 

Director of National Intelligence. 

Even the Department of Defense 

has increased its budget by more 

than 50 percent, grown its special 

operations forces, and added a 

new chief of defense intelligence . 

Although Congress forced many 

of the changes in the executive 

branch, it has done nothing to reorganize itself. 

Today there are literally dozens of committees that share responsibility for intelligence oversight.1

 The Secretary of Homeland Security could be called before 86 different committees and 

subcommittees of Congress. Each 

It should not take the unorthodox methods 

of Charlie Wilson to make Congress a 

positive force for our national security. 
40 

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house has an intelligence committee but they have authorizing and 

legislating power only over the 

Director of National Intelligence, 

the Central Intelligence Agency, 

and the National Foreign Intelligence Program. 

Oversight over intelligence is 

spread across every committee 

with oversight of an executive 

agency that has some role in intelligence. The Judiciary Committee 

oversees the FBI, the Armed Services Committee oversees the Defense Department and all of its 

subordinates, the Committee on 

Foreign Affairs oversees the State 

Department, the Homeland Security Committee oversees Homeland Security and on and on.2

 And 

both the Senate and House have 

their own versions of these committees. 

Intelligence may be the most 

blatant example but most areas of 

our national security suffer from 

the same lack of coordination. For 

example, the Defense Department 

is unable to share some of its 

funds with the State Department 

even though in Iraq our commanders argue it is political improvements that are needed not military 

ones. But the State Department’s 

money is given by the Foreign 

Affairs committees and the Defense Department’s by the Armed 

Services committees and allowing 

transfers between the departments 

would weaken the influence of 

both committees. 

Several proposals have been 

offered to remold Congress for the 

uncertain future we face.

The 9/11 Commission attacks 

recommended more centralized 

Congressional oversight—

especially of intelligence and 

homeland security issues. The 

commission made two specific 

proposals; creating a joint committee on intelligence that would 

combine the Senate and House’s 

committees into one and giving 

that committee enhanced status 

and power.3

At the very least we need to 

ease transfer of funds across committee jurisdictions. Congress 

needs to create ways to move appropriate funds in emergency 

situations between executive agencies without Congressional permission. In 2005, the defense bill 

did include a way to move $100 

million between Defense and 

State—the executive departments 

had their own problems actually 

doing it. 

Overlapping oversight aids 

Congress’s responsibility to check 

the President’s and the executive 

agencies’ power but those overlaps are currently just obstacles. 
 41 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

1

 Posner, Richard, Preventing Surprise 

Attacks, Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, 2005, p. 36 

2

 Frederick M. Kaiser, “Congressional 

Oversight of Intelligence: Current 

Structure and Alternatives,” Congressional Research Service, February 

2007, p. 3. 

3

 U.S. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 

The 9/11 

Commission Report: Final Report 

(Washington: GPO, 2004), p. 420. 

We in Congress recognize the 

need to look at how we do business. As change spreads across 

the government, we need to 

change too. Now is the time to 

wrestle with these hard questions 

and make our nation safer. 
42 

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P resident Bush articulated 

his idea of a Civilian 

Reserve Corps in his 

January 2007 State of the 

Union address, but the concept is 

not entirely new. The Bush administration proposed the idea in 

its National Security Strategy in 

2002. 

As envisioned by Bush, a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps 

“would function much like our 

military reserve. It would ease the 

burden on the Armed Forces by 

allowing us to hire civilians with 

critical skills to serve on missions 

abroad when America needs 

them.” In many ways, this is the 

epitome of what so many of our 

Presidents have encouraged — 

Americans using their God-given 

talents to come to the aid of their 

country during times of need. 

While the Civilian Reserve 

Corps would lead to a new kind of 

A CALL TO SERVICE

professional volunteerism, it is 

itself the derivative of generations 

of calls by American Commanders 

in Chief for Americans to serve 

causes bigger than themselves. 

Charged with a vast array of 

responsibilities, the Civilian Reserve Corps would function as a 

post conflict reconstruction unit — 

essentially a nation-building corps 

— participating in stabilization 

and reconstruction (S&R) activities while laying the foundation 

for the advancement of democratic 

principles. In doing so, the Corps 

would allow the military to focus 

strictly on military tasks, and the 

State Department to focus on diplomacy. 

The concept is indeed the 

acknowledgement that American 

foreign policy must be more than a 

matter of war and negotiation. It 

is an acknowledgement that a reconstruction mission run exclu-
 43 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

sively by the military — even if 

undertaken with the best intentions 

— can take the appearance of an 

occupation while detracting from 

the military’s ability to perform its 

own mission. However, in order 

for a Civilian Reserve Corps to 

operate effectively, its mission and 

strategy must be mapped in conjunction with military planning. 

Future analysis of operations 

in the Global War on Terror will 

undoubtedly show that American 

Armed Forces very quickly dominated the enemy, only to be challenged increasingly as the mission 

turned from one of armed conflict 

to one centered on S&R. Interagency coordination and joint 

military/civilian planning will 

ensure a seamless transition once 

the enemy has been routed and 

S&R operations begin. 

It will further be imperative 

for those participating in the Civilian Reserve Corps to have an understanding not only of how we 

perceive our enemies, but of how 

we are perceived by our enemies. 

Indeed, the default position for 

most Americans is that the United 

States cannot be perceived as anything but pure hearted and wellintentioned; the enemy cannot be 

anything but evil and cowardly. Enemies often become caricatures for entire cultures, cultures 

whose civilians possess values 

which we must learn to understand 

if we are ever to be victorious.

Often, we hear a phrase such 

as “Islamic extremists” or “Islamic 

fundamentalists.” While these 

terms capture the extreme and 

perverted nature of the enemy, 

they can also have the unintended 

consequence of impugning the 

greater majority of the Islamic 

faith who do not support those 

who use their faith as a destructive 

force and justification for terror. Making this distinction is 

critical because we must not allow 

our words—even if unintentionally—to paint so broad a stroke 

can have the effect of alienating 

those who might otherwise join 

with us in combating those who 

commit acts of terror. Americans 

have had to overcome the presence of extremist hate groups 

domestically. While many of 

these groups tried to exploit the 

Christian faith to push their 

agenda of hate, the vast majority 

of Christians would never want to 

have their faith affiliated with 

these groups. 

Unfortunately, the United 

States currently lacks the ability to 

tap a wide array of cultural experts. This deficit may necessitate 

the presence of religious professionals on some civilian units. 

Additionally, linguists, election 

specialists, law enforcement per-
44 

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sonnel, engineers, city planners, 

medical personnel, teachers, and 

countless other professions will 

need to be represented to ensure 

that once our military has cleared 

the enemy, the work of establishing good faith through reconstruction can quickly begin. 

As of 2004, the Office of the 

Coordinator for Reconstruction 

and Stabilization in the State Department is charged with developing a “whole-of-government” approach to stabilization and reconstruction, in conjunction with military operations. Logically, their 

charge also includes building the 

capacity to staff those efforts. In 

order to capitalize on the civilian 

skills residing both inside and outside of the government, a threetiered approach has been devised. 

Two of the approaches rely on 

civilians within the government 

and are already in progress, while 

the third approach — the Civilian 

Reserve Corps — has yet to be 

authorized by Congress or included in the State Department’s 

budget request. 

It is an especially pertinent 

time to study the formation of a 

Civilian Reserve Corps, when 

Provincial Reconstruction Teams 

— interdisciplinary teams operating in Iraq and Afghanistan to 

extend the reach of the fledgling 

central governments to remote 

areas — have faced critical organizational and staffing challenges. 

Civilian positions have at times 

been filled by our brave men and 

women in uniform, leading many 

to question whether adequate incentives have been offered to encourage civilians to fill these critical roles. 

How these civilian units 

would be organized and the specifics of their terms of service 

must be further refined. For now, 

however, Congress should earnestly examine the benefit of civilian units — especially as the international equation evolves — and 

therefore consider authorizing the 

creation of the Civilian Reserve 

Corps.
 45 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

W e are doing nationbuilding right now, 

regardless of what 

it’s called. We are 

deeply involved in helping create 

stable governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia. 

