Context: The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. It is the most recent branch of the U.S. military to be formed, and is the largest and one of the world's most technologically advanced air forces. The USAF articulates its core functions as Nuclear Deterrence Operations, Special Operations, Air Superiority, Global Integrated ISR, Space Superiority, Command and Control, Cyberspace Superiority, Personnel Recovery, Global Precision Attack, Building Partnerships, Rapid Global Mobility and Agile Combat Support., The United States Army (USA) is the largest branch of the United States Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States and is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 and United States Code, Title 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001. As the largest and senior branch of the U.S. military, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed (14 June 1775) to fight the American Revolutionary War (17751783)before the U.S. was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784, to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775., The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council on military matters. The composition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is defined by statute and consists of the "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" ("CJCS"), "Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" ("VCJCS"), and the Military Service Chiefs from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, all appointed by the President following Senate confirmation. Each of the individual Military Service Chiefs, outside of their Joint Chiefs of Staff obligations, works directly for the Secretary of the Military Department concerned, i.e., Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force., A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light "coherently". Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single color of light. Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light as short as a femtosecond., The GoldwaterNichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986 , (signed by President Ronald Reagan), made the most sweeping changes to the United States Department of Defense since the department was established in the National Security Act of 1947 by reworking the command structure of the United States military. It increased the powers of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and implemented some of the suggestions from The Packard Commission, commissioned by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. Among other changes, GoldwaterNichols streamlined the military chain of command, which now runs from the President through the Secretary of Defense directly to combatant commanders (CCDRs, all four-star generals or admirals), bypassing the Service chiefs. The Service chiefs were assigned to an advisory role to the President and the Secretary of Defense as well as given the responsibility for training and equipping personnel for the unified combatant commands., The Chief of Staff of the Air Force ( acronym : CSAF , or AF / CC ) is a statutory office ( 10 U.S.C. § 8033 ) held by a four - star general in the United States Air Force , and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Air Force , and as such is the principal military advisor and a deputy to the Secretary of the Air Force ; and is in a separate capacity a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , and thereby a military adviser to the National Security Council , the Secretary of Defense , and the President . The Chief of Staff is typically the highest - ranking officer on active - duty in the U.S. Air Force unless the Chairman and / or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are Air Force officers . The Chief of Staff of the Air Force is an administrative position based in the Pentagon , and while the Chief of Staff does not have operational command authority over Air Force forces ( that is within the purview of the Combatant Commanders who report to the Secretary of Defense ) , the Chief of Staff does exercise supervision of Air Force units and organizations as the designee of the Secretary of the Air Force . The current Chief of Staff of the Air Force is General Mark A. Welsh III., The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VJCS) is, by U.S. law, the second highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces ranking just below the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Vice Chairman outranks all respective heads of each service branch, with the exception of the Chairman, but does not have operational command authority over their service branches. The GoldwaterNichols Act of 1986 created the position of VJCS to assist the Chairman in exercising his duties. In the absence of the Chairman, the Vice Chairman presides over the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all other duties prescribed under and may also perform other duties that the President, the Chairman, or the Secretary of Defense prescribes., The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The President of the United States is the military's overall head, and helps form military policy with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), a federal executive department, acting as the principal organ by which military policy is carried out.
From the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of national unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force. It played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a large standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold War's onset, created the modern U.S. military framework; the Act merged previously Cabinet-level Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (renamed the Department of Defense in 1949), headed by the Secretary of Defense; and created the Department of the Air Force and National Security Council., An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters (as in "NATO" or "laser") and sometimes syllables (as in "Benelux")., The Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces. The Department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 801,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services, and over 740,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. It is headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., The National Security Act of 1947 was a major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense., The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO  '), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. Three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states: the United States, France and the United Kingdom. NATO's headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides. Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total. Members' defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP., The Chief of the National Guard Bureau (CNGB) is the head of the National Guard Bureau, which is a joint activity of the Department of Defense, and since 2012 is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chief of the National Guard Bureau is the highest-ranking officer in the National Guard of the United States; which is a joint reserve component of the United States Army and the United States Air Force. The CNGB serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense, through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on matters involving non-federalized National Guard forces and on other matters as determined by the Secretary of Defense. The CNGB also serves as the principal adviser to the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, on matters relating to federalized forces of the National Guard of the United States and its subcomponents; the Army National Guard of the United States, and the Air National Guard of the United States., Subject: chief of staff of the united states air force, Relation: inception, Options: (A) 1 (B) 10 (C) 14 (D) 1783 (E) 18 (F) 18 september 1947 (G) 1947 (H) 1960 (I) 1986 (J) 2 (K) 2009 (L) 2012 (M) 2016 (N) 22 (O) 4 (P) 4 april 1949 (Q) 801 (R) april 1949
Output: 18 september 1947