Evening star., 1946-05-26

or combined StaH on which the chiefs
of staff of the individual services were
in theory equally represented. In general
these StaffS had a collective responsible
ity for giving military advice to the
highest political level; their procedure
required unanimity of opinions and their
decisions were implemented through the
actions of the individual chiefs, each
in his own branch. 1t should be noted
that the principle of equal responsibility
Of each service upon which this system
rests is not incompatible with the poll
tical domination of one service as was
the case with the army in Japan.
Single Ministry in Canada.
In the field of administration, the
country which, in addition to Germany
went farthest in the direction of COM
binlng the departments of the armed
services was Canada. From 1922 to 1910
Canada maintained a single Ministry of
Defense which was intended to provide
a common administration for army
navy and air force. This ministry uni
fed procurement, financial, legal and
medical services 1t is to be noted that
the structure of operational command
remained untouched and was left in the
Committee of the Chiefs of Staff func-
tioning under the political direction OF
the Minister of Defense.
France experimental briefly in 1882
with a similar combined department of
1Df1 Mlr1lCtnr nf
Defense was set up with undersecretarles
for administration and ornaments. The
individual and collective responsibility
of the three chiefs of staff remained the
same for operational matters. This or
ganization lasted only four months.
From a survey of these experiments
the following conclusions seem to
emerge:
l. Each service develops most success
fully under its own autonomous organl-
zation The German Navy, which was
administratively independent In the
period before the last war, then Jared
much better than it did when it was
under the control of the Wehrmacht.
Russia found it necessary to create a
separate department of the navy as soon
as the navy began to be at all i'm
portant. Canada, which had maintained
a single administration for the armed
forces for 19 years, was forced when the
war began to give each of the services
a greater degree of administrative in
dependence.
Service Aviation Kept Separate.
The development of aviation may seem
in some respects to contradict this con-
clusion, but this is only because of a
failure to distinguish those functions
of aviation which properly belong to the
army and navy from those which are
genuinely independent. The experiences
of Germany. Italy, France and, above
all, Great Britain, during the last 20
years appear to prove conclusively the
error of allocating to central depart
ment of air administrative or opera
tional control of naval aviation.
Similarly, the present war has demon
strated the continuing need for an air
force which is an integral part of the
Army, working in closest cooperation
with the ground forces. On the other
hand, for those uses of aviation which
have less close operational connection
with the Army and Navy, it is difficult
to deny that the most successful devel-
opment has been achieved under the
kind of independence which the RAF
had in England and which was applied
during the war to such units as the
9Th Air Force and the Goth and 21st
Bomber Commands in the United States
The generalization to which these ex-
amples lead is that real differences of
function ought to be reflected in the
administrative structure.
2. In those countries where there has
been unified command, or an approach
to it, that military element has been
dominant which has been most closely
associated with the country's defense.
Most often such an element has been
allotted its major role because of the
geographical position of the country, but
tradition and the possession of interests
overseas have also played part.
Atomic Bomb Alters Situation.
Thus Hitler's Germany, which is the
primary example of organization under
single commander of the armed forces,
is continental country with long and
relatively unprotected land frontiers.
This in part explains the dominance of
the Prussian Army, and it is not sur
prising in these circumstances to find
that when a unified command was Gre
ated it should have been unquestion-
tngly assigned to an army general.
The relative position of the services
is generally determined by forces which
transcend any particular form of organ
ization. The geographical position of a
country, the kind of policy to be pur-
sued and interests to be defended are
the fundamental facts which shape it's
defense organization. That organiza-
ton is also determined by the character
istics of the weapons that emerge into
prominence in any given epoch. The ex-
istence of the atomic bomb, for example,
makes it obvious that fundamental re-
organization of systems of national de-
fense is necessary.
However different the forces which
have brought about the existence of
unified commands in the past, there is
one characteristic which has been COM
mon to every example of this form of
military organization. There have been
no cases of unified command on a
national scale in which the needs and
interests of one type of military power
have not predominated. In other words,
the system of organizing all the armed
forces under single supreme COM
mander seems to confirm, if it does not
cause, a national prejudice against the