We have been doing nationbuilding since at least 1898 with 

William Taft serving as GovernorGeneral of the Philippines before 

he became our own President. In 

the past we have done it on an ad 

hoc basis—usually by the military. 

But now the job is even more 

important. If the best way we can 

defeat terrorism is to encourage 

stability and security in failing 

states, shouldn’t we reform our 

national security system to be prepared for nation-building rather 

than improvise every time? 

Then, who in the U.S. government should do nation-building? 

Since our military has usually 

been given the task, maybe it 

should be the Defense Department. It certainly has the resources and scale. And it has the 

experience and logistics to deploy 

overseas to very rough places. 

THE DEPARTMENT OF 

NATION-BUILDING

A cartoon from 1898 showing President 

McKinley deciding what to do with the Philippines—depicted as a savage in need of nationbuilding. 
46 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

But the Defense Department doesn’t currently own much of the 

necessary expertise including establishing law and order 

despite the Military Police and 

Civil Affairs. Let alone 

how to improve a country’s agriculture. 

Maybe more importantly, the military’s 

culture is better at destroying things than 

building them. It’s not 

clear a single organization can be good at 

both. 

Of our current departments, 

the other obvious contender is the 

State Department. The State Department’s culture is better 

matched for finding political solutions. But it doesn’t have the 

needed expertise resident either—

its job is diplomacy, not establishing governments. And it doesn’t 

have the resources or scale. Although spread all over the world, 

the State Department manages 

small shops usually built on the 

local economy and doesn’t have 

its own logistics system. 

Others argue we just need 

stronger coordination and integration across our existing agencies. 

Somewhere in the U.S. government, better expertise and resources reside. If we just had a 

centralized strategic planning 

process or a centrally allocated 

national security budget, the 

United States could do nationbuilding well. But we already 

have a single President who puts 

out a national security strategy and 

allocates the budget between the 

executive agencies.12

Maybe then the answer is no 

existing organization can take on 

nation-building and we need to 

create a new organization whose 

sole purpose is nation-building.3 A 

new agency could create and manage an armed force that does law 

and order rather than warfare. A 

new agency could specialize in 

building a legal system rather than 

adjudicating cases. A new agency 

could focus on creating infrastructure from scratch rather than providing development aid. But if an 

office’s job is to build countries, 

won’t they look for more and 

more countries to build? When 

does nation-building become imperialism? 

Possible Lead Departments

Defense State

Budget (FY06) $594B $34B

Logistical Reach Yes No

Political Culture No Yes

In-House Expertise No No
 47 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

1 Clark A. Murdoch and Michelle A. 

Flournoy, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols, 

Phase II Report, Center for Strategic 

and International Studies, p.27-30. 

2 Gordon Adams and Cindy Williams, 

Buying National Security: Transforming the U.S. Resource Planning Process for the 21st Century, 

(forthcoming).

3 Max Boot, “Washington Needs a 

Colonial Office,” Financial Times, 

July 3, 2003 

Our current system doesn’t 

plan for nation-building but in 

today’s uncertain world we cannot 

continue depending on ad hoc 

efforts. Now is the time to face 

the hard questions. No solution is 

perfect but we must weigh the 

positives and negatives and decide 

which solution best answers our 

glaring need for nation-building. 3
48 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

ENHANCING NATIONAL 

SECURITY ORGANIZATION

T he purpose of this essay 

is to propose two congressional strategies that 

will significantly improve national security organization and personnel programs in 

support of interagency operations. 

These strategies are relevant to the 

role of Department of Defense 

(DOD) in interagency operations. 

They envision a DOD role vis-àvis other agencies that will vary 

based upon the situation.

Strategy to Enhance National 

Security Organization 

The national security system 

is incapable of timely, effective 

integration of diverse departmental capabilities required to protect 

the United States, its interests and 

its citizens. Policy formulation 

and execution have suffered, 

sometimes catastrophically. Correcting this deficiency will require 

radical reforms in the executive 

and legislative branches. 

A National Security Act is 

needed to reform not only DOD 

but the entire spectrum of interagency operations to speed reaction to the spectrum of threats 

America faces. The goal should be 

to codify an adaptive approach 

that flattens, simplifies, and integrates the agencies’ related processes. 

The National CounterTerrorism Center (NCTC) is a 

stellar example of a flat, adaptive 

and proactive inter-agency team 

that has integrated every federal 

agency involved in counter-terror 

activities. It is staffed by members 

of DOD, Department of Homeland 

Security, the Department of the 

Treasury and federal and state law 

enforcement agencies, among others. 

Suggested Legislative OutcomesI. Mandate reform by passing a 
 49 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

National Security Act that 

replaces provisions of the 

National Security Act of 1947 

that are no longer relevant, 

and flattens and realigns the 

interagency process to improve the ability of federal 

agencies to gain synergy. 

II. Pass resolutions encouraging 

the President to implement 

changes to the process and 

organizations affiliated with 

national security that do not 

require prescription in law. 

These could include presidential directives such as personnel policies and the formation 

of interim organizations in the 

vein of the NCTC. 

III. Mandate changes in the committee structure of Congress 

to provide a streamlined process and organization for effective oversight of interagency 

reform. At a minimum, Mr. 

Jim Locher, who drafted the 

original Goldwater-Nichols 

defense reforms, has suggested these include an interim Select Committee on 

Interagency Operations and 

Activities. 

IV. Define and implement a national information strategy to 

effectively communicate to 

key constituencies based upon 

their world views, values, 

cultures, languages and goals. 

Perhaps an interagency working group composed of Department of State, DOD and 

United States Information 

Agency personnel could develop key message themes 

and then localize them to target regions, cultures and 

groups in a way that is more 

effective than current practices. We have ceded the information struggle to many of 

our adversaries who have 

been adept at shifting the operational center of gravity to 

local groups and the strategic 

center of gravity to the 

American people. 

Strategy to Enhance National 

Security Personnel Programs 

Our armed forces are about 

half of what they were at the 

height of the Cold War, with a 

greatly increased operations 

tempo. The State Department’s 

Foreign Service is small and designed for a conventional Cold 

War operating model rather than 

the demands of interagency efforts 

and support of field operations. 

Agencies like the Departments of 

Treasury, Agriculture, and Justice 

are not directed, budgeted or 

staffed to support effective interagency conflict avoidance, conflict 

management or post conflict stability and reconstruction efforts 
50 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

Suggested Legislative OutcomesI. Mandate the increase of the 

Army by 100,000 soldiers and 

the U.S. Marine Corps by 

20,000 over five years while 

emphasizing the professional 

specialties required for peace 

keeping and post conflict stability operations while integrating military professional 

development strategies with 

those of other key agencies in 

the national security process. 

The military must also continue its internal transformation to a more agile force and 

increase language and cultural 

training. 

II. Mandate that personnel policies of all agencies be altered 

to reflect the new demands. 

This includes establishing 

professional development 

requirements that support 

interagency operations and 

increasing the number of deployable professionals from 

each non-DOD agency. Require longer tours thereby 

permitting key staff to build 

long term relationships with 

key influencers in specific 

regions around the globe. 

III. Mandate that rewards, compensation, promotion and 

retention are based on participation in interagency assignments and in long term operational deployments to critical 

areas. Financial and career 

incentives should be provided 

for inter-agency professionals 

who are willing to extend or 

stay in critical areas and 

thereby maintain the strong 

relational ties that support the 

long term interests of the nation. The USG should also 

implement a pay for skills 

system to reward professionals in all agencies who acquire critical language and 

technical skills or who accept 

additional postings to critical 

regions. For this incentive to 

be given, participants would 

have to accept posting to assignments where these skills 

could be applied and enhanced. 

