The intent of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was, in part, to reorganize DOD into a more unified military structure. Within that act, Congress included several provisions that specifically address the promotion of officers serving in joint positions, the education of officers in joint matters, and their assignment to joint organizations. The act also established a joint specialty officer designation for officers who are specifically trained in and oriented toward joint matters. Although the act contains a number of specific requirements, Congress also provided DOD with flexibility in meeting the requirements by granting it waiver authority when it can demonstrate justification. DOD approves waivers on a case-specific basis. These waivers apply to a number of the provisions, including (1) the methods for designating joint specialty officers, (2) the posteducation assignments for joint specialty officers, (3) the assignment of joint specialty officers to critical joint duty positions, and (4) the promotions of officers to the general and flag officer pay grades. Moreover, Congress has issued follow-on reports and made changes to the law in subsequent legislation. For example, a congressional panel on military education issued a report in April 1989 that contained numerous recommendations regarding joint professional military education. Among other things, this panel recommended that the services’ professional military education schools teach both service and joint matters and that the student body and faculty at each of the service schools include officers from the other services. DOD has implemented these recommendations. Most recently, Congress amended the law regarding the promotion criteria for officers being considered for promotion to the general and flag officer pay grades. The Goldwater-Nichols Act established a requirement that officers must have served in a joint position prior to being selected for these promotions. The amendment, contained in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, will require most officers being considered for appointment to this grade after September 30, 2007, to complete the joint education program as well. DOD uses a number of multiservice and multinational commands and organizations to plan and support joint matters. Since passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, officers serving in these commands and organizations have overseen a number of joint and multinational military operations that range from humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping to major operations such as Operation Desert Storm and ongoing operations in Afghanistan. In fiscal year 2001, DOD had a total of 9,146 joint positions. Of these positions, 3,400 positions, or 37 percent, were allocated to the Air Force; 3,170 positions, or 35 percent, were allocated to the Army; 2,004 positions, or 22 percent, were allocated to the Navy; and 572 positions, or 6 percent, were allocated to the Marine Corps. Officers in pay grades O-4 (majors in the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps and lieutenant commanders in the Navy) and above can receive credit for joint experience when they serve in the Joint Staff, joint geographic and functional commands, combined forces commands, and defense agencies. In addition, the Secretary of Defense has the authority to award joint credit to officers for serving in certain joint task force headquarters staffs. DOD has developed a joint duty assignment list that includes all active duty positions in pay grades O-4 and above in the multiservice organizations that are involved in or support the integrated employment of the armed forces. DOD’s policy places limits on the number of positions in the defense agencies and other jointly staffed activities that can be included on the list. DOD uses a two-phased approach to educate officers in joint matters. It incorporated the first phase of the program into the curricula of the services’ intermediate- and senior-level professional military education schools. DOD offers the second phase of the program at the National Defense University’s Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. This phase is designed to provide officers with the opportunity to study in a truly joint environment and to apply the knowledge they gained during the first phase of their joint education. DOD also offers a combined program that includes both phases at the National Defense University’s National War College and Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. A significant impediment affecting DOD’s ability to fully realize the cultural change that was envisioned by the act is the fact that DOD has not taken a strategic approach that establishes clear goals for officer development in joint matters and links those goals to DOD’s overall mission and goals. This lack of an overarching vision or strategy may continue to hamper DOD’s ability to make continued progress in this area. A well-developed human capital strategy would provide a means for aligning all elements of DOD’s human capital management, including joint officer development, with its broader organizational objectives. The Goldwater-Nichols Act not only defined new duty positions and educational requirements but also envisioned a new culture that is truly oriented toward joint matters. Moreover, DOD’s Joint Vision 2020 portrays a future in which the armed forces are “fully joint: intellectually, operationally, organizationally, doctrinally, and technically.” The key question, today, is how does DOD best seize the opportunity to build on current momentum. In April 2002, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued the Military Personnel Human Resource Strategic Plan to establish military priorities for the next several years. The new military personnel strategy captures DOD leadership’s guidance regarding aspects of managing human capital, but the strategy’s linkage to the overall mission and programmatic goals is not stated. DOD’s human capital strategy does not address the vision cited in Joint Vision 2020. DOD’s human capital approach to joint officer development – if it were linked to its overall mission – would emphasize individuals with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to function in the joint environment. DOD, for example, has not fully assessed how many joint specialty officers it actually needs. The number of joint specialty officers has decreased by almost 60 percent over the years, from just over 12,400 joint specialty officers in fiscal year 1990 to approximately 4,900 joint specialty officers in fiscal year 2001, yet DOD has a significant backlog of officers who, although otherwise qualified, have not been designated as joint specialty officers. Moreover, without knowing how many joint specialty officers it needs, DOD’s joint professional military education system may not be structured or targeted properly. For example, without first defining how many officers should be joint specialty officers – all officers, most officers, or only those needed to fill joint positions – DOD has not been able to determine the number of joint professional military graduates it needs. DOD does not know if the total number of available seats is sufficient to meet its needs or if it will need to explore alternatives for providing joint education to greater numbers of officers. The Goldwater-Nichols Act states that the Secretary of Defense should establish personnel policies for reserve officers that emphasize education and experience in joint matters. However, at the time of our review, the Secretary of Defense had not yet, within a total force concept, fully addressed how it will provide joint officer development to reserve officers who are serving in joint organizations – despite the fact that no significant operation can be conducted without reserve involvement. Providing education in joint matters to reservists has become increasingly important since 1986, given that DOD has increasingly relied on reservists in the conduct of its mission. Further, with 1.2 million reservists in seven components, they represent almost half of our nation’s total force. When the act was enacted, reservists were viewed primarily as an expansion force that would supplement active forces during a major war. In addition, the current mobilization for the war on terrorism is adding to this increased use and is expected to last a long time. We interviewed officers at several joint organizations and found that reservists are serving in positions at all levels from the Chief of Staff at one command down to the mid-grade officer positions. Moreover, DOD has identified 2,904 additional positions that it will fill with reservists when it operates under mobilized conditions. Moreover, data suggest that the four services continue to struggle to balance joint requirements against their own service needs and vary in the degree of importance that they place on joint education, assignments, and promotions. The Air Force, for example, has been able to send a higher percentage of its officers to a joint position after the officers attend a joint professional military education school. In fiscal year 2001, 44 percent of Air Force officers serving in joint positions had previously attended a joint professional military education school. In contrast, 38 percent of Army officers and 33 percent of Navy and Marine Corps officers serving in joint positions had attended a joint professional military education school prior to their joint assignments. The Goldwater-Nichols Act set a requirement that officers must complete a full tour of duty in a joint assignment, or receive a waiver, prior to being selected for appointment to the general and flag officer pay grade. DOD’s reliance on good-of-the-service waivers, in particular, to promote officers who had not previously served in joint positions is one indicator of how DOD is promoting its general and flag officers. The service secretaries request use of this waiver authority when they believe they have sound justification for promoting an officer who (1) has not completed a full tour of duty in a joint position and (2) does not qualify for promotion through one of the other four specific waivers. We analyzed the extent to which DOD has relied on this waiver category to promote its senior officers because these waivers apply most directly to the population of general and flag officers who are likely to be assigned to senior leadership positions in joint organizations. DOD approved 185 good-of-the-service waivers, representing 11 percent of the 1,658 promotions to the general and flag officer pay grades, between fiscal years 1989 and 2001. Specifically, DOD approved 10 or more good-of- the-service waivers each year between fiscal years 1989 and 1998 and only 3 to 7 waivers in fiscal years 1999 through 2001.