Jim Locher, “Project on National Security Reform” summary paper, November 20, 2006. 
 51 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

T he United States has a 

need for nationbuilding. Right now, an 

effort in the Horn of 

Africa is providing an example of 

how we might do it more formally 

while also showing the obstacles 

still ahead.

Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), 

whose area of responsibility 

stretches from Sudan down to 

Kenya, has evolved into something so much more than the terrorist hunting task force it started 

as: an experiment in combining 

defense, diplomacy, and development -- the so-called three-D approach so clearly lacking in America's recent postwar reconstruction 

efforts elsewhere. Because the 

task force didn't own the sovereign 

space it was operating in, as U.S. 

forces in Afghanistan and Iraq did, 

the Marines were forced to work 

under and through the American 

ambassadors, their State Department country teams, and the attached U.S. Agency for International Development missions. If 

little of that cooperation was occurring in Kabul and Baghdad, 

then maybe Africa would be better 

suited. 

The Horn of Africa was supposed to be Washington's bureaucratic mea culpa for the Green 

Zone, a proving ground for the 

next generation of interagency 

cooperation that fuels America's 

eventual victory in what Abizaid 

once dubbed the "long war" 

against radical Islam. But as its 

first great test in the Ethiopian 

invasion of Somalia demonstrated, 

the three D's are still a long way 

from being synchronized, and as 

the Pentagon sets up its new Africa Command in the summer of 

2008, the time for sloppy offBroadway tryouts is running out. 

THE AMERICANS HAVE

LANDED

Excerpted from Thomas PM Barnett, “The Americans Have Landed,” Esquire ̧ July 2007 
52 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

America is going to replace 

CJTF-HOA with the new Africa 

Command for the same reason 

people buy real estate -- it's a good 

investment. 

Africa Command promises to 

be everything Central Command 

has failed to become. It will be 

interagency from the ground up. It 

will be based on interactions with 

locals first and leaders second. It 

will engage in preemptive nationbuilding instead of preemptive 

regime change. It will "reduce the 

future battlespace" that America 

has neither intention nor desire to 

own. 

It'll be Iraq done right. 

With CJTF-HOA, the regular 

military is trying to reassume its 

historical role in the everything 

else that accompanies the triggerpulling: the civil-affairs work, the 

humanitarian stuff, the community 

projects designed to win hearts 

and minds. 

There's nothing in the traditional military system that demands, recognizes, rewards, or 

basically gives a flying f—- about 

making friends with local populations. But still, soldiers like Army 

Captain Steve McKnight do it. 

In his work, he has the bearing of a Peace Corps volunteer, 

not an Army officer. "It's the little 

things that make the difference," 

he says. "It's not the big-picture 

project stuff, it's remembering to 

bring that fourth grader in Kiunga 

the English books that we promised her. It's remembering to bring 

the chief a new stainless-steel coffee thermos. And it's not just the 

material stuff, it's doing the interaction. It's humanizing the relationship. You know, this business 

of just giving stuff, it's dehumanized us and it's dehumanized 

them." 

Kinetics is what the military 

does. Iraq is a quagmire because 

kinetics is all we planned for. But 

in this new time, on this continent, 

the military also builds latrines for 

girls. That simple act might someday keep trigger pullers out of this 

village. 

Which is why America has 

come to Africa militarily and isn't 

leaving anytime soon. To work, a 

lot of preconceptions about what 

an American military presence is 

really good for in underdeveloped 

countries will have to change. 

What we've not learned in Iraq -- 

or taken far too long to learn -- 

will have to be somehow acquired, 

soldier by soldier and tour by tour, 

on the ground in Africa. 
 53 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

THINKING THE 

UNTHINKABLE

W ho is in charge of 

defending our 

country against a 

rogue nuclear attack? After the reforms from the 

9/11 attacks, that question has a 

fairly simple answer; The Department of Homeland Security is 

responsible for the governmentwide effort and U.S. Northern Command is responsible 

for the efforts of the Defense 

Department. But does that 

simple answer really answer 

the question? 

Both the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) 

and U.S. Northern Command 

(NORTHCOM) emphasize 

their responsibility for unified action. DHS’s mission 

statement starts with, “We 

will lead the unified national 

effort to secure America.” 

Within the Department of 

Defense, “NORTHCOM 

consolidates under a single unified 

command existing missions that 

were previously executed by other 

DOD organizations. This provides 

unity of command, which is critical to mission accomplishment.” 

But does asserting our efforts are 

unified really coordinate all the 

parts necessary to succeed? 

The area that would suffer damage from just 

the blast effects of a 10 Kt nuclear bomb 

detonated in the heart of New York City. 

Used by permission of hydesim.com 
54 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

 Creating DHS was the largest 

government reorganization since 

1947 and has been dogged by 

criticism ever since. Many critics 

do acknowledge how difficult the 

task facing the department is and 

even applaud many of its efforts 

so far. But a common worry is 

DHS is preoccupied in preventing 

another incident like the 9/11 attacks and neglects potentially 

more likely or more catastrophic 

threats—like a rogue nuclear attack. 

Defending against such an 

attack is so complicated it requires 

greater focus than just saying we 

have unified efforts. It means 

coordinating the efforts of all 22 

agencies reporting to DHS from 

customs controls to disaster response. It means coordinating 

action with all of the state and 

local agencies including the police 

departments that still serve as the 

primary detectors within the 

United States. It means coordinating at the federal level with at 

least three major departments that 

do not report to DHS; the Director 

of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense. And those 

agencies are just the ones responsible for prevention. Even more at 

every level are responsible for 

response and mitigation. 

Looking within the Department of Defense, we can see how 

much broader the problem is than 

just appointing a unified lead. 

NORTHCOM is in 

charge of operations 

within the United States. 

But it does not own its 

own troops—those come 

from the National Guard 

or active duty units. It 

does not determine what vehicles 

and tools those troops are armed 

with—the military services do that 

with other missions in mind. And 

it is not in charge of operations 

outside of the United States—the 

preferred place to stop an attack. 

Defending a nuclear attack requires many different pieces to 

work smoothly together. An organizational answer can not solve 

all the problems. Maybe most 

important is oversight that continually asks how good our plans, 

tools, and coordination is. Only 

with constant vigilance and unflinching focus can we know the 

organizations responsible for defending us are thinking, preparing, 

and practicing for one of the more 

horrible events that could occur 

within the United States. 

But does asserting our efforts 

are unified really coordinate all 

the parts necessary to succeed? 
 55 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

James B. Steinberg, Jeremy Shapiro, 

Michael d'Arcy, Michael E. O'Hanlon 

and Peter Orszag, Protecting the 

Homeland 2006 / 2007, Brookings 

Institution Press 2006 
56 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
 57 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

PREPARING FOR

FUTURE MISSIONS

If we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would 

only be the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle. 

– Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History 
58 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
 59 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

T he President announced 

the creation of Africa 

Command in February 

2007 to take charge of 

U.S. military operations throughout Africa. Called AFRICOM, the 

new command has been billed as 

the new look of our military. Its 

mission is not supposed to be the 

traditional military role of preparing for full-scale war. Instead, 

AFRICOM is supposed to 

strengthen stability and security in 

the region by working with African countries and organizations 

and supporting other U.S. agencies, like the State Department or 

USAID, with their work in Africa. 

Is AFRICOM the model for 

how we should use our military in 

the world from now on? It addresses many of the doubts about 

our current defense posture. AFRICOM represents more and earlier engagement hopefully preventing crises rather than just reIS AFRICOM THE MODEL

FOR THE FUTURE? 

sponding to them. Instead of waiting for the Taliban to bring order 

to Afghanistan by imposing a fundamentalist regime, we will now 

work with countries to groom stable and democratic governments. 

AFRICOM represents better 

interagency coordination. No 

longer will the Defense Department try to solve problems with 

military means alone. AFRICOM 

Former child-soldiers: Will AFRICOM 

help prevent conflict in Africa or just 

encourage U.S. military intervention? 

US Agency for International Development 
60 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

will instead work with the State 

Department and other organizations to solve developing countries’ problems holistically. 

But it’s easier to say AFRICOM will be different than it is to 

make it different. AFRICOM 

doesn’t actually become fully operational until next October. And 

so far, it looks a lot like our existing military commands. 

AFRICOM’s precursor is 

already working in Kenya but its 

biggest job so far was sending 

special operations forces to help 

the Ethiopians invade Somalia and 

kill terrorists. And the Ethiopians 

ended up feeling like the United 

States claimed credit for the heavy 

lifting they did. Although using 

special operations forces isn’t as 

disruptive as conventional invasions, it is still using military force 

to solve all problems.i

Some problems do require 

military solutions and AFRICOM 

is responsible for planning the 

U.S. military response if called 

upon. What if we undertake another mission in Somalia or we 

decide to intervene in the next 

Rwanda? Africa has plenty of 

opportunities for military intervention like the Sudan right now. To 

manage that planning, AFRICOM 

already argues it needs the same 

staff as our traditional military 

commands. It needs the planners, 

logisticians, and intelligence people the others have. 

If AFRICOM does end up 

looking like the other military 

commands, what does that mean 

for interagency coordination? The State Department and others are already 

worried about how a fourstar general will impact the 

bureaucratic battles of who 

does what in Africa. An unpleasant precedent is the constant sparring between the general in charge 

of Central Command and the ambassadors to Iraq and Afghanistan 

over how to rebuild those countries. 

The rhetoric about AFRICOM 

is right. We have long needed to 

engage in the world earlier. We 

have long needed to better support 

our partners in the world. We 

have long needed to integrate U.S. 

government efforts better. Although it is great we now recognize those needs, we also must 

change what we do. We must not 

only say AFRICOM is different 

we must create structures that will 

be different. 

But it’s easier to say 

AFRICOM will be different 

than it is to make it different. 
 61 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

less than two percent. Any discussion of roles and missions has to 

address this continuing gap between what our services prepare to 

do and what our military forces 

are actually asked to do. 

There are possible solutions 

out there. Here we will sketch out 

four proposed approaches that 

create earlier input to the services 

on what capabilities our future 

PROVIDING THE TOOLS

OUR ELECTED LEADERS

NEED

T he Air Force has been 

engaged in combat continuously for seventeen 

years. The Army has 

suffered 71 percent of the casualties in Iraq. The Navy has almost 

half of its ships away from their 

home port. The Marines are fighting a sustained, land-based war for 

the first time since Vietnam. The 

United States has used its military 

to aid six Muslim countries in the 

last twenty years. Clearly our 

military bears a heavy burden. 

Yet the Department of Defense 

remains unable to ease the burden 

on our military by focusing our 

services only on the kind of military forces our future elected leaders will need in the future. The 

result is our military is overstretched despite increasing defense budgets. Instead, the 

makeup of the defense budget 

remains stagnant; in the last 30 

years, each service’s share of the 

defense budget has changed by 

The Defense budget is still growing 

but without better focus it won’t 

ever be enough to do everything. 

Department of Defense 
62 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

elected leaders will want and our 

future warfighters will need. 

The first proposed solution is 

to give our current warfighters—

our combatant commanders—a 

bigger role in the budgeting process believing they are the best 

proxy for future warfighters. Two 

major studies in recent years have 

argued the combatant commanders 

need to have more involvement in 

determining where resources 

should go.1

 However, current 

combatant commanders are responsible for today’s problems. 

One of the key authors of the last 

major defense reorganization believes because the combatant commanders are necessarily focused 

on planning for what might happen now, they can not provide 

input relevant to the future.2

A second proposal is to further strengthen the board created 

twenty years ago to provide a joint 

perspective to defense resourcing—the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council (JROC). We in 

the House Armed Services Committee added language to the defense authorization act last spring 

to “...clarify the necessity for the 

JROC to provide the military services with clear guidance on the 

priority assigned to each requirement and on the expected resources allocated to fulfill such a 

requirement.”3 But a former Deputy Secretary of Defense has 

pointed out that the JROC is composed of senior members of each 

service who represent each service’s view well but for that reason can not be expected to provide 

objective joint guidance on what 

our warfighters will need in the 

future.4

The third proposed solution 

takes the criticisms of the first two 

proposals and argues only a new 

advocate could provide input without being biased by other responsibilities. In the 2006 Quadrennial 

Defense Review, the Pentagon 

said it was considering 

“designating a single lead advocate for the future joint warfighter 

in order to 

improve the 

Department’s longrange, joint 

perspective 

on the requirements, acquisition and resource allocation processes.” But 

an advocate is still just one among 

many and the proposal does not 

address how an office designated 

as advocate can maintain a unique, 

Without clear guidance from the Department of Defense on what to do with its 

resources, the services are forced to try 

and do everything. 
 63 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

unbiased perspective. 

Finally, the fourth proposed 

approach makes it our elected 

leaders’ responsibility to say what 

the nations future needs will be. 

The defense budget is currently 

built by combining each service’s 

plan for its share of the budget 

with some minor adjustments by 

the Secretary of Defense. If instead, the Secretary of Defense as 

the one responsible for both the 

operations and resources of the 

Defense Department designed the 

budget himself and then directed 

the services to execute it, we 

would have a much tighter linkage 

between expected future missions 

and current budgets. But this approach also has some obvious 

drawbacks including the need for 

a much larger staff in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense to handle 

the many details currently handled 

by the service staffs. Additionally, this approach was already 

tried in the 1960s until reversed in 

the Nixon administration. 

All four of these approaches 

have advantages and disadvantages and there other possibilities 

out there as well. But they demonstrate there are adjustments we 

can make to the Department of 

Defense to relieve some of the 

burden on our military services. 

Only when our services have clear 

direction on what military forces 

1Clark A. Murdock, et al, “Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Project: Defense Reform for 

a New Strategic Era, Phase I”, Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, March 

2004, page 44 and “Enabling Joint Force 

Capabilities” Defense Science Board, 

August 2003, p. 17. 

2

James R. Locher III, “Taking Stock of 

Goldwater-Nichols,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Autumn 1996. 

3H.R. 1585 National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Engrossed as 

Agreed to or Passed by House), Title IX, 

Subtitle E and House Report 110-146 – 

National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2008. 

4

John J. Hamre, “Roles, Missions, and 

Requirements of the Department of Defense,” Testimony before the House Armed 

Services Committee, June 19, 2007. 

Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Department of Defense, February 6, 2006, p. 

70 

our warfighters will need in the 

future can they efficiently prepare 

today. When considering roles 

and missions, we must think about 

how to provide that direction. 
64 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

NATIONAL GUARD AND 

RESERVE RETHOUGHT

O peration Iraqi Freedom 

and the greater War on 

Terror have dramatically altered America’s 

current military needs, and placed 

the most pressure on our Reserve 

Components – both the National 

Guard and Reserve Forces - since 

the Vietnam era. The size of our 

active duty forces have steadily 

declined over the last fifteen years 

(from 2.1 million in 1989 to 1.4 

million in 2005), thereby increasing our reliance on Reserve Components in order to carry out military operations. 

The role of the Reserve 

Forces should not change. However, the disparity in benefits, and 

unpredictability of deployments 

and dwell time should be addressed to improve recruitment 

and retention. 

The role of the National 

Guard, however, is the larger 

question. The appeals made by 

State governments to maintain 

adequate numbers of National 

Guard to address natural disasters 

and increased terrorist threats at 

home have emphasized the diverse 

responsibilities of the Guard. 

Therefore, I will focus mainly on 

the mission changes that need be 

applied to the National Guard in 

order to address their dual missions at home and abroad. 

Roles, Missions & Capabilities:

Perhaps the best method to 

address the needs of the States and 

improve recruitment would be to 

provide National Guard recruits 

with a non-binding choice to serve 

in the traditional homeland protection role or as part of a force available for deployment worldwide. 

All recruits would receive the 

same training so they would be 

prepared for all of the Guard’s 

missions. These non deployable 
 65 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

roles would support state missions 

within the United States. Assignment to the billets would be for 

defined lengths of time allowing 

for future deployment taskings for 

all personnel but also provide an 

opportunity to support stateside 

only missions. The development 

of these stateside only missions 

would be at the discretion of the 

National Guard. 

Operation Iraqi Freedom has 

demonstrated the importance of 

the stability operations skill set. 

Today’s operational realities dictate that National Guard troops be 

trained in this skill set and Guard 

units, whose members commonly 

have well honed civic skills, have 

proven to be particularly adept at 

peacekeeping/rebuilding missions. 

The National Guard could provide 

the U.S. with a peacekeeping force 

that will be critical to future missions. Maintaining a strong 

American peacekeeping force 

would also help diversify our military capabilities and provide our 

leaders with an American force 

capable of performing these stability missions that are critical to 

American national security so as 

not to defer responsibility to an 

outside international force. 

By creating a non-binding 

framework whereby recruits can 

specify preferences in mission, we 

can increase interest in the Guard. 

Allowing recruits to choose between the traditional roles of 

homeland defense, with a purely 

stateside mission under the command of the governor, or federal 

missions, under the command of 

the President with the possibility 

of overseas peacekeeping, stability 

operations or combat tours, will 

give the Guard flexibility without 

endangering our ability to execute 

operational missions. 

In addition to redefining the role 

On patrol in Iraq and New Orleans: Two missions of the National Guard Department of Defense 

Department of Defense 
66 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

of the National Guard, the military 

overall would benefit from streamlining the mobilization process for 

our National Guard. In some 

cases, it can take almost three 

months to certify a Guardsman for 

active duty. This process is based 

on current funding levels and the 

unit’s position in the deployment/

employment phase of contingency 

support. That process could be 

sped up substantially by maintaining them in an active state of 

readiness as is done with the Reserve Forces. This would have the 

added benefit of increasing our 

ability to react to national crises, 

but would increase the need for 

additional funding to provide the 

personnel and training assets required to achieve and maintain 

this state of readiness. 

Recruitment and Retention:

The current strains placed on 

our Reserve Components will 

have an effect on our future success. By providing parity of benefits for the Guard and Reserve we 

could improve morale and retention of these forces. Some recommendations include: 

1. Educational benefits are a 

great recruitment tool and 

contribute to the overall quality and strength of our forces. 

Educational benefits for the 

reserve components should be 

consolidated under the Veterans Administration with comparable reimbursement rates 

as the active forces. Those 

reimbursement benefits 

should be reviewed and updated to reflect rising costs of 

education including tuition, 

fees, room and board. 

2. Reserve Components that 

do not live near designated 

TRICARE facilities should 

have access to TRICARE 

Prime Remote to ensure access to quality healthcare and 

full reimbursements for 

healthcare services. 

3. The issue of dwell time is 

critical not only to the citizen 

soldiers, but their families as 

well. Given current military 

needs, 100% predictability in 

activation may never be truly 

achieved, but ensuring that 

our National Guard and Reserve receive the dwell time 

recommended by our military 

leaders will guarantee that we 

have high-operational performance, and ease the burden 

on Guard and Reserve families. 

Conclusion:

Taking into account the many 

challenges our Military is facing 

in a post-9/11 world, reforming 
 67 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

the roles and mission of our Reserve Components can strengthen 

our ability to respond to and execute the current and future missions of the United States. Allowing members of the National 

Guard to choose between the dual 

Constitutional missions of domestic response and the federal mission of national defense, whether 

in a stability operations role or 

combat role, will improve our 

national response and provide the 

military with a highly-trained 

peacekeeping force. Recognizing 

and correcting the disparities in 

the benefits for our Reserve Components will strengthen retention 

and recruitment and ensure we 

have the forces necessary to successfully accomplish current and 

future challenges. 
68 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

PROVINCIAL 

RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS

T he United States is currently using a combination of military and civilian personnel in stability and reconstruction activities 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. These 

efforts have been developed somewhat on the fly, but have proven to 

be successful to the extent that 

greater attention must be given to 

properly developing a comprehensive strategy. I believe that the 

concept is valuable and that the 

capacity should be available to our 

decision makers in dealing with 

future conflicts beyond the current 

fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

We currently refer to these organizations as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). 

The missions of PRTs in any 

specific conflict will be determined by the circumstances of that 

conflict, therefore the plans for the 

concept of PRTs must be broad 

enough to allow for the necessary 

flexibility to address the needs of 

each conflict. We are currently 

using PRTs in such areas as developing local governance capacity 

and economic development activities across a broad front from improving infrastructure to business 

opportunities. 

The work of a PRT will in 

most instances start before peace 

and security in an area are completely secured. Therefore, plans 

must be developed to transition 

the mission and the makeup of a 

team between operations conducted while peace and security 

are being established to the operations conducted when peace and 

security is established. 

PRTs will take on the nature 

of a military team in that ideally 

they could be deployed rapidly 

and to anywhere in the world. 

Obviously a PRT manned solely 

by military personnel would fit the 
 69 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

deployable requirement but the 

missions of PRTs will generally 

require skill sets that are beyond 

those found typically in our military personnel. Therefore, we 

should explore the idea of federal 

government career opportunities 

for service on a deployable PRT 

with all the expected difficulties of 

being deployed offset by compensation and incentives. 

Today we cobble together 

personnel and resources from a 

variety of government agencies 

including DOD, State, Treasury, 

Agriculture and others. While a 

necessity today, the ideal structure 

would not require such cooperation and would be much more 

nimble and quicker. This will be 

complicated in that a standing 

capacity to field a PRT at a moments notice is not practicable 

unless we foresee continuous future situations that will require this 

capacity to be fielded. 

The work currently being 

done by PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan is evidence that this 

capacity is necessary and valuable. 

There is a wide variety in the leadership and makeup of these teams. 

Their missions and level of peace 

and security in which the missions 

are conducted are also varied. The 

development of plans for maintaining PRT capacity and how that 

capacity will be utilized in the 

future will benefit from our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
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TYRANNY OF OPTIMISM IN

ACQUISTION

I n what appears to be an escalating spiral, the Department 

of Defense (DOD) has continued to experience significant cost growth and schedule 

delays on key acquisition programs in each service. Key programs slated to deliver advanced 

warfighting capability—

such as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), Future 

Combat System, Coast 

Guard Deepwater, and the 

F-22 aircraft—have become acquisition challenges, with 

spiraling costs and poor acquisition performance. In what seems 

a self-fulfilling prophecy, the services appear to under-budget as 

programs are presented to Congress for approval, only to overrun 

those budgets during program 

execution. For example, the Government Accountability Office 

(GAO) continually warns that the 

Navy’s future shipbuilding funding needs are significantly understated, citing a long history of 

critical analysis that points to 

budgetary needs far in excess of 

those stated in the 30 year shipbuilding plan. 

The DOD acquisition process 

requires overhaul. Lead times for 

weapons systems are longer than 

ever and costs continue to escalate. Services are also paying increasing costs to develop and produce unique weapons systems for 

the same or similar mission, for 

example, the Patriot vs. Standard 

Missile-3 (SM3) missile defense 

systems. Acquisition officials 

appear to change stated and approved acquisition plans without 

much discipline, thereby increasing costs, such as for LCS, the 

It is time to impose a strategic 

pause in DOD acquisition ... 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

new carrier CVN-78, Ground / Air 

Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR), 

and SBINet. It is time to impose a 

strategic pause—or, at least, a 

review—in DOD acquisition so 

that the DOD can overhaul the 

process to ensure taxpayers receive a fair value for their dollar, 

and warfighters receive capable 

systems on time and within budgets. The Undersecretary for Defense for Acquisition, Technology, 

and Logistics must reevaluate not 

only what we buy, but how we 

buy it. 

The House Armed Services 

Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee should conduct a comprehensive review of the DOD 

acquisition process, enlisting all 

the resources available to Congress, including—but not limited 

to—the GAO as well as the Congressional Research Service. This 

review should produce a record of 

programs that are performing well, 

and programs such as Advanced 

Integrated Electronic Warfare System (AIEWS) and Advanced Seal 

Delivery System (ASDS) that 

completely failed and were terminated before delivering fieldable 

capability. Furthermore, the lessons learned from successful programs should be captured and 

used to develop new acquisition 

guidelines that are implemented 

DOD-wide. 

This effort is needed not only 

to ensure a more cost-effective 

proficient military as Congress 

appropriates funding, but will also 

serve to ensure the credibility of 

both the Defense Department and 

contractors that presently seem to 

present their costing under a 

“tyranny of optimism” that rarely 

proves true. 
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F or the second time in a 

generation, the United 

States faces the prospect 

of defeat at the hands of 

an insurgency. In April 1975, the 

U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, 

abandoning our allies to their fate 

at the hands of North Vietnamese 

communists. In 2007, Iraq’s grave 

and deteriorating condition offers 

diminishing hope for an American 

victory and portends risk of an 

even wider and more 

destructive regional 

war. 

These debacles 

are not attributable to 

individual failures, but rather to a 

crisis in an entire institution: 

America’s general officer corps. 

America’s generals have failed to 

prepare our armed forces for war 

and advise civilian authorities on 

the application of force to achieve 

the aims of policy. 

America’s defeat in Vietnam 

is the most egregious failure in the 

history of American arms. America’s general officer corps refused 

to prepare the Army to fight unconventional wars, despite ample 

indications that such preparations 

were in order. Having failed to 

prepare for such wars, America’s 

generals sent our forces into battle 

without a coherent plan for vicA FAILURE IN 

GENERALSHIP* 

America’s generals have repeated 

the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. 

Excerpted from Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, “A Failure in 

Generalship,” Armed Forces Journal, May 2007 

* This article was originally published before events on the ground transpired and does not account for the results produced by the 2007 troop 

surge. 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

tory. Unprepared for war and lacking a coherent strategy, America 

lost the war and the lives of more 

than 58,000 service members. 

America’s generals not only 

failed to develop a strategy for 

victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the 

strategy developed by civilian 

politicians led to defeat. Having 

participated in the deception of the 

American people during the war, 

the Army chose after the war to 

deceive itself. A faculty member 

of the U.S. Army War College 

argued that the Army had erred by 

not focusing enough on conventional warfare in Vietnam, a lesson 

the Army was happy to hear. Despite having been recently defeated by an insurgency, the Army 

slashed training and resources devoted to counterinsurgency. 

America’s generals 

have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. 

Despite paying lip service to “transformation” throughout the 1990s, America’s armed 

forces failed to change in significant ways. The armed forces 

fought the global war on terrorism 

for the first five years with a counterinsurgency doctrine last revised 

in the Reagan administration. At 

the dawn of the 21st century, the 

U.S. is fighting brutal, adaptive 

insurgencies in Afghanistan and 

Iraq, while our armed forces have 

spent the preceding decade having 

done little to prepare for such conflicts. 

America’s generals then miscalculated both the means and 

ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. 

The most fundamental military 

miscalculation in Iraq has been the 

failure to commit sufficient forces 

to provide security to Iraq’s population. Inept planning for postwar 

Iraq took the crisis caused by a 

lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. And 

after failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America’s 

generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. 

Maybe worst, America’s general 

officer corps did not accurately 

portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. 

The intellectual and moral 

failures common to America’s 

general officer corps in Vietnam 

and Iraq constitute a crisis in 

American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on 

While the physical courage of 

America’s generals is not in 

doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. 
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HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

individuals is insufficient. No one 

leader, civilian or military, caused 

failure in Vietnam or Iraq. 

The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. While the 

physical courage of America’s 

generals is not in doubt, there is 

less certainty regarding their moral 

courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men 

blame their recent lack of candor 

on the intimidating management 

style of their civilian masters. 

Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in 

Iraq, some of our generals are 

finding their voices. They may 

have waited too long. 

If America desires creative 

intelligence and moral courage in 

its general officer corps, it must 

create a system that rewards these 

qualities. Neither the executive 

branch nor the services themselves 

are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America’s general officer 

corps. Instead, Congress must 

act. 

It should require the armed 

services to implement 360-degree 

evaluations for field-grade and 

flag officers to include the insights 

of the junior officers and sergeants 

who served under them and are 

often the first to adapt to new 

ways of war. 

The Senate should examine 

the education and professional 

writing of nominees for three- and 

four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate 

would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had 

neither been to law school nor 

written legal opinions. However, it 

routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate 

education in the social sciences or 

humanities nor the capability to 

speak a foreign language. 

Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising 

its little-used authority to confirm 

the retired rank of general officers. 

By law, Congress must confirm an 

officer who retires at three- or 

four-star rank. A general who 

fails to provide Congress with an 

accurate and candid assessment of 

strategic probabilities ought to be 

retired at a lower rank than one 

who serves with distinction. As 

matters stand now, a private who 

loses a rifle suffers far greater 

consequences than a general who 

loses a war. 

The Iraq debacle, however 

humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is 

late, but not too late to prepare for 

the challenges of the Long War. 

We still have time to select as our 

generals those who possess the 
 75 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

intelligence to visualize future 

conflicts and the moral courage to 

advise civilian policymakers on 

the preparations needed for our 

security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. 
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FAILING

JOINTNESS

There shall be the maximum practicable integration of 

the policies and procedures of the departments and 

agencies of the National Military Establishment. 

—Key West Agreement, 1948 
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THE COMMON DOMAIN

E ver since the 1948 Key 

West meeting by the 

Department of Defense 

on Roles and Missions, 

follow-on studies have focused on 

differentiating the core competencies of the Services within their 

respective domains of land, sea, 

and the air. But what is needed 

today is a focus upon what is the 

one “common” domain among the Services, whose dominance is essential to 

winning—or dissuading—any future conflict or crisis. 

Knowing well the respective 

roles and missions of the Services—and that there would be 

only marginal gain in efficiency 

by studying them further—the 

greatest improvement in warfare 

capability would be to affect a 

transformational change that 

would ensure the U.S. warrior of 

the future always has the 

“knowledge” to act before his adversary as a result of our dominance of cyberspace. To “know 

with assurance”—whether before 

a planned strike (such as Iraq attacking Kuwait) or for the assured 

identification of a foe during the 

fog of battle—is the new dimension of warfare that can ensure 

U.S. military dominance in the 

future, from the Global War on 

Terror to regional conflicts. But 

key to this future warfighting capability is the joint procurement of 

the network-centric systems 

n e e d e d t o p r o v i d e t h i s 

“knowledge” to the U.S. military 

in order for it to act more swiftly 

than an adversary. 

Presently, the Services address the domain of cyberspace 

To “know with assurance” is 

the new dimension of warfare 
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HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

primarily as a means to help win 

within their own core competency. 

And while there are joint requirements for the procurement of network-centric systems so Service 

systems can operate together, the 

reality is that when each Service’s 

limited budget topline has competing joint and Service requirements, the Services default to procuring the “Service-unit” of prowess—ships, planes, troops, and 

their attendant equipment—rather 

than funding the joint capability 

for network-centric warfare. 

A truly transformed military—one that is a “capabilitybased” force, rather than one 

measured by “capacity” or numbers—needs to be built upon a 

“knowledge-intensive,” networkcentric foundation. But without a 

change in how the Defense Department acquires these systems 

that must work together seamlessly in the joint domain of cyberspace, the Services will not adequately fund them when confronted with fiscal constraints that 

force competition for funding with 

their parochial Service requirements. The “roles and missions” 

modification needed to affect this 

needed change is to place the 

funding for all network-centric 

systems within the Joint Staff, 

recognizing that the Pentagon is 

motivated by three primary incentives: 

• Patriotism (a given); 

• Promotion (which is why 

Congress—determined to 

have a more joint operational 

force—mandated in the Goldwater-Nichols Act that officers were not to be promoted 

unless they had done joint 

tours and education); and 

• “Who owns the money” —

which applies in this case (the 

Services should retain control 

of funding for their core competencies; but unless the “joint 

world” assumes responsibility 

for the funding of networkcentric systems, the reality of 

a transformed knowledgebased military will not occur, 

either effectively or efficiently). 

The enhanced warfighting 

capability of a military that is network-centric based is enormous as 

compared to one that is not. However—much as Goldwater-Nichols 

was needed to effect jointness in 

the operations of the U.S. military—it is a similar “GoldwaterNichols II” that is needed to affect 

the joint acquisition (whose effectiveness is determined by assured 

funding) of network-centric systems. Much as the “incentive” of 

promotion helped turn the Services toward joint operations, so 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

too, is the “placement” of the responsible funds for networkcentric systems within the Joint 

Staff the needed incentive to affect 

the joint procurement necessary 

for the transformed military required for the future. 
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THE FUTURE OF 

ELECTRONIC WARFARE

T he wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing 

our services to adapt to 

new asymmetric threats 

in new urban environments that 

require a higher level of jointness 

and inter-service cooperation. In 

these new environments the use of 

the electromagnetic spectrum, or 

more importantly the ability to 

obtain dominance of that spectrum, has quickly emerged as an 

essential tactical capability. 

Dominating the spectrum 

through Electronic Warfare (EW) 

in recent years has been centered 

on the EA-6B Prowler squadrons 

of the Navy and Marine Corps 

(and soon to be Navy Growler 

Squadrons), and our military’s 

primary communications jamming 

aircraft, the Air Force EC-130H 

Compass Call. The Prowler’s 

ability to engage in electronic attack, electronic support, and electronic protection in support of our 

strike packages has earned the 

Prowler the status of a Go-No-Go 

asset. If a Prowler isn’t with an 

air squadron, the squadron doesn’t 

go. Additionally, both Prowlers 

and the Compass Call platform 

have stepped out of their traditional responsibilities to play key 

supporting roles in Operation Iraqi 

Freedom (OIF) and Operation 

Enduring Freedom (OEF) 

Through the heroic work of 

these EW communities in OIF and 

OEF it has become apparent that 

the need for EW capability has 

grown beyond the air and on to the 

ground as we have faced new 

threats such as Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). This need has 

reinforced the importance of developing and maintaining joint 

EW capability, forced other services to step up to the plate, and 

raised serious questions about the 

sustainability and endurance of the 

EW community in the future. 
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Joint EW Capability: 

In the new environment EW 

has emerged as a key capability 

that has both saved lives and defeated the enemy. However, in 

order to succeed the EW community had to rapidly adapt new tactics and operate outside of its standard mission areas. This adaptation primarily occurred at the operational level where the military 

quickly realized that successful 

EW operations and tactics required an ability to climb out of 

traditional missions and to break 

traditional service stovepipes. 

It is essential that EW is seen 

at all levels as a core mission area 

of the Department of Defense that 

will continue to be important in 

the future. The recent lessons 

learned in combat theaters must be 

extended from the operational 

level to the policy and programming level at the Pentagon. As 

commanders on the ground adapt 

their EW capabilities to the threat, 

the planners at the Pentagon still 

do not seem to understand the 

value of joint EW, or maintaining 

capabilities across this entire mission area. As services such as the 

Army begin to ramp up core EW 

capability again, there is little assurance that EW will remain a 

core, sustained capability supported jointly by the services. 

Other Services: 

It has been the Navy and Marine Corps, and within those services primarily their Prowler communities, that have stepped up to 

the plate to identify new capabilities and to train the Army in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. While this has 

put significant 

strain on the 

EW community, the Army 

is doing its part 

by initiating its 

own EW core 

c o m p e t e n c y 

effort. 

A target date of March 2008 

has been set by the Army to replace Navy Electronic Warfare 

Officers in Iraq and Afghanistan 

and assume the primary ground 

EW mission. This represents a 

reacquiring of EW capability 

within the Army that had previously atrophied, reminding us of 

the importance of maintaining a 

balanced mix of complementary 

capabilities and skill sets across 

the services. 

It is essential that EW is seen at all 

levels as a core mission area of the 

Department of Defense that will continue to be important in the future. 
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Sustaining EW Capability: 

While the commanders on the 

ground in OEF and OIF quickly 

realized the value of sustaining 

joint capabilities in the EW mission area, serious questions remain 

about the Pentagon’s commitment 

at the policy and planning level. 

The short history of the Air 

Force’s B-52 StandOff Jammer program provides a 

case study on how 

important mission 

areas that cut across the services 

are often not well coordinated. In 

2002, the Department of Defense 

published an Analysis of Alternatives for Airborne Electronic Attack. It identified a mix of capabilities necessary to meet the Department’s airborne EW needs 

after 2009 when the Department’s 

Prowler fleet begins to retire. The 

Navy, Marine Corps, and Air 

Force signed a Memorandum of 

Agreement outlining their respective contributions to fulfilling this 

mission, and in November 2003, 

the Air Force formally embraced a 

return to the EW mission when 

Air Combat Command issued a 

concept of operations for Airborne 

Electronic Attack defining the Air 

Force role. In October 2004, the 

Joint Requirements Oversight 

Council approved an Initial Capabilities Document, “Denying Enemy Awareness Through Airborne 

Electronic Attack (AEA),” defining requirements for an Airborne 

Electronic Attack (AEA) System 

of Systems. 

To fulfill its role, the Air 

Force designed a program to add a 

jamming capability to the venerable B-52 bomber, and initiated a 

B-52 Stand-off Jammer (SOJ) 

program beginning with FY05. 

The original plan was to take an 

existing jamming pod and integrate it onto the B-52’s airframe, 

however, the Air Force soon discovered that this arrangement 

would not provide the power required to satisfy many requirements incorporated into the program. Costs ballooned well in 

excess of the Air Force’s programmed budget, reportedly by as 

much as $6 billion. The program 

was terminated in the FY07 

budget and a new study initiated. 

The Air Force is currently pursing 

a concept for a Core Component 

Jammer (CCJ) capability on an as 

yet unidentified platform.. The 

cost of this program is reportedly 

expected to be about $3 billion, 

Increased focus within DOD on the 

joint EW mission area is needed to 

avoid these situations. 
 85 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

but has yet to become a program 

of record. 

Because of these set backs, the 

earliest we can expect to see an 

operational CCJ platform is 2015-

2017. This creates a capability 

gap beginning in 2012, when the 

Air Force had committed to begin 

performing part of the airborne 

EW missions under the memorandum of agreement signed with the 

other services. 

The Air Force must also address emerging shortfalls and 

readiness concerns in the Compass 

Call program. The aircraft has the 

highest utilization rate of any C130 aircraft and it is approaching 

20,000 hours of service in OIF and 

OEF alone. The 14 Compass Call 

aircraft in the fleet are aging and 

rely on decades-old technology 

that is rapidly becoming obsolete. 

While it achieved initial operational capability in 1983, the airframe is 35 years old and much of 

the technology dates back to the 

1960s. If the Compass Call is 

expected to play an important role 

in joint EW for the next 10-15 

years, it is important that the Air 

Force dedicate necessary funding 

to sustain the airframe and upgrading its mission and operating systems. 

Increased focus within DOD 

on the joint EW mission area is 

needed to avoid these situations. 

The Air Force needs to step up 

with its role and commit to an 

AEA solution, but more oversight 

from Pentagon planners is required to support and enforce joint 

requirements in critical mission 

areas. The Pentagon needs to create a joint structure capable of 

ensuring that we don’t end up, 

once again, in a situation where 

EW expertise is in demand but the 

expertise is largely confined to 

one community. 
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HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

OWNERSHIP MATTERS

U nmanned aerial vehicles are quickly becoming a classic case 

of bickering (i.e. 

“failed jointness”) 

between our military 

services. 

Each military service is 

inventing new ways to use 

unmanned aerial vehicles. 

Responding to experiences in 

Iraq and Afghanistan and 

fueled by increasing defense 

budgets, the Army and Marine Corps are discovering 

how effectively and cheaply 

unmanned drones can provide real-time reconnaissance 

while keeping the ground 

forces safely hidden. And 

those ground forces are 

closer to relying on unmanned drones to provide fire 

support from the air. The Air 

Force is gaining confidence in 

operating unmanned drones and 

thinking more strongly about replacing manned aircraft for some 

of its more dangerous missions. 

Even as each service develops 

different drones they come out 

looking the same 

and doing roughly the same thing. 

Yet because they were developed 

separately, they are different 

How different are they? 

An Army 

Hunter 

drone and an 

Air Force 

Predator 

drone. 

Department of Defense 
 87 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

enough to be incompatible. 

Which creates unnecessary obstacles where we need the smoothest 

coordination—the battlefield. 

Avoiding those obstacles requires choices as each drone is 

developed. But how to choose 

depends on how they are to be 

used. For example, to fly its 

drones the Air Force uses “rated” 

pilots—people who have gone 

through flight training and qualified by flying an actual aircraft. 

The Air Force insists on using 

pilots because it expects its unmanned aircraft to be like its current aircraft, which are highly sophisticated but few in number. 

Since each aircraft is expensive 

the cost of qualifying a pilot seems 

worth it. In contrast, the Army 

would prefer lots of simpler unmanned aircraft and so it uses 

enlisted technicians to fly the 

drones, lowering costs. 

Each service not only sees a 

different way to use unmanned 

drones but sees a threat to their 

traditional mission if another service controlled them. The Army 

is confronted with the same dilemma they faced in 1947; if the 

Air Force owns all high-flying 

vehicles the mission of supporting 

ground troops will always be a 

low-priority. In contrast, the Air 

Force fears the Army would not 

properly weigh the long-range 

strike mission and might undermine manned fighters like the F22. And the Marines and Navy 

ponder the recurring question of 

whether airpower transcends the 

ancient military divide between 

sea and land. 

The services find little reason 

to work together because of these 

fears and so capitalize on their 

own operational reasons to pursue 

their own programs. 

The Department of Defense 

has had some success achieving 

jointness. The Army and Marine 

Corps are using common ground 

control stations to fly their drones 

and are collaborating on some 

versions together. But not the Air 

Force. The Department of Defense has so far prevented any one 

service from dominating. The Air 

Force had proposed that it own all 

unmanned drones flying above 

3,500 feet. Instead, the Deputy 

Secretary denied this request and 

set up a task force with more clout 

than the joint center of excellence 

that already exists. But without a 

stronger push to force jointness, 

parochial views will dominate. 

Our increasing defense budget 

allows each service to pursue its 

own program. But when resources 

become scarce, we will have multiple programs each based on a 

different strategic goal. Our 
88 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

elected leaders will either have to 

pick one program and hope it 

matches our strategic needs or 

underfund all of the programs. 

Only by making the hard strategic 

and budgetary choices now can we 

optimize unmanned drones for the 

future. Allowing service rivalry to 

determine the answer creates 

flawed answers. 

“Hunter UAV kills two enemy fighters during historic flight”, MultiNational Corps—Iraq RELEASE No. 

20070908-01, September 8, 2007 

John A. Tirpak, “UAVs With Bite,” 

Air Force Magazine, January 2007 

Megan Scully, “Pentagon rejects Air 

Force bid to control UAV programs,” 

CongressDaily, September 14, 2007 
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

RECRUITING THE BEST

AND THE NERDIEST? 

T he first cyber war may 

have already begun. 

The Pentagon’s computers are attacked 

35,000 times a day, with Secretary 

of Defense Gates email becoming 

a particular target. The country of 

Estonia came under sustained cyber attack in the spring of 2007, 

threatening to shut down the nation’s banking system and cutting 

off internet access to the world. 

Never has the U.S. military 

been more dependent on computers for war-fighting or logistics, but the services show signs of 

slowness in adapting to the demands of computer culture. Two 

key problems have already 

emerged. Are we able to recruit 

the best minds in computer science? And are today’s troops 

computer-savvy enough to foil 

cyber-attacks? 

How do you attract the best 

minds in hardware and software to 

the uniformed services? Many of 

these students have tattoos and 

body piercing. They resist strict 

hierarchical organizations like the 

military. Military contractors are 

able to hire some of them in order 

to interface with active duty troops 

without violating military culture. 

But greater Pentagon involvement 

may be necessary in order to get 

the benefit of the new generation’s 

talent. Perhaps buildings near the 

The U.S. military, like all of us, is more 

and more dependent on computers. 

Department of Defense 
90 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

campuses of MIT, Berkeley, or 

other top schools could ease recruiting and enhance U.S. capabilities. 

Given our current dependence 

on computers for almost every 

facet of national defense, computer hygiene has never been more 

important. Although some top 

generals are still slow to utilize the 

latest technology, those that do 

may find that tiny mistakes can do 

major harm to the U.S. defense 

establishment. Allowing a child to 

place a screensaver on a secure 

computer, access a popular music 

download site, or carry a Blackberry into a secure location could 

compromise security in a significant way. These innocentseeming acts can have grave consequences. 

It is interesting that the Uniform Code of Military Justice can 

punish a general for committing 

adultery, but not for compromising the SIPRNET. Adjusting our 

standards and, even more important, our attitudes can be vital in 

protecting U.S. secrets. We have 

a head start in many areas of computer sciences but it can disappear 

in a nano-second. There is no 

reason for the military to not fight 

as hard to keep our advantage in 

this area as it does to fight enemy 

insurgents on the ground. 

It is hard for many older soldiers to even visualize the threat. 

It is possible that they simply will 

not be able to, and to respond appropriately. If every networked 

laptop in the hands of a private 

around the globe can become a 

backdoor into the Pentagon, then 

we will need to police our system 

much more vigilantly. Are today’s soldiers able and willing to 

do that? They may be good a 

video games, but computer security is a much more difficult, and 

deadly, enterprise. 

At the extreme, it may take a 

new concept in our military to 

succeed in the cyber fight. A new 

military specialty, or even corps, 

may be necessary in order to instill 

and maintain the values that computers demand. These recruits 

would speak the language of computers (e.g. C++), be able to make 

limited repairs, and, most important, preserve their integrity, even 

from well-intentioned generals. 

One mischievous suggestion 

has been that these recruits should 

start at the rank of general, but be 

gradually demoted as their knowlIt is hard for many older 

soldiers to even visualize 

the threat. 
 91 

ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL

edge of the latest technology 

fades. Of course, this approach is 

impossible, but it illustrates the 

upside-down world of computer 

science to the lay military observer. 
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AEA.............................................................. Airborne Electronic Attack 

AFRICOM....................................................................Africa Command 

AIEWS ....................... Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System 

ASDS....................................................Advanced Seal Delivery System 

CCJ ..................................................................Core Component Jammer 

CJTF-HOA ........................Combined Joint Task Force– Horn of Africa 

DHS ...................................................Department of Homeland Security 

DOD ................................................................... Department of Defense 

DOS ......................................................................... Department of State 

EW............................................................................. Electronic Warfare 

G/ATOR ............................................Ground / Air Task Oriented Radar 

IED ........................................................... Improvised Explosive Device 

JROC .......................................... Joint Requirements Oversight Council 

LCS.........................................................................Littoral Combat Ship 

NCTC .................................................National Counterterrorism Center 

NORTHCOM ...........................................................Northern Command 

OEF ...........................................................Operation Enduring Freedom 

OIF....................................................................Operation Iraqi Freedom 

PRT....................................................... Provincial Reconstruction Team 

S&R ......................................................Stabilization and Reconstruction 

SIPRNET................................. Secret Internet Protocol Router Network 

SM-3...........................................................................Standard Missile 3 

SOJ .............................................................................Stand-Off Jammer 

USIA..................................................United States Information Agency 

ACRONYMS 
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HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
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ROLES AND MISSIONS PANEL